Posted on 03/26/2014 4:33:09 PM PDT by Kaslin
First of all, the notion that there is a "start point" for life is nonsensical. Life never arises from non-life. Sperm and ova are all alive and cannot combine to form a zygote unless they are alive.
Second, there has to be some defining factor that differentiates between a metabolically active mass of cells and an individual human being. Since the brain is the "central processor" that enables us to sense and respond to our environment in a way that transcends spontaneous reactions to chemical or physical signals, it makes sense to protect the embryo once its nervous system starts to form, about 3 weeks after conception. At that time, all of its organs, limbs, etc., are forming.
There is no way I will condemn women for using contraceptives.
The blastocyst IS a mass of undifferentiated cells. At the most, cells might be polarizing, meaning that development pathways are being determined based on their position within the blastocyst--an automatic process completely driven by chemical signals. Differentiated cells actually do not grow, and typically die within a set time after differentiating, depending on tissue type. The process of differentiation is multi-step and continues until death of the organism.
That brings up another point--every tissue within your body, with one exception, has been completely replaced many times through the process of differentiation of new cells to replace the countless cells that die every single day. These new cells come from undifferentiated stem cells present throughout the body. The only exception is the nervous system. The various brain and neural cells do not die and are not replaced by new cells. They are the same cells you were born with, the same cells that started to differentiate three weeks after conception. The only continuity within your body is within the nervous system. You could say that the only purpose of the early embryo is to produce a brain, and the only purpose of the non-nervous system tissues after that is to support the brain.
Here is the Wikipedia article on human fertilization. And here is a figure from that article. Do me a favor, will you, study it and point out or describe to me the physical features of that pre-implantation embryo that enable it to be fully aware of and responsive to its environment through any process more sophisticated than spontaneous chemical responses to chemical and physical signals?
Once again, let me point out that I did not invent the events of early embryogenesis, I have merely described them. And providing accurate descriptions with the intent of educating people does *not* make me a liar or a leftist.
I suspect that we have one of two possibilities here: either you really do not know embryology, or you do know and deceitfully want to define things differently from the way the SCIENCE of Embryology defines things. That second methodology is typical of progressives who try to fashion reality to fit their demonic lusts for exploiting the earliest aged humans.
The blastocyst HAS TO HAVE DIFFERENTIATED ELSE THE CELLS TASKED WITH IMPLANTATION WOULD NOT BE, AS DIFFERENTIATED FROM THE CELLS WHEREIN THE BODY FOR LIFE IN THE AIR WORLD WILL BE BUILT. Even in the morulla stage, differentiation is occurring.
In either case, your assertion as I have quoted it is wrong. If you don't realize why it is wrong, you could study to show thyself approved, or if you do know it is wrong, you are indeed just a common rat liar.
The question of whether it has a spirit, a soul or a mind may not be possible to answer with science but science does answer, without equivocation, that it is an individual living human being from the moment of conception or at least very shortly after when the two half-strands of DNA combine.
No one has ever claimed that a zygote or embryo are the same in form and function. It is however a living human being, an individual organism distinct from any other living organism.
I have been consistently honest about the fact that I base my pro-life views on scientific criteria, not Catholic theology. And I have never claimed to be a Catholic.
Did you even look at this Wikipedia page that I linked earlier? Were you able to find any detail in which I am demonstrably incorrect? Calling me a liar and a leftist does not change the fact that the scientific facts that I have presented are accurate. It does, however make it quite clear that you cannot counter anything I have said factually. It is a typical immature leftist tactic to call people names when they cannot factually support their position--why are you behaving like a leftist? Insult me as you will, you still cannot change the fact that ~150 undifferentiated cells are not a living, feeling human being. Differentiated cells form muscle, lungs, skeleton, liver, kidneys, skin, etc.--where are all of those tissues in a blastocyst? A human being experiences his or her environment through central nervous system processing of impulses conducted through the nerves. Without that capacity to experience the environment, a human being cannot exist.
Let me reiterate: the nervous system does not begin to form until 3 weeks post conception when the neural tube starts to fold; by 5 weeks, there is a definite brain (and it is functional). These events all occur after implantation. Put simply, a woman using contraceptives is not killing anyone because no person exists.
Your criteria for defining a human being are so loose and broad that just about anything is a human being by your definition. I have mentioned several times that I have grown countless millions, maybe billions, of human cells for research. According to your definition, every one of those cells was a person, and I have committed mass murder and crimes against humanity by experimenting on them and then killing them.
In a previous post, I listed several situations that contradict the idea that a thinking, feeling human being springs into existence at the moment of conception. I notice that you provided no explanation of how any of those situations can be reconciled with the belief that a zygote or blastocyst is a complete human being, choosing instead to insult me in a most unchristian manner.
BTW, you might try perusing a real medical journal, like Reproductive Medicine Online. You won't find any articles claiming that blastocysts contain differentiated cells in there, or any of your other unscientific claims. You will find a lot of articles like this one discussing the fact that most blastocysts do not become babies.
