Where else

For those that deny a truth, there always has to be an escape clause. Not that they would actually let it affect their decisions, but it comes in handy during a debate.

Take for instance, life is sacred. Those that deny this want to claim life doesn't really begin at conception. Perhaps implantation, then perhaps at viability, then eventually it ends up being whenever they "decide" they want the life. But either life has a beginning or it doesn't matter one hill of beans. Murder would just be a decision by one man that the other's life didn't matter anymore. We would no longer try to stop suicides, just leave an address where we can send the clean-up bill.

But we still "know" that isn't true. Right? Lets hope we haven't regressed that far yet.

How can we know for certain that life begins at conception? Where else? You scientifically prove another time and then we can discuss it. Until then, the debate is settled. And don't take it from me, take it from Professor Jerome Lejeune the father of modern genetics.

- « Life has a very long history, but each one of us has a very precise beginning, and that is the moment of conception. »

- « Life begins at the instant that all the required and sufficient information is combined in order to define the new being. It therefore begins exactly at the instant that all the information brought by the spermatozoon is combined with the information contained in the ovum. As soon as the spermatozoon penetrates, the new entity begins its existence. Not as a theoretical human, but already an entity who we shall later call Peter, Paul or Mary. »

- « If man does not begin at impregnation, then man never begins, otherwise, where would the new information come from ? The test-tube baby is a demonstration of this for any disbelievers. »
...

- « But what about the brain, they say, it is only complete at five or six months. But no, in fact it is only entirely in place at birth : its countless connections are only fully established at six or seven years, and its chemical and electrical mechanisms is only fully run-in at fourteen or fifteen ! »[emphasis added]

And the section quoted by the Curt Jester that really piqued my interest regarding patients with "Down's Syndrom" or Trisomy 21 as he discovered.

- « With their slightly slanting eyes, their little nose in a round face and their unfinished features, trisomic children are more child-like than other children. All children have short hands and short fingers ; theirs are shorter. Their entire anatomy is more rounded, without any asperities or stiffness. Their ligaments, their muscles, are so supple that it adds a tender languor to their way of being. And this sweetness extends to their character : they are communicative and affectionate, they have a special charm which is easier to cherish than to describe. This is not to say that Trisomy 21 is a desirable condition. It is an implacable disease which deprives the child of that most precious gift handed down to us through genetic heredity : the full power of rational thought. This combination of a tragic chromosomic error and a naturally endearing nature, immediately shows what medicine is all about : hatred of disease and love of the diseased. »[emphasis added]