The belief that life begins at conception/fertilization is a religious tenet not shared by all. You should not force your religious views on others.
- Define life. If defined biologically, life only began once because we know that spontaneous generation-life arising from that which is dead-has been scientifically disproven. The real question is: when does an individual human life or human being come into existence? When does the life of a human being start? The answer is fertilization (conception); when a human egg and a human sperm join, a new individual human life with its own unique genetic code and destiny is created. This is a scientific fact, not a “religious belief.”
- Thus, to believe otherwise is a religious or philosophical tenet which ignores biological fact. If life is defined religiously as in ensoulment, or psychologically as in sentience of politically/philosophically/ anthropologically, etc., nonscientific criteria are being employed. When “life” is defined non-scientifically, any living entity can be classified as “nonliving.” When non-biological criteria are used to define a human being, in principle anyone (i.e. any human being) can be defined as a nonhuman (or nonperson, non-citizen, etc.).
- Life, (i.e., the life of an individual human being) is a continuum. Zygote, fetus, infant, child, adolescent and adult all refer to stages of a human being’s life cycle. None of these terms mean “not living.” All human beings come into existence at fertilization and progress along the life cycle until biological death occurs-whether it be 80 years later from old age, or 8 weeks later from an abortion.
- How can something be residing inside a woman’s womb, possessing its own body, genetic code, metabolism and destiny; growing, developing and thriving in its natural environment, and be anything but alive? If preborn babies are not biologically alive, an abortion to halt their physical development and remove them from their mother’s body would never be necessary. If a preborn baby’s existence was not as biologically definitive as any other human being’s, killing (i.e. abortion) would not be necessary for his or her removal; perhaps an exorcism would suffice!
- In reality, abortions are performed precisely because the preborn baby is alive, and his or her life is not “wanted”.
- A living human being is a human life. Any definition of a human being which does not include preborn babies is biological nonsense. Such a definition must be based upon religious, philosophical, political, or otherwise arbitrary, non-biological tenets.
- There is no religious creed which states: “The life of a human being starts at fertilization, when the father’s sperm unites with the mother’s egg.” This observation would be found in a biology textbook. The reason is simple. This is not a matter of faith; rather, it is a scientific fact.
- Is our knowledge of eggs and sperm and fertilization based on the Bible? Of course not! These facts were verified by scientific research many centuries after the Bible was written.
- It is a biological fact that the life of a human being begins at conception. Calling this a “religious belief” is calling biology a religion.
- Traditional Judeo-Christian teaching on abortion acknowledges scientific fact.
- Religion and morality do not determine the scientific reality of when a human being physically exists. Religion and morality do, however, have a great deal to say about how, given their physical existence, human beings should be treated.
- Whether or not someone is a human being is not a religious “view”; it is a scientifically ascertainable fact. However, religion and morality do come into play when one decides how scientifically ascertained human beings (or a particular class of human beings) are to be treated (e.g. feed the poor, defend the weak, etc.)
- “When does life begin?” is a trick question. Life does not begin. Life is a process; it began on earth once and has continued ever since. The real question is “when does the life of an individual human being begin,” e.g. yours? At what point did the chain of continuing life pass from the previous generation to you? The answer is fertilization. Your existence can be taken back to that moment in time when your mother’s egg and your father’s sperm united. At that moment you came into physical existence and you have existed ever since. At the moment of fertilization you existed; a moment before you did not.