One of the problems with defining human life is where you draw the line
Whew! Ya think? If you took ten people in a room and asked them separately what they thought constituted life, you'd probably get ten different answers of varying degree.
The problem is like trying to define the precise wavelength where yellow becomes blue
I like the analogy.
The problem I had with this was that this is equivocating on the definition of life and reproduction for a population of organisms to applying it to only one individual. If you were going to do this properly you would need to wait until puberty and the actual ability to reproduce, and this means somewhere between 12 and 19 years old.
Agreed. Moreover, that might inadvertently assume that an infertile man or woman would not be classified as being human. Obviously that would be silly, but in legalese, every single angle in verbiage has to be present.
To my mind this is just as silly as saying life begins at conception because it misses reality (human life before puberty).
Okay, so if I'm understanding you, you are saying that there really is no clear line of demarcation on the level of individuals. That might mean that sonograms and MRI's would have to allow a medical doctor to make that determination. But is that going to work in legal-speak?
For instance, we all know well that some 19 year olds are more mature than some 21 year olds. Yet, the 21 year old is allowed to drink themselves in to a stupor if they were so inclined, where the 19 year old can't legally even take a sip. For the sake of clarity with a clear line of demarcation, the law states that you must be 21 to have an alcoholic beverage.
It doesn't take in to consideration the maturity level on an individualistic level because that would be painstakingly laborious to determine case-by-case. Are we going to run in to this same kind of problem when attempting to define life?
“There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the 'wisdom' of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to objective reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious" -C.S. Lewis