If a fertilized embryo is the equivalent of a human person, does it make a difference if the fertilized embryo is a male embryo or a female embryo that Republicans believe they have the right to control?
HUMAN LIFE — male or female — does not begin at “conception” (the accurate term is “fertilization”).
The egg cell and the sperm cell both had LIFE of the HUMAN species (“human life”) long before fertilization. The egg came to life decades earlier; the sperm a few weeks earlier.
But they are alive and of the human species. They are “human life.”
Is a sperm cell or an egg cell a “child”?
The real issue is not when cell tissue becomes ALIVE, but when that human LIFE becomes a human PERSON — what qualities of human personhood are necessary to have developed in order for that “life” to develop into a human “person.”
Just being human life? Being alive?
So the sperm and egg are human persons?
When the heartbeat starts? About 6 weeks (though that is just a cellular pulsing, no organs have actually formed at that point).
When measurable EEG brain waves begin? That is not until the middle of second trimester. Since the cessation of measurable EEG brain waves is the definition of clinical death (at which point organs can be removed), it seems that the very minimum standard for when human LIFE becomes a human PERSON would be the onset of measurable EEG brain waves.
If a fertilized embryo is the equivalent of a human person, does it make a difference if the fertilized embryo is a male embryo or a female embryo that Republicans believe they have the right to control?
HUMAN LIFE — male or female — does not begin at “conception” (the accurate term is “fertilization”).
The egg cell and the sperm cell both had LIFE of the HUMAN species (“human life”) long before fertilization. The egg came to life decades earlier; the sperm a few weeks earlier.
But they are alive and of the human species. They are “human life.”
Is a sperm cell or an egg cell a “child”?
The real issue is not when cell tissue becomes ALIVE, but when that human LIFE becomes a human PERSON — what qualities of human personhood are necessary to have developed in order for that “life” to develop into a human “person.”
Just being human life? Being alive?
So the sperm and egg are human persons?
When the heartbeat starts? About 6 weeks (though that is just a cellular pulsing, no organs have actually formed at that point).
When measurable EEG brain waves begin? That is not until the middle of second trimester. Since the cessation of measurable EEG brain waves is the definition of clinical death (at which point organs can be removed), it seems that the very minimum standard for when human LIFE becomes a human PERSON would be the onset of measurable EEG brain waves.