Human Life Starts at Conception

(Note: The below is an adapted version of my essay found here: https://www.themusenetwork.org/post/tom-wolf-and-his-morally-wrong-veto-of-house-bill-321)

What is human life? From a purely secular point of view, human life is defined by, at its base level, its genetic code. Biologists have shown that once the sperm fertilizes the ovum, a new life, as in a new genetic code, is formed--this is called conception.

At conception, the male reproductive cell (sperm) fertilizes the female reproductive cell (ovum)--which is now called a zygote.

The zygote: "forms the first stage in the development of a unique entity. It contains all the vital factors essential for the development as they occur as an encoded set of information in the makeup of chromosomes." (Credit: https://byjus.com/biology/zygote/)

Or, a simpler way to put it, the zygote according to Holtzer's work, genetically directs its own growth. (Credit: https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/wdhbb.html)

This individual organism (zygote) is classified as, scientifically speaking, a human life. Any objections to this basic fact can be refuted by comparing the new life to another stage of human development or impediment. For example:

If one were to say that this new life cannot feel pain and so it is not a human--then those with congenital analgesia (a condition in which the affected cannot feel physical pain) are less than human.
If one were to say that this new life is not conscious or sentient and so it is not a human--then those in a coma are less than human.
If one were to say that this new life does not have the form of a born human and so it is not a human--then those without, for example, legs are less than human.

The point being, the only way to define a human, in the secular sense, is by genetic coding; or else, one will exclude others from the human species because they do not "meet all the marks" of a human.

Science is on the side of the pro-lifer. Meaning, if one were to say that the zygote is not a human life or is worth less than an adult, then it would have to be through philosophical or religious reasoning, not scientific reasoning. I am willing to defend this view (hence the debate) and also debate any philosophical defeaters to this argument.