Punishment for Abortion?

[AllieBaba]

Rather than punish women who abort I think this country should reward them. They are doing their part to save us and our planet from overpopulation.

They're rewarded with the knowledge they have created life, brought forth life, and oh...that they haven't committed a murder they will regret, probably in this life. Most certainly in the next.

 

[Immanuel]

Rather than punish women who abort I think this country should reward them. They are doing their part to save us and our planet from overpopulation.

They're rewarded with the knowledge they have created life, brought forth life, and oh...that they haven't committed a murder they will regret, probably in this life. Most certainly in the next.

I think you got that answer backwards. Did you?

Immie

 

[AllieBaba]

Crap, I did. Oh well. It's just Anguille.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

When a woman's body is carrying a living being her body is no longer hers alone. There's a heatbeat after 22 days from conception, it is a living being and someone needs to speak on its behalf, Lord knows the selfish woman won't. Women that abort are the most selfish, heartless and cowardly people on earth IMO and society should eradicate them.

Suppose a woman gives birth to a baby girl who eventually becomes a woman who has an abortion. Wouldn't it have been better than, for the first woman to have aborted?

Pretty strong words but at least you're no hypocrite. You call for death for any woman who aborts because you believe abortion is murder and murder calls for the death penalty. Do I have that right?

What about men who perform, assist or pay for an abortion? Death for them as well? Or just for the women?

I made it pretty clear that anyone involved in murdering an unborn child should be held accountable.

Not in that post. The only thing clear in that post is how much you despise "the selfish woman" which is how you characterize pregnant women.

You neglected to answer my first question.

I characterize women that have abortions as selfish, so please don't attempt to put words in my mouth. Oh and it's not my fault you aren't intelligent enough to read through the thread to see where I have clearly stated my position.

I did answer your silly question, not my fault you don't like the answer.

 

[eots]

Wow, just . . . . wow. Your casual disregard for female life astounds me.

You a clearly missing my point or avoiding it if you think the only thing relevant to discussions about abort is whether the fetus is to be considered alive or not.

I suppose you have to tell yourself a woman's right to choose who may be inside her body doesn't matter, in fact, because you have to justify your position and choice somehow.

I get it. In your world a woman's 'choice' trumps 'human life'. At least you admit that your pov is that the human life inside the woman isn't worth anything. It's just easily discarded like a piece of trash.

Once again you misconstrue my statements. I have never said fetuses are worth nothing or pieces of trash.

But keep up with that sleazy sort of tactic, that along with the photo you posted for shock value. It doesn't seem you are really here for honest debate anyway.

I could never understand how a photo of the reality..is considered a sleazy tactic..it really makes no sense

 

[AllieBaba]

When a woman's body is carrying a living being her body is no longer hers alone. There's a heatbeat after 22 days from conception, it is a living being and someone needs to speak on its behalf, Lord knows the selfish woman won't. Women that abort are the most selfish, heartless and cowardly people on earth IMO and society should eradicate them.

I made it pretty clear that anyone involved in murdering an unborn child should be held accountable.

Not in that post. The only thing clear in that post is how much you despise "the selfish woman" which is how you characterize pregnant women.

You neglected to answer my first question.

I characterize women that have abortions as selfish, so please don't attempt to put words in my mouth. Oh and it's not my fault you aren't intelligent enough to read through the thread to see where I have clearly stated my position.

I did answer your silly question, not my fault you don't like the answer.

Sorry, no rep left. Too much spread in the last 24 hours, whatever that means. When my limit is up, who knows, it appears arbitrary to all but those in the "know".

Women who have abortions are selfish. But the worst thing is that the law leads them to believe that they are blameless and absolved of guilt in destroying life. So not only are they selfish..we're all selfish...it's even more pathetic than that. They're mislead. They're TAUGHT to have abortions, and TAUGHT that it's morally responsible.

When it's just the opposite.

I've dealt with these women. I have yet to meet a woman who's had an abortion who doesn't regret or suffer the same loss as they would over any death over it. Generally they justify for a while, often for years or even decades. But they ALWAYS regret it. Always. And it's sad, because at the same time they encourage other women to follow their example...until they come to a realization that shit, they regret it, and shit, they shouldn't have encouraged others to make the same mistake.

 

[Christopher]

FYI Fetuses are not sperm.

Yes, I am aware of that. What you are ignoring is how the fetus got there. Which, as I said, is usually through invitation by the woman of the sperm and/or the woman not taking proper steps to prevent conception from taking place.

Are you trying to say the fetus just grew on its own and that no choices were made or actions taken by the woman to allow the fetus to grow in her body in the first place?

It doesn't matter if a woman is the biggest slut on earth, she has a right to abort if she wants to.
You people aren't about protecting life. You're about controlling woman's bodies and restricting thier freedom.

