This would be the moment the woman fakes an orgasm to get her stogy Republican husband off of her. g,d & r
On second thought, IP, you are absolutely right. What a shame you weren’t around to convince your mother of this 15 years ago. Might have saved the rest of us some trouble.
Her husband is a cigar? Is her name Monica? 
But you’re confusing two things here- the moment of contact, and the process of fusion. Which one is the “moment of conception”? And neither of the things you listed immediately results in a single-celled zygote. After all, even after the sperm “fuses” with the egg, it still has to release its chromosomes into the egg.
It’s like talking about a “moment of open-heart surgery.” Open-heart surgery is a long and involved process. When does the “moment” occur? “Well, it’s the precise moment at which they put the mask over your face, knock you out, open your chest, open your heart, work on it a bit, sew you up, and wheel you into post-op.”
The “moment of conception” is a lot like “race.” Everybody “knows” what it means, and yet it has no scientific existence whatsoever. How can we legislate on the basis of a nonexistent “moment of conception”? If a contraceptive allows the sperm to contact the egg, but prevents it from digesting the outermost protective layer of the egg, is that to be considered an abortifacient? I’m not engaging in semantic hairsplitting here- if pro-lifers want to ban anything which kills the “child” after the “moment of conception,” then they have to be able to decide whether new contraceptives which interfere with the conception process act before or after this politically or religiously defined “moment.”
-Ben
I think for purposes of discussing the OP…the 2 events (contact and fusion) happen in a similar time frame.
After penetration and migration (12 hours or so) to the oocyte, the fusion takes about 2 hours…in another 18 hours, there is another division into 2 cells. If you wish to break down the process by minutes or hours (as opposed to days/weeks/ or months…as most abortion debates go), then the unique human organism occurs when pronuclei fuse at 12-14 hours. Other sources I’ve checked have the complete process taking 24 hours.
Jones and Schraeder, “The Process of Human Fertilization,”
Fertility and Sterility, vol. 48, no. 2, Aug. 1987, p. 191
also http://www.visibleembryo.com/baby/stage1.html
I’m not a big fan of hypothetical debates…they tend to take all kinds of curvy twists, and I’m not aware of any type of contraceptive that you refer to here. But to answer your question directly…No the situation you speak of (no fusion into a unique human organism) would not consitiute an abortifacient by me.
**
Why then, as opposed to any other time?
TTBOMK such contraceptives are already being tested, so the question isn’t hypothetical at all. Anyway, hypothetical questions, so long as they are reasonable, are necessary in order to discern the truth. It may be that your logic is utterly flawed, but the flaw won’t be discovered until you pare the situation down to its essentials.
-Ben
If I might ask a few more pertinent questions:
Suppose I wanted to study stem cells, and mixed sperm and egg in a dish to create a zygote.
Would it be murder if I harvested all the cells, destroying all chance of the embryo becoming a human?
What if at the 8-cell stage I took one cell and experimented on it, but left the others to develop and ultimately be born as a child?
What if immediately after the pronuclei fused, I treated the zygote with a drug (such as amanitin) which would prevent the first cell division from ever taking place?
What if I treated the egg with amanitin before fertilization?
-Ben
If you took away a cell at the 8-cell stage, wouldn’t the remaining 7 grow into a monstrously incomplete human baby? That would be a whole different problem…
You’re right, since it’s just a bunch of cells it MIGHT turn into cancer, so you better hurry up and get rid of it. :rolleyes:
It scares me to think that even in your senior/geriatric years no wisdon has followed you. Sad really.
Probably nothing notable would happen. These early cells are known to be highly adaptable, able to become any type of cell in a human being. The loss of one cell would probably be compensated by the others. This is why some doctors are experimenting with these cells for treatment of certain diseases. And if you could somehow count all the cells in a later stage embryo or fetus, I doubt they would come to an exact power of 2.
Didn’t we have a very young poster in here a couple of weeks ago arguing equally dogmatically the pro-life viewpoint? sigh
The OP seems to overlook the fact that “pro-choice” does not necessarily equate with “pro-abortion”.
I am strongly and undeniably pro-choice, yet I find the idea of mandatory abortions (such as those performed under China’s one child rule) or co-erced abortions (those performed where a woman has been intimidated into procuring an abortion under threat of violence or the ending of a relationship) unquestionably objectionable - even if they are performed at the stage of pregnancy when the embryo is little more than a collection of crudely differentiated cells.
And what are the OP’s opinions regarding partial birth abortions?
What are the OP’s opinions on the recent legally ordered separation of conjoined twins in Britain against the initial wishes of the parents?
It isn’t wise, iodine poison to assume that pro-lifers and pro-choice advocates will always hold diametrically opposing viewpoints on every aspect of the abortion debate.
