Fantastic Voyage

When does life begin?

Good question. Is it when the child is still a fetus inside the womb? Or is it when the fetus becomes a baby and takes it’s first breath outside the womb?
　
As a Christian, I believe that life begins at the magical, mysterious moment of conception. To understand why I believe that, come with me on a fantastic voyage.
　
Imagine we’re miniaturized like those actors were in that old classic science fiction movie,“ Fantastic Voyage ”.

Please don’t be squeamish, but imagine we’re floating in a tiny vessel that is taking us through the bloodstream in a woman’s body. Since women have been chosen and blessed by God to be the receptacles-almost the tabernacles, if you will-of life, then, maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll see how life begins.
　
Imagine we are watching an egg (ovum) traveling down the hollow organ
(fallopian tube) that connects the ovaries( female egg hatchery) with the
uterus (the nursery, so to speak). The egg seems to be looking for that
certain ‘someone’ among the countless sperm swimming by.

Look! Oh my, it appears to have found ‘ the one’ among millions swimming in the womb and doesn’t it look like they’ve ‘ kissed and made love’? (Scientists call it “ fusion”) Oh boy, a single cell has now emerged and it’s dividing, again and again Wow. It’s getting bigger.( known as a blastocyst)
　
Here we are, a few short days later and what began as a microscopic cell
has become what is called an embryo. Ah, an embryo. Isn’t that what’s being slaughtered on the altar of research? Look at that. Just like a baby, it has found the most comfortable and secure spot on the uterus wall and attaches itself as if to nestle in a crib. Isn’t that wonderful.
　
Listen. Hear that? We’ve only been here about a month and already we can hear the tiny heart beat. In a few more weeks, I understand we’ll see the eyes, legs and hands begin to develop. If we stay for eight weeks, we’ll see facial features, muscles, nervous system and sex organs-sex organs! Imagine that! Of course, if we stayed even longer, we could see this baby-in-the making grow from 1/5 of an inch to about 10 inches, from an ounce to many pounds. What a show that would be.
　
Absolutely amazing. That almost invisible single cell, the “offspring” you
might say, of “mother ovum” and “father sperm”, will grow and in only
nine months or so, it will be their newborn child.

We really didn’t need to imagine all of that, since it’s all been recorded.

But, it was fun to imagine that we were there.
　
So, when did life begin? Was it when an arm, a leg or a face was formed
during its growth? That makes no sense. Life doesn’t begin in the middle of growth and development. Or was it later, when the doctor slapped the bare bottom of the baby as it came into the world? Please. Despite what you may have heard, the doctor is not God. He only gave it breath, not life.
　
No. Remember the sperm meeting and mating the ovum? That’s when life begins. That’s not religious dogma that we have to believe in blind faith. It is scientific fact. Fertilization of the female egg. Biology 101.
　
Each and everyone of us began life as that single cell that emerged when our father’s sperm met our mother’s egg. We grew from a single cell to a full grown, crying baby.,
　
So that single, first cell must have been alive, since dead things don’t grow.

That’s when life begins.