Counter arguments for when life starts when the fetus has a heartbeat

[ethan_catholic]

I know that the Catholic Position is that life starts at conception, and I am looking for arguments other than the one I have, which is:

A paramedic comes up to a person who is motionless and doesn’t have a heartbeat. By the logic of life starts at when the fetus has a heartbeat, the dead thing on the floor has no heartbeat, thus the paramedic should no longer try to save the life, because it is no longer human.

I am looking for better arguments, since this one is a bit iffy.

Thanks.

 

[heidi_storage]

The heart stopping beating is sort of an arbitrary definition of when life ends, anyway; people have been “dead” for awhile and been able to return to life. (Not talking about Biblical interventions.)

Also, I think that it might be better to frame the argument this way: When we become aware of a new embryo, we are responsible for giving it the best chance at life we can. The process of becoming a baby is a gradual one; can you really say at any moment after conception that at Time X, this is not a human; at Time Y, it is?

And even conception itself–it’s generally not possible to tell when exactly sperm and egg meet. So let’s not think about the timeline so much as on what is the ethical thing to do when we realize that we are (or may be) carrying what will, if we do not interfere, grow into a newborn child. I don’t think snuffing its life out tends to be the ethical action to take.

 

[mdgspencer]

If someone says life begins only then, it is you who should ask questions about this. They, not you, are the person saying something. You could ask them why you say life begins then. What proof, you could ask them, do they have to say this?
If seems absurd to me to say that human life begins only then. Are they trying to say the child is not alive before this? If the child is not alive before its heart begins beating, it will not be alive later. Dead, its heart will never start to beat.

 

[Bahman]

I know that the Catholic Position is that life starts at conception, and I am looking for arguments other than the one I have, which is:

A paramedic comes up to a person who is motionless and doesn’t have a heartbeat. By the logic of life starts at when the fetus has a heartbeat, the dead thing on the floor has no heartbeat, thus the paramedic should no longer try to save the life, because it is no longer human.

I am looking for better arguments, since this one is a bit iffy.

Thanks.

People who are in state of coma but lack any consciousness are good examples that the heartbeat does not provide a good proof for life. The time at which fetus becomes conscious is a good time when we can say that fetus is alive.

 

[pensmama87]

Well, from the moment of conception, a zygote has individualized human DNA, from its mother and its father, that will never be duplicated (the case of identical twins being a slight variation on this.) The cells are actively dividing and multiplying.

One could say that the presence of DNA is not good enough, because DNA can be obtained from non-living tissues. One could say that cell multiplication and division is not enough, because after all, bacteria does the same thing. But put together? It’s not the mother’s tissue, or the father’s tissue. It is an individual - evidenced by its unique DNA. What else would that be besides a unique, living and growing human being?

 

[pensmama87]

People who are in state of coma but lack any consciousness are good examples that the heartbeat does not provide a good proof for life. The time at which fetus becomes conscious is a good time when we can say that fetus is alive.

By the reasoning displayed here, a person in a coma, or even an asleep person, are not alive.

 

[Bahman]

By the reasoning displayed here, a person in a coma, or even an asleep person, are not alive.

I think there is a clear difference between a person who is asleep and another person who is in coma as the person in coma has no brain functioning and as a result no consciousness.

 

[Usige]

A paramedic comes up to a person who is motionless and doesn’t have a heartbeat. By the logic of life starts at when the fetus has a heartbeat, the dead thing on the floor has no heartbeat, thus the paramedic should no longer try to save the life, because it is no longer human.

Uhhhh… if they are still warm I would hope the paramedic would try to resuscitate them and start chest compressions because they are human, but I believe that is your point.

The broadest definition of life I remember from biology went something like this: Life is defined by the biological processes that allow an organism to replicate and convert nutrients to energy. No where in that definition is there mention of how the nutrients are obtained, the number of cells, or self awareness. Certain symbiotic life forms would likely die if removed from their host if that is it’s main nutrient source. A single cell life like an amoeba is neither self aware nor multicellular. Despite those “limitations” an amoeba is considered just as alive as a 600 year old redwood tree.

So using that definition what is a human life? Well the human part is easy enough. Does the organism have human DNA? If so then it’s human. Does the cell(s) convert nutrients to energy? A fertilized egg certainly does. As long as the fertilized egg and all the descendant cells continue to convert nutrients to energy then it (i.e. the baby) is alive. The definition could be improved on, but a baby from the moment of conception meets the broadest definition of life.

As for the person who died no longer being human; well if you were dinging in your backyard and found a skeleton that appears to be human how many people would not consider them human remains and treat them with some level of respect? Even in death we recognize their remains as human and realize that this was a distinct person. Now only if others would recognize that death is merely the final physical manifestation of a story that started when a distinct human was created at conception.

 

[Usige]

I think there is a clear difference between a person who is asleep and another person who is in coma as the person in coma has no brain functioning and as a result no consciousness.

And those that wake from a coma? Were they dead and then became alive again when they regained consciousness?

