• Question: When do you think life begins?

    Asked by jorgaliee to Claire, Greg, Jane, Vicki on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Jane Cleal

      Jane Cleal answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      Technically the egg and the sperm are alive. For example you can watch sperm riggling under a microscope and eventually they die.
      I think the question is when does something become concious, so when does it know it is alive? Generally people think that this is when the baby is close to being born.

    • Photo: Claire O'Donnell

      Claire O'Donnell answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      Do you mean alive like a person or living – like a cell?
      If it’s the person which is the harder question – I don’t know, certainly babies look and behave very like babies at about 24 weeks after conception. That’s the earliest that people can have a good go at saving them if they’re born prematurely.There are studies about when a foetus ( the technical name for a baby in the womb) react to being touched and now it’s possible to do operations on babies in the womb I think people know when they feel pain and can help them but they wouldn’t survice outside the womb. I suppose the embryo is alive in the same way as cells are. There’s that very uncertain area when they are more than a few cells but not clearly a baby either.
      Not much of an answer is it – more my rambling thoughts.
      I suppose the answer is I don’t know – what do you think?

    • Photo: Vicki Onions

      Vicki Onions answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      ohhhh, tricky question but a good one
      Everyone has different opinions on this, but i guess my opinion would be the time when the baby’s organs are developed enough so it would be able to survive outside the womb – but then i guess that means that the time life starts is getting earlier and earlier as medicine means babies can survive more and more prematurely.
      Gosh, its a tough one, and i’m not sure i even know what my thoughts on it are now!! Thats the great thing about this event jorgia – it makes us think too!! And i’ve started to realise i know very little 😉

    • Photo: Greg FitzHarris

      Greg FitzHarris answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      ooooo… big Q!

      Honestly, i dont know. My approach to this has always been very ‘conservative’ — i dont know when life begins (fertilisation? implantation? etc etc) — and so i have avoided doing any research on human embryos throughout my career.

      Just to be clear — its not that im sayin i believe that like begins at fertilisation… b ut i hatre the idea of having done experiments on early human embryos, and then later down the line deciding that i think life does begin then, and regretting having worked on those early embryos.

      I realise this is a slightly awkward anser — but i hope it makes sense

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