Posted on 12/04/2008 1:37:22 PM PST by NYer
Almost anyone with a high school education can correctly answer the question “When does human life begin?” by responding “at conception” or at “fertilization” of a human egg by a sperm cell. While we may not understand, or only vaguely recall, the precise process by which an egg and sperm combine to create a new unique human being, this basic truth about human life falls into the category of things we can’t not know.
Yet today, many educated people who do know better assert that human life begins at some later stage of development.
They arbitrarily push forward the starting point to implantation or viability, or even birth and beyond, to accommodate their approval of abortifacient drugs and devices, in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures, lethal embryo research (including embryonic stem-cell research), chemical and surgical abortion, and eugenic infanticide.
Because such confusion arises more from muddled values than a misunderstanding of basic science, one might think that the white paper “When Does Human Life Begin?: A Scientific Perspective” would have limited usefulness. To the contrary, the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person in Thornwood, N.Y., has done a great service to the public debate and to policymakers by publishing such a paper, authored by Maureen Condic, associate professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
Based on her objective review of current scientific evidence in human embryology, Condic convincingly demonstrates that a new human organism (an embryo that is called a “zygote” in its one-celled form) comes into being at the moment when the sperm and egg fuse. This occurs mere seconds after the sperm has penetrated the thin layer of protein enveloping the egg.
Her evidence refutes the recent assertions of some scientists that a human life begins at the eight-cell stage when gene transcription begins, or four days post-fertilization when the inner cell mass forms distinct from placental cells, or at 5 to 6 days when the embryo implants in the uterine wall. Condic demonstrates that each of these events — like a baby’s first tooth or the onset of puberty — are simply milestones along life’s path and “not indicative of any fundamental change in the entity.”
And her proof also counters the claim of some scientists (reflected in many textbooks and even legal codes) that a human organism begins to exist only at “syngamy,” an event that occurs roughly 24 hours after the sperm enters the egg.
Recall that every cell has a nucleus where the cell’s DNA is located. A thin membrane separates the nucleus from the rest of the cell (cytoplasm). In a new human embryo, however, there are briefly two nuclei — one with dad’s DNA and one with mom’s. Before the first cell division takes place, the DNA from mom and dad (23 chromosomes each) have to match up and copy themselves.
To do that, the membranes surrounding their nuclei need to break down. That event is called syngamy.
Condic shows how the zygote is already behaving like an organism before syngamy because factors from the sperm and egg are “interact[ing] coordinately to orchestrate subsequent development.” The zygote already possesses DNA different from his or her mother and father and is “carry[ing] on the activities of life” with “organs that are separate … but mutually dependent.”
For example, within minutes after the sperm enters the cytoplasm of the egg, the new zygote sends out chemical signals that change the outer protein layer to prevent other sperm from entering the zygote.
Within 30 minutes of the sperm entering the egg, factors contributed by the sperm signal the nucleus of the egg to reduce its two sets of DNA to one. Within the first hour, proteins contributed by the sperm interact with chemicals in the zygote to create changes that will allow the zygote to begin dividing and growing. The nuclei are already being directed to line up across from each other for the first cell division.
Also, as Condic notes, the breakdown of the membranes separating the nuclei from the sperm and egg “is not a unique, ‘zygote-forming’ event, but rather it is part of every round of cell division that occurs through life.”
In this summary form I’ve just given, it may be difficult to follow the complex interplay of paternal and maternal factors within the newly formed zygote. Fortunately, Condic takes pains to walk us through these first essential “baby steps” of every new human life. The white paper also contains illustrations and a very helpful glossary to aid in understanding these intricate processes.
Writing as a scientist, Condic criticizes analogies comparing the development of human embryos to manufactured products, even when the embryos’ lives begin in a laboratory. Conceptualizing human procreation as a manufacturing process encourages erroneous thinking that the human being does not fully exist until viability or birth, when all the steps of the manufacturing process presumably are completed — in the case of a car, when it is fully assembled and ready to leave the factory.
