Science does tell you what constitutes a human life. It is anyone who is a member of the species homo sapien, a subspecies of the same, or an offshoot branch of homo sapien. You want a case for genetics? How about this?
To me, aside from spiritual worth, a retarded person is actually worth far less than a fetus. A retarded person is, objectively speaking, generally completely useless to society and a net drain. Yet if we talked about terminating someone who is so mentally retarded that their very sentience is in question, I bet you would be up in arms.
The very problem with your statement, Amy is when you say “to me.” “To me” is not an effective basis to build any standard on what constitutes a fundamental, guiding legal principle. “To another” a person who is born very defective may not be a person either, as they cannot effectively live like a normal human being.
And who are you to say that they are wrong? “To me” is an appeal to your own opinion, not to something that would transcend it.
My definition of human life was arrived at because I realized that the only way to effectively arrive at a philosophical point where no one can weasel their way into justifying the taking of innocent life is to say “if it belongs to the species homo sapien, it is human and thus has all of the potential rights accorded to a human being.” You cannot get more sweeping than that when it comes to defending life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness because that covers everyone from the healthy fetus, to the star athlete, to the genius, to the retard, to the elderly person who lives but by the power of modern medicine. It is a universal, inviolable principle on what human life is.
You may scoff at the importance of that, but some of the European nations that are farther along than the US on the road to legalized euthanasia are already having problems with euthanasia that is, shall we say, a bit too coercive to be called “voluntary.” Society needs a secular principle to bridge the gap between secular citizens and religious citizens, that allows, nay, mandates!, that human life be accorded a special place in our legal system. We need that in place so that regardless of how religious society is or isn’t, there is a fundamental principle that makes people furiously, even violently, outraged when human life is cheapened or taken based on dubious principles.
