Life starts after 14 days, say Anglicans

The Age (Australia) ^ | November 5, 2003 | Peta Rasdien

[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."

[hocndoc]

Macrophages are motile cells, but not "a life."
Hepatocytes are capable of producing hepatocytes, but not orgnanisms.

This is all Biology 101. The definition of life, organisms and taxonomy is established science.

[hocndoc]

The theory that the uterus lining is thin isn't proven in the case of those months when women ovulate. Not to mention that something must have gone wrong in the hormonal milieu to allow ovulation, but the corpus luteum makes higher levels of hormones than those present in the pill.

[hocndoc]

http://www.biopharma.com/epogen.html
Epoetin is grown by recombinant DNA technique in a Chinese Hamster Ovarian cell culture medium.

[hocndoc]

By taxonomic definition, the zygote with human parentage is human.

[hocndoc]

In Texas, we've reconfirmed that the unborn child is a person from fertilization, within this year's Prenatal Protection Act. Now, the only person who has the power of life and death over the child is the mother and a physician she hires to kill her child.

[hocndoc]

The cells are probably capable of reverting to totipotent until 16 days (even post implantation).
http://www.all.org/issues/scirving.htm

[hocndoc]

The qualities and capabilities of being human are present at the zygote stage and are age appropriate. The fact of being a member of the species does not develop. The body is, it is alive, and any mind or expression of the humanity that you might appreciate more than another is a function of the body. Simply because the body does not express all the characteristics that are possible of the species does not change what he or she **is**. He is uniquely human, whether or not you feel that he is.

[hocndoc]

Actually, any contemplation that the right to life of one human being is not inalienable, but defined by the personal or cultural beliefs of other humans, is harmful to each of us. The conversation leads to doubts, then certainty, that some humans have the right to life and can infringe on the right to life of others. History shows that discrimination follows. Our current situation (abortion on demand and euthanasia in practice with government protection for the killer rather than the victim, and clone-and-kill on the horizon) has grown from this attitude.

[syriacus]

Thank you very much. I apppreciate your taking the time to post that very informative web page.

[beavus]

Hepatocytes are capable of producing hepatocytes, but not orgnanisms.

Of course. Examples of organisms seem easy enough to obtain, but what about a definition of "organism". I posted one from the dictionary that seemed to meet with some disapproval.

Macrophages...not "a life."

That seems to be the semantic contention on this thread. Is it your understanding that "a life" is not synonymous with "life"--so that a macrophage is "life", but not "a life"? Is "a life" synonymous with "organism", while "life" refers to anything that lives?

[beavus]

The qualities and capabilities of being human are present at the zygote stage and are age appropriate.

Sure, but the age-appropriate qualities and capabilities of a human zygote are essentially the same as the age-appropriate qualities and capabilities of a squirrel zygote.

The fact of being a member of the species does not develop. The body is, it is alive, and any mind or expression of the humanity that you might appreciate more than another is a function of the body.

I don't understand you here.

Simply because the body does not express all the characteristics that are possible of the species does not change what he or she **is**. He is uniquely human, whether or not you feel that he is.

Yes, I fully agree. Yet when I explain to people that a human hepatocyte, human hair, human footprint, human voice, or human thought, are all *human*, they react like I want to kill their babies. My point is that important concepts ought to merit clarity of language. The adjective "human" does not begin to describe why we value people as we do.

Even more important than clarifying semantics, how about explaining what it is that makes people so much more important to us than any animal, animal matter, or animal process such as sexual reproduction?

[beavus]

Actually, any contemplation that the right to life of one human being is not inalienable, but defined by the personal or cultural beliefs of other humans, is harmful to each of us. The conversation leads to doubts, then certainty, that some humans have the right to life and can infringe on the right to life of others. History shows that discrimination follows. Our current situation (abortion on demand and euthanasia in practice with government protection for the killer rather than the victim, and clone-and-kill on the horizon) has grown from this attitude.

I can't say I necessarily disagree with any of this. Yet if it is so important, why is the language we use so grossy ambiguous and vague, and why are the salient characteristics that distinguish people from other creatures and objects always left unmentioned like an embarrassing relative?

[MHGinTN]

"... why is the language we use so grossy ambiguous and vague, and why are the salient characteristics that distinguish people from other creatures and objects always left unmentioned like an embarrassing relative?" beavus

Gosh, doctor, I thought your terms, explanations, and syllogisms were very clear and quite to the point. The one you addressed is clearly determined to play at misunderstanding clear expositions!

