Honest Question: Are Fingernail and Hair Living?
The NYT today carries an editorial that confuses me on several scriptural points, but mostly confounds my knowledge of biology:
Some, deprived of the Onan text, say that abortion is forbidden by the scriptural commandment "Thou shalt not kill." But that commandment does not cover all human life. My hair and fingernails, while growing, are alive with my own human life. Semen and ova have human life even before their juncture. They continue to have it after mingling � for example, the fertilized ovum that does not lodge itself in the wall of the womb. Yet no attempt is made to retrieve such "dead" detritus and give it decent burial.
Ignore the obvious problems with the statement: a fertilized ovum that doesn't lodge itself in the wall of the uterus hasn't been killed in any but the most strained of senses. The article's filled with rather curious assertions. But my understanding was that hair and fingernails were actually not alive: that they were dead tissue. Am I wrong here? (Biology is not my strong suit.)
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