General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Bible Tells Us When A Fetus Becomes A Living Being [View all]mike_c
(36,281 posts)Life on Earth began some 2 billion-ish years ago and has continued in an unbroken chain ever since. Human life evolved some hundreds of thousands of years ago and has continued, unbroken, ever since, at least for H. sapiens' lineage. Life does not "begin" during any portion of modern human life history. Anything else is just semantics and religious nonsense.
"The Bible Tells Us When A Fetus Becomes A Living Being." That's a bunch of hooey on first principles. No human fetus (or any other kind) is ever anything but a living being. The gametes that join to produce a zygote are just as alive as any other cells in our bodies.
Are fetuses "persons?" What else can they be? What rational definition of personhood excludes the developmental stages common to all persons since the very evolution of human personhood? They are the roots of human identity. If they're not persons, what are they? We can't simply define them by what they're not. If they're not persons then they must be something else. What's the difference between a human person and a human non-person? If the answer is framed simply, in terms of fetal viability, then the boundaries of personhood are fluid, and beginning earlier and earlier with the advent of modern neonatal care. Is a premie in the NICU a person before a fetus carried to full term? Do dead people cease being human when they no longer draw breath?
This is not justification for dictating women's reproductive choices. However, any religious claptrap that seeks to define the origins of human life in modern times is just butt ignorant superstition.