CoL II: Life?

Part II

Let’s start with definitions of life and why I find them confusing. The Pro-Life position is that life begins at conception when the DNA of woman and man combines in the fertilized egg and the egg then changes its name from Egg to Zygote. The Pro-Choice position is less clear, but seems to be that life begins at birth, and that some kinds of abortion should only be available when the mother’s health or life are at risk. My first point of confusion will be controversial, and in no way related to my adoration of small cute babies and the way they smell. It’s this: many natural factors can prevent that zygote from becoming a person. We do not have funerals for these lost souls. We do not issue social security numbers at conception. We are not allowed to take a child tax credit at conception. Why? Because there is an intuition that at this stage of development, we don’t not yet have a human being. Something is lost and mourned, but what that is we do not treat the way we treat humans. What is mourned, it seems to me, is potential. The mourning is real, but it is not a matter of legal or communal recognition.

Life = mixed DNA seems a really minimum level definition to me.

Second point of confusion: the definition of death. In most states, the legal (and likely intuitive and moral) definition of death is something like this: the cessation of brain, heart, and lung function (though this does vary: it is possible to be ‘dead’ in one state of union but still ‘alive’ in another). Upon death, we can harvest organs, plan a funeral, begin fighting over the will. There is a not inconsiderable period of time during which a developing zygote simply does not have these organs. Logical problem: if their functional cessation defines death, then how is something that does not have these organs ‘alive’ or ‘human’? Something is out of whack with both science and intuition on these points.

Personally, I am probably focusing in this point of contradiction because I believe that three months (and frankly, less) is PLENTY of time to make a difficult moral decision and accept the physical pain and the mourning that will result of choosing to abort. It’s also plenty of time to discern, very carefully, the factors in a woman’s or a girl’s life that play in these decisions, and they are many, complex, and interdependent. It is also plenty of time to consider those interdependent factors and choose to raise the child or to find a suitable adoptive family.

Medical or psychological danger to the mother? No question. She is also a precious, unique, ensouled human being.