Meditations on Potential Life
1.) If a fertilized egg is a potential human life, it is no different from a sperm cell. A whole would be equal to a part.
2.) All animals: an elephant, a tuna, a Michael Jordan, etc. can be described as “blobs of tissue”.
3.) A potential life is, precisely inasmuch as it is potential, not an actual life. It must be something not alive. It therefore would not grow into the kind of life it is potential to.
4.) Scientists once held that an embryo was not an actual human being- in the 13th century.
5.) The substance of a thing is not discerned by sensation, except per accidens.
6.) The soul is the principle of life. Nothing can be killed unless it has one.
7.) Does anyone who speaks of a potential life have any ability to account for what either “potential” or “life” means?
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