Q&A - When Does Life Begin?
August 15, 2021 Sunday Evening Study

Do you want to start an argument that can lead to trading blows? Ask this question at any time, in any place. Part of the reason for this is that opinions - very strong and sharp opinions - exist around the issue that this question leads to - is it ok to have an abortion? Is stem-cell research ethical? Those are the questions here - and the waters get muddy because we generally start answering other questions and abandoning the question that answers them all. We focus on women’s rights, rights of the child, or political correctness. But what about the real question that comes before the circumstances?

Question - When Does Life Begin? When did I begin to be me? This is a question of humanness - when did I become human, and are there different degrees of humanness? Finally, is this a theological question or a scientific question? Discuss. We will cover both answers.

Let's look at some general thoughts first. Life is a continuum. We move from season to season blending gracefully into each - the season of growing in the womb leads to birth leading to the season of playing as a child to growing older to a season of physical and intellectual maturity and continues to progress until culmination in death. Interesting that in death life has a very visible and discernable end, yet we cannot seem to determine the starting point. 

When do we become human? Certainly a child sitting on Grandpa’s knee or a fully grown adult would be considered human - nobody disputes that. Nor would anybody say that an adult is more human than the child just because they are older and more developed. SO when did the child become human? In order to discuss this from both a scientific and theological point of view, let’s first look at the process itself scientifically and move from there.

The initial event that starts human development is fertilization. This means that 23 chromosomes from the mother and 23 chromosomes from the father combine and a genetic makeup is determined. At this time, a unique individual known as a zygote begins to exist. But is a zygote a human?

The zygote then divides again and again. Some cells develop into the placenta and are essential for the rest of the process. Other cells develop into the anatomical parts of the baby. The number of cells increases rapidly, and this rapidly dividing ball of cells will arrive in the uterus, and is called a blastocyst. This is then implanted in the uterine wall, approximately 6 days after fertilization. As the blastocyst changes size and shape, the name embryo is assigned approximately 3 weeks after fertilization. After the 8th week after fertilization, the name fetus is then used. Is a blastocyst human? How about an embryo? Fetus?

For reasons unknown to science, sometimes this mass of cells will split and produce twins. If the split occurs between the 13th and 15th day after fertilization, the twins will be conjoined - sharing actual body parts, but will in fact be 2 individual persons. 

Even though the names and stages change, the process set in motion at conception is a continuous chain of events - the continuum. However, at no point in this process is there a scientific point at which the developing individual “becomes a person” any more than a baby becomes more human when it walks or talks or is weaned. The milestones of zygote, blastocyst, embryo and fetus are simply descriptions of anatomy and not hurdles met in a test of humanness.

Scientific Positions

Genetic Position - This position argues that since a genetically unique individual is created at the time of fertilization, then each human life begins at fertilization. A zygote is different from all others and, if it survives, will grow into a person with a unique set of genes.

• Until days 14 and 15, there is the possibility of twinning. Many argue that there is no personhood or humanness to the zygote until the possibility of twinning has passed.
• Others argue that the number of fertilized eggs which never successfully implant mean the zygotes are not human, since between 20 and 50% of them will die or spontaneously abort.

Neither of these arguments are easily supported. The twinning objection is complicated by the existence of conjoined twins. If personhood only occurs after twinning, are conjoined twins not people since twinning never completed? The second argument - the loss rate of zygotes does not mean that the lost were not fully human any more than a deadly disease in a child makes them suddenly nonhuman.

Implantation View - This position argues that a zygote is not human until it has been implanted in the uterine wall. This occurs sometime between day 6 and day 9 after fertilization. While the implantation makes the zygote more likely to survive, nothing else changes about the zygote itself.

• This view is so popular it caused changes to the scientific definition of conception. The 26th edition of Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defined conception as “the act of conceiving or becoming pregnant; fertilization of the ovum by a spermatozoon to form a viable zygote.” Conception was defined as fertilization - the two were interchangeable. In the 27th edition of the same dictionary, conception is defined as “Act of conceiving - the implantation of the blastocyst in the endometrium.” Now implantation is the defining point of conception. Basically, the scientific community arbitrarily, without any scientific justification, redefined the starting point of life.
• While the change was arbitrary, it meant that a zygote less than 9 days old is in fact not human - which had huge implications in the political, ethical, and moral arena. This non-scientific change in definition makes it ok for stem cell harvesting, cloning, and a morning after pill.

Neurologic View - This position argues that human life begins when the brain of the fetus has developed enoughto generate a recognizable pattern on EEG. This means that the brain has matured enough to engage in mental activity consistent with being human and occurs at approximately 26 weeks after fertilization.

• Others have a slightly different view - human life begins at approximately 20 weeks when the thalamus is formed - the information processing center of the brain which plays a role in consciousness.
• These distinctions are arbitrary - one could argue that any brain activity constitutes humanness, and there is much prior to the 20 week point.

Ecological View and Birthday View - The Ecological view argues that the fetus is human when it reaches a point in development where it can exist outside of the womb independently. The Birthday view argues that human life begins at birth only when the umbilical cord is cut.

• The ecological view has an interesting problem. This view would have to argue that over the last century, we have been becoming human earlier and earlier. Here humanness has nothing to do with the state of development of the fetus and everything to do with the limits of medical technology. This means that now man can grant humanness where it previously did not exist.
• The Birthday view rests solely on the baby’s independence from its mother as the mark of humanness. Yet a child is not truly independent for many years - without care from someone, an infant would die shortly after birth. This supposed “independence” is totally arbitrary.

Science does not have a solidified view of the beginning of human life, so it cannot actually answer this question. So perhaps this is not a scientific question, but a theological one - so we look to God’s Word.

Psalm 139:13-16

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

Here we read of the psalmist being known by God when he was “yet unformed” and being “made in secret” in a place invisible to human eyes. The uses of the personal pronouns in this verse indicate that there was a person present prior to birth.

Jeremiah 1:4-5

Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

In this God tells Jeremiah that he was set aside before he was born. He was known before he was formed, meaning that Jeremiah, like all children, have a past before birth.

Psalm 51:5

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

In this David remarks that he was conceived with a sinful human nature - for which he would have to be human at conception.

Those scriptures reveal that there is personhood before birth. Another passage used to show the humanness of the fetus is the story in Luke 1:39-44:

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby 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 to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

Apart from referring to the child as “the babe” in her womb, God’s Word describes this unborn child as capable of exhibiting joyin the presence of his Savior.

The Inevitable Conclusion - Life Begins at Conception

Science may be able to show us the beautiful continuity of life throughout its stages, but it simply cannot define the onset of humanness. However, there is ample information in Scripture for us to determine the answer to this problem.

The Bible contains numerous references to the unborn, and each time there is reference to an actual individual person. The Scriptures, taken in context, show that God considers the unborn to be people. SInce the Bible treats unborn as persons, and since, per science, the development of a person is a continuum which begins at fertilization, logic dictates that life and humanity begin at fertilization. In fact, no other conclusion is reasonable by Scripture or by science.

Implications:

• Abotion - if a zygote is human life, then abortion is in fact murder regardless of the circumstance.
• Stem cells - if an embryo is human, stem cell research constitutes murder and is unethical regardless of the altruistic reason given as justification.
• Morning after pill - if the zygote has been formed, murder is committed.

Complex issues, such as cloning and use of placental stem cells may not have simple solutions but must be examined in light of God’s Word without biases introduced from other motivations.

What do you think?