Reducing abortions

[Ken]

Catholic scholar, George Weigel has this to say with respect to when life begins. It's noticeably lacking in its mystical appeals to the circular, and therefore nebulous, nature of the origin of new life.

And that’s why it’s an unforced error for Catholics—including bishops, priests, religious, and laity—to use the language of “belief” in regard to the beginning of human life. The correct answer to the question of when human life begins is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of scientific fact. The product of human conception, an embryo with a unique genetic character, is “a whole living member of the species Homo sapiens in the earliest stage of his or her natural development” (to quote Robert George and Christopher Tollefson). One learns this, or used to, in high school biology. The human being who begins at conception develops through various life stages—embryo, fetus, child, adolescent, adult—through its own internally directed functioning, which begins immediately at conception. That is not, to repeat, a matter of faith or “belief.” It’s an empirical fact: a human life, and nothing other than a human life, begins at conception.

Except that science doesn't actually say that human life begins at conception. Science says that life is an endless cycle. Humans have two stages in their life cycle, a haploid stage and a diploid stage. Other organisms have three or more different stages in their life cycle. Butterflies, for example, have a haploid sperm and egg stage, a larval stage (caterpillar) and an adult stage (butterfly). Jellyfish go through 6 different stages in their life cycle. Some simple organisms just have one stage and replicate through binary fission. High school biology textbooks do not actually talk about when life begins. They talk about the human life cycle, which actually has no beginning unless you unwind it all the way back to the dawn of time to the moment of autogenesis or creation as the case may be.

[Josh]

Does science say human life doesn't begin at conception?

I mean, what exactly is a zygote? Is it dead, if it's not alive? If it's not human, what is it?

[temporal1]

Does science say human life doesn't begin at conception?
I mean, what exactly is a zygote? Is it dead, if it's not alive? If it's not human, what is it?

this “creation” story (if true) would be more wonderous than Jesus’ resurrection.
“we don’t know where human babies come from.”

human life begins with 2 LIVING HUMAN CELLS. always human, always living.
from the moment of conception, there is an EXPLOSION of growth that leads to a full term infant in only 9 months.
LIFE. begins before conception. conception does not come out of nothingness or death.

[temporal1]

i only learned this amazing scientific fact while awaiting the arrival of my grdaughter:

How many eggs ..
https://www.healthline.com/health/women ... woman-have

Are female babies born with eggs?
Yes, female babies are born with all the egg cells they’re ever going to have. No new egg cells are made during your lifetime.

i cannot look at human infants the same, ever again. every one a marvel of God’s creation.

[Ken]

Does science say human life doesn't begin at conception?

I mean, what exactly is a zygote? Is it dead, if it's not alive? If it's not human, what is it?

Science doesn't talk about life beginning. It talks about a continuous cycle of life. Sperm and eggs are also, by any definition, considered alive. And they are also life forms of the species Homo sapiens. And they come from other living cells via the process of meiosis. At no point in the human lifecycle (or any other life cycle) does life begin. Declaring that life "begins" at conception is simply arbitrary and unscientific. You might just as easily claim that it starts with meiosis.

You can believe anything you want about when a human zygote becomes a self-aware person with a soul. I won't argue that point because scripture simply provides no answer to that question. I'm simply pushing back on the quote from the Catholic scholar, George Weigel that was posted by HondurasKeiser, who claimed that science and science textbooks mark the moment conception as when life begins. That is simply wrong. They do nothing of the sort. I probably have a half dozen HS biology textbooks on my shelf. Not one of them talks about life beginning at conception. Rather, they all talk about the human life cycle and compare/contrast it to other organisms.

[Josh]

Zygotes are alive, and are a distinct form of life that is different than either the mother or the father. Science tells us that. It is a distinct, new organism.

I suppose one can engage in a reductio ad absurdum where eventually one claims distinct human life doesn't exist and we are all just one giant "blob" of cells. But in that case, discussing things like murder is also pointless - if I shoot you, it's no different than clipping my fingernails.

[temporal1]

Zygotes are alive, and are a distinct form of life that is different than either the mother or the father. Science tells us that.
It is a distinct, new organism.

I suppose one can engage in a reductio ad absurdum where eventually one claims distinct human life doesn't exist and we are all just one giant "blob" of cells. But in that case, discussing things like murder is also pointless - if I shoot you, it's no different than clipping my fingernails.

It is a distinct new organism, resulting from specific living organisms colliding, not from dead or inert matter. 2 pebbles colliding do not create new life, nor does living horse sperm with a living human egg. It’s all specific and unique, and vibrant, living.

The important part to realize, this is what’s being off-loaded onto everyone’s children via gov schools.
Not speculation, not exaggeration, not unwarranted fear. Just statement of present everyday reality. Underwritten by everyone’s combined tax dollars.

Read it and weep. Most of all, don’t vote for it. If you have, repent. Begin again.

[Ken]

Zygotes are alive, and are a distinct form of life that is different than either the mother or the father. Science tells us that. It is a distinct, new organism.

I suppose one can engage in a reductio ad absurdum where eventually one claims distinct human life doesn't exist and we are all just one giant "blob" of cells. But in that case, discussing things like murder is also pointless - if I shoot you, it's no different than clipping my fingernails.

You can make any argument that you want. I'm simply pointing out that defining conception as the moment that "life begins" is simply unscientific. The sperm and egg that fuse at the moment of conception are also living organisms and every bit as alive as the resulting zygote. Which is why science describes life as a continual cycle rather than a linear path with a beginning and an end.

Despite George Weigel's claims to the contrary, science doesn't actually define conception or any other moment in the human life cycle as the point at which "life begins." You can believe that sperm and egg are non-living (or non-human). And that at the exact moment when the 23 chromosomes of the sperm and egg are combined to form a zygote with 23 pairs of chromosomes is when life "begins," and is also the moment when the soul enters the body and it becomes a human individual. But that isn't a question of science, that is a question of faith. George Weigel recognizes that scripture provides an unsatisfactory answer (or no answer) to the question of when human life begins and the soul enters the body. So he turns instead to science to to find answers. Unfortunately science doesn't actually provide the answer that he thinks it does.

And no, this isn't some plot by science or public schools to undermine abortion politics or faith. Biology simply doesn't reach into issues of faith and this is ultimately not a question of science, but a question of faith.

[Bootstrap]

Except that science doesn't actually say that human life begins at conception.

Scientifically, at what point do you have a genetically distinct living human being? Before Roe vs. Wade, my high school textbooks told me that's when life begins. Textbooks don't usually say that these days.

[HondurasKeiser]

Except that science doesn't actually say that human life begins at conception. Science says that life is an endless cycle. Humans have two stages in their life cycle, a haploid stage and a diploid stage. Other organisms have three or more different stages in their life cycle. Butterflies, for example, have a haploid sperm and egg stage, a larval stage (caterpillar) and an adult stage (butterfly). Jellyfish go through 6 different stages in their life cycle. Some simple organisms just have one stage and replicate through binary fission. High school biology textbooks do not actually talk about when life begins. They talk about the human life cycle, which actually has no beginning unless you unwind it all the way back to the dawn of time to the moment of autogenesis or creation as the case may be.

This is what Princeton University says. This particular quote seemed relevant:

"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and M�ller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists "pre-embryo" among "discarded and replaced terms" in modern embryology, describing it as "ill-defined and inaccurate" (p. 12}]

This one from 1975...the same year as the MC statement on abortion is pretty cut and dry:

"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."
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]