The leak of the pending SCOTUS decision in the Dobbs abortion case has once again stirred up the abortion debate and once again the claim is being circulated that "no one knows when life begins." It's not usually clear what the person making this claim means by it, so let's unpack it.
If it's meant literally the assertion belies an astonishing ignorance of biology. The ovum and sperm, the gametes that fuse to form a conceptus in a woman's womb, are living cells. They were produced by living persons, and the embryo that results is a living entity.
The point at which "life begins" is the point at which the first life appeared. Ever since then life has been a continuum. It’s simply bizarre to argue that we weren’t alive until we had a heartbeat or until we were born.
But maybe those who make this claim are talking about human life. Maybe they mean that no one knows at what point in the reproductive process a human being becomes a human being, but this, too, makes little sense.
What is a human being? Is it not an entity which possesses a specific genetic endowment? If so, the conceptus qualifies. After all, it's certainly a human conceptus - it's not a turtle or elephant conceptus - and it's certainly a being.
Nor is it, as we often hear, part of the mother's body. It's a separate being with a genetic makeup distinct from that of the mother. It's located in her body, but it's not part of her body.
Perhaps what's meant by the claim that "no one knows when life begins" is that no one knows when a developing individual becomes a person with all the rights appertaining to persons, including the right to life. If so, it'd be helpful if we had a definition of "person" with which there could be general agreement.
Princeton ethicist Peter Singer, who is pro-choice, gives us a definition we can use as a start. He says that, “I use the term ‘person’ to refer to a being who is capable of anticipating the future, of having wants and desires for the future.”
I think this definition is inadequate, but to see why let’s reformulate his definition this way:
Definition (1): A person is a living being with the capacity to engage in acts of intellect, emotion, and will.
This, however, is a bit too broad for use in the abortion discussion. It would include at least some animals, and possibly aliens, if such there be, and it would certainly include God.
Since, however, neither animals, aliens nor God are subject to our laws concerning rights, like the right to life, perhaps we should specify that our definition refers to human beings.
Thus:
Definition (1a): A person is a living human being with the capacity to engage in acts of intellect, emotion, and will.
So, are all human beings persons under Def. (1a)? Clearly not. Human beings start out as a conceptus (in biology called a zygote), they develop into an embryo and thence into a fetus which has the form of a miniature human. If matters are allowed to proceed, the fetus becomes a newborn, a toddler, a child, adolescent, adult and eventually a corpse.
On Def. (1a) neither the conceptus (the fertilized ovum) nor the embryo and possibly not the fetus, at least in its early stages, would meet the criteria of being a person.
Yet even most pro-choice advocates would agree, I think, that Def. (1a) is inadequate. We'll consider some reasons why in tomorrow's post.