When Does Life Begin?

In my first class of “Metabolism and Bio-energetics”, my lecturer asked an interesting question, ‘When does life begin?’. Almost everyone (my colleagues) gave their candid answer – but no one really seem to give the ‘perfect’ answer my lecturer sought after. However, he gave a precise answer as to when life begins and his theory which I later agreed with based on biological science, laws and human precision was quite interesting and I decided to share. Here it is;

 It is often believed that life only begins when a child is born; this is why most individuals take a stand that abortion is not a crime against nature. However to the biologist, abortion is regarded as

murder because zygote is destroyed. When the egg in the female reproductive organ is fertilized by sperm from a male reproductive organ, zygote is formed. Both the egg and sperm are units of life. Once there is fertilization and a zygote is formed, life is said to have begun. Though at this stage the early signs of pregnancy may not be very visible, neither will there be an enlarging of the stomach region of the female, Life has actually begun because the zygote possesses cells which are the basic structural unit of life.

At the end of my lecturers’ explanation, the whole class went wow and we were quite astonished because his just-concluded explanation drifted our view from seeing life beginning from the birth of a child to seeing life beginning from a simple fertilized sperm cell.

 Days after the class, the scene from the whole event repeated itself in my imagination and I learnt something strong and lasting; Abortion is not only a wrong doing as a result of killing or putting of an unborn child (murder as seen by biologists) but it’s also a great loss to the world and to nature; peradventure that zygote might have undergone development process and eventually become the next Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, Steven Jobs, Michael Faraday, Billy Graham etc.

Friends, we are responsible for our actions – we owe the world more gifts of kids who will eventually grow up to have enormous impact on the world. Let’s give the unborn ones a chance to make an impact in our world and planet! Life begins not just at the fertilization of egg cells but deeply in our decision to let the fertilized egg cells live long enough to become homo-sapiens (humans).

Life begins with you and I!

Have a lovely week.