Abortion: Credible science that an unborn isn't a human being/person?

Question

Can any pro-choicer provide me with credible science that an unborn is something other than a unique individual human being from the moment of conception, and thus a person? Black's Law Dictionary 9th edition. Person: 'A human being.'

I can provide plenty of credible science that an unborn is a human being, and thus a person.
Nealis v. Baird, 996 P.2d 438, 453 (Okla. 1999) “Contemporary scientific precepts accept as a given that a human life begins at conception.” (citing KEITH L. MOORE & T.V.N. PERSAUD, THE DEVELOPING HUMAN 14 (5th ed. 1993); SUSAN TUCKER BLACKBURN & DONNA LEE LOPER, MATERNAL, FETAL AND NEONATAL PHYSIOLOGY: A CLINICAL PERSPECTIVE 49 (1992); MICHAEL R. HARRISON ET AL., THE UNBORN PATIENT: PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT 14 (1984); DALE RUSSELL DUNNIHOO, M.D., PH.D., FUNDAMENTALS OF GYNECOLOGY AND OBSTETRICS 286–99 (1990)

"an unborn child is a human being from conception is “supported by standard textbooks on embryology or human biology”
T.W. SADLER, LANGMAN’S MEDICAL EMBRYOLOGY (John N. Gardner ed., 6th ed. 1990.

"The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception."
M. Allen et. al., "The Limits of Viability." New England Journal of Medicine. 11/25/93: Vol. 329, No. 22, p. 1597.

"Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being—a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings." John C. Fletcher, Mark I. Evans, "Maternal Bonding in Early Fetal Ultrasound Examinations," New England Journal of Medicine, February 17, 1983.

"Not only is it a life, but, by its intrinsic biological nature, it is a human life from the moment of conception, for “it can be nothing else.”
E. BLECHSCHMIDT, THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE,]16–17

" 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." Keith L. Moore, Ph.D. & T.V.N. Persaud, Md., The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th ed.(Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998), 2-18.



T.W. SADLER, LANGMAN’S MEDICAL EMBRYOLOGY (John N. Gardner ed., 6th ed. (1990): "the proposition that an unborn child is a human being from conception is “supported by standard textbooks on embryology or human biology"

(“Contemporary scientific precepts accept as a given that a human being's life begins at conception.”
KEITH L. MOORE & T.V.N. PERSAUD, THE DEVELOPING HUMAN 14 (5th ed. 1993)
SUSAN TUCKER BLACKBURN & DONNA LEE LOPER, MATERNAL, FETAL AND NEONATAL PHYSIOLOGY: A CLINICAL PERSPECTIVE 49 (1992)
MICHAEL R. HARRISON ET AL., THE UNBORN PATIENT: PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT 14 (1984)
DALE RUSSELL DUNNIHOO, M.D., PH.D., FUNDAMENTALS OF GYNECOLOGY AND OBSTETRICS 286–99 (1990)

Ronan R. O'Rahilly, Fabiola Muller, HUMAN EMBRYOLOGY & TERATOLOGY , (New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996), 5-55. "Fertilization is an important landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human being is thereby formed"

E.L. Potter and J.M. Craig, PATHOLOGY OF THE FETUS AND THE INFANT, 3d ed. (Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975), vii. "Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite a new human being is created which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition."

John C. Fletcher, Mark I. Evans, "Maternal Bonding in Early Fetal Ultrasound Examinations," [I]New England Journal of Medicine[/I], February 17, 1983."Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being—a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings."

E. BLECHSCHMIDT, THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE 16–17 (1977) "Not only is it a life, but, “by its intrinsic biological nature,” it is a human life from the moment of conception, for “it can be nothing else."

Carlson, Bruce M. Patten, 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, as an individual member of that species."

Keith L. Moore and T.V.N. Persaud, The developing Human 6th ed 2;" :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). "

Answer 1

You and your sources commit a major fallacy, the interchangeable use of the word "person" with the terms "human", "humanity", "human being" or "human life". These terms are not synonymous. For example, pro lifers often confuse the adjective "human" and the noun "human being," giving them the same meaning.