That the little beavus nettle wishes to continue to play argument of the beard, dehuamnizing the human zygote for the purpose of gamesmanship, shouldn't detract from Dr. Nuchols' clear exposition, or from the clear assignment of human individual life to the alive human zygote, regardless of where that individual human life is found. The beavus nettle starts with a contrary-to-accepted-biological-facts premise and seeks to dissemble any explanations in response to nettle's strawman questions, in the nettle's effort to dehaumanize the earliest ages along the human lifetime. One tends to ask, upon realizing the singlemindedness of the purposely irritating poster, "Why"? [Is it time for a troll alert? BWahahaha]

[MHGinTN]

Here's the way a truly expert witness explained the zygotic human indiviual during a court case where question of the humanity and individuality of the unborn was brought out. The expert is Dr. Jerome Legeune, the discoverer of what causes Down's Syndrome. He was a world renown geneticists.

Q: Dr. Lejeune, based upon the empirical data you presented, do you have a conclusion as to what exits at the moment of fertilization?

A: Well, at the moment of fertilization, what exists is a pure novelty. It has never occurred before. It's a new constitution of a new personally-devised construction for this person.

Q: If you had to give it a name what would you call it?

A: I would call it a human because I know that the whole information is human. I can read it. I can see the dimensions and make up of the chromosomes.

I can be sure it is human. Now I would say it is a being because I know by its own information that it will develop itself. It just needs nurture and protection. That is all it needs. Then, being human, it is a human being.
…
But at the moment of fecundation, part of the DNA coming from father is underlined in the male way, and DNA coming from mother is underlined in the female way. And, therefore, the fantastic discovery was never expected ten years ago. Nobody predicted it—that, in fact, the father underlines instructions to make immediately the membranes inside which the embryo will develop itself, so to speak, its space capsule; and to make the placenta which is the body by which it will take the nutrients from the vessels of mother.

That's underlined on the sperm, not on the egg. But on the egg what is underlined is all the tricks of the trade to make the spare pieces, which if they are put together will build an individual.

Now it is extraordinary because it was a moving observation for geneticists to see in this one millimeter and a half sphere of living being this separation of the tasks which we see in ordinary life. And the man in biology builds the membranes which is the shelter and the placenta which is a gathering food system. On the other hand it is up to the feminine genius to underline the way how to manufacture a baby.
…
Now we come to an extraordinary observation that the only cell in all my life in which those two methylation systems from father and from mother were present together inside one cell was in the first cell which gave me life.

Because progressively at each division, this methylation is erased and replaced. And progressively cells learn by a cascade of reaction to specialize. So that one will make nails, another will make the brain, another will make the liver and another will make the bones and another will make the muscle.

[beavus]

You are a very disturbed individual.

[MHGinTN]

You have no idea ... and I'm intolerant of certain nettles, also.

[beavus]

Intolerance and ignorance appear to be the least of your problems.

[MHGinTN]

Ignorance? Bwahahaha ... you pitiful thing, you're clueless.

[hocndoc]

Beavus, you are mixing several issues. What is the point you wish to make? How is it relevant in light of the statement of the Anglican bishop in the beginning of this thread?

Yes, people react to your statements about sperm and hepatocytes. We have had conversations before this one, and your statement about the sperm and your demand for definition of "a life" vs. "life" are common pro-death red herrings.

If you insist on demanding an explication of thousands of years of philosophy and science, I'd suggest that you lurk a bit or read a book such as Spitzer's "Healing the Culture."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0898707862/qid=1068415531/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-3869218-5016924?v=glance&n=507846

Here's my summary:


An organism is a complete member of the species, by definition.

The fact of being a member of the species does not develop. The corn cob (if fertile and not a sterile hybrid) has many members of the species, as each fertile seed is a corn plant. Each zygote of human parentage is a member of the human species. However, the corn leaf or the human uterus is not an organism, but an organ of a member of that species - a subunit.

Syriacus gave the best analogy for why the possibility of twinning is irrelevant to whether or not the human may be killed at one stage vs. another in his post #177.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1016385/posts?page=177#177
The same reasoning goes to the protection of all humans. This concept has been restated as "err on the side of caution." Other ways to say this is non-maleficence or "First, do no harm" or "Do not unto others as you would not have them do to you."

The reason that humans are deserving of special protection is that we are the only species that has conversations like this one. As Dr. Robert Spitzer has pointed out in his book, "Healing the Culture," humans are the only species that will die for beauty or a higher cause, rather than for food or perpetuation of the species. He says that he's never heard of an eagle that would kill himself because he couldn't paint the perfect picture.

[beavus]

Ignorance? Bwahahaha

Why do I get the creepy feeling you are enjoying liver with fava beans and a nice bottle of chiante? Or in your case, baked beans and a bottle of Jack.