Life at 8 weeks.
Simply miraculous!
Catholic Ping - please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Although not properly elaborated upon here, this statement is the crux of the fallacious thinking on the part of many who support anti-abortion legislation. It involves their denial of the fact of space-time continuity.
The simple fact is that there is no point of meaningful transition from non-human-being to human being. The process of conception involves millions of individually similar and insignificant chemical events occuring serially and in parallel. On some time scale, the process appears quite smooth and gradual. Life can be said to exist at specific time points, but it does not start at any point.
So, if anyone askes "When does life start?", the answer is simply, "It doesn't."
In short, there is no poof.
Jeeze, those rotten belligerent activists continually coming to the aid of the unborn
How dare you post this? You defy the democrat party's rigid position that its vast abortion industry in only cleansing wombs of non-viable tissue.
Simply miraculous!
Catholic Ping - please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Pro-life ping!
This would certainly justify those who want to keep a fetus away from second hand smoke.
Well, the case is now made for euthanasia....
My second daughter managed to tie a true knot in the cord, not to mention wrapping it three times around her neck.
HUH??? I've never seen anything "behave" without its being alive. How could it?
I have a wondrous thing to share with all. For nine months I rubbed my daughters tummy, saying, "Hi, Sweetheart, it's your grandma who loves you". I was in the delivery room when my beautiful granddaughter was born. The Dr. put her on the scales and I said, "Hi, Sweetheart, it's your grandma who loves you" Whereupon she turned her head toward me and opened her eyes for the first time. Wow!
Life begins at conception.
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you
Jeremiah 1:5
BTTT
This article, and all research along similar lines (of which there is plenty), also explodes the myth that adoption fixes everything. Many unwanted babies are born after gestation in the inhospitable womb of a mother who doesn't care what effects her drinking, drug-taking, junk-food-eating, partying-all-night-to-deafening-music has on the developing fetus. Much of the resulting damage is irreversible.
btt
I don't understand these sentences. Is the author saying that newborns up to 12 weeks behave the same way as a baby at 32 weeks in utero?????????
Horse crap. This is such hypocrisy, when the same people will undoubtedly consider an adult "alive" even when entirely dependent upon life support equipment. Is total dependence on a heart-lung machine during open heart surgery de facto evidence that the patient is no longer alive? Similarly, the fact that a developing fetus cannot survive outside the mother's womb is not evidence against the existence of life.
As uncomfortable as the implications are for many scientists, the facts are pointing more resolutely in the direction of the "life begins at conception" angle, or at least the "life begins months before birth" angle, with every study. To those of us who are not so uncomfortable with moral decisions, the implications of this information are quite clear.
As always, people will believe precisely what they choose to believe -- for the secular, this typically equates to those beliefs with which they are most comfortable -- regardless of evidence to the contrary.
| Life begins at conception—NOT birth. Birth is one day in the life of a person who is already nine months old. |
Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
The simple fact is that there is no point of meaningful transition from non-human-being to human being. The process of conception involves millions of individually similar and insignificant chemical events occuring serially and in parallel. On some time scale, the process appears quite smooth and gradual. Life can be said to exist at specific time points, but it does not start at any point.
So, if anyone askes "When does life start?", the answer is simply, "It doesn't."
In short, there is no poof.
You sound like some kid who has just heard a couple of new words, but doesn't have a clue what they mean. You sound like a raving, rambling lunatic.
In FT January 2003: Constitutional Persons, Robert H. Bork stated,"Science and rational demonstration prove that a human exists from the moment of conception." This objective fact refutes any wishful subjective speculation stating otherwise!
"After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into existence. This is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception." Dr. Jerome Lejeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes, Paris. He discovered the Down syndrome chromosome.
"From the moment a baby is conceived, it bears the indelible stamp of a separate distinct personality, an individual different from all other individuals." Ultrasound pioneer, Sir William Liley, M.D. 1967.
"It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." Professor M. Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School.
