I truly believe consciousness begins at birth, when we first open our eyes and ears, when we feel the touch of our mother, when sensory input begins do present our surroundings to us and we begin to have a perception. It is also when a child receives a soul, when breathing in the first breath of life. Of course if you are religious, then you should not read what I posted. Religious people believes life begins at conception and should be given rights. We both have different views on when life begins. If you view the issue from a spiritually ethical view, then you would believe life begins at conception, but if you view it purely by biological and bio-electric, then you will believe that life begins at birth.
“Research indicates that even before birth, mothers’ moods may affect child development,” that being noted, Does it also mean that the fetus is conscious? Signs are rather contrary. Personally, I believe, that the fetus’ personality development is like a program being written, but it isn’t running yet. When you read “How To Create a Mind -Wikipedia,” a great book by Ray Kurzweil, it would suggest the same.
An embryo at conception is a cell that is genetically human, just like any other cell in your body. But an embryo is not “a human life” in the sense of it being ‘the life of a person”. Jennifer Anniston is a human life. Bradley Wiggins is a human life. They are legally and morally recognized as people, with sentience, personality, the ability to make choices and are legally recognized as having commensurate rights and responsibilities.
“Pro-lifers” seem to conflate the fact that an embryo is technically “biologically human” with the idea that it is “a human life” to suit their arguments. There are organisms that are far more sophisticated and far more capable of sentience, whose lives and welfare are treated with contempt. Whether they are open about it or not, there arguments are based on the Christian metaphysical belief that at conception an embryo has a soul. And they are based on Christian absolutist morality. These beliefs are completely unproven. If Christians want to live their own lives by these beliefs that’s completely acceptable. However they absolutely do not have a right to impose this on other people in a secular society. The scrapings of my cheek and parts of my toenails are “biologically human”. Do we want to give those cells rights?
An embryo at conception has no more sentience than the contents of a petri-dish. Giving it rights and responsibilities would be meaningless. As soon as pro-lifers demonstrate that an embryo has “a soul” in a way that meaningfully affects decisions about the course of its life, at that point we can have a conversation about whether it has a right to life. We might want to talk about other animals at the same time. We have pretty strong evidence that many higher mammals are sentient, yet raising the in factory farms to be killed and eaten is apparently OK.
The opinions expressed in this article is mine and mine only. Since it is a personal opinion, it is based on my own personal experience and beliefs. Everyone is entitled to what they believe, and I am not here to change someone’s opinion or beliefs.
