A human is born, lives a life, ingests the wrong chemical and becomes brain-dead. Now you have a human that is alive, but the person who was that human is permanently gone. To avoid murder, are we obliged to keep the body alive as long as possible by all available means? I don’t expect you would think so. I expect you’d agree terminating the life of the human body is the preferable and not a great ethical quandary.<p>I would agree that at conception we have a human life. But, not that we have a human person. There are no thoughts, emotions, memories, hopes, dreams. There is a very strong <i>potential</i> for a person. But, at conception what makes a person is not there yet.<p>At some point in time between the human existing a single living cell and the human voting in elections and joining the military, a person develops. But, it’s not a definite transition point in time. It’s a gradient.<p>Unfortunately, for practical reasons, the law must pick a definite point in time. The consensus seems to be “around the time that the fetus can be kept alive and continue developing independent from the mother using current technology.” A practical choice, for sure.<p>One might argue that the official transition point should be a bit earlier. But, that’s not the core of the disagreement.<p>The core seems to be that some living people do not appear to take into consideration the difference between being alive vs. being a person.