When does life begin? Why?

Question

To prevent off the cuff remarks, and get more at the reasoning behind people's views, here's a list you can choose from to answer:

a) Life begins prior to conception
b) Life begins at conception
c) Life begins at 40 days
d) Life begins at the second trimester
e) Life begins at 20 weeks
f) Life begins at the third trimester
g) Life begins at birth
h) Life begins at 3 years
i) Life begins at puberty, or other coming-of-age ritual

"Life" can be a broad statement. "Personhood" would possibly be more accurate, but would offer fewer possibilities.

Please - state a reason or source for your answer. Even if God said so, were you informed directly, or through an authoritative religious authority?



... as an afterthought:
There's a third variable called "Viability" which would, for instance, imply that life is potential enough to warrant recompense to the parents in the event of accidental or intentional termination of a pregnancy, but doesn't confer enough personhood to justify a charge of murder. If in fact you believe (b), do you have a position on Viability and sperm donation centers?

Answer 1

Life began when the first thing you could rightfully call "alive" started kicking it on this planet and has been an unbroken chain since then. At no point in sex do two dead things come together to make life.



So "life" isn't a great measuring stick. "personhood", or what makes something a human, would be a better one, despite your strange complaint about "fewer possibilities". I would say a functioning brain and central nervous system would do it, which I think is around that 20 week cutoff mark for the legality of abortion in most countries. I think it's actually a bit later, but not all fetuses develop at the same rate, so we err on the side of caution.



After that is in place, I become more uncomfortable with abortion, unless it's for urgent medical reasons.

Answer 2

Life - as everybody knows - begins at 40.



; )



Life, of course, never stops. A sperm cell is alive. An ovum is alive. If this were not true, they could not become a zygote and eventually grow into a person.

Maybe you should have asked "When does the individual come into existence".



Personally, I think it starts when the brain begins to function. This happens fairly late, in the 25th week, which seems really late to me.



***



Gerry: I assume you digest food with your kidneys and pump blood around with your stomach, since you are clearly not thinking with your brain.

Answer 3

Life begun 4 Billion years ago.



a human child isnt made from rock and then zap there is something from nothing. No.



Your body produces the egg, which reproduces, which then gets born, which then grows up, which then again reproduces and so on.



There is no stop in between. So if u ask when life starts the answer is 4 billion years ago.

Answer 4

The Atman (Spirit)(Life) takes it's seat in the body in the 5th month of pregnancy.

So stated Swami Muktananda Paramahamsa.

My opinion is that the fetus is the same as a tumor on the mothers body until the atman takes it's seat.

the movements of the fetus is but the process of Growth until this event occurs.

Answer 5

Professor Jerome Lejeune of Paris, world-famous geneticist, testified before the court that each human has a unique beginning, which occurs at the moment of conception and that “as soon as he has been conceived, a man is a man.” In other words, beginning at the three-cell stage (zygote), the embryos are, as he told the court, “tiny human beings”!



When does the Creator say life begins?

God views the life of a child as precious even during the very early stages of development after conception. More than 3,000 years before the above court ruling, he inspired David, his prophet, to write:

“You kept me screened off in the belly of my mother. I shall laud you because in a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, as my soul is very well aware. My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret [within the womb], when I was woven [allusion to the veins and arteries, which are embroidered through the body like colored threads of fabric] in the lowest parts of the earth [poetic description of the darkness in the womb]. Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing.”—Psalm 139:13-16.

Answer 6

Well, to borrow from somebody else on this forum (sorry can't remember who):

A single living cell on another planet will be sufficient to prove that life on that planet exist, so why not a single living cell in a womb?



b) Life begins at conception (An argument for before conception can also be made, but for the specific individual it starts at conception when his genetic code is selected when the two living parts come together).

Answer 7

Life begins at birth.

Answer 8

Life is a very tricky thing to pin down.



I would say the third trimester, before that it's more a mass of replicating cells than a feeling being.

Answer 9

Technically, I'd say life begins at birth. However, being able to form thoughts and communicate is a better point.

Answer 10

stay is evil backwards, ahh hell clones stay tissue inseminated as Kyton stated, it purposes the question particularly is while human beings are human and not in common terms the cells they are created from, Charles Manson complained that the choose and jury of his path ate meat and for this reason the place as answerable for homicide as he grew to become into, whether genuine, the jury proved his element and the choose symbolically murdered him with the dying penalty, which he particularly escaped from. Ethics is a query based on the herd of conformity, what habit is acceptable to the race is often consistent with whim. So basing it on my whim, clones are existence.

Answer 11

Life is to undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations

something has life until it ceases to do carry out any of these processes.

life spreads when Living things reproduce. it creates new offspring some sexually and some asexually.



life started because of abiogenesis some 4000 000 000 years ago.

and all living things we see today evolved from these lifeforms. because all living things adapt and evolve to their environment.

Answer 12

There is no true agreement, as life is not a switch that is flipped.



It grows gradually until it achieves awareness. This is why the current laws that place a limit on abortion are our best assumption on the subject as it is so difficult to definitively test.

Answer 13

The difference between a sperm and an egg and the fertilized egg that is growing is known as 'life'.

Answer 14

Life begins at the time of fertilization.it s life span is considered from this time to death.Therefore abortion is opposed from fertilization stage.It is considered that life begins from this stage because only from this stage ,activity to grow starts.One reaches person hood when he or she has freewill,sense of self,emotion,control his behaviour etc.

Answer 15

It is my opinion that life begins at conception.

Answer 16

This reminds me of something my grandfather once said..."Life begins when the kids move out."

Answer 17

From the moment of conception we are a life.

Answer 18

For me, life began when I told Sister Josephine that I wasn't taking any more of her bull$#!t.