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Chris Fox's avatar

"Then, of course, there's the issue of when life begins."

This is a critically inaccurate framing. Life began billions of years ago in the primordial oceans. Life does not arise from dead material (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation).

The issue is at what point the protection of human life begins. Most reasonable people would agree that a fetus with gills and a tail and no nervous system isn't quite there. Nobody agrees with killing babies after birth. Cotton Mather railed so passionately against woman taking their infants to bed with them that there is little doubt this was a post-parturition abortion. Infanticide in modern vernacular,

"Beginning of life" is a forced-birth framing.

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Steve QJ's avatar

"This is a critically inaccurate framing. Life began billions of years ago in the primordial oceans. Life does not arise from dead material "

😅 I feel quite confident you know what I meant Chris.

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Chris Fox's avatar

Yes I am confident that you don't believe human gametes are dead until they form a zygote. Which just makes me wonder why you used the right wing trope of *life* beginning. You're usually more precise than that.

The issue is when a fetus/baby acquires legal protection. It has been alive the entire time. If I had my druthers I would say at the onset of self-awareness, which I remember in my own life, and I was post-birth and still crawling (yes I actually do remember, thinking wordlessly, "why am I crying?") but that is a dangerous forumlation so I am content with humanity being granted at birth.

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