Essay:The relevance of 'life begins at conception.'
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This is one of the most common (non religous) arguments in the anti-abortion debate group. However, is it relevant? I believe it is the anti-abortion equivilant of 'Hitler was an atheist;' may or may not be true, but irrelevant.
Is it true?[edit]
It depends on how you define 'life.' There are functioning cells from that point on, as well as the genetics being stored in the egg, but doesn't have a sufficiant enough nervous system until feel pain until 7 months. If you define it byself awareness, you aren't self aware untill after you first birthday. If you define it by the beating of the heart/brain activity, that would be 24 to 27 weeks. It develops a sex at 6 weeks.
Is it relevant?[edit]
No. Other than the fact that 75% of fetuses miscarry (spontaneously abort, so much for god wanting us to have lots of babies) anyway, we rountinly kill bacteria, which at the point of conception, the fetus is little more than. We use weedkiller without remorse, which is a bigger cell death than a fetus. In other words, a few cells don't matter. What matters is suffering (which the fetus can't do till 7 months) and the condition of the mother (the baby is less likely to have a good life, if the mother is ill, unstable financially, not ready, or doesn't want it.)