(08-11-2015, 11:15 AM)Brownshoe Wrote: No it's not. Giving it up for adoption is. Getting a abortion after it's alive is murder. Unless you want to say murder is being responsible.

(08-11-2015, 11:16 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Sorry, I subscribe the Courts and not Brownshoe. It's not a life so it's not murder. 

(08-11-2015, 11:20 AM)Brownshoe Wrote: So, I guess you would have been for slaves a few hundred years ago too. I guess your mindset would be something like "Blacks are property, because the Courts say so". I subscribe to the notion of logic though, so I would never believe in something like that.

(08-11-2015, 11:15 AM)Brownshoe Wrote: No it's not. Giving it up for adoption is. Getting a abortion after it's alive is murder. Unless you want to say murder is being responsible.

Stop trying to put words in my mouth saying I'm for abstinence. I have never said that, and I have never advocated that. I guess you just cant fathom being responsible while having an active sex life.

(08-11-2015, 11:29 AM)GMDino Wrote:

http://www.adoptuskids.org/meet-the-children

People are really stepping up to the plate on that.

(08-11-2015, 11:35 AM)PhilHos Wrote: Well, by all means, let's start killing some of them! After all, it is inconvenient of them to be alive. 

(08-11-2015, 11:56 AM)GMDino Wrote: Never said that either.  I'm saying the "just put them up for adoption" crowd doesn't consider the "life" of the child after birth either.

(08-11-2015, 11:56 AM)GMDino Wrote: Never said that either.  I'm saying the "just put them up for adoption" crowd doesn't consider the "life" of the child after birth either.

(08-11-2015, 11:16 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Sorry, I subscribe the Courts and not Brownshoe. It's not a life so it's not murder. 

(08-11-2015, 12:07 PM)bfine32 Wrote: So are you "ignoring science"?

(08-11-2015, 12:00 PM)PhilHos Wrote: Or maybe they do, but their focus is on stopping the murder of millions of innocents.

(08-11-2015, 12:17 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Nope, I side with science and fetal viability

Quote:I’m the author of an intro college biology textbook called “Life,” my having nabbed that title before Keith Richards did. Life science textbooks from traditional publishers (I’m with McGraw-Hill) don’t explicitly state when life begins, because that is a question not only of biology, but of philosophy, politics, psychology, religion, technology, and emotions. Rather, textbooks list the characteristics of life, leaving interpretation to the reader. But I can see where the idea comes from that textbooks define life as beginning at conception. Consider a report from the Association of Pro-life Physicians. After a 5-point list of life’s characteristics from “a scientific textbook,” this group’s analysis concludes with “According to this elementary definition of life, life begins at fertilization, when a sperm unites with an oocyte.” Sneaky.

Being a biologist, a textbook author, and a mother, I’ve thought a great deal about the question of when a human life begins. So here are my selections of times at which a biologist might argue a human organism is alive. I’ll save my preference for the end.

1. Life is a continuum. Gametes (sperm and oocyte) link generations.

2. The germline. As oocytes and sperm form, their imprints – epigenetic changes from the parents’ genomes – are lifted.

3. The fertilized ovum. Of the hundreds of sperm surviving the swim upstream to the oocyte, one jettisons its tail and nuzzles inside the much larger cell, which obligingly becomes an ovum, completing its own meisosis. A fertilized ovum = conception.

4. Pronuclei merge, within 12 hours. After fertilization, the packets of DNA from male and female — the pronuclei — approach, merge, and the intermingling chromosomes pair and part, as the first mitotic division looms. A new human genome forms. Following that first division, some genes from the new genome are accessed to make proteins, but maternal transcripts still dominate development.

5. Cleavage. Divisions ensue. The cells of an 8-celled embryo (day 3) have not yet committed to becoming part of the embryo “proper” (one with layers) or the supportive membranes. Such a cell can still, on its own, develop. An 8-celled embryo whose cells are teased apart could lead to an octomom situation.

6. Day 5. The new genome takes over as maternal transcripts are depleted. The inner cell mass (icm) separates from the hollow ball of cells and takes up residence on the interior surface. It will become the embryo proper, distinguishing itself from the remaining part of the ball fated to become the extra-embryonic membranes. The icm is what all the fuss about human embryonic stem (hES) cells is about — the stem cells aren’t the icm cells, but are cultured from them.

7. End of the first week. The embryo implants in the uterine lining.

8. Day 16. The gastrula. Tissue layers form, first the ectoderm and endoderm, then the sandwich filling, the mesoderm. Each layer gives rise to specific body parts.

9. Day 14. The primitive streak forms, classically the first sign of a nervous system and when some nations set the deadline for no longer using human embryos in experiments.

10. Day 18. The heart beats.

11. Day 28. The neural tube closes, within which the notochord, preliminary to the spinal cord, will form, while the bulge at the top will come to house the brain. If the tube doesn’t close completely, a neural tube defect (anencephaly, spina bifida, and a few others) results.

12. End of week 8. The embryo becomes a fetus, all structures present in rudimentary form.

13. Week 14 or thereabouts. “Quickening,” the flutter a woman feels in her abdomen that will progress to squirms and kicks from within.

14. Week 22. A fetus has a chance of becoming a premature baby if delivered.

15. Birth.

16. Puberty. The Darwinian definition of what matters on a population and species level, when reproduction becomes possible.

17. Acceptance into medical school. I don’t know where this came from, a joke about Jewish mothers, but in some circles it might now apply to acceptance into preschool. Or when one’s grown offspring leave home.

My answer? #14. The ability to survive outside the body of another sets a practical limit on defining when a sustainable human life begins.

Having a functional genome, tissue layers, a notochord, a beating heart … none of these matter if the organism cannot survive where humans survive. Technology has taken us to the ends of the prenatal spectrum, yet not provided too much for the middle, other than fetal surgeries for a handful of conditions. We can collect and select gametes, now thanks to patent no. 8543339. We collect and select very early embryos in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, allowing those without a specific disease to continue development. And although the gestational age at which a premature infant can survive has crept younger, it hasn’t by much, not since I starting thinking about these things back when I was a stage #16.

Until an artificial uterus becomes a reality, technology defines, for me, when a human life begins, rather than biology. Alternative views are welcome!

(08-11-2015, 12:33 PM)GMDino Wrote: Let's make this even more confusing so people can see it from their high horses!

http://blogs.plos.org/dnascience/2013/10/03/when-does-a-human-life-begins-17-timepoints/

(08-11-2015, 12:26 PM)bfine32 Wrote: My bad. I thought you said it's not a life.

(08-11-2015, 12:38 PM)bfine32 Wrote: That last bolded view seems to ignore science.

(08-11-2015, 12:21 PM)GMDino Wrote: Typical then.

Defending the unborn and not taking care of the born.

(08-11-2015, 12:42 PM)GMDino Wrote: Aye.  But the rest shows the science and how where "life" begins isn't as cut and dry as people would like to think.

(08-11-2015, 12:49 PM)PhilHos Wrote: For someone who doesn't like having words put in his mouth, you seem to have no problem doing it to others.

That's not what i said. In fact, I said the opposite. I essentially said maybe they ARE taking care of the born, but they're FOCUS is on defending the unborn. Unlike you, apparently, most people can do multiple things, have multiple causes, etc.