A woman's egg and male sperm are both made of living cells.
Their fusion results in the formation of a zygote which is acknowledged as
pre-sentient
life. Within Christian perspectives, the belief is held that human "life" commences
at conception, which is when the zygote forms. This raises the philosophical
question: what came first, the chicken or the egg when considering both
egg and sperm were living cells before conception.
Sentience is defined as the ability to perceive and undergo sensations like
consciousness and emotions. Sentience requires advanced cognitive capacities
beyond automatic or reflexive responses. The reflexive twitching of a deceased
frog's leg when prodded with a pin is an excellent example of an automatic
response. A pre-sentient, pre-viable fetus sucking on its thumb is another.
Medical and Biological Science typically regarded fetus viability
at 24 weeks and older. The consensus is that sentience cannot occur if there
is underdeveloped
neural pathways and/or insufficient brain maturation. Moreover, premature
births before this threshold face considerable challenges, often necessitating
extensive medical interventions. Those that do survive
live with lifelong impairments and dependencies, and few, if any, have achieved
self-sufficiency.
True sentience or viability, is contingent on consciousness. Merely sustaining
physiological functions, such as a heartbeat, doesn't equate to sentience.
Instances where life support maintains bodily functions in the absence of
brain activity underscore the point that a heartbeat alone doesn't define
life. Hospitals are generally not required by law to keep patients declared
brain dead alive. Even the Catholic Church endorses choices to discontinue
or refrain from initiating life support treatment when such treatment would
prove futile or excessively burdensome.
Opponents of abortion who assert that labeling a fetus as an "unborn
baby" before attaining sentience and viability often ground their viewpoint
in selectively chosen Bible verses, taken out of context from their original
historical and cultural settings. They argue that the act of terminating pregnancies,
whether done electively before viability or as a medical necessity after 24
weeks due to severe complications, equates to committing murder. However,
it is noteworthy that the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, remains
silent on the topic of abortion. Additionally, historical evidence indicates
the prevalent use of Abortifacients in the Levant, Anatolian and Mesopotamian
city-states before, during, and after the periods when the biblical texts
were written.
Therefore, neither aborting a non-sentient fetus nor withdrawing
life support for a brain-dead individual sustained by life-support machines
in a hospital
are morally or legally equivalent to committing murder. Doctor advised medically
necessity abortions after 24 weeks are best left with the families forced
to make such an agonizing decision.