You did not answer my question, which likely means you can no longer defend your position. So, you have created a false premise, pretending to know my position. All I am trying to do is find out your position and why you believe fetuses are “squatters”. Was it the fetus that made a conscious choice to invade the woman’s body?

I do not want control over women’s bodies. They can have all the sex they want to; my point still is that they should take the proper steps to prevent an unwanted pregnancy from occurring and not use abortion as a birth control method because it terminates an innocent human life which had no choice in the matter whether it started development or not. That choice was, as I said, typically made by the woman when the woman chose to have sex without properly protecting herself from becoming pregnant. I happen to be pro-choice as well as pro-accountability.

What I do want is for people to be responsible for the human life they create and that they do everything within their power to protect human life regardless of the development stage that human life is in. Just so you know, a human life begins development at fertilization/conception.

How about you stop deflecting and answer my question in post #217?

 

[Lonestar_logic]

I too, have no pos rep to spread around but suffice it to say that I am in agreement with Allie and Christopher. I think a woman has the right to her body, however that right does not mean the right to take another human life no matter where that life may be. I may be mistaken but it seems that Anguille believes a woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy at anytime they see fit. Life begins at conception, "An embryo is an individual, no matter how small. While the embryo receives cells from the mother and the father,
it is neither the mother nor the father." --Evangelium Vitae, 1995

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:

"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]

"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term 'embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy."
[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]

"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]

"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."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]

"I would say that among most scientists, the word 'embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."
[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]

"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]

"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]

"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1]

"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]

"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. 'Don't worry,' a doctor might say, 'it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]

 

[amrchaos]

I too, have no pos rep to spread around but suffice it to say that I am in agreement with Allie and Christopher. I think a woman has the right to her body, however that right does not mean the right to take another human life no matter where that life may be. I may be mistaken but it seems that Anguille believes a woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy at anytime they see fit. Life begins at conception, "An embryo is an individual, no matter how small. While the embryo receives cells from the mother and the father,
it is neither the mother nor the father." --Evangelium Vitae, 1995

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:

"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]

"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term 'embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy."
[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]

"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]

"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."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]

"I would say that among most scientists, the word 'embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."
[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]

"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]

"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]

"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1]

"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]

"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. 'Don't worry,' a doctor might say, 'it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]

I believe that the parents have the right to terminate the child at anytime they are taking care of it.


That includes pregnacy, infancy, childhood/pre-adolesence, adolesence and adulthood if the offspring refuse to take care of itself!

What right does the parent have to do this--the right of blood and birthing that neither religion nor government has the rights to infringe upon.

 

[Zoom-boing]

I'll take a chance that you are truly misunderstanding me and not just trying to trash talk about me, as it were. Yes, a woman's right to determine the future of a pregnancy occurring within her womb trumps that of any supposed right a fetus may have, regardless of it that fetus is equal to or some form of human life. I value fully formed human life over any kind of not fully formed or future life to come. I do not know when life begins but I think the right to life begins when a baby is born and takes it's first breath of air.

That does not mean a fetus is worthless, that it is trash. Fetuses mean a lot to most women who carry them, whether they carry them to tern or not, and the decision to abort is a difficult one for most.

You have accused me of calling fetuses worthless pieces of trash, or something to that effect. Something I have never said. You claim to deduct that from my stated opinions. I could, by the same reasoning, claim you think women are pieces of worthless trash. But I have not claimed that. though some here clearly do.

Horrific? And what was that about not posting it for shock value? I'll bet you can't even prove the validity of that photo which you probably grabbed off one of the many forced birther sites that post doctored up photos

When life begins is not something everyone agrees on and so best left up to the woman who is pregnant to decide for herself without interference from anyone else.

No, I am not trying to trash talk you. Why would I do that? I understand the 'no one has a right to tell someone what to do with their body' argument, that people have the right to do whatever they want with their body. The problem with this argument, when it comes to abortion, is that the choice to abort results in taking the life of another living human. No one has the right to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her body yet . . . when she has an abortion isn't she telling that unborn what will happen to their life? Isn't she taking that choice away from them? You state that the right to life of the unborn doesn't begin until they take that first breath of air. Does that also mean you do not beleive that they are 'human life' inside the womb? Because they are. I've yet to have anyone convince me otherwise.

I didin't mean to put words into your mouth about a fetus being trash; no you did not specifially say those words. But when you post that 'whether it's human life or not is irrelevant' . . . it sure reads as if you think they're trash. I apologize if I misunderstand this.

No I don't think the women are worthless pieces of trash. I do think they are selfish in this decision but . . . they have to live with their choice and their conscience for the rest of their lives.