I’m not sure the debate is hypothetical dave. Both IUDs and the post-coital pill prevent the implantation and development of a fertilised ovum, but can we be certain that fusion into a unique human organism hasn’t occured prior to the time of implantation being foiled? My understanding has always been that implantation doesn’t occur for a considerable time after fertilisation (the post-coital pill can be taken for up to 72 hours following sex for precisely this reason as I understand it). I often wonder if one of the reasons pro-life people do not strongly object to the use of IUDs and the post-coital pill is because those methods of contraception act in a manner which leaves a woman unaware of whether any conception had taken place. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on that.
Ben…
I think you’re looking for a clear, concise dividing line where there is none. In other words, you can’t start a countdown from the moment the man ejaculates to the point that the ejaculate meets up with the egg and a person is created.
I think “the exact point” of personhood is unimportant… only that there’s a rough guess at which fertilization occurs. If your belief is that “humanity=human DNA”, that’s one thing. If your belief is that “humanity=working nervous system”, that’s quite another. And if your belief is that “humanity=being born”, that’s a third thing. None of those have any sort of black&white answer to them (is a person “born” when the head appears at the vaginal opening? When they’re completely out of the mother? When the cord is cut?).
Just one question(no really to do with abortion rights and wrongs). Why would a person rather have an abortion as opposed to giving Him/Her up for adoption? Serious question!
Would it be because carrying the baby would be too much trouble or giving it up would be too hard or if anybody could help me on this please.
scooby.
For some people it might be easier to find out they are pregnant and have an operation in the early stages than go through the rest of the pregnancy. Ever been pregnant? Its not a cake walk. If you have a life to live it can be downright hellish. For some their own need to live a fullfilling life without progeny may override their want to not have an abortion. Others will weigh all the factors differently. Some people have a, IMHO silly, stigma against adoption. Others would prefer to avoid the publicity of being obviously pregnant.
Forcing someone to stay pregneant is as obscene as forcing someone to get an abortion, in my opinion.
Yes i have been pregnant, he’s 16 mths old and im 22. The thing is if I had a choice of being embarrased about being pregnant and giving him up or having an abortion I would have picked the embarrasment. Plus being pregnant isnt bad, its actually more good for you cause you r not supposed to drink,take drugs or smoke, which sounds like going through detox for me-which is good for the body.
So does it mean that a person would pick abortion over adoption because of being embarrased or the fact of having to give up drink n stuff would be too hard? Cause they don’t sound like really good reasons to me!
Then you shouldn’t use them as reasons. However, if they are good enough for somebody, then they should be allowed to use them. You have different priorities and ideals then other people. You are going to come up with different answers. Jsut because you find their reasons invalid for you doesn’t mean you should be allowed to force them to use your priorities.
Can you name just a few more reasons, besides those ones. Or anybody else please
Sorry to continue the hijack, but -
Scooby, I have a 7-year-old son and am 25. Were I to get pregnant again now, it would certainly be against my wishes and best efforts. And in all likelihood, I would have an abortion, because:
- I certainly don’t want to (and can’t) give my body over to pregnancy at this stage of my life; I have to take care of my son, and work, and a mentally and physically draining pregnancy would make things unbearable for nine-plus months.
- I’ve had a child, and he’s been the center of the world for me since the instant I saw him. I don’t think I could go through with carrying a fetus, feel it become a child, and deliver it, then give it away. It would be too hard on me and my family.
- An abortion, to me, would be a clean ending to a bad situation. Giving up a child for adoption lasts forever. I personally am acutely aware of my body and its rhythms, so I would know pretty damn early, I think, if I were pregnant. Take a day off, get it done, that’s that. I realize that for many people it’s more emotional than that; but to me, an early-stage abortion amounts to little more than a surgical procedure. Call me what you will. I just don’t view fetuses with misty-eyed romanticism…
For what it’s worth, I think that the first-trimester cutoff for abortion is a decent guideline. No one can draw a bright line in a pregnancy between conception and delivery where a fetus becomes a person, least of all me, but I am pretty comfortable with that distinction.
Truth be told, I had initially planned to abort the fetus which became my son. I was very young, the inseminator was undependable, but he talked me into keeping the baby with promises of marriage (that never materialized). Although I am immensely grateful every day for my little boy, I fully realize that had I gone through with an abortion, I would never have known what I missed. And I don’t think that’s sad, it’s just life.
I think that in addition to the reasons outlined above (ie unwillingness to endure the pregnancy and delivery of an unwanted child), the finality of abortion helps some women achieve closure. Just as not every woman wants to go through the physical and emotional ups and downs of childbearing in order to protect the life of a child they do not intend to raise, nor is every woman willing to have her future held hostage to the possibility of having her life disrupted by that child at a later stage.
In these days of increasingly open adoptions, it’s understandable that many women don’t consider it an option worth the physical effort to effect in the first place, and the uncertainty surrounding its possible impact on their future. Abortion offers more immediate and final closure to those women.
9 mths out of this persons life, to give another person life (which they created in the first place) doesnt sound to me like alot.
Scooby, it sounds like the main difference of opinion here is that you consider a just-fertilized egg a “person,” whereas many others do not.