"Human life" is not a synonym for "a human being" or "a person."
Of course "life" is present. "Life" is present in an appendix. "Life" is present in an unfertilized ovum.
A blueprint for a human being is present in a fertilized ovum. The "instructions" for the human being are present, and with time and the right circumstances, it will become one. (Well, an amazingly large number of fertilized eggs don't continue and become babies, by nature's design, it is now known. Does that seem like a human tragedy of immense proportions, or does it seem simply natural?)
If I invite you to my home for a chicken dinner and serve you an egg, yes, a fertilized one, I dare say you will be entirely sure that it's no chicken.
All those quotes you post fail to distinguish between two different concepts, "human life" or "potential," and "a human being" or "person."
Some of them are impressively clever, and very disreputable. This one struck me as particularly deceptive:
<<<To accept the fact that after
fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion...>>>
Look how close together in that sentence we find "human" and "being." So close, you might almost think that he had said not that the fertilized ovum was a potential human being with genetic instructions, but a human being.
But of course he doesn't say that a fertilized ovum is an actual human being.
None of them do. They can't, they can only try, in flowery, obfuscating language, to imply it, because it forwards their agenda, which is, of course, to get the government to force citizens of other faiths to live according to theirs.
They say "a new human has come into being." Poetic language, isn't it? And yes, just as a new house has "come into being" when the blueprints are laid out on the table, a new human has "come into being" when the genetic blueprint is laid out on the uterine wall.
But the HUMAN BEING or PERSON, and the HOUSE, require time and other factors to "come into being." There is a reason people don't take shelter in blueprints. Again: A human coming into being is not the arrival of a human being. It is only being made to sound sort of as though it is.
This is what they did, those writers you quote: They were pretending. It was trickery. Every one of those individuals was trying to pull the wool over the eyes of those whom they wanted to convince to join in making the government force all citizens to conform to their ideas.
They did it this way: They pretended
that beginnings are ends
that potentials are realizations
that blueprints are houses
that the "human life" of a genetic blueprint is the "life of a human being" (this elision was used by more than one writer)
that "confers life" means "brings a person to life."
PROLIFE, I found that compilation fascinating.
At bottom of course, it is an anthology of efforts to find language to make a very specific and purely religious notion, that a "soul" enters the cells at a particular moment, seem like a logical one.
It is, in fact, a stipulation.
One set of citizens stipulates it and wants to get the government to force others to accept their stipulation. And... and this is why we are even talking about this -- THEY WANT TO CLAIM THEY OPPOSE GOVERNMENT INTRUSION INTO PRIVATE LIFE!
You'll stipulate your religious idea about souls in cells and confuse categories shamelessly to get others to join your government-intrusion campaign, but you just can't escape the fact that an egg ain't a chicken, and you will refuse to trade me your house for a blueprint of a much nicer one.
It's religious fascism, what you are trying to pull.
Millions and millions and millions of fertilized ova slough off uterine walls every month. The menstruating women don't even know it. They think they're having an ordinary period. Which they are. It is ordinary because it happens so routinely. It is a natural thing. Before fertilized ova become babies, many things have to happen, and they have to happen over an extended period of time. In nature, scientists have recently discovered, lots and lots of them don't continue developing past the first few hours or days.
Do you think women should feel terrible about this natural process? Should they have their menses examined microscopically and arrange somber and honorific services for the "people" they bled? Should young girls, when they reach puberty, be told that horrors are about to commence-- that dead babies, deceased human beings, persons, in fact, are going, most likely, from time to time, be, unbeknownst to them, exiting their bodies in their monthly flow?
Why not? Because it would be loony? |
