The Central Question
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that abortion is a very controversial
subject in America today. There is a great deal of discussion about women's
rights, privacy, deformed babies, child abuse, back-alley abortions, and so on.
But surely the central question is, Is this a human life? If the unborn child,
at some point in its development, is not a living human being, then there
may be any number of valid reasons for destroying this "thing". On the other
hand, if the unborn child, at some point in his development, is a human
being, than destroying him is killing a person, and it is difficult to imagine
any circumstances that would give someone the right to kill an innocent human
being.
So when does human life begin?
Viability
Some people say that life begins when the unborn child reaches "viability",
the point where he or she can survive outside the womb.
For example, the picture at the top of this page shows Kenya King. A normal
(although exceptionally cute) baby? Yes and no. She was born June 16, 1985, at
just 21 weeks into her mother's pregnancy. That's over four months
premature. She weighed just 1 pound, 2 ounces when she was born, and in the
weeks that followed her weight dropped to 13 ounces. This picture was taken when
she was able to go home with her mother, Lisa, a healthy, adorable, five-pound
little girl.
 This is Kelly Thorman, born in March 1971 in
Toledo, Ohio, also at 21 weeks. This picture was taken three weeks later. It
shows just how tiny she was. Do you see that bracelet around her wrist? Well,
it's not really a bracelet -- it's the nurse's wedding ring. Kelly weighed just
one pound when this picture was taken.
When does a developing child become "viable"? That is, what is the earliest a
child could be born and still have a chance to survive? Fourty years ago doctors
put the age of viability at about 30 weeks into pregnancy, or ten weeks
premature. Twenty years ago it was 25 weeks. Today it is 20 weeks. Both of the
children pictured above were born at 21 weeks and survived. I know of four other
survivors under 22 weeks, and five survivors who weighed less than one pound.
But viability used to be 30 weeks and is now 20. What's changed? Have babies
changed? Have mothers changed? No, what's changed is the medical know-how of the
doctors and the sophistication of the life support equipment available to them.
Fourty years ago doctors didn't have all the high-tech medical equipment they
have today, so babies who would have died back then can now be saved. So what is
"viability" measuring? It is a measure of the state of medical science and
technology in a particular place at a particular time; it does not tell us
anything about the baby.
Quickening
For several centuries the most popular belief was that life begins when the
unborn child begins to move. This was called "quickening", which actually means
"becoming alive". I suppose this is not too irrational. After all, what's the
most obvious sign that someone is dead? Surely it's that he's lying on the floor
not moving. (Like, duhh?) Of course this test is not totally reliable, but if
you kick him a few times and he doesn't get up or make a sound, that's a strong
clue that he's dead. So if someone is dead when he stops moving, perhaps
we should say that he is alive when he starts moving.
 Anyway, back then they didn't have ways
to see into the womb to really tell when a baby starts moving. By 18 weeks the
baby can kick hard enough for the mother to feel it, but of course he's moving
before then, though they weren't sure exactly when. Today we know that babies
start moving at about six weeks, the age of the baby shown here.
Brain Waves
Of course today we're more sophisticated than the simple "not moving" test.
Today we usually declare someone to be clinically and legally dead when we can
no longer detect brain waves using an electroencephalogram (EEG). So if we say
that someone is dead when brainwaves stop, perhaps we should say that he
is alive when brainwaves start. When do brainwaves start? We can meaure
them at 6 weeks.
Heartbeat
Before the idea of "brain death" came along, we used to declare someone dead
when his heart stopped beating. So if you're dead when your heart stops
beating, perhaps you're alive when you're heart starts beating. When does
this happen? At just three weeks after conception. (Sorry, I don't have a
picture this early.)
Our Story So Far ...
What we've just said is something of a quick summary of development in the
womb -- albeit in reverse. So let's summarize some highlights of fetal
development:
- At 20 weeks the baby is viable.
- At 6 weeks we can measure brain waves.
- At 6 weeks he begins to move his arms and legs.
- At 3 weeks his heart begins to beat.
A Single Cell
 But each of us began life as a single
cell. A single cell does not look much like what we normally think of a human
being looking like. Some say that clearly this is not a human being, because it
doesn't look human. But can we judge entirely be appearances? (Beauty is
only skin deep; perhaps humanness is too ..) What really makes someone human?
A Plan for a Man
 These are human chromosomes. They are
found in every cell of your body. Every one is a copy of the set found in that
single cell that you began as. They make up the complete plan, the blueprint,
for a person. Modern science is only beginning to understand the code that this
plan is written in, but a skilled lab technician with the proper equipment could
examine these chromosomes and tell a few simple things.
I'd hate to have you read this article and go away without learning something
practical. So I decided I could show you something useful: how to tell boys from
girls. This may come in handy next time you're thinking of asking someone out on
a date.
 Chromosomes come in pairs. Just take
the chromosomes and put together the ones that look the same, like I've done
here. I literally made this picture by cutting up the previous picture and
gluing the pieces back together -- no magic, no high tech. (Hint: The easiest
way to match chromosomes is by simply looking at the length.) If every one has a
match, then this is a girl. If you end up with two that don't match, like here,
then this is a boy.
