[Nyororin]

My thought on the whole alive or not debate...

Alive is not necessarily a life. There is a difference between the two terms, and I am taking the liberty of interpreting the people saying that a fetus is "not alive" as saying that it is not "a life".

A life is something that is capable of living independently (on a physical level - as in with a functional internal system allowing it to survive.)

My leg is alive. My hand is alive. If I scrape myself on something, I lose an incredible number of living cells. There is no doubt that those things are living. But they are not "life". They are entirely dependent upon my body functioning properly to survive. No amount of support could keep them living - or bring them to a point where they could live without me - should they be removed from my body. As alive as they may be, I could never take my leg and say that it is a life all its own.

I believe that most people will agree with me on this.

Now - move on to the components involved in reproduction.

The thousands of "egg" cells women carry in their bodies, and the countless sperm cells continually produced by men are all living cells. But they are not individual lives. They are nothing more than living cells at that point. If they were each a life - every month a woman would be letting a person die... Every time a man ejaculated, he would be letting millions of people die even if he were to get someone pregnant.

Putting these two living (but not independent life) cells together makes a new type of cell. The new cell isn`t yet something that could be considered a life, as there is no possible way for it to remain in a living state without the body keeping it that way... Just like the egg and sperm cells it was formed by. It has the potential to become a life, but that is about all that makes it different from a toe. Cut off from the body, neither has any chance whatsoever of surviving.

As to when be developing fetus ceases to be simply alive and becomes a life... That is a huge debate. But scientifically, until there is a functioning system in place to sustain the state of living... Alive it is, but "life" it is not.
This is generally interpreted as somewhere around 24 weeks, as that is the edge of viability.

It is often cited that abortion is legal up until 24 weeks... But I don`t believe that most (any?) country allows elective abortions after 12 or so weeks. Abortion after that point is done for medical reasons, usually a risk to the mother`s life. After 24 weeks, the same sort of thing can happen - ie. end the pregnancy to save the life of the mother - but the fetus is legally recognized as an individual, and efforts must be made to save that life along with that of the mother.

The real issue is that the line between being alive and being a life is very fuzzy and open for interpretation. Legally, it tends to be 24 weeks, which is why the "natural" death of a baby in the womb before 24 weeks is a miscarriage, and after is a still birth.