Again I didn't provide that pic for shock value I posted it because that is the reality of abortion. I didn't grab it off of any 'forced birther sites' (don't know what they are). I merely googled the word 'aborted' and that was one of the first pics that came up. Does it matter the source? Unless you think it's photoshopped or otherwise faked?

I still don't see how people argue when life begins. It obviously begins at conception. If it didn't then there wouldn't be any reason for abortion.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

I too, have no pos rep to spread around but suffice it to say that I am in agreement with Allie and Christopher. I think a woman has the right to her body, however that right does not mean the right to take another human life no matter where that life may be. I may be mistaken but it seems that Anguille believes a woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy at anytime they see fit. Life begins at conception, "An embryo is an individual, no matter how small. While the embryo receives cells from the mother and the father,
it is neither the mother nor the father." --Evangelium Vitae, 1995

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:

"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]

"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term 'embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy."
[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]

"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]

"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."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]

"I would say that among most scientists, the word 'embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."
[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]

"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]

"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]

"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1]

"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]

"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. 'Don't worry,' a doctor might say, 'it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]

I believe that the parents have the right to terminate the child at anytime they are taking care of it.


That includes pregnacy, infancy, childhood/pre-adolesence, adolesence and adulthood if the offspring refuse to take care of itself!

What right does the parent have to do this--the right of blood and birthing that neither religion nor government has the rights to infringe upon.

In other words its ok to murder your own children. Too bad your parents don't follow that reasoning.

 

[Cecilie1200]

When life begins is not something everyone agrees on and so best left up to the woman who is pregnant to decide for herself without interference from anyone else.

It's interesting that a person's life and right to not be killed is supposed to be dependent on whether or not the general population is scientifically/medically ignorant. The fact that doofuses who can't even properly name the parts of the female reproductive system argue about when life begins doesn't mean that it's not still an established biological fact. I think there are still imbeciles in the world somewhere who argue over whether the Earth is round. Doesn't mean it isn't.

 

[AllieBaba]

Exactly. You can argue all you like that it's A-OK to butcher babies and children because they are inconvenient to those who created them and/or are responsible for them.

That doesn't make it right.

 

[bodecea]

I am not sure where exactly to post this.. I was thinking the healthcare forum, but this is more of a morality thing..

Assuming that abortion is made illegal.. What would the punishment be??

As often as rightwingers throw around words like murderers and baby killers.. Would you try and convict a young female for murder and then execute her for an abortion??

Is there really teeth behind your words or is it just a fear tactic??

I am curious..

Well, in the cases where mommy chooses to abort a perfectly viable pre-born human being for such important reasons as "personal convenience," I suppose SOME punsihment might be in order.

Prison, maybe?

I realize that would be a terrible inconvenience. And that would be a bit ironic. But I'm not sure the personal convenience of the convicted criminal is ever that much of a valid basis for a decision by a Court about sentencing a convicted defendant.

Of course, we should also consider who ELSE might be in line for prosecution. It's not ALL about the mommy, necessarily.

Generally speaking, the pro-life movement simply advocates a return to the way things were before Roe v. Wade, when the sovereign states and the people in them were allowed to decide for themselves what position they wanted to take on abortion, rather than having the received wisdom from on high of a handful of lawyers in black dresses imposed on them. And I don't believe even the most strictly regulated states had prison time for women getting illegal abortions, although I think some of them did have prison time for the doctors performing them.

How'd that vote in South Dakota work out?

 

[bodecea]

I too, have no pos rep to spread around but suffice it to say that I am in agreement with Allie and Christopher. I think a woman has the right to her body, however that right does not mean the right to take another human life no matter where that life may be. I may be mistaken but it seems that Anguille believes a woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy at anytime they see fit. Life begins at conception, "An embryo is an individual, no matter how small. While the embryo receives cells from the mother and the father,
it is neither the mother nor the father." --Evangelium Vitae, 1995

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:

"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]

"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term 'embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy."
[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]

"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]

"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."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]

"I would say that among most scientists, the word 'embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."
[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]

"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]

"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]

"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1]

"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]

"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. 'Don't worry,' a doctor might say, 'it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]

I believe that the parents have the right to terminate the child at anytime they are taking care of it.


That includes pregnacy, infancy, childhood/pre-adolesence, adolesence and adulthood if the offspring refuse to take care of itself!

What right does the parent have to do this--the right of blood and birthing that neither religion nor government has the rights to infringe upon.

In other words its ok to murder your own children. Too bad your parents don't follow that reasoning.

Lonestar "Logic", indeed.