There are supposed to be exactly 46 chromosomes. If you have too few or too
many, than this person has some serious physical deformity. Downs' syndrome is
caused by an extra chromosome.
With some recent advances, it is now possible to do chemical tests to
determine if this child will have certain hereditary diseases, like Huntington's
disease or sickle-cell anemia.
The government presently has a huge project underway, the "Human Genome
Project", to decypher the code that this blueprint is written in. Perhaps in
time people will figure it out, and with the proper equipment one could examine
chromosomes like those pictured here and determine what hair color this person
will have, his height, his favorite salad dressing, whatever. (Or maybe the idea
of someone being able to tell all that about you from a tissue sample disturbs
you, but that's another subject.)
Suggested Answers to the Question
So when does human life begin? A number of answers have been proposed.
Some have tried to find an answer in a religious belief, such as suggesting
that human life begins when the soul is created. Others object that such answers
cannot be used as a basis for law, because that would be a violation of
"separation of church and state". But I'm not going to bother debating this
point, because the objection is largely irrelevant. There is a far bigger
problem with such a definition of life: no one knows when the soul is created,
and it is difficult to see how we could find out. If someday, someone invented
some kind of machine which could detect and measure a soul, this might become a
useful definition. Until then, it can only be a subject for speculation.
There have been a number of suggestions which could be referred to as
philosophical arguments. For example, Human life begins when their is
consciousness of self. But what about someone in a coma? Is he no longer human?
Indeed, each of us spends about 8 hours a day unconscious, while we are asleep.
Do we cease to be human? And like the "soul" definition, this one may be
philosophically interesting but is of little practical use, as it is not at all
clear how we could determine when someone first becomes conscious.
Or consider, Human life begins when one is capable of giving and receiving
love. This brings to mind Planned Parenthood's famous slogan, "Every child a
wanted child". It sounds very profound and romantic, but think about what it
really means. There are many unloved people in the world: refugees, the
homeless, minorities. Would you say that because these people have suffered
misfortune or oppression, that that makes them no longer human, and no longer
entitled to human rights? Suppose a man was accused of murdering his wife, and
in court he admitted that he had done it, but he explained that he didn't love
her anymore, and so he figured that as she was unloved, she was useless and had
no right to live. If you were the judge, would you accept such a "defense"? It
is surely a tragedy if a person is unloved and unwanted, but that does not make
them any less human.
No discussion of a person's state of mind, or how others feel about them, has
anything to do with that person's essential humanness. It seems, then, that the
question of when human life begins is not really a religous, moral, or
philosophical question at all, but a scientific one. When does physical,
material, biological life begin? So we should really turn to medical science for
an answer.
Some suggest drawing a line at some presumably crucial point in the unborn
child's development. As I have mentioned, some would use viability, the age at
which the child can survive outside the womb. For at least several centuries the
most popular theory was that life began at quickening, when the baby begins to
move. In the Middle Ages a popular theory was that the baby becomes human when
he or she has recognizable sex organs. (And you thought it was just the 20th
century that was obsessed with sex ...) Our Supreme Court has ruled that a
person is alive when he takes his first breath. The point when the baby's heart
begins to beat or when he first has brain waves seem like significant points,
though I don't know of anyone pushing for such a definition.
The problem with all such "developmental" definitions, though, is that they
are essentially arbitrary. Note that I've just rattled off half a dozen
plausible choices. How do we decide just which development is the crucial one,
whose "completion" means that this is now a living human being? What makes, say,
breathing more important that heartbeat? How do we decide?
Can we point to one event as being truly unique? Is there one magic moment?
Some time when we can really say that before that point, you did not exist, but
after that point, you did?
Yes.
Medical science has given us that answer. The magic moment is: conception. It
is at that moment that the unique combination of chromosomes that define you
first came into existance. Before conception, that blueprint did not exist
anywhere; after conception, it did. From that point on, your body grew and
developed, but -- unless you get an organ transplant or some such artificial
addition -- nothing new is added except food, fluids, and oxygen.
Scientifically, biologically, and medically, life begins at conception.
Much as I might like to claim credit for brilliant deduction and originality,
I did not figure this out myself. It was first theorized by the medical
researcher Karl Ernst von Boar in 1828. Over the next several decades doctors
and researchers were able to observe the process of conception in the
laboratory, first in animals, later in humans, and by the 1850s this was
well-recognized scientific fact.
An acquaintance of mine who is a doctor once commented that when his
grandfather went to medical school in the early 1900s, he was taught that life
begins at conception. When his father went to medical school in the 1920s he was
taught that life begins at conception. When he himself went to medical school in
the 1950s, he was taught that life begins at conception. Now his daughter is
going to medical school, and she is being taught that no one knows when life
begins.
How have we become more ignorant, when medical science has advanced so far in
almost every other way imaginable? Did new medical discoveries somehow bring the
old conclusions into doubt? Hardly. Ultrasound, intrauterine photography,
genetic engineering ... all have confirmed and reconfirmed what was discovered
in the 1800s. What's changed is that the medical establishment has changed its
"knowledge" to conform to the prevailing political winds.
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