Life at Conception

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Morgo

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Catholics believe in life at concpetion. I do too, but mainly because I am Catholic. I don’t really get why we believe this nor could I find any good reason on the internet anywhere. In biology we have been disgussing genetic engineering and embryotic stem cell research. I would like to express my opinions, but if I don’t have any support besides “that’s what my church teaches” I don’t think my classmates will listen very long. So, why does the church teach that life begins at conception? I would appreciate some biblical references since that’s what the Protestants will want. Thanks.
 
“It is I who bring both death and life.”
Deuteronomy 32:39

“Did not He who made me in the womb make him?
And did not one fashion us in the womb?”
Job 31:15
You formed my inmost being;
You knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you, so wonderfully you made me;
Wonderful are your works!
My very self you knew;
My bones were not hidden from you,
When I was being made in secret,
Fashioned as in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes foresaw my actions;
In your book all are written down;
My days were shaped, before one came to be.
Psalms 139:13-16 [New American]
“Yahweh called me when I was in the womb,
before my birth he had pronounced my name.”
Isaiah 49:1

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
Jeremiah 1:5

"In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy.”
Gospel of Luke 1:39-44

“But when he who had set me apart before I was born,
and had called me through his grace”
Paul to the Galatians 1:15

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and blameless before him.”
Paul to the Ephesians 1:3-4
“Whosoever shall shed man’s blood, his own blood shall be shed,
For man was made in the image of God.”
Genesis 9:6
 
You conceive. If you don’t seek to harm the tiny infant that now exists within it continues to grow until it is ready for birth.

A living male seed that has not fertilized a female egg dies. A living female egg that is not fertilized in conception, dies without producing anything.

Join the living egg and the seed in conception and the tiny child grows. Killing that tiny life is killing a person, the person who inevitably and relentlessly grows within the womb.

It’s very logical, and very simple.
 
Individual life begins with conception by the union of the couple’s sex cells or gametes. The 23 chromosomes of the paternal sperm (male pronucleus) fuses with the 23 chromosomes of the maternal oocyte (egg or female pronucleus) at fertilization to create a single cell embryo or zygote containing 46 chromosomes. The fertilization process takes about 24 hours.
The new human zygote has the inherent capacity or potential to become a fully rational and cognizant person!
Each one represents a unique, irreplaceable, never-to-be-reduplicated human being!
Click to expand...
Just Google: “life begins at conception” for lots more info.
 
Well, Morgo, after sperm meets egg if it is **not **a human being, **what **is it? And, when does it change and become a human being, and why?
 
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I concecrated you.” Jeremiah 1:5
 
Morgo said:
Catholics believe in life at concpetion. I do too, but mainly because I am Catholic. I don’t really get why we believe this nor could I find any good reason on the internet anywhere. In biology we have been disgussing genetic engineering and embryotic stem cell research. I would like to express my opinions, but if I don’t have any support besides “that’s what my church teaches” I don’t think my classmates will listen very long. So, why does the church teach that life begins at conception? I would appreciate some biblical references since that’s what the Protestants will want. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Two really good recent books on this subject are Defending Life by Francis Beckwith, and Embryo by Robert George and Christopher Tollefsen. If you don’t want to get the books, they also have a lot of articles; just Google “Robert P. George” or “Francis Beckwith” along with “abortion” or “hominization” or “substantial form at conception”, or something similar. You’ll get a lot of materials.
 
Trishie said:
You conceive. If you don’t seek to harm the tiny infant that now exists within it continues to grow until it is ready for birth.

A living male seed that has not fertilized a female egg dies. A living female egg that is not fertilized in conception, dies without producing anything.

Join the living egg and the seed in conception and the tiny child grows. Killing that tiny life is killing a person, the person who inevitably and relentlessly grows within the womb.

It’s very logical, and very simple.
Click to expand...
In most cases the conception is terminated naturally, for a myriad of reasons.

And actually, a seed is a fertilized ovum. Male “seed” is a legacy of our human ignorance. We once thought male semen contained human seed that was then implanted in the female and took root.

Life cannot “begin” at conception if the sperm and egg are already alive, which they are.
 
crowonsnow said:
Life cannot “begin” at conception if the sperm and egg are already alive, which they are.
Click to expand...
Sure, my skin cells on my arm are alive, too. But I think you really know what the poster meant. An individuated human life begins at conception; the cells on my arm don’t do that. Neither does a sperm cell, neither does an ovum.
 
From the split-second it takes the man’s DNA and the woman’s DNA to bond, there is a new organism – a new genetic combination, with its own life processes, which grow until terminated. That was in every biology text that touched on human growth I ever read, all secular; the individual’s life is universally acknowledged to begin a conception. A trip to your school library ought to yield many helpful texts if your own textbook lacks that basic fact. Five’ll get you ten if it really isn’t in your text it’s been removed from the current edition to avoid controversy.
 