But cars, unlike people, are built externally by others acting on them, building and assembling components. In contrast, she explains, the defining feature of the human zygote is that it has the power “both to generate all the cells of the body and simultaneously to organize those cells into coherent, interacting bodily structures.” Thus, from the first moment of fusion between sperm and egg, everything necessary to develop the adult human being is present, provided the new human embryo is allowed to develop in a safe environment and is able to access nutrition.
“When Does Human Life Begin” comes at a critical time. The new administration and many members of the next Congress are already championing policies that will put nascent human lives at even greater risk than they are today.
Federal funding and a vast expansion of human embryonic stem-cell research is almost a foregone conclusion. Our next president strongly supports such funding, and he can reverse the Bush moratorium with an executive order.
The president-elect also has cosponsored legislation to greatly increase government funding of contraception, including abortifacients, and mandate contraceptive coverage in health insurance policies.
Annually, over 100,000 children are born in the United States as a result of assisted reproductive technologies. Most people are unaware that in the process of making these children, hundreds of thousands of sibling-embryos die or are killed.
In addition, President-elect Obama has promised Planned Parenthood that his “first act” as president will be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), a law that will effectively wipe out 35 years’ of pro-life laws at the state and federal levels. Many of these laws have been shown to reduce abortions and, in their absence, we can expect abortion rates to increase.
Many Americans are weary of political battles and deeply concerned about the economy and other issues that touch their families. But we cannot turn a blind eye to the legalized killing that’s occurring in our country on an unprecedented scale. What lofty ideal does America still represent when its foundational principle — the inherent, God-given right to life of every human being — is violated by the very institutions entrusted with caring for the lives of vulnerable people: the family, the medical profession and the state?
We must urgently convey to our fellow citizens the inherent value and dignity of every human being. From the first moment of conception to one’s natural death, every human being, regardless of size, age, sex, race, mental or physical ability, is a unique and irreplaceable creature, made in God’s image and infinitely loved by God. Every life is, therefore, worthy of protection and concern. There are no exceptions. Laws that tolerate exceptions are unjust and must be opposed.
Condic and the Westchester Institute are to be applauded for rigorously defining the beginning point of each human life from the perspective of science. The white paper should prove to be an excellent tool in our pro-life arsenal to refute claims that entities destroyed by abortifacients, destructive embryo research, IVF procedures, and abortions are something less than fully human beings.
If you're positive there's no way an overzealous prosecuter or CPS bureaucrat could turn this into a witch hunt or use it to pursue a personal vendetta, I'm OK with it.
I don't think we had the abortificant drugs then that we do now.
You mean you’ll tell me how often you’ve been pregnant if I can prove I’m not a prosecutor? Well, I used to do taxes for an insurance company, but I’ve been a full-time breeder since 1995.
There have been abortifacient drugs for the whole of recorded history. Chemical contraceptives, too, some apparently very effective. It’s an interesting topic.
What I found amusing was that, a little later in the discussion, I said that his argument was illogical - which he chose to take as an insult as in I had called HIM illogical - and he proceeded to show the logic of his position by getting mad at me (emotional response).
Something that's not always made clear up front on this issue is that modern birth control pills don't always prevent fertilization. Sometimes they allow an egg to be fertilized, but then prevent implantation. In these cases it effectively acts as an abortificant. The objective is not just to prevent surgical abortions, or "morning after" pills like RU486. If the standard is that anything that results in killing a fertilized egg then even regular birth control pills will be illegal.
On this issue of human life beginning, I think that the Law of the Perversity of Nature is best applied. This law is best understood by example i.e. beforehand you cannot determine which side of the bread to butter. While, after the bread is buttered; it is easy to determine which side to butter, because it is buttered.
The beginning of a human life is indeterminable, but the ending of human life is obvious. One instant there is not human life and the next instant there is.
Until we have the technology to determine the instant before the instant after we may not intervene; in the intervening instant. Anything anyone does to purposefully intervene and end that human life is murder.
