To: susiemaggie
The nervous system of the is fully functioning at 7wks.LMP. It has been proven that the cerebral cortex need not be fully functioning since the thalamus is receptive to feeling, pain, and responding to life in utero.
7wks > 40 days. I'd heard that Orthodox Judaism held that God implanted a soul into an unborn embryo (and as such it became a "human being" at that point) at 40 days, and IIRC, St. Thomas Aquinas held a similar view.
My opinions are based on reasons other than a "soul" belief, mind you, but I share the 40 days mentality -- I do believe that it's a human before it's born, but I cannot bring myself to believe that it suddenly attains "personhood" the moment the sperm hits the egg (especially since 50% of them get discarded naturally because they're not viable or simply not "lucky".)
90 posted on
02/11/2002 8:03:04 AM PST by
Dimensio
To: Dimensio
...I do believe that it's a human before it's born, but I cannot bring myself to believe that it suddenly attains "personhood"... No, it doesn't suddenly 'attain' personhood, it is an individual human life from minutes after sperm meets egg. To contrive arguments in order to be an apologist for wholesale serial killing is disgusting.
92 posted on
02/25/2002 2:38:15 AM PST by
MHGinTN
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