14 DAY TRIAL // Answering questions regarding the point when life starts can be a tricky business, as evidenced by an international poll, aimed at getting people's opinions on the matter. Three out of twelve options came ahead, with the others lagging significantly behind. Large percentages of the population believe that human life starts at fertilization, others believe that the first fetal heartbeat is "ground zero," while others say that the moment of implantation is the most important one.
A stake in this poll was to find out new definitions for abortions, by consulting the general public on the matter. While religious groups believe that it's a sin to destroy a human life even in its earliest stage, others ponder on the moment a newly-developed human entity can be called a human. Right now, abortion limits vary between a few weeks and a couple of months, but opinions are split, as evidenced by huge lobby activities from both anti-abortion and pro-choice groups.
The new international poll revealed that 22.7 percent of respondents believe fertilization to be the point when a human life begins, though the people who ticked this option on the questionnaire have various spreads throughout the globe. In the U.K. 13.7 percent opted for this answer, as opposed to 47 percent in Australia and 27 percent in America. Religion was also found to play a crucial role in these numbers.
Fetal heartbeat was voted by 23.5 percent of survey participants as the first stage of a human life – the moment when an entity becomes a human, with full rights and privileges. Thus, 43 percent of U.K. respondents voted for this option in the poll, while only 7 percent of Australians and 24 percent of Americans did so. Legally, this should be when life technically begins, when the babies show an important vital sign, which "qualifies" them as human.
Apparently, the poll was inconclusive, seeing how consistent results couldn't be extracted from it, due to the huge cultural and religious diversities the respondents were a part of. Authorities' attempts of extracting novel juridic definitions for murder also failed. The current legal definitions will remain in place, at least for the time being.