Note that instants are very very short.
After 9/11 they identified victims from a chunk of finger or other flesh and long shed hair from hair brushes.
At the moment of conception there is the complete complement of 23 chromosomes that uniquely identifies that individual for ever..even after death.
Yeah, that's likely a miscarriage, but what you said was an *apparent* miscarriage, and if that's the criteria, then any cramping and bleeding would fit the bill.
The idea that any apparent miscarriage needs to be reported to the police by the doctor is ridiculous and nothing more that more liberal control tactics. Any woman who's going to illegally terminate her pregnancy is not likely to go to the doctor anyway to confirm the pregnancy and is also not likely to go report it when the abortion occurs.
It's fatal flaw is that like all liberal policies, it's only going to burden doctors and mothers unnecessarily at a critical time in the mothers' life. A woman who just lost a baby to miscarriage does not need to be accused of killing it on purpose in addition.
The other thing is, since abortion is already legal, why SHOULD the doctor report it for homicide investigation?
MrB was right about the stupidity of the question.
You need to go back and reread comment 40 again. This discussion has gotten off track from what it originally started from.
Someone is covering his uhh, tracks.
The question was with regard to what the consequences of the proposed legislation would be. If a fetus is afforded the same status as any child, and we investige the death of any child that dies under mysterious or unexplained circumstances, do we do the same in the event of the death of a fetus? Children don't "just die".
Why did you say “no” to what I said? Nothing I said about the frailty of the human egg disputes that all embryos deserve the respect of life unless one knows they are euploid incompatible with life.
Many chromosomal abnormalities mean the embryo will NOT become a 2nd trimester baby no matter what. But we don’t know which those are, so we need to treat all embryos as if they had the capability of becoming babies.
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The truth: Every embryo is a human being with potential.
Define human being. A 5-day-old blastocyst is indeed HUMAN (not dog, not mouse). But the 50% or more human embryos that are aneuploid enough to not be able to go on developing past a week or three have no full potential. If your wife had one in her uterus, she might never have known she was pregnant briefly.
So I see, say, 10 frozen embryos in a tank of liquid nitrogen, and I say that they are ALL potential human beings. Maybe when they are placed into someone's uterus, 2 at a time, maybe 5 will become people. The other 5 will probably not even register a positive pregnancy test, though perhaps one of those will, and the joyful mother will be brokenhearted in the 7th week when she loses the baby.
Hold on just a second. In America, the state is responsible *TO* the people, not *for* the people. The people have authority *OVER* the state, not the other way around.
Conservatives resist attempts to reverse this.
I understand that. I also know that all too often this gets turned upsided down by the bureaucrats and politicians and you have to be careful exactly how you make the law or you can end up handing them authority they were never inteded to have. Once they have it they are loathe to give it up.
Well, yes. I tend to do that.
Doctors make judgements about child abuse all the time.
“Is this child here because of an accident, or has he been abused, in which case I must report it.”
I see no difference between this and a doctor judging the likelihood that the death of an unborn baby was caused by intentional external action by another person.
“Scientists in GB were able to cull the ovaries from aborted fetuses with the intent of extracting these ovum for implantation into infertile women.”
What is the state between queasy and actually hurling?
Hearing that, I’m ready to report for peasant mob duty. I’ll even bring my own pitchfork.
Well, yeah, in a way. People used to say life is sacred "from the cradle to the grave," but seeing as it obviously starts before the cradle, they changed that to "from womb to tomb."
But does life really end at the tomb?
I say life is sacred "from erection to Resurrection."
:o)
Oh, and one good thinker (Dr. Mildred Jefferson, MD, the first African American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School in 1951), had this to say: "I don't know when human life began. Possibly almost 2 million years ago, in the Great Rift Valley of Africa. But I do know that human life is transmitted to a new generation every time human fertilization occurs."
I like it. It even highlights the sin of self-gratification. ;)
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