 

[MajikMyst]

I too, have no pos rep to spread around but suffice it to say that I am in agreement with Allie and Christopher. I think a woman has the right to her body, however that right does not mean the right to take another human life no matter where that life may be. I may be mistaken but it seems that Anguille believes a woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy at anytime they see fit. Life begins at conception, "An embryo is an individual, no matter how small. While the embryo receives cells from the mother and the father,
it is neither the mother nor the father." --Evangelium Vitae, 1995

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:

"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]

"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term 'embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy."
[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]

"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]

"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."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]

"I would say that among most scientists, the word 'embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."
[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]

"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]

"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]

"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1]

"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]

"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. 'Don't worry,' a doctor might say, 'it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]

The only problem with all that Star is that a tumor also fits into that catagory? Are we murdering something when a tumor is removed?

Some of the statements made by your quotes are out right rediculous..

"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]

That one for instance?? Did this guy actually graduate?? All mamals start their lives in that manner.. Would you call a ground hog a higher life form? What about a rat? All single celled organisms start and end their lives as a single cell..

The agruement you are attempting to make is when is a life a life?? I don't consider a group of cells an individual life form..

In my opinion.. A baby is alive the moment it has independent action away from the mother.. IE. a heart beat.. The embrionic brain stem has began managing it's own organs.. At that moment.. Life has started.. It is no longer just a group of cells that have no specific purpose and totally dependent on the mother.. The baby has begun nurishing itself and the organs have began working with a purpose..

 

[Cecilie1200]

I too, have no pos rep to spread around but suffice it to say that I am in agreement with Allie and Christopher. I think a woman has the right to her body, however that right does not mean the right to take another human life no matter where that life may be. I may be mistaken but it seems that Anguille believes a woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy at anytime they see fit. Life begins at conception, "An embryo is an individual, no matter how small. While the embryo receives cells from the mother and the father,
it is neither the mother nor the father." --Evangelium Vitae, 1995

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:

"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]

"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term 'embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy."
[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]

"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]

"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."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]

"I would say that among most scientists, the word 'embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."
[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]

"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]

"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]

"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1]

"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]

"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. 'Don't worry,' a doctor might say, 'it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]

The only problem with all that Star is that a tumor also fits into that catagory? Are we murdering something when a tumor is removed?

Fits into WHAT category, precisely? And I'm boggling at the idea that you actually need to have the differences between a tumor and a fetus explained to you.

Some of the statements made by your quotes are out right rediculous..

Well, I admire the confidence needed to declare quotes from scientists "rediculous", but I have to wonder if you would just say, "Ooh, scientists, they MUST be right" and swallow it whole if the topic were, say, global warming.

"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]

That one for instance?? Did this guy actually graduate?? All mamals start their lives in that manner.. Would you call a ground hog a higher life form? What about a rat? All single celled organisms start and end their lives as a single cell..

Um, he didn't say "mamals"[sic]. He said, "higher animals". You DO know that there are many animals which are not mammals, right? And he's not simply saying that almost all of them start from a single cell. Read the whole sentence. He's saying almost all of them start from a SPECIFIC single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote). (That whole grammar for comprehension thing is so handy sometimes, I tell you.)

The agruement you are attempting to make is when is a life a life?? I don't consider a group of cells an individual life form..

You do know it's not a matter of opinion or personal preference, don't you? It is what it is whether you agree or want to vote it off the island.

In my opinion.. A baby is alive the moment it has independent action away from the mother.. IE. a heart beat.. The embrionic brain stem has began managing it's own organs.. At that moment.. Life has started.. It is no longer just a group of cells that have no specific purpose and totally dependent on the mother.. The baby has begun nurishing itself and the organs have began working with a purpose..

See above re: not a matter of opinion or personal preference. We're not voting on what the scientific definition of life is or when something meets that definition. That issue has been settled, and will remain settled until contradictory EVIDENCE becomes available. Your opinion does not constitute "evidence".

 

[AllieBaba]

This is what they do. They dehumanize children so they can feel justified in killing them, abusing them, and eliminating the groups of people they find inconvenient or unappealing.

 

[Anguille]

I characterize women that have abortions as selfish, so please don't attempt to put words in my mouth. Oh and it's not my fault you aren't intelligent enough to read through the thread to see where I have clearly stated my position.

I did answer your silly question, not my fault you don't like the answer.

These are your own words, Lonestar.

When a woman's body is carrying a living being her body is no longer hers alone. There's a heatbeat after 22 days from conception, it is a living being and someone needs to speak on its behalf, Lord knows the selfish woman won't.

 

[Anguille]

Lonestar, I can't find where you say you answered this question. Could you point it out to me?

Suppose a woman gives birth to a baby girl who eventually becomes a woman who has an abortion. Wouldn't it have been better than, for the first woman to have aborted?