How can a single cell bacteria on Mars be considered life, meanwhile on Earth a human fetus is considered a clump of cells.

Because critical thinking is a skill that is not taught to everyone equally, and some people are happy to exploit the less advantaged. The OP has shown how a fallacy of equivocation can make words seem to support a certain worldview, and people without the tools or intellectual diligence to decipher the logic behind it can be manipulated by it.

Life on Mars and life in the womb both use the word 'life', but in different, unequivocal contexts. The first uses life in the biological sense, and the second uses it in a philosophical context. For example, both fulfil the biological definition of life because biologists have mostly agreed that the concept of life has seven specific properties, which the cells of both organisms have. But only one of these organisms potentially fulfil the philosophical definition of life because no one agrees what its specific properties are.

It is the fact that no one agrees what constitutes this philosophical definition of life that no consensus can be reached. Some people think philosophical life requires consciousness. Others think it requires a reasonable expectation of consciousness. Other people think it only requires that the organism will inevitably become conscious.

We can reach a pretty good level of confidence as to when a fetus begins to develop consciousness because that is just a question of verifiable evidence. But it's impossible to dictate what defines consciousness, or subsequently what defines the beginning of life.

That is because words only have meaning if we agree they have meaning. The definition of any concept is only the definition because two people agree that it is. This is incomprehensible to a lot of people. They can't understand, or refuse to understand, that words can mean different things in different contexts and to different people. And even more people pigheadedly refuse to allow any word to be used in a way they don't want it to be used at any time, ever (see marriage, life, religion, freedom).

**TLDR: People can't agree what life is, so they can't talk to eachother in a meaningful way.

/r/Showerthoughts Thread