WHEN DOES LIFE BEGIN?

When does life begin?

When does life begin?

Introduction

The common phrase "life begins at conception" only skims the surface. Life began long before conception.

Every ovum and sperm are alive. They are living cells before they unite to form a zygote. Those that do not find a cell from the opposite gender to unite with, are alive until they die the death of one-celled life. Tragically, they cannot reproduce by fission and live indefinitely. But the sperm cells at least have the self-consciousness and mobility of many protozoans. Fortunately, they do not possess the consciousness, the fear of death, the thrill of the chase, portrayed in Woody Allen's movie. Sperm cells, while they are alive, do not appear to possess souls. They simply do what they are programmed to do (Powner, 2009).

The truth is, if we wish to define "when life begins" we must go all the way back to the beginning. Because there is a continuity of life from every living human being, back to the zygote from which they grew, to the ovum and sperm which united to form that zygote, to the ovaries of the mother and testicles of the father from which the ovum and sperm cell came, and so on through every generation.

Discussion

Life began either with the first humans, or with the first prokaryotic cells in the warm waters of a primordial sea. That depends on whether the creation of humans, adam, male and female, when God called their name adam, was a distinct act of physical creation, or was the spiritual act of breathing into the nostrils of an existing primate, so that "man became a living soul." But that debate need not be settled here. Whether humans were created 6000 years ago or 50,000, as a distinct act or by divine breath imparted to ...