There are no god-given rights, mankind has formulated them and the driving motivation for universal rights is we all agree that we don't want certain things to happen to us and our own. It took a while for slavery to end because the people determining the rights weren't the ones being enslaved, and a similar dynamic exists with abortion. We've all made it past that point so it it easier to be detached.
1. but the issue I was discussing with Piezoe was whether scientists consider a fertilized egg a human being. When that zygote or fetus becomes protected by the govt (or God) as a "life" is an entirely different argument. 2. what do you mean by unsupported... do you mean with out nurses and medical help or machines. Without food from parents. Without shelter?
I took zoology as an undergraduate, so I am not completely ignorant on this subject. My view is that the question should be decided by the professional zoology/biology/medical community whose consensus recommendation the Court should pay great deference to. (see Scats post above in this regard.) The religious community should have no say in the matter whatsoever. This much I can tell you with absolute certainty. The statement "human life begins at conception" is Correct! in the sense that if the zygote is left alone to develop further, eventually a new human being will result. We are absolutely wrong, however, if we fail to recognize that we don't have a new human being at the point of conception any more than a maple seed is a maple tree or a fertilized chicken egg is a chicken. It is a shameful lack of knowledge that has resulted in such absurd and irrational pronouncements from the Catholic Church and various other Christian sects, chiefly the evangelicals. I can't help but think that these folks would have done better to have spent less time reading the bible and more time with a microscope studying tissue cross sections. Had they, they'd be creating much less trouble in this world. While it is quite true that human life begins with a zygote we most assuredly do not have a human being at that stage, nor for certain do we have it anytime in the first eight weeks of gestation, after which zoologists say that the human embryo has now become a fetus. It is sometime beyond that that an actual human being exists inside the womb, but I am certainly not qualified to say when that is. I hope at least a few people here beyond myself, richter, gwb, and apparently scat, are capable of understanding the difference between a zygote and a human being, i.e., a person. May I emphasize that it is not a small difference, it's a gigantic difference; it is not nuance! Virtually none of us are pro-abortion in the vicious sense that that descriptor is sometimes meant by those ignorant of human biology. Far too few of us, I fear, are pro-logic.
Ok, I asked what time it was and you told me how to build a watch. The short of it is that you, personally, don't know when it is a life but you defer to science in this regard. Is that accurate?
piezoe its you who are confusing this issue. you are now conflating the term human being with the idea of protected person. they don't have to be the same thing. And note... many professed believers understand that while a fetus may be a human being and a life... they still allow the govt to sanction the killing of theses babies. Just look at all the Catholics who are democrats. Kennedys, Pelosi, Biden, Cuomo etc. They all say things like they are personally against it but...
Almost, but not quite accurate. I don't know when a fetus becomes a human being, i.e., a person. I would defer to the consensus opinion of professionals in the fields of zoology/biologymedicine in this regard, not to science or scientists in general. I personally would avoid using the expression, "when it is a life".
I think Piezoe is quite clear on his understanding of the issue, Jem. He is stating that science should determine what is or is not categorized as a human being. An organism made up of a group of cells, while genetically traceable to a human being, is not a human being. If I grow a liver or a kidney from human cultures, does that make the liver a human being? Of course not. Furthermore, I am Catholic, and I believe in pro-choice. My belief is political, not religious in nature because I don't believe it is my right - certainly not the government's right - to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her body as long as another human isn't being harmed other than the one making the choice. So we have to fall back on the distinction of when the organism is considered to be a human - not when it simply has the genetic makeup of humans. I highly dislike abortion. My personal desire on the subject is irrelevant as I do not have the right to tell others what to do. If I were running for President, that is exactly how I would answer the question: Against abortion, but not my decision to make for someone else.
