... an empty pregnancy sac is clearly not a human life, yet your definition includes it.
RAZD, an "empty" pregnancy sac is not a human life in itself, let's get real here and not misrepresent in order to score points.
Let me show you how much of misrepresentation this next statement will prove to be:
As an example, in 1/3 of miscarriages occurring before 8 weeks, there is a pregnancy sac but no embryo inside. This means the egg was fertilized and the cells began to divide, but an embryo did not develop.
Let's take a look at what reality shows us. According to your statement, no embryo develops before 8 weeks, therefore there is "nothing there"....
Here is a reality picture of an embryo at 7 weeks old:
http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/abortionimages/fig20baby7.jpgOne also wonders why anybody would get an abortion before 8 weeks if there was "nothing there".
Now take a good look at the pictures of an abortion at 7 weeks old.
http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/pictures.htmlWhich then throws doubts on your responding statement below:
This developed from a fertilized egg, a zygote that implanted in the uterus wall and started dividing. It built the birth\pregnancy sac and a rudimentary placenta but no embryo, and all you have are parts that are normally discarded after birth, living cells that form a structure but that are not a human life.
Anybody with eyes can see this isn't "nothing", but rather very clearly a developing baby. Nice try. Life begins at conception. If there is nothing there, how can anything be "conceived"? The information unfolds during the development time in the womb. No new information is added.
Here is a link showing reality pictures of the first week till the last stage in pregnancy.
http://www.pregnancy.org/pregnancy/fetaldevelopment1.php#week1The stage is already set once conception has taken place. Foundation is already there. All that is necessary is nutrition, protection and time to unfold. It does not take long before the invisible (to the naked eye) becomes visible!
The following references illustrate the fact that a new human embryo, the starting point for a human life, comes into existence with the formation of the one-celled zygote:
"Zygote. This cell results from the union of an oocyte and a sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being." [Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology. 6th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998, p. 2, p. 18]
[Note: This text is used for medical students at the University of Nebraska Medical Center]
* * *
"Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote." [
England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31]
* * *
Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception). "Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being." [Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]
Embryo: the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation has occurred, when the organism becomes known as a fetus. Cloning Human Beings. Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, MD: GPO, 1997, Appendix-2.
"Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus." Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146
"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]
"The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are...respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development." [Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17]
"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 Müller, 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}]
"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." [Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]
PROMINENT SCIENTISTS AND PHYSICIANS :
The late Dr. Jerome LeJeune, Professor of Genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, and discoverer of the genetic cause of Down Syndrome said, "After fertilization has taken place and a new human being has come into being. It's no longer a matter of taste or opinion, and not a meta-physical condition, it is plain experimental evidence." 5
Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School: It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive...It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." 6
Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo clinic: "By all criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception." 7
Ashley Montague, Geneticist and Professor at Harvard and Rutgers, who is unsympathetic to the pro-life cause, said clear, "The basic fact is simple" Life begins not at birth, but conception." 8
Dr. Landrum Shettles served twenty-seven years as attending obstetrician-gynecologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. He was a pioneer in sperm biology, fertility, and sterility and is internationally famous for discovering male-and female-producing sperm. His intrauterine photographs of pre-born children appear in over fifty medical textbooks. Dr. Shettles states, "I oppose abortion...because I accept what is biologically manifest--that human life commences at the time of conception--and...because I believe it is wrong to take innocent human life under any circumstances. My position is scientific, pragmatic and humanitarian." 9
1 Bradley M. Patten, Human Embryology, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968) 43.
2 L. Fridhandler, Gametogenesis to Implantation, " Biology of Gestation, Vol. 1 ed. N.S. Assau (New York: Academic Press, 1968) 76.
3 Time Magazine and Rand McNally, Atlas of the Body (New York: Rand-McNally, 1980) 139, 144.
4 "Pregnancy," The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed. Macropedia, Vol. 14 (Chicago: Encyclo. Brit., 1974) 968.
5 Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981)
6 Ibid
7 Ibid
8 Ashley Montague, Life Before Birth (New York: Signet Books, 1977) vi.
9 L. Shettles and D. Rorvik, Rites of Life: The Scientific Evidence of Life Before Birth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. 1983) 113.