RWMorris said:
“It is I who bring both death and life.”
Deuteronomy 32:39

“Did not He who made me in the womb make him?
And did not one fashion us in the womb?”
Job 31:15
You formed my inmost being;
You knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you, so wonderfully you made me;
Wonderful are your works!
My very self you knew;
My bones were not hidden from you,
When I was being made in secret,
Fashioned as in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes foresaw my actions;
In your book all are written down;
My days were shaped, before one came to be.
Psalms 139:13-16 [New American]
“Yahweh called me when I was in the womb,
before my birth he had pronounced my name.”
Isaiah 49:1

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
Jeremiah 1:5

"In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy.”
Gospel of Luke 1:39-44

“But when he who had set me apart before I was born,
and had called me through his grace”
Paul to the Galatians 1:15

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and blameless before him.”
Paul to the Ephesians 1:3-4
“Whosoever shall shed man’s blood, his own blood shall be shed,
For man was made in the image of God.”
Genesis 9:6
Click to expand...
None of those say life begins at conception.
 
Thanks, you guys have been a lot of help. 🙂 And, Mersenne, I don’t think the Bible could say it any more clearly without literally saying “life begins at conception”.
 
cpayne said:
Sure, my skin cells on my arm are alive, too. But I think you really know what the poster meant. An individuated human life begins at conception; the cells on my arm don’t do that. Neither does a sperm cell, neither does an ovum.
Click to expand...
Yes, I know. But it is best to be accurate. We most certainly agree that there can be no beginning of life unless the sperm and egg are already alive, unless life already exists.

It is in reality a biological fact that life does not begin at conception. Perhaps the phrase is meant to state that a new life - life meaning an organism - begins at conception. This would be accurate.

But even that is debatable. The new life is in every way a continuation of the old life - or lives. It is just as true and accurate to say that life or lives continue at conception.
 
cpayne said:
Sure, my skin cells on my arm are alive, too. But I think you really know what the poster meant. An individuated human life begins at conception; the cells on my arm don’t do that. Neither does a sperm cell, neither does an ovum.
Click to expand...
Actually, the skin cells on your arm are pretty dead. Dead cells slough towards the environment while new ones are generated below the dead layer. Tit for tat, technicality for technicality, meh.

‘Before you formed in your womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you.’ Jer

I think this quote is the main biblical support of life at/before conception. But at face value, it sounds like even prior to conception, there is already this predetermined life, so the physical act of fertilization - egg meets sperm - is not all that important. Maybe some predetermined, yet to be produced sperm and egg, has already been consecrated with the blessing of life. So really, why is it accepted convention that life only starts AT fertilization?

Sort of splitting hairs, but w/e.
 
crowonsnow said:
Yes, I know. But it is best to be accurate. We most certainly agree that there can be no beginning of life unless the sperm and egg are already alive, unless life already exists.

It is in reality a biological fact that life does not begin at conception. Perhaps the phrase is meant to state that a new life - life meaning an organism - begins at conception. This would be accurate.

But even that is debatable. The new life is in every way a continuation of the old life - or lives. It is just as true and accurate to say that life or lives continue at conception.
Click to expand...
The “live” sperm is not and cannot be human life on its own.
Human life begins at conception.
 
cpayne said:
An individuated human life begins at conception…
Click to expand...
banhgialon said:
Actually, the skin cells on your arm are pretty dead. Dead cells slough towards the environment while new ones are generated below the dead layer. Tit for tat, technicality for technicality, meh.

.
Click to expand...
Yes, technically the lower layers are alive and the upper ones that we see are dead. But technicalities are used to counter the Catholic theological position, and are sometimes very important. 👍
thistle said:
Human life begins at conception.
Click to expand...
That is the main point in such a discussion. There is no biological argument that life begins at conception; otherwise you’ve got either a dead embryo or dead sperm and ova.

The argument is that ***Human ***life begins at conception, and mounting a successful defense should start there. 👍
 
Newbie2 said:
The argument is that ***Human ***life begins at conception, and mounting a successful defense should start there.
Click to expand...
The sperm and ovum that constitute this beginning human life are already alive and are already human. That is undeniable. The newly formed organism is therefore only a continuation of earlier organisms. Even the combined DNA is only ever so slightly different. It is therefore clearly fallacious to claim that human life begins at conception because there can literally be no human life at human conception unless human life is already present.
 
crowonsnow said:
The sperm and ovum that constitute this beginning human life are already alive and are already human. That is undeniable. The newly formed organism is therefore only a continuation of earlier organisms. Even the combined DNA is only ever so slightly different. It is therefore clearly fallacious to claim that human life begins at conception because there can literally be no human life at human conception unless human life is already present.
Click to expand...
A live sperm on its own is not human life.
 
crowonsnow said:
The sperm and ovum that constitute this beginning human life are already alive and are already human. That is undeniable. The newly formed organism is therefore only a continuation of earlier organisms. Even the combined DNA is only ever so slightly different. It is therefore clearly fallacious to claim that human life begins at conception because there can literally be no human life at human conception unless human life is already present.
Click to expand...
thistle said:
A live sperm on its own is not human life.
Click to expand...
Crow,

Thistle, in a few words, points out what is fallacious in your above post. You seem to be equivocating the term “human”.

You wrote that “[t]he sperm and ovum that constitute this beginning human life are already alive and are already human.” And then you conclude that “*t is therefore clearly fallacious to claim that human life begins at conception because . . .human life is already present.”

But that which is “human” is not necessarily a “human life”. It is true that an ovum is “alive” and from a human, but it is not therefore “human life”.

Your equivocation of the term would also mean that you must hold that when a motorcycle accident victim dies on the operating room table that his “human life” has not ceased. . . . because his corneas have been transplanted, alive, into another person.

VC*
 
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