Abortion. Throughout America and worldwide, this one word creates a passionate response in any confronted by it. The questions of when life begins and who has the choice to end it are not easy questions to answer in an age when technology brings us ever closer to the edge of creation ourselves. According to the Webster's dictionary definition, abortion is explained as the expulsion of a non-viable fetus during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Technology has made it possible for babies born at 21 weeks to live outside the womb with intensive medical care. And then there's the question of faith. One's religious beliefs figure prominently into their position on abortion. The question of reproductive rights needs to be answered by science (to show when life begins), by philosophy (to indicate moral consciousness), and by religion (what does Islamic law state regarding reproduction?).
Firstly, while medical technology brings us ever closer to the brink of re-creating life through genetics and human cloning, we must form an agreeable scientific consensus and define exactly when life begins. As the study of life and how it begins formulates within the scientific realm, one must seek the answer to when life begins within the scientific universe. In April 1981, an American Senate Judiciary Subcommittee held hearings on the question û When does life begin? A large gathering of internationally known geneticists and biologists who stated the following:
"Human life begins at conception" û Dr. Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, Harvard Medical School.
"By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception." û Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman, Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic.
"Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind." û Dr. Landrum Shettles, the Father of In Vitro Fertilization. http://www.prolifeinfo.org/upl39.html
Secondly, while the scientific conception of lif...