When Does Life Begin?
Rare indeed is the Sunday on which I find myself able to answer an
"eternal question" that "divides us like no other issue," but December
3, 1995 was apparently such a day. The front page of your paper on
that propitious date featured an article entitled WHEN DOES LIFE
BEGIN?--a question the author has been encouraged to deem
eternally unanswerable, despite the efforts of some (presumably)
first-rate minds cited in the piece. (The title, of course, is elliptical
for: When does Human Life Begin?) Well, what makes
something human rather than, say, canine, is the genetic material in
question; and that material is readily observed with routine aids
such as microscopes. I can assure your author and your readers that
even a conceptus of the sort pictured in the piece, upon such
examination, will reveal material sufficient to classify it as a member
of homo sapiens rather than an embryonic Lassie. As to the question
of life, it may be helpful to note that biology has produced a
determinate list of properties the bearers of which are agreed, by
consensus, to be alive. The list includes: capacity to self-reproduce,
information storage of a self-representation, a metabolism
(converting matter and energy into activity for the organism),
stability under perturbations, interdependence of parts, etc.
Amoeba, by this list, are known to be quite alive; and this list is also
one self-evidently instantiated by a conceptus, let alone a fetus. The
question in question is, I conclude, a gargantuan red herring
(probably touted as profound by those who make at least part of
their living supplying quotes to well-meaning journalists).
Selmer Bringsjord