When does life begin?

I believe life starts at conception. Sometimes it self destructs after that. We do not know why. So some people have miscarriages or spontaneous abortions. I think the body has a way of knowing to do so with some fetuses. I am not sure that what we know about ending life is as well tuned.

I hope the conversation stays civil too. The question you're asking is a big one. At conception, all human life is one cell that begins to rapidly divide. You could argue that the cell has no capacity for independent thought and is thus not alive. However, we acknowledge that bacteria are examples of life, so that sort of falls apart. You have to define what life really is, in terms of human existence. Is it the ability to think? The ability to feel? What is it about us that makes us alive in the purest sense of the word? For a lot of people, it's when an unborn child looks like a child and not a blob of cells. There's been a trend in American society against second and third trimester abortions because science has shown us that the unborn can survive outside the womb. While some activists scream that abortion should be allowed throughout pregnancy, science is showing us that the closer to end of term, the more like murder it becomes. I agree that we should err on the side of life rather than killing. However, there are considerations that have to be looked at. The mother's life is one criteria that takes this out of a political discussion and puts it into a personal one. Rape and Incest are oft cited reasons for that same transition. Life for all its seeming certainty, is a fuzzy notion. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when it begins and when it ends. Until we come up with a universal definition of those points, we won't be able to have a rational discussion about much of anything having to do with abortion.