The first question on this fact sheet: "When does pregnancy begin?" The answer: "Pregnancy begins when a sperm fertilizes a woman's egg."
The second question: "What happens after the sperm fertilizes the egg?" The answer: "After conception, your baby begins a period of dramatic change known as the embryonic stage."
... as The American Academy of Family Physicians calls it, a baby.
According to your criteria, these are living human beings in this youtube video: Fibroblasts - Human Dermal Fibroblasts | Cell Applications, Inc. They don't feel, they don't know they are alive, but that doesn't matter--you've made it abundantly clear that you don't think being conscious or being able to process information are necessary characteristics of a human being.
I wonder if this will affect the population of the “keep your kids on your plan until they’re 26” provision.
That was a truly pathetic attempt to mischaracterize my definition with an outright lie.
I utterly hate it when scientific concepts are so oversimplified for the layperson that they actually become incorrect. Pregnancy is the state of the woman's body after a blastocyst implants. The events that are necessary for her to become pregnant may have started with the union of sperm and egg, but unless a blastocyst implants, she won't become pregnant. And I'm sure that the whole statement about "After conception, your baby..." is a drastic oversimplification which is not intended to convey the idea that physicians universally consider a zygote and a newborn as being identical save for size. There is a real challenge in writing for laypeople and maintaining scientific accuracy.
For a more accurate and scientific view, try reading Reproductive Biomedicine Online. There is a common theme to those scientific articles: those who work in the area of reproductive medicine do not consider a pregnancy successfully established until they can detect the fetal heartbeat at gestational weeks 6 to 8. (I'm not sure how they count gestational weeks in the context of in vitro fertilization, but in normal pregnancy, that would be 4 to 6 weeks post-conception.) The fetal heart develops at the same time as the nervous system; many people consider initiation of heart beat as the beginning of a human being's life.
I hate it when Death Cult liberals spread their lies and arrogantly ignore it when their lies are thoroughly exposed.
Those cells are absolutely self-sustaining. All they need to continue to grow indefinitely are nutrients, CO2, and warmth. Furthermore, they contain in their DNA all of the information needed to grow into a human being indistinguishable in form and function from any other human being. The difference between them and the cells of an early pre-implantation blastocyst is the pattern of gene expression. With a chemical "reset" of the DNA, any of those fibroblasts could be induced to enter the embryogenic pathway. The process of inducing embryogenesis out of differentiated cells has been done many times in rodents and other animals (e.g. Dolly the sheep); researchers are attempting to do the same with primates. Once they figure out the process in primates, they will be able to do it with humans.
Oh, for the sake of completeness, I should mention that there are many populations of human embryonic cells maintained in exactly the same manner as those fibroblasts--and they do not form embryos since they have not received the chemical signals telling them to begin embryogenesis. Oh, BTW, here is a nice information piece that explains where thoughts take place and how consciousness is controlled in the brain, and here is another ("brain facts" link here) that illustrates (in very brief and simplified fashion) how thoughts occur. However, I did notice that *after* I had already listed a number of imaging techniques that allow researchers and physicians to record thought processes as they occur, you again challenged me to name one way in which thoughts can be seen as if I had never even listed the imaging modalities. Therefore, I don't hold high hopes of you actually learning anything from these web sites.
Oh, and while I was perusing youtube videos, I found this video which, frankly, makes me feel a bit nauseated. That's because, unlike you, I am very aware of how integral functional brain tissue is to personhood and perception, and I recognize that the brain they made *is* a person. The video shouldn't bother you one bit, however, given your odd view that the purpose of the brain is--I dunno, to keep the skull from collapsing? While you have adamantly denied that the brain's primary functions have anything to do with the brain, you've never really specified what, exactly, you think the brain does.
The fact that your new-age beliefs about human biology contradict what is actually known, and I insist on only communicating established scientific facts might make *someone* a liar, but it isn't me.
You are the filth that is now running this nation, a leftist, lying, twisting, deceiving any you can with the lies from your father, a murderer from the start. The assertion that you are basing your argument upon science is absolutely a lie and several have shown your lies for what they are. The use of 'undifferentiated', your dismissal of alive embryonic humans as merely clumps of cells ... yeah, you're a lying leftist bilge spittlist who wouldn't know truth if it slapped your ugly face. You are filth and I will not play with you any longer because you are too dishonest, too leftist, too alinskyesque to have an honest discussion. I am just surprised you have been tolerated at this conservative website for this long, you servant of the most low.
I never post anything that I have not vetted as to accuracy and reliability. As a professional, I often go to Wikipedia, because I know that there is a high chance that someone has already found the relevant references, saving me a lot of work. I like Wikipedia, because it generally is written so that laypeople can understand what are often very technical topics. I could link medical journals, but don't because they typically are written so that only subject matter experts can understand them.
The reason I keep bringing up Catholicism is that it is the only prominent faith I know about that proscribes the use of contraceptives. It is mind-boggling to me, given that preventing pregnancy is the best way to decrease the abortion rate, and Catholic official doctrine supposedly is against abortion. If there is another prominent faith (Christian or not) that proscribes the use of contraceptives, I will happily include it in these discussions.
