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."
So I am accusing you only of acting out of certainty in something that you cannot be certain of.
You say I assign humanity arbitrarily, but I have not attempted to do so. By saying human life begins at conception, you have. To use purely naturalistic means to assign humanity, despite our shared belief that we are far more than the natural, is suspect. We see through the glass darkly.
No it is not. From what part of the Constitution do you glean this 'truth'; Harry Blackmunn's wacky interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment?
If his interpretation were correct, aliens who immigrated to this country could legally be killed by the same standard. The grammatical construction of the Fourteenth Amendment simply does not allow for Blacmunn's erroneous and insane interpretation of it. This was no oversight of the Founders, or the drafters and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Cordially,
You say I assign humanity arbitrarily, but I have not attempted to do so. By saying human life begins at conception, you have. No, it is not arbitrary, it is scientific fact. You can have all the opinions you like and flip-flop all you care to, but you do not have a right to separate facts from what science has established as the starting point of the individual human body, when science has proven its case. To use purely naturalistic means to assign humanity, despite our shared belief that we are far more than the natural, is suspect. We see through the glass darkly. The body is in evidence and science has proven the body of a new individual begins with the zygote age. To address the proven facts is not contradictory on our part since we are not arbitrarily assigning the advent of spirt using the know natural facts in evidence. But to arbitrarily choose a different strating point for advent of spirit is to dehumanize the portion of the human lifetime in evidence. THAT appears to be what you are in favor of doing. If you continue to insist on dehumanizing the earliest ages of the lifetime, prove your assertion. Of course, you can no more prove your assertion than I could prove the spirit is present as soon as the chromosomes fuse in the conception of a new zygotic individual life ... but I will not arbitrarily dehumanize that earliest age since I do not sufficient evidence to prove the spirit is not there! [Are you getting dizzy yet?... Following around and around your circular reasoning is dizzying, don'tcha know.]
--When the zygote begins mitosis (cell division), the first division accomplishes the formation of a duplicate cell that is totipotent--able to derive ALL the tissues and organs of the human body
--When there are two totipotent cells, within twenty hours one of those totipotent cells will divide to form one less than totipotent and one that was totitpotent
--An identical twin (monozygotic) will be the result of one of the totipotent cells accomplishing the repeat of the step where one of the first two becomes two of lesser than totipotency; if triple mynozygotics occur, it is a repeating of the same process, etc
--By the time in the embryo's lifetime when it has reached the uterus and differentiated into trophoblasts and embryoblasts, no healthy twinning can occur thereafter because the original totipotent cells have diminshed in potency, so to speak (though there is the rare 'fetu in fetu' that occurs, where an arrested devloping twin remians within the alive, thriving healthy twin, sometimes for a lifetime)
I think you are saying here, that the totipotent cell will sometimes split into two totipotent cells. I can't see how it would work, otherwise.
That is weeeeeeeeird! I might have a brother in my left leg.
Let's see, so during the first 13 days its dead but keeps on performing functions? Or, is the primate saying that for the first 13 days its not human life, but rather its a kangaroo or something?
I never said this. Either I didn't make myself clear enough, or you misinterpreted me. What I am saying is that because we cannot be sure when the body and spirit unite, we must err on the side of conservatism for the purposes of policy and practice. That's not the same at all as siding with science. Rather that is an acknowledgement that science gives us an incomplete answer, and a willingness to entertain any scenario that is Biblical and consistent with that science.
The body is in evidence and science has proven the body of a new individual begins with the zygote age.
To continue to quote science to me is just silly. Now I'm sure you'll put that last sentence in boldface and ridicule me somehow for it. But I'll say it again, science cannot completely inform us on this issue. For example, you mix and match "individual human body" and "individual" as if they are equivalent. While valid for animals, it is not valid for humans. Do you or do you not acknowledge that a human being is more than his body? Do you not believe in the spiritual component to man that is unique among living things?
Science cannot inform us about the single most essential component of our being, the spirit. As such it simply cannot answer the question about when human life begins. Until the spirit is endowed by God, the "individual human body" is not a "human individual." If He does that at conception, that's fine. But we do not know that he does.
Adam's body was completely formed before God breathed life into his nostrils. Obviously this was a unique creation event, but if someone had somehow interrupted the construction of Adam's body before life was breathed into it, would he have been guilty of murder, or of an offense comparable to toppling someone's carefully built a house of cards?
But to arbitrarily choose a different strating point for advent of spirit is to dehumanize the portion of the human lifetime in evidence. THAT appears to be what you are in favor of doing.
You're the one who has chosen a starting point, not me. I have given no favor to any particular starting point. Obviously there is a starting point; and yes I happen to believe that it's likely to be sometime after conception; but I do not know this as fact, because I do not know God's ways clearly.
My reasoning is not circular. The dizziness you're experiencing must be the frustration at the solidity of my argument and my confidence in it---which you misinterpret of course as stupidity, but I'll forgive you for that.
LOL!
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