What is "life"? In line with abortion/choice topics

[uppityperson]

Poll question: What is "life"? In line with abortion/choice topics

The abortion issue is often framed around "when life begins". I have seen people argue all over the board about when they think "life begins" and what "life" is. Sometimes it seems people are talking about different things and sometimes they seem to be arguing the same thing differently. Some consider "life" to include a soul, some consider "life" to mean something is alive, able to grow and develop, some consider "life" to be something else. So, for you, when does "life begin"? What is your definition of "life" when talking about choice/abortion issues?

Please read choices carefully as some are rather close, but I am trying to get as many variations as I can. My apologies if I have not covered every option, just trying to get a handle on defining this word "life" that springs up so often in these discussions and, hopefully, understand others better.

Thank you.

ps. participation is voluntary, NOT mandatory.

[WindRavenX]

1. Irrelevant to the issue, imo.

NT

[uppityperson]

3. agree with that, just wondering since it comes up so much.

I feel that this argument is not relevant except for the energy people spend arguing it. If this deteriorates quickly, I will ask for it to be locked.

[WindRavenX]

5. Life to me is a biological term, since I am an atheist.

So it's doubly irrelevant to me :D

Sorry if I was snarky. Lots of anti-choice trolls around GD today :(

[uppityperson]

8. Soul is irrelevant to me, living cells are all over.

No apologies, no snark taken, been dealing with the anti-choice trolls for days. I always try to ask what their definition of this term is since so often the discussion deteriorates around this. Many other deteriorations also, but this is one.

[Warpy]

6. it's the only nonreligious framing there is

and the faithful desperately want to get around that pesky church/state thing in the first amendment.

It's irrelevant because it puts a living, breathing, thinking human being in the position of being a slave to a potential human being.

Remember, no matter how they frame it, the bottom line is that antiabortion laws kill women.

[blondeatlast]

7. More than women now, since they are used to frame the stem-cell

debate as well.

[uppityperson]

2. My response is other. Combination instead.

I think every cell is alive, that an egg, a sperm a skin cell all have life. I do not know about souls, when they might enter a human since I don't really know about souls, if people have them, if cats have them, if trees have them, what they are, etc. I am also fiercely pro-choice, having worked in the field for many years, yet I also feel that arguing "when is life" can take away from the whole choice issue which, to me, is the ability to get a safe legal abortion in a timely manner. I have ambiguous feelings about later term abortions, recognizing the infrequency and reasons for them, and will continue to fight to keep them safe and legal, while having ambigous feelings.

[BlueJazz]

4. As Far as Life "Regarding Abortion",... It's whatever.....

...the Mother say's it is.....Period

[TheWraith]

9. Technically, multiples of the above are true.

Every cell in your body is "alive." Likewise, a gestating human offspring is unquestionably alive, by any scientific definition. It's absolutely ridiculous to argue otherwise. The question that nobody seems to want a rational answer to, or even to admit that it really is the question, is when that life develops the capacity to think and feel. The pro-choicers basically argue that the only difference between it being a living child and medical waste is whether it emerges fully from the mother, while their opposite numbers conflate a smudge of dividing cells with a full-fledged person in defiance of certain facts of nature.

[uppityperson]

10. Please make that "some" since not all pro-choicers believe or argue that.

Like me. That is false. Some may, some don't.

Other than that quibble, I agree, chose other/multiple.