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December 18, 2009
Neurobiologist Answers the Question of When Human Life Begins
Topics: Political News and commentaries
Politicians, lawyers, and abortion advocates may claim that the answer to the question of when life begins remains "shrouded in mystery," however, Maureen Condic, a senior fellow at The Westchester Institute for Ethics & the Human Person who is also associate professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine, offere an answer in her paper titled, "When Does Human Life Begin? A Scientific Perspective." And in an interview with the OC Register's Sue Ellin Browder, Condic said not only that the first step to understanding when a human person begins is to understand how a whole living being (an organism) differs from a clump of cells, but also that you first see an embryo behaving in this way - as a whole being with integrated parts all working together in a coordinated way - from the moment when a new cell, distinct from the sperm and the egg, comes into existence.
Condic's explanation of when human life gets even more profound:
How quickly does this fusion between sperm and egg take place?Take the time to read it all .... Condic goes on to note that the uncomfortable truth for (for people who take a social-consensus view of rights) is that if rights adhere in a person simply because they're a human being, and if rights accrue to a person independent of their size, state of maturity, functional abilities, consciousness or any other feature - the conclusion is inescapable: We have to confer rights on embryos from the one-cell stage onward.It's a very rapid event. In less than a second, an entirely new human cell comes into existence. This new human cell (known as a zygote) has a unique molecular composition that's distinct from either the sperm or the egg. And its behavior also differs radically from that of either sperm or egg.
In what way?
Well, for example, the zygote's first act is to change its composition so no other sperm can bind to its surface. This happens within the first 30 minutes following sperm-egg fusion.
So you're saying this little single cell biologically acts as a coordinated whole "in its own interest," so to speak?
I would say that even at the one-cell stage, the zygote is directing its own development. About five or six days later, at about the time of implantation, the embryo produces a hormone that can be detected in the mother's blood or urine to tell her she's pregnant.
This human zygote seems to be very busy. Why do so many people believe a human person's life begins at a later stage?Many people think that because the embryo isn't fully formed, it's not a new individual. A colleague recently told me that the embryo is merely "a unique human cell in the process of becoming a new human, but not there yet."
This way of thinking is compelling because it's similar to our thinking about the much more familiar process of manufacturing. A car isn't a car until it rolls off the assembly line. Until then, it's just a bunch of parts in the process of becoming a car.
But you said a profound difference exists between manufacturing a car and embryonic development. And what is that?
The difference is who (or what) is doing the "producing." The embryo is not being passively built by some external "builder" controlling the assembly process. Rather, the embryo is manufacturing itself.
There is actually no endpoint to the "building" of a self-organizing human being. It's an ongoing process that continues from sperm-egg fusion -- the "moment of conception" -- through birth, maturation and aging and ends only in death.
Pro-abortion Catholic politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Kirsten Gillibrand. Patty Murray, and many other pro-abortion Democrats like them are likely not interested in what Dr. Condic has to say. They're far more interested in those dollars that keep coming from the pro-abortion lobby than protecting human life.
Related: With the above story in mind, take the time to watch this disgusting video of cold, blooded murder of a just-born child - by her mother, and the loophole that protects her from prosecution that politicians refuse to address because it's "so close to the abortion issue."
Posted by Richard at December 18, 2009 10:03 AM
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