Tbh, “At what point does life begin?” is a pointless question and a false equivalence.
A removed appendix or a removed cancer are clearly human life too. They clearly live, and still there is no moral panic about “killing” someone’s appendix or cancer.
The actual question here is “At what point is a human a legally protected being?” or “At what point does it make sense that legal protections cover a human being?”
Claiming that the question is “At what point does life begin?” is a purposely wrong question that is used to shift the discussion from the actual question. Because life begins as sperm and egg cells, but legally protecting these would be completely crazy. But if we are talking about “At what point does life begin?” instead of about “At what point is the embryo human enough to warrant human-level protections?” the story rapidly changes.
I always thought of the question as “at what point is it a human being”. I think we could both agree that a cut of arm is living tissue and not a human being. From this point of view, the original question stand in my opinion (and could somewhat be equated to yours).
That is a much more valid question than “at what point does life begin”, and that’s pretty much the same point as “at what point is it a being covered by the legal protections of human rights?”
Yeah, I felt the same when I wrote it. I agree with what someone else said though, these movements are often not about life but about control over women.
Yeah, that’s the really infuriating part. While some people might argue in good faith on the pro-life side, a lot of them don’t.
A common scenario:
A woman who is not ready, equipped and/or willing to have a child gets pregnant and wants to abort.
She ends up not doing it (due to laws and/or social pressure) and has the kid.
Turns out, she’s not ready, equipped and/or willing to raise the child, and the child ends up neglected in some form.
Society turns on the woman telling her she’s a bad mother.
If it was actually an honest pro-life movement, the pro-lifing wouldn’t end with the birth of the child. Instead, then the movement should step in and be pro-free-school-lunch, pro-free-education, pro-free-child-care and so on.
But no, it’s all like “You gave birth to this child, so screw you, it’s your own fault, your own responsibility.”
Tbh, “At what point does life begin?” is a pointless question and a false equivalence.
A removed appendix or a removed cancer are clearly human life too. They clearly live, and still there is no moral panic about “killing” someone’s appendix or cancer.
The actual question here is “At what point is a human a legally protected being?” or “At what point does it make sense that legal protections cover a human being?”
Claiming that the question is “At what point does life begin?” is a purposely wrong question that is used to shift the discussion from the actual question. Because life begins as sperm and egg cells, but legally protecting these would be completely crazy. But if we are talking about “At what point does life begin?” instead of about “At what point is the embryo human enough to warrant human-level protections?” the story rapidly changes.
I always thought of the question as “at what point is it a human being”. I think we could both agree that a cut of arm is living tissue and not a human being. From this point of view, the original question stand in my opinion (and could somewhat be equated to yours).
That is a much more valid question than “at what point does life begin”, and that’s pretty much the same point as “at what point is it a being covered by the legal protections of human rights?”
Yeah, I felt the same when I wrote it. I agree with what someone else said though, these movements are often not about life but about control over women.
Yeah, that’s the really infuriating part. While some people might argue in good faith on the pro-life side, a lot of them don’t.
A common scenario:
If it was actually an honest pro-life movement, the pro-lifing wouldn’t end with the birth of the child. Instead, then the movement should step in and be pro-free-school-lunch, pro-free-education, pro-free-child-care and so on.
But no, it’s all like “You gave birth to this child, so screw you, it’s your own fault, your own responsibility.”