Stem Cells - When Does Life Begin

Had some technical difficulties, but am finally able to post. There are several things I take issue with your opinion on Mar, but I'm only going to tackle the big one: When Life Begins.

I disagree with you. But then again, I disagree with pretty much everyone on the issue. I don't believe that life begins at birth. No magic switch is thrown to make the baby "living". I don't believe that life begins at conception - again, no magic switch thrown. I see it differently.

This is going to require a major perspective shift to understand.

Ready?

Life began 3.9 billion years ago, and hasn't stopped. Yes, that's right, it started billions of years ago, as the Earth cooled and developed an atmosphere. Molecules bumped into one another, liked what they saw, and decided to make more. Basic organic chemistry (the primordial soup) led to RNA, RNA led to DNA, DNA found it's way into cell casings, cells ate other cells then assimilated the prey DNA, these compound cells glued themselves to one another to create a collective, the collectives multiplied, diversified, and adapted. 3.9 billion years of evolution later, we're here debating about stem cells.

Pretty mindblowing, right? But wait, there's more.

All of the individual lifeforms are little endpoints on the tree of all life. We know from mapping DNA that all life on this planet at least, had a common ancestor. We and the rest of the lifeforms are part of a continuum of life. In some circles, people believe that the Earth itself is a single organism.

Now it's time for the Ginsu knife.

If life is a continuum, how is it immoral to piece apart an embryo? So the embryo is no longer an embryo, but the life is not gone. It still exists in the cells. Since that life is to be applied to extend other life - how is that destroying life?

The only way to destroy life is to incinerate the planet. But there'd still be microbes on the Moon left over and frozen since the Apollo missions. That's a really difficult task.

What most people get hung up on is that they like to put people up on a pedestal. We really aren't that special. I'm sure that someday, something will evolve beyond us and replace us.