So the only objective scientific fact we have is that a fetus is "human" (the adjective) - not that it is a "human being" (the noun).



Deciding when a fetus in the womb is afforded all the rights of an individual person is not a scientific question it is a philosophical one. Science is very clear of the development of human life and the many stages that it consists of. But it doesn't answer the question of when we should afford that fetus all the rights that you and I have in the sense of "personhood". Again that is not a scientific question.



It is a human fetus and it is alive, no one is debating that. Most scientists agree that the fetus can't feel pain and is not self aware, it's why we have laws against abortions after 24 weeks or so because that is when the nervous system hooks up to the brain. Fetuses at the 24-week stage of development do not possess the wiring to transmit pain signals from the body to the brain's cortex. Even after 24 weeks, the fetus likely exists in a state of "continuous sleep-like unconsciousness or sedation. The fetus does not feel pain like you or I would.



http://www.rcog.org.uk/fetal-awareness-review-research-and-recommendations-practice



But as long as that fetus is in the womb it is not an individual person, A fetus is becoming a baby, grows into a baby, is a potential person, or is becoming a person and relies on the woman and her body to do it. so that alone means a human being and a human fetus are not the same. A person can think, feel, be self aware and live outside the womb, an embryo cannot.



Life exists in many stages of development and growth, and I feel that pretending a zygote or fetus is exactly the same as you or I is misguided.



As a human being, an individual no one can force you to give another person your kidney, it is unethical. And no one should force a woman to have carry a fetus, it is unethical.



It is an ongoing debate but it is not a scientific one.



Edit: Again I will state...



Science does not exist to prove or disprove philosophical concepts such as personhood. What these scientific data show is that the zygote/embryo/fetus is indeed ALIVE and GENETICALLY HUMAN. I know of no pro-choicer that disputes this and it is not necessary for us to do so because it does not follow that because something is alive or genetically human, it is a person. A placenta is made out of living cells and it has the same DNA as the embryo, but the placenta isn’t considered a person. Therefore their own definition of person requires something more. There are 3 “case studies” that can be used against your argument, most of which have been addressed: 1) tumors (unique DNA, not a person), 2) identical twins (non-unique DNA, 2 persons), 3) chimerism (2 unique sets of DNA, 1 person).



Also, Conception is not a “moment” but a process that can take hours or days . If “personhood” is a simple black and white/ yes or no question and not a matter of development or shades of grey, then when precisely in this process is a new person created?



The key issue is not life or if it's human but personhood and this is not a concept that can be explored by science. It is a philosophical, moral concept that is usually defined by sentience–such things as self-awareness, the presence of feelings, thoughts, experiences, goals, values etc. These tend to be the kinds of things that pro-choicers consider to confer moral significance, although exactly what the definition is is, of course, still debated–in the proper philosophical setting, where it belongs. Therefore arguments that “science prove” the personhood of a fetus suffer from a gross misunderstanding of terms and concepts. Insisting that “life begins at conception,” or that “it has a beating heart” (so does a mouse), or that it has “its own unique DNA” is pointless because none of those things is the real issue.



Also you should research Blacks Law dictionary...



Montreal, PQ (Reuters) - Sarah Medhurst (nee Black) shocked journalists and legal scholars at a press conference held at the Black family estate Monday when she revealed that Black's Law Dictionary, a highly regarded legal reference text, was originally written as a joke by her eccentric great grandfather Henry Campbell Black.

