At what point after conception does one become "human"?

reply to post by snusfanatic


I'm not sure what you mean. Viable (when speaking about a fetus) means that it is capable of living outside the uterus under normal conditions. In other words, it can breathe and continue to function on its own, without the aid of the woman's body.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


i'm not sure what you mean either. i think this topic suffers from a lack of defined terms, i mean just look at the premise for this thread!! "What is a human?" basically, haha.

But what I mean is this....

lets say viability = 'ability to live without support from the mothers body' or something close to that

lets say that humanity = viability (to tie it back to the OP)

well, then what about the issue of technology? technology allows premature births to be 'viable' or to live without the mother's body before what SHOULD have been the right time to be born. soon we may have the ability to grab a zygote and let it grow completely absent a mother through technology! is that zygote viable, and therefore human from conception?

if that zygote growing in the lab is not human then there are plenty of patients hooked up to medical equipment right now who we can go ahead and declare non-human entities because they rely on technology to live. if the ability to live outside the mother changes with technology then our definition of humanity has to change with technology as well.

conclusion: the ability to live with or without the support of a mother, a respirator, etc, etc, can't be what we base humanity on.

reply to post by snusfanatic


Its just what I think If you don't like it that's fine. I'm just saying since a fetus has no verbal say it is up to the mother. That's my thoughts it might not make sense to you but to me it does.

reply to post by Xiamara


first, a non verbal individual with a severe ID has no say on their humanity either, who decides for that person?

second, the purpose of this thread is to debate when humanity begins not debate who decides when humanity begins. you say the mother gets to decide so life begins whenever the mother decides. that kind of fiat means nothing.

i can just as easily say. "well the baby has no say, so i guess the pope gets to decide." this kind of reasoning doesn't answer the question.

i'm not insulting your view. i'm just saying your view is better suited for a debate on abortion and not for one on when human life begins. if life is defined by who gets to define it then life is meaningless, it absolutely doesn't exist.

if the definition of 'the color orange' depended soley upon what i said was orange, then the color orange would not exist. we know what a color is and how it's defined. so if one particular color was defined by just my fiat, or my will, then we could say that that color doesn't exist like other colors do. because the meaning is arbitrary, something can pop in and out of orangeness just like a baby could pop in and out of life in my original reply to you.

well, we know what life is. it has a definition. we know that life begins, for animals, in the zygote stage. to say that every other animal's life begins at the zygote stage but human life begins 'when the mother says so' is to say that human life doesn't exist in the same way that other life exists.

that's why i say your argument is vacuous. it's not a good or bad argument. it just doesn't fit this question. it doesn't define life. it designates an actor to define life on an ad hoc basis. if that is the definition of life, then life does not exist. and if life doesn't exist then there is no definition of life. so your answer should be "there is no definition. it doesn't begin because it doesn't exist."

A human being starts at conception.

That is where a unique human life begins; anything else seems illogical.

get real. the mother doesn't decide, nature decides. and nature decides when you push your baby out of your body, not until then, is it a human. anything could happen in the womb that could prevent it from ever being born, therefore it's really pointless to consider it at all until after you naturally give birth to it. when you give birth, it means your unborn child is nourished and grown enough to be born and taken care of by it's mother and breath on it's own and etc. if we could decide when to push a baby out, that would be different, but you can never cheat or F with nature without causing serious consequences.

if you consider a fetus a human, you start destroying people's freedoms, and to me, that's worse than aborting a baby. people get pregnant on accident all the time, and having and raising a child is the single most important responsibility in your life afterwards, second to like, somehow being a chosen hero to save the planet. if you can't take on that responsibility, you deserve the right to not undertake it.

sorry but i can't help but feel like this is a loaded question that dovetails into the abortion issue. a human is a human when it is born naturally, or unless you go to the hospital and are told you have to have a C-section to save you/your child's life for whatever reason (technicality).

I just love it when I have a long post written out and it gets erased.


Yes this topic does tie into abortion. It is an attempt to determine where you draw the line in when someone, born or unborn is eligible to be considered someone deserving of rights.

Whenever the abortion supporters say it is. No point arguing with them, you'll never win. In some cases the thing is human at conception at other times it's not human until the doctor slaps it. It's all arbitrary anyway.

Last evening I attended a birthday party for my nephew. The evening was much the same as any other birthday party for an adult until the sister of this nephew arrived. She had ultra sound pictures on a disc of her womb. For a long period of that party each and every one crowded into the "office" to view the new "baby" on the computer screen.

She doesn't even "show" yet, (look pregnant). We were not able to see if the baby was male or female, but it's little heart was beating and the baby looked as though he/she was sucking it's thumb.

I can tell you that there was not a person who viewed that video who was undecided if this was a human baby or not.

This was the first pregnancy of this young woman and she and her husband certainly act as though they believe this is live human being.

Mahree

'when are we considered human?'

Well to my knowledge i don't think there is an 'offical' declaration as to 'when' human life begins so for me to have an opinion on it i would have to go by what i do know about 'when' life begins.

When did life begin on earth? It has been accepted that life began in the primordial ooze on earth with single cell organisims - Link

We call ourselves human and realise we have our own DNA which defines our species genetically, we also know that the human ovum and sperm only contain half of the human DNA but when they fuse they become a complete single cell with a complete human DNA structure. This cell will constandly keep dividing until it becomes a fully developed human body.

With these facts I would say human life began when the ovum and sperm fuses together. For a mother to 'decide' when baby becomes human is quite disgusting actually because it implies that she has very little to no respect for the life of her children or any children for that matter.

When are we considered human?
SOME of us at conception, and SOME of us NEVER.
If this does tie into abortion, my question will always be, WHY not have post birth abortion?
If it's all about rights, or choice then we need to move this to the next level and selectively cull the herd.

