Hello everyone, I've decided to start a new blog that is all about what I think. This blog is strictly my opinion. Anyone is welcome to argue my points of view or agree with them. Feel free to comment.

Friday, April 15, 2011

What Constitutes Life



One of the major themes in the pro-life/pro-choice debate has centered on the definition of when life begins.  On one side, the consensus is that life begins in the womb, while some on the other side dismiss a fetus as a nascent life, but not yet a human baby.  The purpose of this treatise is to approach this aspect of the debate from a scientific point of view.
While I cannot boast of any post-graduate studies, I do hold degrees in Biology and Medical Laboratory Technology.  Both of these disciplines play a role in my perspective concerning when and how life begins.  While my religious upbringing also plays a role, I will try, as much as possible, to keep that aspect of my opinions to a minimum.  
The term “Bio” is Latin and translates literally as “Life.”  The suffix “ology” translates as “the study of.”  The term “Biology” then, translates literally as “The study of life.” Life, however, is a rather ambiguous term.  With just a brief check, most anyone can tell whether something is alive.  However, can you really explain what life is? What must something have before we can say that it has life. To answer this question, we must first define what “Life” means. Biologists have come up with a number of characteristics that an organism must have to be considered “alive.” These are those characteristics and what they mean:

  • Order- all organisms consist of one or more cells with highly ordered structures: cells are made up of organelles, organelles are made up of molecules, which are collections of atoms.  These levels of organization are consistent in all forms of life on this planet.
  • Sensitivity- All living organisms respond to various stimuli.  While a tree responds to a wound much slower than we do, it is still a response and healing does take place.
  • Ability for Growth, Development, and Reproduction- All living organisms are capable of growing and reproducing while transferring hereditary information to their offspring.  While it is true that bacteria do not grow very much, they do still grow.
  • Regulation- All organisms have some sort of mechanism, which regulates its internal functions. Such functions may include supplying cells with nutrients, transporting a variety of substances in and out of the organism and many other functions.
  • Homeostasis- This is a process in which an organism can maintain constant internal conditions, which are separate from their environment.  Even if this separation is only the act of keeping all of its organs inside the cell membrane such as an amoeba, it is still separate from its environment.  Some organisms are capable of much more complex separation from the environment; mammals and birds are “warm blooded,” meaning that we can maintain our body temperatures totally independent of our environment.

If an organism has all of these characteristics, then it has life.  It is a living organism.  The question now is; which of these characteristics does a human embryo not have?  Some will make the argument that a zygote, that can be seen only under a microscope, does not have the ability to reproduce.  This is true, but then, neither has a six-year-old child.  The reproductive system of most organisms is not fully developed until it reaches adulthood.  This, then, is a fallacious argument.  A baby in the womb has or is in the process of developing every characteristic necessary for it to be considered a living organism.  
Another argument is that a fetus in the early stages of its development is not capable of surviving outside the womb.  Two answers to that come to mind.  First of all, there are many adults who, today, do not have the ability to survive without extensive external life support systems.  Every hospital has an Intensive Care Unit (ICU).  In the ICU patients are sometimes kept alive by artificial means and recover fully and go home.  Furthermore, in vitro fertilization has been around since the 1960’s.  In this procedure an egg is fertilized outside the womb and is kept alive in a medium until it is planted in the female’s uterus.  If the technology does not yet exist, I’m sure that it is close to being ready, that would enable a hospital to keep a fetus alive from egg to infant without it ever being implanted in a host mother.  So, again, the argument does not stand up to close scrutiny. 
Next we shall examine the question from a Genetics point of view.  Genetics is the study of how our genes determine everything about us.  Our genes are made up of 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs.  The genetic material is identical in every cell in our bodies except in the reproductive system.  The precursor to a human egg does include all 23 pairs of genes, but as the egg is released from the ovary, it splits into two daughter cells, each one containing 23 chromosomes instead of the original 23 pairs.  The male sperm cells go through a similar split so that when an egg is fertilized, one half of the chromosomes comes from the mother and the other half from the father.  That is the most important part.  Once the egg is fertilized and the chromosomes combine to form the genes the entire genetic makeup of the person that is now developing is set.  Nothing else is added or taken away.  Every single aspect of the adult that will develop from this pairing of the genes has already been determined.  Everything from what color the eyes will eventually be, to the person’s hair color and type, skin tone, whether they will be left or right-handed, even the fingerprints are genetically set.  
In my study of Biology, one of the courses that I had to take was Embryology.  As the word implies, Embryology is the study of embryos.  In that class I studied exactly how an embryo develops from fertilization to birth.  Believe me, if you study Embryology you will become very well acquainted with how complex life is and how many millions of things must go right for a new life to develop.  However, the most important thing you will learn is that life begins the moment that an egg becomes fertilized.  Everything after that is just growth.
Taking everything together, my studies have led me to believe that life begins at conception and should, therefore, be protected as such.  I can not fathom how any person, especially a female, can be so callous as to say that terminating an unwanted pregnancy is no big deal.  I know how complicated life is, and it is a big deal.

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