"By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception." Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic.
"The question as to when a human being begins is strictly a scientific question, and should be answered by human embryologists - not by philosophers, bioethicists, theologians, politicians, x-ray technicians, movie stars, or obstetricians and gynecologists." http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html
"The fusion of the sperm (with 23 chromosomes) and the oocyte (with 23 chromosomes) at fertilization results in a live human being, a single-cell human zygote, with 46 chromosomes - the number of chromosomes characteristic of an individual member of the human species." http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html
"Scientifically, the international consensus of embryologists is that human beings begin at fertilization (or cloning)--i.e., when their genetic code is complete and operative; even before implantation they are far more than a "bunch of cells" or merely " potential human beings."" http://www.stemcellresearch.org/statement/
"The question as to when a human person begins is a philosophical question - not a scientific question. I will not go into great detail here, but ""personhood"" begins when the human being begins - at fertilization." http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html This objective argument refutes all metaphysical speculations stating otherwise.
"Life begins like everything else, at the beginning. At the moment of fertilization, a new human life begins. The human embryo is a being; and being human, she is a human being. She is person and not property because no property has the property of building itself. Everything necessary to make the new human being-the entire blueprint necessary to build a human being capable of going to the moon and putting a foot on the moon-is there in the very beginning. Nothing is added after the moment of fertilization. It is all locked in. Not only the color of our hair and eyes but even how long we will live, accident or sickness not intervening, is there in the very beginning. The complete information necessary to build the new human being is written in the smallest subscript of the universe. We are fearfully and wonderfully made!" http://www.cbhd.org/resources/reproductive/palmer_1999-10-15.htm
"A fertilized egg, or zygote, is the first cell stage and exists for only 24 hours. After cell division, this is no longer a fertilized egg. We then use several other names, which are incomprehensible to the general public, but one name covers them all and that is "embryo." So after the first day, he or she is a "living human embryo." Most importantly, "fertilized eggs" do not implant within the womb. There is a certain power to their sneering comment, "Why would you want to protect a fertilized egg from planting?" It makes a difference if you say, "Why would you want to prevent a living human embryo from planting?"" http://www.lifeissues.org/connector/display.asp?page=04oct.htm#health
They speak of reproductive and therapeutic cloning, "reproductive" being when the new living human is planted and carried to term and delivered. "Therapeutic" is when "it" will not be planted in a womb, but will be experimented upon and then "destroyed." We can accept the term "cloning for reproductive purposes," but it is best not to use "reproductive cloning," for that indicates there are other types. "Therapeutic" cloning is a total lie, for there is nothing therapeutic about this. President Bush uses the term "research cloning" which is quite adequate and accurate. But since they don't allow these tiny humans to live when they are done with their destructive research, very commonly the best words to use are "clone and kill." Finally, they often now don't use the word "cloning" at all because it is too negative. They use the term "somatic cell nuclear transfer." This is the scientific term for cloning, however it does confuse the public and sounds awfully important and scientific. From our standpoint we should not use those four words. Let's call it "cloning." http://www.lifeissues.org/connector/display.asp?page=04oct.htm#health
"....medical research shows ""the sensory pathways and connections to the cortex necessary for pain perception are present, or beginning to form, at twenty weeks gestation."" For documentation see a complete paper, "Fetal Pain Legislation: Is It Viable?" Teresa S. Colette, professor S. TX College of Law, Houston. See also, R. Hyfield, ""Unborn Child Can Feel Pain At Twenty Weeks"", Daily Telegraph 2, 8-28-01." http://www.lifeissues.org/connector/display.asp?page=04july.htm#advance and http://www.vanderbilt.edu/SFL/fetal_pain.htm
Ping
Life doesn't start at any point because it already exists.
You are taking two living cells and combining them to create a new member of the species. Conception is not the start of life, but a continuing of life. So, I will agree with you that there is no magical point where life starts, but since both living cells exist prior to combining, life already exists.