Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete F.
Nor is a fetus
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device
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For the past two years, we have been told that we must follow the science. Much of the discussion about whether a fetus is a human being is not purely scientific. The following is a brief "biological" synopsis of when a human being starts becoming a human being.
A fetus does not all of a sudden become a human being only after it leaves its mother's body. A human being does not start becoming human or a "being" only after it is pulled from the mother's body. A human being doesn't switch from being non-human to being human only after it is no longer in the womb.
A human being starts becoming human at fertilization in a woman's fallopian tube creating a zygote.
The zygote is a biological "being." It is human by virtue of its human DNA--the same DNA that the "born" baby and developing adult that derives from a zygote will have for its entire life. (Not the same genetic code as the mother, but a unique DNA).
The zygote is an organism of the human species (Homo Sapiens). It is a human organism. It is alive--a living human organism. An organism is a "being." The zygote is therefor a living human being. It is the same organism as the grown adult, but at an earlier stage of life.
The next step in the stages of human life is the zygote developing into an embryo. The next is the embryo becoming a fetus. The next stage, as we all know, is being "born"--detached from the mother's body--a baby with the same distinct DNA as the zygote which was the first stage of its existence as a human being. A baby that is nearly exactly the same human organism that was in its mother's body before it was removed and "born."
From the "baby" stage, the human being keeps developing into childhood, adolescence, stages of adulthood until the mid twenties when the human body stops developing and begins a long path into senescence.
At no stage, other than DNA, does the human body remain exactly the same. It constantly changes from beginning to end. To claim that some midpoint time in a life is the point at which that life becomes human is not biologically scientific. It begins as a living human from conception (fertilization) and stays so until death.
Some biological (rather than philosophical, religious, ethicl, political) perspective articles:
https://secularprolife.org/2017/08/a...12fe0fdf4d5e51
https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/a...7b2deb2f31c899
https://lozierinstitute.org/a-scient...n-life-begins/
https://www.mccl.org/post/2017/12/20...nborn-children
To be clear, I am not taking an absolute political, legal, or religious stand on abortion. But whatever arguments are made pro or con should at least consider whether a fetus is a human being, or not. A scientifically neutral definition can ground a basis for which legalities, moralities, values, ethics, philosophies can have at it.