Posted on 11/06/2003 2:43:16 PM PST by nickcarraway
Life does not begin when sperm meets egg, but 14 days after, according to the head of the Anglican Church in Australia.
Primate Peter Carnley told the Fertility Society of Australia in Perth yesterday this meant objections to IVF, genetic testing and stem cell research should fall away.
Archbishop Carnley said that until it was implanted in a womb lining, a fertilised egg was not a human life but rather a genetically novel kind of cell.
The fertilised egg must also pass the point that it could split to become an identical twin, which was at about 14 days. After that, the embryo should be accorded the status of an individual human with rights to care, protection and life.
Dr Carnley's position clearly contradicts that of the Catholic Church, which holds that life begins when an egg is fertilised.
But Dr Carnley said the debate about the beginning of life within the Christian faith did not come to that view until 1869, when Pius IX declared all abortion was wrong from the beginning of conception.
Dr Carnley argued that scientific knowledge had moved forward since then and must be taken into account.
If conception was defined as the meeting of gametes - egg and sperm - then the cloned sheep Dolly was not conceived, because Dolly was the product of cell nuclear transfer, where the ovum nucleus was replaced by DNA from an adult cell.
"I think it is now clear that we must begin to think of conception less as a moment and more in gradual and continuous terms as a process," Dr Carnley said.
He said since 1984 Anglican moral theology had concluded that conception was a 14-day process and this helped shape legislation around the world.
"Given that twinning can occur up to the 14th day of this process, it is not logically possible to talk of the conception of a unique human individual prior to the completion of this process.
"Each of us can say that we came to be in the sense that we were each conceived, as a potential human individual, 14 days after the fertilisation of an ovum, not before." He said the natural 60 per cent wastage of ova during IVF procedures need not be considered the killing of conceived human individuals.
"We do not have some 70,000 frozen people on ice at various places around Australia," he said.
Embryo experimentation and stem cell research were also morally acceptable.
"If there is a utilitarian argument for the possible benefit to mankind of experimentation on embryos, this could be tolerated in a controlled way under licence up until the 14th day in a way that after the 14th day it would not," he said.
"Stem cell research becomes also thinkable, for stem cells are harvested well within the 14th day period."
What, exactly, leads you to believe that he speaks for "the Anglicans?"
Cordially,
"The case in point, is whether the offspring of human parents, at any stage of its existence, could be only a "potential human being"."
POTENTIALITIES (CAPABILITIES) ARE LIMITED TO THE KIND OF THING TO WHICH THEY BELONG. A turnip could never have the capability of reasoning, simply because its parents are never able to bestow such an ability upon their offspring. And they can't bestow it, because they don't possess it themselves. The only abilities possessed by turnips is to do turnip-things. The capability to perform uniquely human actions, such as reasoning, whether at this moment, or only years from now, demands a human subject as its possessor. If the offspring of human parentage, at any time, even in the zygote-stage, possesses the "potentiality to act as a human being," he or she is already a human being. Nothing else could possess that capability. As for the "potentiality to be a human" it would be a contradiction of terms, since the potential and the actual cannot exist simultaneously in anything." [emphasis mine]
From: Link
Cordially,
I'm curious to know just what you are expecting from God to you that will establish your certain knowledge of how God sees life at conception?
It'll be interesting to see just how chemists apply their knowledge to this question.
The 100 wooden building blocks in a child's toybox can be used to make many different structures.
If we are going to use chemical building blocks to determine humanness, we've got a much larger number of building blocks to consider. (It's true that some of the blocks will be duplicates, but their placement will be just as important as their content.)
There are chemical similarities and differences among all cells, even among cells of the same species or the same individual.
Chemistry may hold a key to recognizing humanness, but it seems to me that scientists can already recognize cells that are capable of developing the same way as humans ordinarily develop.
It's my understanding that "the pill" thins the uterine lining which in some cases serves to prevent implantation, thus causing an abortion.
In simplified terms, when the blastocele (the inner chamber within the morula) forms, as new cells form within that chamber, they flatten out at the perimeter and some collect in two layers as a mass at one end (to become the yolk sac and embryo body). The blastomeres on the inner surface of the amniotic chamber will combine in tasking with some of the trophoblasts outside the blastocele to generate the exchanges of nutrients and gases. Also, the blastomeres helping to form the inner chamber will be involve in development of the gut and skin of the embryo body developing inside the amniotic chamber. The trophoblasts outside the blastocele chamber are tasked with protection and 'foraging', but they are linked with the inner balstomeres in a way that allows the blood cells formed by the embryoblasts to exchange gases and nutrients for the inner embryo body and yolk sac.
On the other hand, his statement that it is not a person until it is implanted smacks of discrimination based on location. Since the uterine lining isn't part of the being, how can becoming attached to that lining create a change in the being from non-person to person? That's like saying you're not a person if you live in a slum, but once you move into your own house you become a person.
The one about twinning is interesting and deserves very careful scientific analysis - of the sort lacking in this short article. I have heard that when a zygote is at the 2 cell stage you can replace one of the two cells with a cell from another individual and the zygote will continue to grow. But if you try the same trick with one cell of a 3 cell zygote it will die. I would suggest it's that 3 cell stage that makes the zygote a person. But if someone can prove that any zygote can twin up to 14 days, not just specially formed ones, that might change the equation.
I have no idea when G-d infuses the embryo with a soul. Until there is scientific reason to go with another point, I'll stick with sperm injection or at the 3 cell stage.
Shalom.
Do you happen to know if the "manufacture" of Epogen or Procrit depends on fetal stem cells?
Idiots rarely do.
Shalom.
"Having life" does not equal "having a life".
Music please....
What a difference an "a" makes.
I am not expecting Him ever to make it certain, MHGinTN. Had he chosen to make everything certain, He could have directed the authors of His Word to do so, but He did not. Indeed it seems to me that Scripture even muddies the pro-life waters somewhat (e.g., Ex. 21:22), but not insurmountably.
Nevertheless, I'm sure that he expects us to treat human life with appropriate dignity even without that complete knowledge. The last time I checked, God did not say we could obey Him only if we fully understood why first.
Not if it serves to correct the anthropomorphism of the zygote/blastocyst, it doesn't. In other words I can't dehumanize something if it is not human.
And since we don't know God's opinion on the issue, I repeat again I would expect a bit more respect from a fellow pro-lifer.
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