We don’t know when life begins? False!

[IWasOnceAFetus]

Also, if you heard something moving in the bushes while hunting and you didn't know if it was a person or an animal, the reasonable thing to do is to err on the side of caution and not shoot until you're sure. If you don't know when an individual human life begins, the reasonable thing to do is to err on the side of caution and not "shoot."

[franklatona]

People will tell any lie they have to to justify what they do.

[alwayslearningtech]

When a girl is born, she has all the eggs inside her that she'll ever have and they all have their own unique DNA. So each of the hundreds of thousands of eggs inside her are alive.

[fernando_u]

from what video is this from? I couldn't find this lecture.

[evanprince]

Then why don't we weep for periods? This definition of life completely ignores the issue

[williammaddock]

Life began at the Creation and has never died.

[Allegedlies-YTP]

I have a question. Most people don't have a problem with hunting whether it be for food or for sport, most people eat animals, and vegans and vegetarians don't have a problem killing and eating plants. As humans we will kill mice if we decide we don't want them in our homes, and nobody would think twice about killing a bug just because they are annoying. All of this to say that life doesn't always equal moral worth. So my question is, what does? What gives moral worth?

It can't be nature since nature doesn't value human life. Nature kills us all the time with natural disasters, diseases, and wild animals. So to say that our moral worth comes from nature doesn't work.
It also can't come from God for two reasons. One, because to say this you would first have to demonstrate the existence of a God, which is shaky. But even granted that there is a God, you still run into the problem as with nature. Under Christianity, there can really only be thought to be two forces in the world, our will and God's will. Since God is all knowing, all powerful, and outside of space and time, for him to not act is the same as for him to act. This means that everything that isn't cause by us humans is either directly caused by God, or is at the very least approved by God. There are no acts of nature or things that happen because "that's just the way it is". God made things the way they are, and he could make them different in any way he pleases at any time he pleases. And because of this I think we are justified in attributing acts of nature to God, which leaves us with the same problem as thinking that our moral worth comes from nature. God's creation is constantly trying to kill us. Even small things like drinking the wrong water or eating the wrong food can kill you, or eating the right food but in the wrong way can kill you since for some reason our breathing holes are also the holes that we have to constantly put stuff in. Even having babies can be extremely lethal (which is a little ironic if you think about it). So if God gives us our moral worth, why isn't it respected in his creation?

If our moral worth doesn't come from God or nature, then it must come from us. We decided that we have moral worth.

On another note, since we consider other forms of life to have less moral worth than us, the question for abortions shouldn't be "is this alive?" but rather "is this a human?". And that begs the question, at what point is it a human? I don't think you would consider an unfertilized egg to be a human worthy of all the same moral consideration as other humans, so why a fertilized egg? What is the difference between a fertilized and unfertilized egg? A fertilized egg doesn't have a single quality that would make it any different from a plant. It doesn't have consciousness, it doesn't have desires, and it has to be attached to and feed off of a host which makes it more similar to a parasite than a human.


So to summarize, life by itself isn't enough to give moral worth. Where does our moral worth come from? And how are we justified in giving fetuses this moral worth but not other animals or plants?

[mickqQ]

Abortion is like war
Never good, but sometimes necessary.

[dawshonaragma]

The embryo is not breathing, and neither is it legally considered a person ( no birth certificate, etc.)

[kevinfancher]

Try reading something that does not support ideas you already believe. You're a young man, Sean, and your brain is going to atrophy way too early if you don't start using it. Can you say "William Lane Craig"?