Answer 2

It better not be a human being because then the horribly misnamed pro -lifers would find themselves being forced to do something that is actually moral ; which is taking very good care of each every human being that they want to save from being aborted

Edit

@ Blawr

It's relevant because if it is indeed a person then it has to meet quality of life standards that are far in excess of the Paramecium Paradigm which is the standard that the horribly misnamed pro lifers use to define the parameters of human life

The fact of the matter is that some truly horrifying things can and happen to the unwanted children of America and the world ; things that are so horrifying that they would make any abortion seem like a paper cut in comparison

In the next 24 hours 23000 of the world's children will die of starvation

Tonight 1,000,000 + American children will go to bed hungry

Child abuse is at pandemic levels in the US

Our Supply of unwanted children far exceeds the Demand to find them good permanent homes

and the " pro -life " response to all that is what again ?

Oh yeah

Let's add another 1.2 million new children a year to the already maxxed out pool of the unwanted

You may think that yours is a moral POV But it's not it's immoral because it's inherently sadistic

Answer 3

I added some stuff too, but it was too long, so I put it in a google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gcn0zNEcull72d1KLnyrCjyI6TwmY9fx0kbLq1HrvDM/edit





I'm a pro-life advocate, but I must go according to the Bible.

Religion is a person's understanding of the world/universe and how it works. Science is a religion. Science is not necessarily always right. In fact, it is often found wrong and then the various theories and beliefs are updated to make make the scientific understanding come into accord with current observations.

Now consider Exodus 21:23. That is the only place in the Bible where a person who accidentally killed someone is given the death penalty. In other cases, the killer would be given the opportunity to flee to a city of refuge where he would work to pay amends to the family of the deceased.

Most modern/western people wrongly interpret the verse to mean if the woman dies and they give no concern for the baby, but this does not consider the context. In a time when having lots of children meant happiness and an infertile woman was considered cursed and worthless, the baby was more important to the man than the woman was. We can learn more from reading Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

"

''the Septuagint version interprets this, not of the woman that miscarries and dies, but of the child that becomes an abortive; if that was not formed and shaped, then only a fine was to be laid, but if it was come to its proper form and shape, and so was animated or quickened, then life was to go for life: and so, according to the Salic laws, he that killed an infant in its mother's womb was to pay 8000 pence, which made two hundred shillings; but if he was the cause of a woman's miscarriage, by blows or otherwise, if the birth was animated, according to the civil law, he was to be punished with death (c): but one would think, where this is only accidental and not intended, such a punishment is too rigid and severe: however, neither this nor what follows were left to the will of a private person to inflict at his pleasure, but to the civil magistrate; and therefore no ways encourages private revenge, in favour of which it was applied by the Pharisees in Christ's time, whose gloss he refutes, Matthew 5:38 nor are the words directed to the offender in this and the following cases, but to Moses, and so to all judges under him and in succession, who were to see these laws put in execution.

"



So it is, that according to one interpretation of the Bible, the abortion of a baby whose heart is not yet beating is a civil matter, while the abortion of a baby whose heart has begun beating is a capital offence. This had to do with accidental abortion. In the case of a mother intentionally doing this to herself and her baby, the very notion was unthinkable at that time. It is simply common sense that intentional death is murder. Whether one hires someone to do it or they perform the death blow themselves, one is guilty of murder.

But I think the distinction between whether the baby is formed and quickened or not yet allows for abortion when the life of the mother is endangered as long as it occurs before the heart starts beating. I may be wrong, so I encourage each individual to come to one's own understanding through their personal relationship with God.

In any case, transplantation should be attempted rather than just throwing away life.

The fetus of race horses are routinely implanted in rabbits for transportation to and from Australia and then transplanted again into other horses weeks later after the rabbit passes quarantine.

If this can be done with horses, then why isn't this at least offered as an option to help save human life?

Answer 4

I find it interesting that the dictionary isn't accepted as the end all be all source of information for anything but social justice. If I wanted to know about carrots, for example, the dictionary isn't going to be my only source of information. I'd talk to experts on carrots, I'd read botany books, I'd read books on horticulture. I wouldn't say, hmm, the dictionary says that carrots are orange root vegetables, I guess that's all there is to know about carrots. Yet, when people talk about social justice issues and people bring up experts who have spent their entire careers on the topic, or reference books on the topic, or scholarly articles, all the opponents can say is, "In this dictionary!" as though suddenly the dictionary is an authority.



