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Sigh. Here's the thing, Ben:
There is only ONE life on Earth.
One.
It began 3.5B years ago. Ever since, it has spread + individuated, coalesced + separated. A bird feeds a mayfly to her chick; there's no less "life." A beehive may be viewed as thousands of lives, or just one.
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There is only ONE life on Earth.
One.
It began 3.5B years ago. Ever since, it has spread + individuated, coalesced + separated. A bird feeds a mayfly to her chick; there's no less "life." A beehive may be viewed as thousands of lives, or just one.
1/
Life is born, reproduces, kills, eats, dies, in a glorious dance. Nothing is added, nothing taken away. It's all one Life.
"Life" doesn't begin at conception. A particular instance of INDIVIDUATION begins at conception. And yes, it's valuable -- for what it actually is...
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"Life" doesn't begin at conception. A particular instance of INDIVIDUATION begins at conception. And yes, it's valuable -- for what it actually is...
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... which is a single cell that becomes a blob of cells that over a really long time, with luck, could become a human.
So it's "life," yes, and it's precious, yes, but it's not a "person." Its MOTHER is a person.
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So it's "life," yes, and it's precious, yes, but it's not a "person." Its MOTHER is a person.
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And if we're assigning value, the mother is more valuable than a blob of cells that is far less of an "individual" than many multicellular sea creatures yet which you demand she host regardless of the impact on her.
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So that blob is Life, and its mother is Life, and they're one Life, except she has individual personality and dreams and can feel pain and be afraid of dying, while it can do none of those things. So her choice matters more.
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And whether she chooses to nurture the fragment of the one Life that materialized inside her, or to abort it, there's no less "life" than there was before.
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