gang weeder
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2022
proof or the foundation of your arguments mean nothing.
I mean, on some level, what counts as "life" is subjective and cannot be "proved." Someone could claim, for instance, that Jews are a non-human sub-species--or that human embryos are not actually humans until they reach a certain arbitrarily chosen stage of development, for instance. In one sense these are value judgments that cannot be "proven" any more than the statement that "murder is wrong" can be.
But if we accept the premise that human life must be defined as starting somewhere, that there must be a point where each individual passes from non-existence into existence, conception is the only starting point that is not chosen arbitrarily and has a solid basis in biological reality. Since this is the point in time at which a genetically distinct individual member of the species comes to exist in space and time. Any point chosen after this is quickly revealed as arbitrary with any bare minimum of critical thinking, i.e.:
1. "it's a clump of cells"--all living organisms are, to a larger or smaller degree
2. "it has a heartbeat"--the presence, absence, or functionality of specific organs is not used to define life in any other context
3. "it can feel pain"--so can animals
4. "it isn't conscious"--there is no reason to believe that infants are either
And so forth and so on. Conception is the only starting point that cannot be assailed in such terms. The fact that it can't be is proven in the way that abortion advocates inevitably feel that they must resort to copes such as "but you don't support welfare so that means you don't actually value life," twisting themselves into knots to portray children as some kind of evil parasite that is forced upon parents against their will, rather than sticking to the simple core issue of when human life begins (and by extension, whether it is okay to end it out of financial or emotional convenience).