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, on his view, he was for two weeks neither human nor primate, then for a span of years a human primate, and finally, at long last, a Primate.
I get all tingly when they use this complicated, super-scientific and really-really-precise terminology.
If it splits into twins do they have to wait another 14 days?
(I know, I know. He's talking about the number of cells, rather than a literal time period.)
I'm sure you'll all be very surprised to learn that Carnley also supports same-sex unions.
which becomes a genetically novel kind of group of cells…
neither of which should be mistaken for being alive.
What does it mean to 'play God' exactly? God, presumably, thinks. Does that mean people who think are "playing God"? I need to know when I'm acting God-like.
With the good primate we have yet another example of what a misguided debate this is.
So I wonder, is a sperm not human, or is it not alive? I used to think it was both.
Yeah, that works < /sarcasm >
O2
"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."
First, it is obvious the false pastor believes in the 'dehumanization to authorize cannibalization' agenda because there is no scientifically defined 'potential human', because once the 46 chromosomes of the zygotic new individual life are inplace, we have a human being conceived. Second, the 'extra embryos' of artificial conception - in vitro fertilization - are by definition 'not naturally occurring embryos', therefore there is no 'natural wastage only expedient killing. Third, it is obvious the man has an agenda, to support and give quasi-christian authority to the cannibalizing of embryonic individual human lives.
For the average reader, here's a simple synopsis of the 'traditional' process this Australian 'christian' is willing to dehumanize in order that embryos be exploited for their body parts, their stem cells:
--When the human sperm (a single sperm, Vassily, just a single sperm) enters the human ovum (oocyte), each of the parent gametes has 23 chromosomes; it takes up to 11 hrs for the chromosomes to fuse, forming a 46-chromsome mega cell, called a zygote
--As soon as there is a 46 chromosome complement within the cell, there is no longer an egg or a sperm, only an alive new individual with the normal 46 chromsome complement (unless the individual is a Downs sufferer ... and that is a telling refutation to the fool Aussie's assertions, because the individual at zygote age can be diagnosed as suffering from Downs!)
--The zygote begins mitosis - the divsion of cell into two cells - within 20 hours after the chromsomes are united, and each cell generated from that stage onward will have the unique 46 chromosomes of the original zygote individual (though some will shed their nucleus at maturation, such as red blood cells); cell division will occur approximately every 20 hours thereafter
--One of the two mega cells divides, to net three cells, and all are still contained within the original cell membrane of the original oocyte (perhaps the continued location, inside the original oocyte's cell membrane, is why some 'scientists' insist on call the embryonic individual at this stage a 'preembryo'; of course there is no such thing since the embryo, from zygote to fetal age, has the unique 46 chromsoome identity of the fusion of the parent chromsomes
--Beginning with the stage of three cells of the embryo, the separation of tasks begins to unfold, with some stem cells taking up the formation of the placental organ and future skin of the embryo, and other stem cells taking up the task of building the body to be used when the individual exits the womb world; Dr Jerome Legeune, geneticist and pediatrician (discoverer of the cause of Down's Syndrome), has explained the unique division of labor as 'underlined to the chromosome complement methylation of the father and mother', meaning, the methylation process brought to the newly conceived individual from the male sex cell directs the stem cell cascade that forms the protective and nourishment-gathering placental structure (those stem cells also are involved in the formation of gut, skin, and connective tissues), while the methylation processes brought to conception from the female sex cell direct the arrangement and order for the building of the body to exit the womb months later --When the embryonic individual (or individuals) arrive to the uterus, within six days of fertilization event, a major cascade of stem cell diversity begins to arrange an inner chamber (called the blastocele), surrounded by other stem cells forming an encapsulation of the entire embryo package; inside the blastocele are embryoblasts and outside are trophoblasts; the embryoblasts form the yolk sac (nourishment 'bag' for the developing embryonic body for later survival) and the embryonic body
--Twelve to fourteen days following fertilization and a new 46 chromosome individual coming into existence, the entire mass of embryo cells hatch out of the cell membrane they've been traveling along in, and the emrbyo releases hormones to trigger capillary production in the uterine lining tissue; the embryo 'burrows' into the epithelial cells of the woman's uterus, dissolving some of the uterine cells, forming blood pools that stimulate even more capillary production and circulation to give life support.
Stem cell harvesting is aimed at removing stem cells of the inner cell mass of the developing body that is scheduled for accomplishing survival upon exiting the womb. If anyone has furrther questions, I try to answer them, or find an answer for you! It is time we the people knew more about the facts of nascent individual human life, so fools and ghouls cannot twist the truth and gain our tacit acceptance of their planned cannibalism.
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