When Life Begins

DEFENSE

We know exactly when life begins, but this isn’t the real question.

First, if it were ambiguous whether the unborn are alive, that would not make it permissible to kill them. You can’t kill something just be- cause you don’t know it is a living human being. If a hunter sees something moving in the woods, he can’t shoot it unless he is sure it is not a human. He must err on the side of caution, and the same principle would apply if the status of the unborn were unclear.

Second, their status isn’t unclear. Scientifically speaking, there is no question that unborn children are alive from conception onward. At no point in their development are unborn children dead. If they ever become dead then a miscarriage has occurred.

There is no point in pregnancy at which inanimate matter suddenly becomes animate. Even the sperm and the egg that unite to give the child his genetic code are already alive, with cellular, biological processes going on inside them. From the moment of conception, therefore, life is present. Even at the single-cell stage, unborn children have metabolisms that consume energy, maintain cellular function, and enable them to grow.

Third, “When does life begin?” is the wrong question. Just because something is alive does not mean that it can’t be killed. We kill living things all the time. We cannot eat without other living things dying. Even vegetarians must consume and digest the cells of plants. There is simply no other way for us to survive.

The question is not whether the unborn are alive. They are. The question is not whether abortion kills them. It does. The question is whether they are the kind of thing that it is okay to kill.

The pro-life claim is that unborn children are innocent human be- ings, and the logic of the pro-life position is straightforward:

1. Deliberately killing an innocent human being is wrong. 2. Abortion deliberately kills an innocent human being.
3. Therefore, abortion is wrong.

The argument is so simple that even a child can understand it. If the two premises are true then the conclusion that follows from them is also true (see Days 185 and 202).