Cecil,
Isn’t it true that life began eon’s ago, and human lives began to take shape way back to our first ancestors? Life is passed on through our ancestors, and if they didn’t procreate none of us would be here?
I would add, it was, or would have been, when an individule human life that begins at conception, but like a fertile egg of any animal it doesn’t take the shape of any, until it can be recognozed as such!
monavis, I’m not sure what column exactly you’re commenting on. I’m going to provide links to this one: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2817/when-does-human-life-begin
and this one: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2825/round-2-when-does-human-life-begin
If these are not what you had in mind, let me know by email or PM and I’ll be glad to fix.
When you start a thread, it’s helpful to other readers to provide a link to the column(s) in question. Saves searching time and helps keep us all on the same page and more focused (no need to repeat what Cecil said.)
I am sorry, I just clicked on a page from one of the other dopers quotes from Cecil.
and I just was wondering why people use the word when Life begins, instead of when personhood started, because according to science as we know it today,life began eons ago, and we evolved from other life forms,going back to the first cells. I don’t know anyone who is not Pro-life and I believe to use that word is misleading. I felt that Cecil was using the same argument and wondered why. since we are a biological animal (all though we sometimes think that is putting humans in a lower position in the biological sense), it is the same, we don’t call a chicken egg that is fertile a chicken until we can identify it as one, nor an apple blossom the is pollenated an apple, ot any other animal until it is grown enough to see what it will become. I also question the difference between life and a soul, When some one loses its life, we say it is dead, so where then did the life go?