we really can't get anywhere if we can't get a definition supported by science about what is a human being. ( or at least get piezoe to admit his sophistry on this issue.) I ask piezoe (and now perhaps you if you think piezoe was really deferring to science) to please provide scientific support for the idea that even though two sets of 23 chromosomes came together to create a new life... that life is not a human being. Here is one side of the argument... --- 2) Fertilization Now that we have looked at the formation of the mature haploid sex gametes, the next important process to consider is fertilization. O�Rahilly defines fertilization as: "... the procession of events that begins when a spermatozoon makes contact with a secondary oocyte or its investments, and ends with the intermingling of maternal and paternal chromosomes at metaphase of the first mitotic division of the zygote. The zygote is characteristic of the last phase of fertilization and is identified by the first cleavage spindle. It is a unicellular embryo."9 (Emphasis added.) 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. Quoting Moore: "Zygote: This cell results from the union of an oocyte and a sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo). The expression fertilized ovum refers to a secondary oocyte that is impregnated by a sperm; when fertilization is complete, the oocyte becomes a zygote."10 (Emphasis added.) This new single-cell human being immediately produces specifically human proteins and enzymes11 (not carrot or frog enzymes and proteins), and genetically directs his/her own growth and development. (In fact, this genetic growth and development has been proven not to be directed by the mother.)12 Finally, this new human being�the single-cell human zygote�is biologically an individual, a living organism�an individual member of the human species. Quoting Larsen: "... [W]e begin our description of the developing human with the formation and differentiation of the male and female sex cells or gametes, which will unite at fertilization to initiate the embryonic development of a new individual."13 (Emphasis added.) In sum, a mature human sperm and a mature human oocyte are products of gametogenesis�each has only 23 chromosomes. They each have only half of the required number of chromosomes for a human being. They cannot singly develop further into human beings. They produce only "gamete" proteins and enzymes. They do not direct their own growth and development. And they are not individuals, i.e., members of the human species. They are only parts�each one a part of a human being. On the other hand, a human being is the immediate product of fertilization. As such he/she is a single-cell embryonic zygote, an organism with 46 chromosomes, the number required of a member of the human species. This human being immediately produces specifically human proteins and enzymes, directs his/her own further growth and development as human, and is a new, genetically unique, newly existing, live human individual. After fertilization the single-cell human embryo doesn�t become another kind of thing. It simply divides and grows bigger and bigger, developing through several stages as an embryo over an 8-week period. Several of these developmental stages of the growing embryo are given special names, e.g., a morula (about 4 days), a blastocyst (5-7 days), a bilaminar (two layer) embryo (during the second week), and a trilaminar (3-layer) embryo (during the third week).14 https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/wdhbb.html
Sorry, but I follow the "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck then it's a duck" philosophy. A multi-cellular organism on it's way to becoming human is not yet a human being. The question, for me and those that think the same, is when that actually occurs.
Here is a list of 41 quotes from medical experts and medical textbooks that prove human life begins at conception/fertilization. “The life cycle of mammals begins when a sperm enters an egg.” Okada et al., A role for the elongator complex in zygotic paternal genome demethylation, NATURE 463:554 (Jan. 28, 2010) ***** “Fertilization is the process by which male and female haploid gametes (sperm and egg) unite to produce a genetically distinct individual.” Signorelli et al., Kinases, phosphatases and proteases during sperm capacitation, CELL TISSUE RES. 349(3):765 (Mar. 20, 2012) ***** “The oviduct or Fallopian tube is the anatomical region where every new life begins in mammalian species. After a long journey, the spermatozoa meet the oocyte in the specific site of the oviduct named ampulla, and fertilization takes place.” Coy et al., Roles of the oviduct in mammalian fertilization, REPRODUCTION 144(6):649 (Oct. 1, 2012) (emphasis added). ****** “Fertilization – the fusion of gametes to produce a new organism – is the culmination of a multitude of intricately regulated cellular processes.” Marcello et al., Fertilization, ADV. EXP. BIOL. 757:321 (2013) ****** National Institutes of Health, Medline Plus Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary (2013),http://www.merriamwebster.com/medlineplus/fertilization The government’s own definition attests to the fact that life begins at fertilization. According to the National Institutes of Health, “fertilization” is the process of union of two gametes (i.e., ovum and sperm) “whereby the somatic chromosome number is restored and the development of a new individual is initiated.” Steven Ertelt”Undisputed Scientific Fact: Human Life Begins at Conception, or Fertilization” LifeNews.com 11/18/13 ****** “Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo developmentn) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).” Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2. ****** “In that fraction of a second when the chromosomes form pairs, the sex of the new child will be determined, hereditary characteristics received from each parent will be set, and a new life will have begun.” Kaluger, G., and Kaluger, M., Human Development: The Span of Life, page 28-29, The C.V. Mosby Co., St. Louis, 1974. ****** An embryology textbook describes how birth is just an event in the development of a baby, not the beginning of his/her life. “It should always be remembered that many organs are still not completely developed by full-term and birth should be regarded only as an incident in the whole developmental process.” F Beck Human Embryology, Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1985 page vi ****** “It is the penetration of the ovum by a sperm and the resulting mingling of nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the initiation of the life of a new individual.” Clark Edward and Corliss Patten’s Human Embryology, McGraw – Hill Inc., 30 ****** “Although it is customary to divide human development into prenatal and postnatal periods, it is important to realize that birth is merely a dramatic event during development resulting in a change in environment.” The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology fifth edition, Moore and Persaud, 1993, Saunders Company, page 1 Click here to sign up for daily pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com ****** “Your baby starts out as a fertilized egg… For the first six weeks, the baby is called an embryo.” Prenatal Care, US Department Of Health And Human Services, Maternal and Child Health Division, 1990 ****** “Landrum B. Shettles, M.D., P.h.D. was first scientist to succeed at in vitro fertilization: “The zygote is human life….there is one fact that no one can deny; Human beings begin at conception.” Zygote is a term for a newly conceived life after the sperm and the egg cell meet but before the embryo begins to divide. From Landrum B. Shettles “Rites of Life: The Scientific Evidence for Life Before Birth” Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1983 p 40 ****** The medical textbook, Before We Are Born – Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects, states: “The zygote and early embryo are living human organisms.” Keith L. Moore & T.V.N. Persaud Before We Are Born – Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects (W.B. Saunders Company, 1998. Fifth edition.) Page 500 ***** “Thus a new cell is formed from the union of a male and a female gamete. [sperm and egg cells] The cell, referred to as the zygote, contains a new combination of genetic material, resulting in an individual different from either parent and from anyone else in the world.” Sally B Olds, et al., Obstetric Nursing (Menlo Park, California: Addison – Wesley publishing, 1980) P 136 Quoted in Eric Pastuszek. Is the Fetus Human? (Rockford, Illinois: Tan books And Publishers Inc., 1991) ****** “The term conception refers to the union of the male and female pronuclear elements of procreation from which a new living being develops. It is synonymous with the terms fecundation, impregnation, and fertilization … The zygote thus formed represents the beginning of a new life.” J.P. Greenhill and E.A. Freidman. Biological Principles and Modern Practice of Obstetrics. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Publishers. 1974 Pages 17 and 23. ****** T.W. Sadler, Langman’s Medical Embryology, 10th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006. p. 11. “Development begins with fertilization, the process by which the male gamete, the sperm, and the femal gamete, the oocyte, unite to give rise to a zygote.” ****** Keith L. Moore, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2. “[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the beginning of a new human being.” ****** Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Miller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 2001. p. 8. “Although life is a continuous process, fertilization… is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte.” ****** “[All] organisms, however large and complex they might be as full grown, begin life as a single cell. This is true for the human being, for instance, who begins life as a fertilized ovum.” Dr. Morris Krieger “The Human Reproductive System” p 88 (1969) Sterling Pub. Co ****** “The first cell of a new and unique human life begins existence at the moment of conception (fertilization) when one living sperm from the father joins with one living ovum from the mother. It is in this manner that human life passes from one generation to another. Given the appropriate environment and genetic composition, the single cell subsequently gives rise to trillions of specialized and integrated cells that compose the structures and functions of each individual human body. Every human being alive today and, as far as is known scientifically, every human being that ever existed, began his or her unique existence in this manner, i.e., as one cell. If this first cell or any subsequent configuration of cells perishes, the individual dies, ceasing to exist in matter as a living being. There are no known exceptions to this rule in the field of human biology.” James Bopp, ed., Human Life and Health Care Ethics, vol. 2 (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1985) ****** Rand McNally, Atlas of the Body (New York: Rand McNally, 1980) 139, 144 “In fusing together, the male and female gametes produce a fertilized single cell, the zygote, which is the start of a new individual.” Quoted in Randy Alcorn “Pro-life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments” (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2000) ****** “Your baby starts out as a fertilized egg…For the first six weeks, the baby is called an embryo.” Prenatal Care, US Department of Health and Human Services, Maternal and Child Health Div 1990 ****** “….it is scientifically correct to say that human life begins at conception.” Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard Medical School: Quoted by Public Affairs Council ****** Shettles, Landrum, M.D., Rorvik, David, Rites of Life: The Scientific Evidence for Life Before Birth, page 36, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1983 “… Conception confers life and makes you one of a kind. Unless you have an identical twin, there is virtually no chance, in the natural course of things, that there will be “another you” – not even if mankind were to persist for billions of years.” ****** From Newsweek November 12, 1973: “Human life begins when the ovum is fertilized and the new combined cell mass begins to divide.” Dr. Jasper Williams, Former President of the National Medical Association (p 74) ****** “The formation, maturation and meeting of a male and female sex cell are all preliminary to their actual union into a combined cell, or zygote, which definitely marks the beginning of a new individual. The penetration of the ovum by the spermatozoon, and the coming together and pooling of their respective nuclei, constitutes the process of fertilization.” Leslie Brainerd Arey, “Developmental Anatomy” seventh edition space (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1974), 55 ****** The Biology of Prenatal Develpment, National Geographic, 2006. (Video) “Biologically speaking, human development begins at fertilization.” ****** In the Womb, National Geographic, 2005 (Prenatal Development Video) “The two cells gradually and gracefully become one. This is the moment of conception, when an individual’s unique set of DNA is created, a human signature that never existed before and will never be repeated.” ****** DeCoursey, R.M., The Human Organism, 4th edition McGraw Hill Inc., Toronto, 1974. page 584 “The zygote therefore contains a new arrangement of genes on the chromosomes never before duplicated in any other individual. The offspring destined to develop from the fertilized ovum will have a genetic constitution different from anyone else in the world.” ****** Thibodeau, G.A., and Anthony, C.P., Structure and Function of the Body, 8th edition, St. Louis: Times Mirror/Mosby College Publishers, St. Louis, 1988. pages 409-419 “The science of the development of the individual before birth is called embryology. It is the story of miracles, describing the means by which a single microscopic cell is transformed into a complex human being. Genetically the zygote is complete. It represents a new single celled individual.” ****** Scarr, S., Weinberg, R.A., and Levine A., Understanding Development, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1986. page 86 “The development of a new human being begins when a male’s sperm pierces the cell membrane of a female’s ovum, or egg….The villi become the placenta, which will nourish the developing infant for the next eight and a half months.” ****** Clark, J. ed., The Nervous System: Circuits of Communication in the Human Body, Torstar Books Inc., Toronto, 1985, page 99 “Each human begins life as a combination of two cells, a female ovum and a much smaller male sperm. This tiny unit, no bigger than a period on this page, contains all the information needed to enable it to grow into the complex …structure of the human body. The mother has only to provide nutrition and protection.” ****** Turner, J.S., and Helms, D.B., Lifespan Developmental, 2nd ed., CBS College Publishing (Holt, Rhinehart, Winston), 1983, page 53 “A zygote (a single fertilized egg cell) represents the onset of pregnancy and the genesis of new life.” ****** Carlson, Bruce M. Patten’s Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3 “Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)… The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual.” ****** Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943 “Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism…. At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun…. The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life.” ****** Lennart Nilsson A Child is Born: Completely Revised Edition (Dell Publishing Co.: New York) 1986 “…but the whole story does not begin with delivery. The baby has existed for months before – at first signaling its presence only with small outer signs, later on as a somewhat foreign little being which has been growing and gradually affecting the lives of those close by…” ****** Kaluger, G., and Kaluger, M., Human Development: The Span of Life, page 28-29, The C.V. Mosby Co., St. Louis, 1974 “In that fraction of a second when the chromosomes form pairs, [at conception] the sex of the new child will be determined, hereditary characteristics received from each parent will be set, and a new life will have begun.” ****** Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3 “The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.” ****** Human Embryology, 3rd ed. Bradley M. Patten, (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968), 43. “It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual.” ****** Essentials of Human Embryology, William J. Larsen, (New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1998), 1-17. “In this text, we begin our description of the developing human with the formation and differentiation of the male and female sex cells or gametes, which will unite at fertilization to initiate the embryonic development of a new individual. … Fertilization takes place in the oviduct … resulting in the formation of a zygote containing a single diploid nucleus. Embryonic development is considered to begin at this point… This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development.” ****** From Human Embryology & Teratology, Ronan R. O’Rahilly, Fabiola Muller, (New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996), 5-55. “Fertilization is an important landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed… Fertilization is the procession of events that begins when a spermatozoon makes contact with a secondary oocyte or its investments… The zygote … is a unicellular embryo..” ****** The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th ed. Keith L. Moore, Ph.D. & T.V.N. Persaud, Md., (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998), 2-18: “[The Zygote] results from the union of an oocyte and a sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being. Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm … unites with a female gamete or oocyte … to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” http://www.lifenews.com/2015/01/08/...tbooks-prove-human-life-begins-at-conception/