 

[Bahman]

And those that wake from a coma? Were they dead and then became alive again when they regained consciousness?

By coma I meant the state at which consciousness could not be retrieved in another word vegetative state.

 

[shelly5254]

I read a quote that went something like this…if scientists find a single cell organism on mars the shout,“WE HAVE FOUND LIFE ON ANOTHER PLANET!”. Yet a fetus is not life until birth?

This quote sure makes one think

 

[Bahman]

So using that definition what is a human life? Well the human part is easy enough. Does the organism have human DNA? If so then it’s human. Does the cell(s) convert nutrients to energy? A fertilized egg certainly does. As long as the fertilized egg and all the descendant cells continue to convert nutrients to energy then it (i.e. the baby) is alive. The definition could be improved on, but a baby from the moment of conception meets the broadest definition of life.

A fetus undergoes two main different stages, vegetative state (as sperm and egg are) in which fetus has no consciousness and the state which fetus is conscious.

 

[Rete]

The correct response:

If we someday invent technology which can resuscitate a person well after their heart stops beating (not just the rare cases we have today), then using the lack of a pulse to determine whether you should declare a person dead, in itself, would be immoral since you could have rescued that person.

It’s not the heartbeat in itself which confers life upon a person. In the past (and this is changing), we arbitrarily declared death when the heart stopped beating because we didn’t know how to rescue them from that point. It wasn’t because of the stopped heart that we declared death but because we didn’t know how to revive them.

But this false analogy you presented assumes that life necessarily ends when the heart stops beating, which is false.

 

[bzkoss236]

By scientific definition, plants and animals and bacteria/viruses without brains or circulatory systems are still alive, though they have no hearts like humans and other animals do. Life is an objective thing, in reality you can’t say that one thing is more alive or less alive. It is either alive or not. And the definition of what makes a particular thing living must then match across the board. So, saying a human isn’t living until it has a heartbeat is a fallacy because you don’t need a heart to be a living thing.

Something is said to be alive when its cells self replicate, or in other words, it grows. What once was living is dead when the cells rapidly stop replicating. A stopped heart isn’t when dead occurs. It is called clinical death because it can be assumed that death will soon follow, but it isn’t what defines one as dead.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

I read a quote that went something like this…if scientists find a single cell organism on mars the shout,“WE HAVE FOUND LIFE ON ANOTHER PLANET!”. Yet a fetus is not life until birth?

This quote sure makes one think

+1

 

[Cirdan_XII]

By scientific definition, plants and animals and bacteria/viruses without brains or circulatory systems are still alive, though they have no hearts like humans and other animals do. Life is an objective thing, in reality you can’t say that one thing is more alive or less alive. It is either alive or not.

However, in the case of said animals, plants and microbes, we generally see nothing especially immoral in killing them (generally, the less human-like they are, the less trouble we have killing them). That is because we distinguish between life in general and human life and consider human life to be eminently more worthy of protection than other forms of life.

Now if an abortionist says it is okay to kill a foetus because it is just a bunch of cells and does not yet have any of the features that make it human, then that is a troubling approach because, for example, a severely handicapped person or a person in a coma also lacks some of the general abilities that we use to define being a normal human, yet we do not advocate the killing of these, and don’t question their humanity.

So is anything that has human DNA and is alive a human life? What about some human cells growing in a culture in a petri dish? What about the organ of a donar while that organ is in storage. The rest of the person is dead, and that organ is still biologically alive, so is it a human life or just a thing with DNA?

 

[edwest2]

Everyone reading this started life as a human embryo. Consciousness is not the issue. That human embryo is a unique human being. It is not a skin cell or a plant cell. It can only be human and alive. Women don’t buy home pregnancy tests for any other reason.

Peace,
Ed

 

[BellsMom]

I’ve never heard a pro choice person deny that fetal cells are “alive”. I’ve only ever heard it discussed as believing that person-hood begins with a heart beat or brain activity.

If those cells weren’t alive they could not grow.

 

[bzkoss236]

However, in the case of said animals, plants and microbes, we generally see nothing especially immoral in killing them (generally, the less human-like they are, the less trouble we have killing them). That is because we distinguish between life in general and human life and consider human life to be eminently more worthy of protection than other forms of life.

Now if an abortionist says it is okay to kill a foetus because it is just a bunch of cells and does not yet have any of the features that make it human, then that is a troubling approach because, for example, a severely handicapped person or a person in a coma also lacks some of the general abilities that we use to define being a normal human, yet we do not advocate the killing of these, and don’t question their humanity.

So is anything that has human DNA and is alive a human life? What about some human cells growing in a culture in a petri dish? What about the organ of a donar while that organ is in storage. The rest of the person is dead, and that organ is still biologically alive, so is it a human life or just a thing with DNA?

The question was about when life begins, not the morality of killing humans vs animals. And done humans do consider it immoral to kill animals, but let’s not get into that right now.

A living human cell is part of the overall organism that it shares dna with and not it’s own life.

 

[edwest2]

Life starts at the moment of conception, not at any other point, like later on.

Peace,
Ed