Experts like Ellen Willis, an activist who spent years researching abortion laws and the history of abortion in America, say things like she said in her 1981 article, "Abortion: Is a Woman a Person?," "Well, isn't there a genuine moral issue here? If abortion is murder, how can a woman have the right to it? Feminists are often accused of evading this question, but in fact an evasion is built into the question itself. Most people understand 'is abortion murder' to mean 'is the fetus a person?' But fetal personhood is ultimately as inarguable as the existence of God; either you believe in it or you don't. Putting the debate on this plane inevitably leads to the nonconclusion that it is a matter of one person's conscience against another's."



It seems to me, as it seemed to Willis, that that antichoicers are, "ready to grant fetuses more legal protection than people. If a man attacks me and I kill him, I can plead self defense without having to prove that I was in danger of being killed rather than injured, raped, or kidnapped. But in the annual congressional battle over what if any exceptions to make to the Medicaid abortion ban, the House of Representatives has bitterly opposed the funding of abortions for any reason but to save the pregnant woman's life. Some right-to-livers argue that even the danger of death does not justify abortion; others have suggested 'safeguards' like requiring two or more doctors to certify that the woman's life is at least 50 percent threatened. Antiabortionists are forever worrying that any exception to a total ban on abortion will be used as a 'loophole': better that any number of women should ruin their health or even die than that one woman should get away with not having a child ;merely' because she doesn't want one. Clearly, this mentality does not reflect equal concern for all life. Rather, antiabortionists value the lives of fetuses above the lives and welfare of women, because at bottom they do not concede women the right to an active human existence that transcends their reproductive function."

Answer 5

It's human.

Just like human blood cells, human cancer cells, human hair cells.

I think that's rather obvious and not a part of any debate.



Science doesn't define person hood.

In fact, as far science is concerned, we're all animals

The law is what determines person hood, as person hood is what defines whether or not you get human rights.



A fetus is not a person because you can not give rights to one person that would undermine the rights of another person.

Not even to save or sustain a life.

To give rights to a fetus would be to undermine the rights of a born person.

Answer 6

I think the pro-lifers need to take care of the babies that are born rather than being aborted. If you all think it's so easy to have a baby when you're going through hard times, then why don't you all shell out the government money and take care of all of those kids. Oh wait, I forgot. You're the ones who are always complaining about taxes, so raising that money's going to be kind of hard, isn't it?

Answer 7

Nobody argues that a fetus isn't the beginning of a new human life. The question of whether or not it is a person is a legal question, not a scientific one.

Answer 8

Personhood is not a scientific concept, but rather a moral and philosophical one.



If you're asking if fetal tissue is human in nature, then yes, it contains human DNA, much like blood or skin cells that I shed every day. Nobody's denying that scientific concept.



But personhood is not something you can prove with science, my dear.

Answer 9

So if I get pregnant after being sexually assaulted and you force me to have the baby, he/she is all yours since it was such a major concern for you.

Answer 10

why do you fight so hard for a child in the womb, but the second they are born you don't want to pay for them ?? Let's see...a $300 abortion or $20k a year from govt funds......and yet, you complain about raising taxes and welfare programs and cut funding for birth control...you people are hypocrites

Answer 11

Really. Can the zygote exist outside of a woman's womb. No.



When you have a womb, we can talk. Until then, hands off MY body.

Answer 12

I heard my son's heartbeat at 6 weeks. At 8 weeks, he waved the inter vaginal US wand away so we couldn't hear it. That's enough science for me.

Answer 13

liberals all think the same: free weed, free life, freedom from insanity of conservatives





CONSERVATIVES ARE AGAINST SAME SEX ADOPTION, this shows how re****ded and dumb these hicks r





usa is based on liberality, life is self evidencing and cünts make it into issue that librals support life termination,



librals means pro guns



religious "rights" should be illegal



ONLY ISLAMISTS NEED RELIGIOUS RIGHTS