Originally posted by snusfanatic
i think this topic suffers from a lack of defined terms,

That's why I asked the OP to define Human.

Originally posted by snusfanatic
second, the purpose of this thread is to debate when humanity begins not debate who decides when humanity begins.

I disagree. That may be YOUR purpose here, but from the OP: "What I am trying to determine is when people believe we become "Humans""

The OP asks us what we BELIEVE. Xiamara has been very clear about what she believes and yet you continue to challenge her and argue with her. How can you argue with her beliefs? (I think you make a great point, Xia.)

I believe the woman carrying the organism has input into whether or not what she carries is a human being. The DNA is human at conception, no question. No matter what happens, if it is allowed to continue to grow, it will become a human being. But is this one-eight-inch long parasite a human being? I don't think so, because without the protection and support of the woman's body, it would die.

Yes, technology may one day be able to produce an artificial womb, and if they do, I will reassess my answer. How 'bout that?

I think the real question is: do people have souls? If you think yes, then abortion at any time is probably wrong. If no, then you can wiggle around and make your own definition of when a fetus is considered human.

In a world filled with more gray than black and white issues, no one will ever agree. The fact is that there is a very clear line in this issue. Birth.

Being a human means the ability to survive on our own in a temperate, oxygen rich environment. Before we can do this, we're a fetus, after we lose the ability to do so, we're corpses. In between we're human.

Now, don't ask me how I apply this to abortion rights, or you'll all hate me. Some opinions are meant to be opinions and not debated. With such ideas that are this personal in nature, those who wish to debate them usually only do so in order to rationalize their own morality or to impose themselves on others.

You are human at the exact moment of conception.
You are not a cat. You are not a bird. You are not anything except a growing and developing human.
But you are human ... nothing else. End of story.

At conception, a human baby is, well, human. He or she is a human being at the very least by virtue of the genetics. I believe also that conception is the point at which that baby is ensouled, though I'll stick to the easily provable genetics.

Originally posted by jacktherer
There is a belief (i believe it is buddhist) that the soul enters the body 40 days after conception.

Or about the time that the heart starts to beat.

I think I may be an Alien Hybrid....so for me, never.



My mother told me abortion was still illegal in 1968 or I would have ended up in a dumpster. (it's true...and probably one reason I don't talk to my mother anymore, although there are plenty of other reasons.)

Depite the fact that I would have ended up dead had abortion been legal, strangely I still support a woman's right to choose.

I guess I never answered the question.

I believe, and this is just my opinion of course, that a person becomes human when they are a viable lifeform outside of the mother.

We have plenty of lifeforms that run around inside of us. 100% viable lifeforms. (think virus) We don't really have a problem with killing them off.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
You are human at the exact moment of conception.
You are not a cat. You are not a bird. You are not anything except a growing and developing human.
But you are human ... nothing else. End of story.

i don't think there's any question what the cell, bundle of cells, and everything else that grows in the womb is supposed to be. no, intended to be. yes, that growing fetus should be a human being, but until mother nature and time birth it, anything can happen. so if a fetus at any point after conception is considered a human being, and something external sickens it and takes it's life, where is that human's rights? almost everything the mother interacts with effects the baby negatively and degrades the perfect health that human being should grow into, and will forever be denied because how it damages their dna and development. foods, environment, forever mutate what that fetus should become, but that fully acknowledged human has no rights, does it? because you can't put such a magnifying glass or scrutinize life to every cell and tissue like that, without taking away a woman's choice. a human is a human when it is born. conception is the grace period from non-existence to existence, and many "humans" do not make it for millions of reasons. do you think, if you're going to talk about souls, that it really screws anything when a soul finally settles into a fetus, but is aborted? how can that affect anything, that's a completely indifferent scenario and you can just start again. and speaking of souls, the nature of them, that seperates us from angels and other beings is that we have CHOICE, we get to choose to live however we choose. personally, i don't think a spiritually advanced society would pop kids out at the rate we do, but that's just me.

to say a human is a human the exact moment of conception is pretty short sighted. i know where you're coming from, but it's BS if you ask me. you have the potential to be a human, and not until you're born do you get the chance to be human, and hopefully you are born healthy, and your mother did everything she could to keep you healthy while you were in the womb, so you grow up to be a healthy human being that can aid the rest of humantiy, rather than burden it somehow. i know that sounds rude, but i have to be logical.

on the flipside though, being able to criminalize entities that expose pregnant women to ANYTHING slightly detrimental to the health of their unborn child should be enacted and those elements should be completely eradicated from our enviroment. they only cause untold cost to the family, the future of that child, and the pressure to financially stay below those that control this world. they know exactly what they are doing to the planet and they only care about money.

but in essence i'm against calling an unborn child a human, because it hasn't passed the test of nature for it to be considered one yet, and doing so eliminates a woman's choice, which as i said, is worse than an aborted baby--all of the aborted babies, or those that were never given a chance. and i don't know how anyone can condone that kind of oppression or control in this world. even the mental state of mother's who don't want to have a baby, impacts the baby negatively. and they are wired for that negativity before they are born. so when they do become a human, they are pre-disposed to such a state of mind, and i'd rather live in a society with one less person that a society where one person doesn't care about society or wish to improve it (but that's just me being frank and idealist and i really have no problem if a person cares or not about society) because their mother was severely depressed and stressed out that she was forced to have a baby because there are laws that will not allow her to do what she wishes with her body because our congress declared a useless, unborn bundle of cells is a human being.

i'm sorry but i think that's the only fair way to look at it. later in life, if that same woman wants to have a baby, she can have one when it will be the best time for it to be born and taken care of with utmost attention and assurance.