livingproofGM said:
TeddyKGB said:
Does God agree? One of the more oft-cited studies suggested that up to 78% of all conceptions - humans all by your standard - will spontaneously abort (even the most conservative numbers are still around 40%).
How do you reconcile those two positions?
Do you mean that the woman will miscarry?
No, that is NOT what Teddy means. To miscarry means that a pregnancy has been established.
However, most conceptions/early zygotes don't manage to establish a pregnancy and are simply washed away with the other menstruation detritus (conservative estimate is that +65% of conceptions FAIL to every result in a live birth).
IOW, just because a woman has conceived, i.e., a egg is fertilized (in the Fallopian tube), starts dividing (now a zygote), doesn't mean that she is pregnant.
- That zygote still has to migrate from the Fallopian tube to the uterus and implant itself in the uterine lining (provided there is one).
- The fact is that most zygotes don't manage this instead end up on a sanitary napkin/tampon or swirling down the toilet upon urination during the woman's period.
- She may have conceived, but never actually gotten pregnant (that zygote failed to establish a pregnancy or the uterus wasn't ready...any number of reasons
for failure).
Does life really begin at conception? Is there any kind of scientific basis for that assertion? Why your notion of fertilized egg = human being is bogus.....
WHAT BIOLOGISTS MEAN WHEN THEY DEFINE "LIFE"...
Actually the egg and sperm are "alive", as is every functioning cell in the body of the woman in whom a conception may occur. All cells are BIOLOGICALLY alive in that they meet the 7 criteria biologists associate with life:
- presence of carbon-All living things contain carbon. With few exceptions, carbon is found exclusively in association with living things.
- organization & complexity-All living things exhibit remarkable organization in their body plans and when compared to non-living things are extremely complex.
- metabolism-All living things absorb, convert, store, use and release energy in a variety of complex chemical reactions.
- homeostasis-Living organisms regulate metabolic processes to maintain a "steady state".
- response to stimuli-Living things respond to a variety of stimuli (Ex. temperature, moisture, concentration of chemicals, light, scent, etc.)
- growth-An organism continues to increase in size (even bacteria do this) til maturity is reached.
- reproduction-Living organisms produce generations of like organisms.
This is what scientists mean when they say something is "alive", so
- Is the sperm and egg alive? Yes, so the contention that "life begins at conception" is falsified, because "life", i.e., biological "life" begins earlier. This implies that antichoicers must mean something "more" than biological "life"
- Is a fertilized egg "alive"?===>Yes
- Is a zygote(3-7 day old pre-implantation) "alive"?===>Yes
- Is an embryo (before 8 wks., post-implantation) "alive"?===>Yes
- Is a fetus[older than 8 wks] "alive"?===>Yes
The real question is not is a conception/zygote/embryo/fetus "
alive" and "
human'", but
when is it a human being. or a "person".
When I consider a fetus to be a person can be found HERE
Here are some portraits of your "baby", livingprooGM: (~~Drum roll!~~)
1. THE FERTILIZED EGG!
Male and female genetic material (DNA) is contained in the 2 pronuclei seen in the center (two smaller circles in the center). The 2 pronuclei will fuse into one and cell division will begin. The cells do no remain the same size, but get smaller and smaller. The irony here is that just before implantation in the endometrium, the blastocyst will contain many more cells, but NOT be any bigger than the fertilized egg, which is smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
2. A day-3 human embryo at the 8-cell stage.
After this point the cells are can no longer result in separate, but identical individuals.
3. Here is where you get stem cells (another anti-choicer "baby" portrait):
KEY:
1.The "ICM" (inner cell mass) are the source of stem cells. The ICM develops into an embryo IF blastocyst or zygote implants. In 8 weeks, post-implantation, the embryo is known as a fetus.
2. The blastocoel cavity in the center is marked as "C"
3. The trophectoderm cells that will form the placenta surround the cavity - one is marked with a "T"
4.
The blastocyst (stage of the zygote) is smaller that the dot of this "i".' (stage that usually implants in the uterine lining)
Also realize that the vast majority of conceptions (~65%) DO NOT result in a successful pregnancy. (NOTE: A pregnancy is defined as the successful implantation of a zygote in the endometrium or uterine lining---it takes 3 to 7 days after fertilization for the dividing egg to reach the uterus). They are simply washed out as part of the endometrial detritus when a woman has her period (many women have conceived, but the zygote never manages to establish itself in the endometrium).
If the zygote manages to establish itself, the lucky resident (the embryo) is still not out of the woods because 30-40% of these 1st trimester pregnancies are spontaneously ABORTED (70% show gross chromosomal abnormalities incompatible with life).
The bottom-line is that +65% of all conceptions fail (a conception does not a successful pregnancy make!)
Anti-choicers are always saying that "life" begins at conception??? What do they really mean by that? Most of them are theists, who really mean God implants a "soul", but most will hesitate to admit that this is what they mean. They know good and well there is no evidence for a soul nor can they prove when such an "endowment" takes place (provided one could prove that such a thing as a soul exists).
