[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
For that matter, prove when consciousness begins (please use science). “Consciousness requires a brain,” does a fetus not have a brain? [/quote]
More difficult than you might imagine, as one’s first step is in determining where a “fetus” begins.
The union of sperm and egg is called a zygote. It is a single living human cell, floating in the murk of the fallopian tube, with only a thirty percent chance of ever implanting in the uterine wall.
That’s right. Life begins at conception, and seventy percent of those babies DIE without their mothers ever being aware.
Between conception and implantation, the cell divides and redivides, forming what is variously called a blastula, a blastocyte or a blastosphere. It will not be referred to as an embryo until it implants itself in the wall of the uterus.
Still, it is not out of the woods, so to speak. Even if an embryo implants on the uterine wall it still nearly a fifty percent chance of spontaneously aborting, meaning that up to fifty babies out of a hundred will end up being mistaken for a late–but unusually heavy–menstrual flow.
If an embryo has managed to hang on for a month, its odds of survival now go up to 75%. It is still not considered a fetus, and will not be for another four or five weeks, until the various differentiated cells in its body become functioning systems.
So at around week eight or nine following conception (not all embryos develop at the same rate), we now have a fetus. Is it alive? Of course. Has been from day one. Is it human? Well, duh. Of course it is. It’s not a fish, and it’s not a bird. Every cell in its body will be undeniably human. Is it conscious? Actually, no. Consciousness requires not just a brain (cockroaches have brains) but a cerebrum, which our 11-week old fetus is nowhere near having.
Specifically, it needs a physical substrate of highly differentiated and interconnected nerve cells, called the thalamo-cortical complex, which begins to be in place between the 24th and 28th week after conception. Roughly two months later, synchrony of the electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythm across both cortical hemispheres signals the onset of global neuronal integration. Thus, many of the circuit elements necessary for consciousness are in place by the third trimester. Is the fetus now conscious? Actually, no. It is asleep, in deep REM, and won’t wake up until it’s born.
Hope that answered your question. 
[/quote]
I actually asked this question because you successful challenged my thought process on the matter months possibly a year or two ago. I should also thank you for pushing me to think about it in a way I hadn’t before, so thank you.
The above said, I don’t believe because natural deaths occur before and after consciousness we should use that indisputable fact as a reason to kill.
