When does a fetus become a person?
Is it when the fetus feels pain, when it can think, when it is born, or when at conception (when the sperm and egg meet)?
◄ Christian Response At conception, since at this very moment is when a new body begins, and in nine months a baby gets delivered.
“When the male and female gametes join to form the zygote that eventually will grow into the fetus, it is at that very moment that the formation of a new body begins. It is the result of a viable male gamete joined sexually with a viable female gamete, which has formed a zygote that will move through a variety of important stages.
…
“As one biologist (and author of a widely used secular university biology textbook) noted: “As soon as the egg is touched by the head of a sperm, it undergoes violent pulsating movements which unite the twenty-three chromosomes of the sperm with its own genetic complement. From this single cell, about 1/175 of an inch in diameter, a baby weighing several pounds and composed of trillions of cells will be delivered about 266 days later” (Wallace, p. 194, emp. added).
AP – http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=7&article=1109
◄ Christian Response At conception since it establishes every element of a person.
What separates a fertilized egg from all other body organisms marks the difference of why a sperm or unfertilized egg is not considered a person, and why only a fetus can be considered a person.
The same goes for stem cells and skin cells. We will never consider sperm, nor an unfertilized egg, stem cell, skin cell, or brain cell to be considered a person. Why a fertilized egg should be treated differently is because of the following reasons:
The differences:
1) Unique DNA is created at conception. At conception is when an entirely new DNA is created, a DNA sequence that can’t be found in anyone else (aside from twins), and it is separate from the parents’ DNA. This DNA determines most things about the new person’s characteristics that would stick with her as he or she lives: looks, voice, eye color, skin color, brain structure, body structure, height, etc. Again, all this happens at conception, and at no other point in a person’s life.
Also, this is the same DNA that will last all the way to the death of the person.
2) Inevitable creation of a human being. A sperm and egg requires the willful action of male and female to mate so that the sperm can fertilize the egg and thus build a human being. Hence, a sperm and egg can’t be considered a person.
However, when the egg gets fertilized, nothing more is required from the male and female. The female body does all the rest with the fertilized egg autonomously (without any human action). It will over time become a fully developed human being on its own. Again, no more human intervention is required. The fertilized egg/fetus has its own intention of becoming human by itself. Again, no other body part does this, which again is why only the fertilized egg/fetus is considered a person and why other body cells aren’t.
3) The fetus is a recognized new system with it’s own separate subsystems. The female body recognizes that an entirely new person is being created with the fertilized egg.
a. The blood cells of the new being are different from the host being, yet there is no conflict in the immune system.
b. The host body is creating new duplicate systems for the new being. A new heart, a new brain, a new skeleton, a new everything. The new duplicate systems are understood to be apart from the host body.
c. In addition, the duplicate systems won’t tangle with the host systems. For example, the host will not make an artery/vein connection to the baby’s body. Such would be very troublesome when the baby comes out.
d. The host body has a unique umbilical cord that is the bridge from the host body to the new body. It is from this bridge that the fetus gets its oxygen and nutrients, and the body knows this.
◄ Christian Response STRONG Before birth, the Bible mentioned many cases of value for an unborn baby.
King David wouldn’t have been worthy to talk about when he was a fetus if a person is only considered after birth.
For he said:
Psalms 139:13 You created every part of me; you put me together in my mother’s womb.
Psa 139:14 I praise you because you are to be feared; all you do is strange and wonderful. I know it with all my heart.
Psa 139:15 When my bones were being formed, carefully put together in my mother’s womb, when I was growing there in secret, you knew that I was there—
Psa 139:16 you saw me before I was born. The days allotted to me had all been recorded in your book, before any of them ever began. ”
The same for Jeremiah, when God said the following:
Jer 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
(credit to AP for link)
Opponent Response ► WEAK At birth, when the baby exits the womb
This is the time the baby can live independently of the mother.
A fetus can’t survive by itself, so it can’t be a person.
◄ Christian Response There’s nothing special about the demarcation line of birth
” … . If the parents are allowed to abort a baby a few weeks before birth, he argues, they should be allowed to kill the baby a few weeks after birth if that results in greater happiness overall. As he says in Practical Ethics, “A newborn baby, [like a fetus,] is not an autonomous being, capable of making choices, and so to kill a newborn baby cannot violate the principle of respect for autonomy.”
– A pro-choice professor at Princeton, Peter Singer
◄ Christian Response STRONG Saying that something can’t live by itself doesn’t give good reason why it’s not human… consider people in Africa.
For example, poor people who starve to death in Africa can’t live by themselves due to the poor sources of food … are they still human? If they aren’t humans, shouldn’t we be able to kill them too for how bad they make the human race look?
Opponent Response ► They have to have the same decent living conditions as anyone else expected to live by themselves.
If they have no food around to eat, then you can’t expect them to live.
However, with a fetus, if they are detached from the mother but have regular food around to eat, a fetus can’t go and get it, and eat it. That’s why fetuses are not persons, but poor starving Africans and babies are still persons.
◄ Christian Response STRONG But a new-born baby can’t go get food to eat.
They too, if they have food around, can’t go and get it, and eat it. They are just as helpless as fetuses are.
◄ Christian Response STRONG Even African starving people can’t go get food.
If they are too weak, they can’t get food.
In addition, they can die eating certain foods because of their starvation severity. For example, eating chocolate when they don’t have lactase enzymes can kill them.
Opponent Response ► Sure, we should be able to kill the people in Africa.
They are poor and a strain to the global society.
◄ Christian Response Now you’re violating some standard morals.
That’s just wrong.
◄ Christian Response STRONG Saying that something can’t live by itself doesn’t give good reason why it’s not human… consider people in a coma or office people in the jungle.
People in a coma can’t survive by themselves. Are they still people?
Civilized people living in a jungle can’t survive by themselves.
◄ Christian Response OK Even babies can’t cover themselves with clothes, protect themselves from danger, run into shelter from rain, or even think right.
And we don’t consider killing babies ethical, do we?
Opponent Response ► OK But the babies can be fed by others.
That’s why they are persons. They are independent of the female body.
The fetuses can’t be fed by others. They are part of the woman’s body and will die if it gets detached.