What I am responding to here is the attempt to dishonestly twist science around so as to justify the philosophically driven proscription of contraceptives. If you want to say that you believe a human soul forms at conception, fine--but DON'T try to justify it with muddled science. There are some serious philosophical issues with that belief, but in general, I don't discuss philosophy since it is the art of making claims that can't be seen, touched, measured, or otherwise verified in a concrete manner.
The use of 'undifferentiated', your dismissal of alive embryonic humans as merely clumps of cells ...
Oh, my goodness. So I dismiss a formless clump of cells that have absolutely no physical structures associated with awareness or thought as being a clump of formless cells. Oh, horrors. How absolutely awful of me to promote the concept that legal protection should be extended to those who actually have human form and function, and then go on to explain when that form and function is actually observable.
BTW, did you spend any time perusing that journal, Reproductive Medicine Online, which is full of experts relating their hands-on everyday observations of early pre-implantation embryos, to see how *they* describe them? And when *they* consider pregnancy to start?
I'm afraid your attempts to insult me for doggedly sticking to scientifically verifiable facts are not going to turn me against the use of contraceptives. I will, as I always have done, stick strictly to the scientific facts and describe them. To do otherwise would be dishonest and untrue to myself.
Keep in mind that if God did want people like me to exist--literal, absolutely focused on the physical world, no patience with philosophical thought--we wouldn't exist.
That lie is as old as the Genesis story. It sifts down to saying that God must be responsible for Evil else it would not exist in the Universe He has created. You are a dead soul, a liar, and a servant of the father of dead souls ... and that is not God The Father Almighty.
And still you cannot define what consciousness actually is or how it comes to be in the gestating new human being, or even a gestating dog. Your mind is so twisted in worship of your little god science that you are unable to think clearly. And your continuing lie over the developing embryo, claiming it is an undifferentiated mass of cells until well after implantation, even as that new life seeks implantation to support its will to live, is evidence of your bankrupt soul. There are three distinct levels to human consciousness, but since you do not discuss philosophical issues, we can assume you would not read or acknowledge them if offered for your contemplation, so bye bye, enjoy your 'science driven life' as you lie your way into eternity. Wouldn't want to be you ...
Well start hollering up God again.
Vetted by who, Lucifer?
A formless clump of cells isn’t formless, for literal Christ’s sake.
Oh, goodness.
It seems I forgot a “not” in there—if God did *not* want people like me to exist (...) we wouldn’t exist. And saying so is not presuming to speak for God—since God is the all-powerful creator of the universe, we can conclude that everything that exists in the universe is by His will. Thus, I am exactly the way God wanted me to be.
I guess you are unaware of the enormous body of work that has taken place in the field of neurobiology, demonstrating quite clearly how the brain functions. Shall I start linking to some of the imaging studies that map brain activity and show where specific kinds of thoughts occur? And which demonstrate that brain activity changes in specific ways in different consciousness states? If there is any group of cells in which such activity can occur within the pre- or even early post-implantation embryo, there would be some sort of imagery or study that demonstrates it. But the only thing that comes close, to my knowledge, is the observation that the neural tube starts to fold in week 3—the time that all of the organs and tissues start to differentiate.
The burden of proof that a clump of cells can be consciously aware of anything really is on you. The only reason I can think of for pushing a definition of human being that does not include actual human form and function is to provide a rationale to condemn women for using contraceptives. I’ve already said that no amount of childish name calling or insults (aka bullying) will change my opinion on that. I simply will not condemn contraceptive use. And I won’t start elevating every single cell or clump of cells to human being status, just because it could be induced into developing into an embryo through the application of the proper mixture of biochemicals.
Since a human being appears to only become self aware by the age of eighteen to twenty-four months after exiting the water world into the air world, would you extend the utilitarian use of these not yet self conscious beings to about seventeen months from birth into the air world?
If the scale you magically apply is consciousness, what is the magic moment when the organism becomes conscious? And a corollary: are the not yet self aware/self-conscious children less valuable than the children who have achieved awareness of the self?
Are you aware that life is a growth in complexity, from the will, then emotive, then self awareness/self consciousness?
Since dead souls are happy to disenfranchise a living organism (not organ, you lying mudpile, organism, because an embryonic individual is an ORGANISM) as it exhibits the will to live, and as it builds a brain ORGAN capable of emotive living for its consciousness, what is the magic date of the level of life we less enlightened should endorse protecting?
Word to readers of this post and thread: the person, exDemMom, to whom this is posted is claiming to be a pro-life conservative. She/he/it is nothing of the sort, as evidenced by the dead-soul support of leftist/progressive talking points used to defend embryo harvesting for experimentation and cloning research.
Her/his/its continued assertion that only scientific perspective is her/his/its basis for truth must not be ignored and thus given credulity, for the verdicts of science are a sliding scale determined by the authorities of each epoch, thus unedited by God's Grace in Christ.
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