Christians just get hoist on their own petard with the soul argument. A soul is important to Christians because that is the medium through which they claim to experience eternal life. It is supposed to be our "badge" of superiority over the rest of creation. This notion that it's okay to kill, eat, and experiment on animals is supposed to be because they don't have souls. What is really funny here is that many other religions believe that not only do animals have souls, but so do "inanimate" objects like
rocks,
fire, or trees. Without some kind of empirical evidence, how does one decide which if, any religious viewpoint, is correct?
The question of just when a fetus gets this all-important soul arises. What many anti-choicers are ignorant of is that according to the early Church fathers, life did NOT "begin at conception". Aquinas and Augustine, following Aristotle's lead, declared that a male embryo acquired a soul at 40 days and the female embryo did so at 90 days. The "ensoulment" argument leads to one big philosophical problem, namely the logical impossibility of precisely defining the "ensoulment line" (the "bald-hairy" distinction problem). For instance, how can one PRECISELY draw a line between day and night? The "hairy-bald" problem with the fetus, is how could one draw the line as to when the fetus gets a soul (not to mention the FACT that there is no evidence that such a thing as a soul exists)? Such a determination is impossible because the fetus is continually growing.
Anti-choicers often quote Psalm 139:"Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb. Remember that conception takes place in the Fallopian tube and the zygote takes up to 7 days to reach the uterus. There is NO justification for claiming that ensoulment occurs at conception (where does it say so?). If one is aware of early Christain history, there is no theological basis for making such a declaration (remember Aquinas and Augustines' definition). There is also no reason to ban birth control devices that interfere with ovulation AND implantation of the zygote (trophoblastic stage).
This is especially true when one considers that God seems to considers 65% of these 7 day old "humans" to be expendable at some point before the end of the first trimester (either don't implant in the lining or are spontaneously aborted) You also have an additional problem in that the Bible actually doesn't address the issue of abortion and if I wanted to use the Bible to support it, I can play what I call the Bible Justification Game, too.
Why abortion is Biblical
If God really endows each and every conception (fertilized egg) with a soul (what theists REALLY mean when they say the conceptus is "alive" and a "person", not merely biologically alive), that makes GOD AN ABORTIONIST, and the biggest mass murderer of all time. (If one believes that personhood begins at fertilization)....
If you want to go with the "life begins at conception" route, then realize that this comes as big news to most eminent biologists and embryologists such as Dr. Charles Gardner (research at the University of Michigan Medical School's Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology):
The 'biological' argument that a human being is created at conception...comes as a surprise to most embryologists...for it contradicts all that we have learned in the past decades.
In humans when two sibling fertilized embryos combine into one (as sometimes happens) the resultant person may be completely normal. It the two original {fertalized} embryos were determined to become particular individuals, such a thing could not happen. The embryos would recognize themselves to be different...and would not unite. But here the cells seem unaware of any distinction between themselves...The only explanation is that the indivdual is not fixed or determined at this stage (fertilization).
The fertilized egg is not a prepackaged human being...Our genes give us the propensity for certain characteristics, but it is the ennactment of the complex process of development that gives us our individual characteristics. So how can an embryo be a human being?.... The information required to make an eye or a finger does not exist in the fertilized egg. It exists in the positions and interactions of cells and molecules that will be formed at a later time
Fertilization, the injection of sperm DNA into the egg, is just one of the many small steps toward full human potential. It seems arbitrary to invest this particular event with any special moral significance...It would be a great tragedy if, in ignorance that the embryo, state legislatures pass laws restricting individual freedom of choice and press them on the people. The embryo is not a child. It is not a baby. It is not yet a human being
Robert Francoeur,a Catholic embryologist trained also in Roman Catholic theology, has observed:
Those who claim a person is present at fertilization and thus denounce all abortion as murder. If every human egg is immediately a 'fetus', 'baby' and 'person' then God and nature play a big trick on us, Scientists estimate that in the five-six days following union and sperm, between 1/3 and 1/2 of all 'persons' spontaneously degenerate and are reabsorbed or expelled. In the second week, 42% of the implanted 'persons' abort. Thus out of every 1000 'persons' conceived, only 120-160 survive to be reborn! How do the anti-abortionists and theologians who denouce abortion as murder account for the prodigious waste of human life on the divine plan?
Moreover if the 'right to lifers insist on their idea of personhood in a fertalized egg it is unenforceable in law. Legal pronouncements about personhood from the moment of conception could be translated into a Brave New World with pregnancy police to make certain that all fertile women have their monthly pregnancy test, and all pregnancies are monitored to assure the Constitutional, God-given inalienable right of every fertalized egg to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
The National Academy of Sciences has stated:
The proposal that the term 'person' shall include 'all human life' has no basis within out scientific understanding. Defining the time at which the developing embryo becomes a person must remain a moral or religoius value
The point is that "fertilized egg = human being" is a very flawed argument.
- As of now, I haven't seen any fertilized eggs functioning as CEOs of companies, driving Junior to band practice, watching television, or even taking a breath.
- The fact is that we don't celebrate "conception day", we celebrate the BIRTHday.
- Obviously to both God (is there really any supernatural entity involved at all?) and nature(the only obvious thing is that natural processes are at work), these conceptions (human beings?) are highly expendable commodities.....
