Quoting President Ronald Reagan, in 1984, stated, "The 1981 Senate hearings on the beginning of human life brought out the basic issue more clearly than ever before. The many medical and scientific witnesses who testified disagreed on many things, but not on the scientific evidence that the unborn child is alive, is a distinct individual, or is a member of the human species."
Dr. Bradley M. Patten's textbook, 'Human Embryology,' states, "It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and the resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the culmination of the Process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual."
Keith L. Moore, M.Sc., Ph.D., F.I.A.C., F.R.S.M., Professor and Chairman, Department of Anatomy, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine Toronto, Ontario, Canada, wrote in his text on embryology, 'Before We Are Born, Embryology and Birth Defects, 2nd edition,' referring to the single-cell zygote, says, "The cell results from fertilization of an oocyte by a sperm and is the beginning of a human being." He also states, "Each of us started life as a cell called a zygote." Dr. Moore also wrote that the "fetus is a recognizable human being."
Doctors J.P. Greenhill and E.A. Friedman, in their work on biology and obstetrics, state, "The zygote thus formed represents the
beginning of a new life."
Dr. Louis Fridhanler, in the medical textbook 'Biology of Gestation,' refers to fertilization as "that wondrous moment that marks the beginning of life for a new unique individual."
Doctors E.L. Potter and J.M. Craig write in 'Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant', "Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite a new being is created which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition."
'Time and Rand McNally's Atlas of the Body' states, "In fusing together, the male and female gamates produce a fertilized single cell, the zygote, which is the start of a new individual."
In an article on pregnancy, the Enyclopedia Britannica says, "A new individual is created when the elements of a potent sperm merge with those of a fertile ovum, or egg."
In the 1995, 'Eighth Edition of Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia,' Embryology is defined as such, "The science which deals with the development of the individual from the union of the germ cells to the completion of its bodily structure." The Encyclopedia refers to the embryo, throughout the text, as "the new life." It also states this, "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."
In the text, 'A Child is Born,' by husband and wife team, Miriam Furuhjelm, M.D., who is Senior Lecturer and Assistant Chief Physician, at the world-famous Karolinska Institute and women's clinic of the Sabbatsberg Hospital, and her husband Axel IngelmanSundberg, M.D., Professor and Chief Physician, write the following: "We all start as one-celled beings."; "When is it determined that we are going to be human beings? This happens at the moment of conception." and, "Human genetic material can give rise only to human beings."
They also write this about the fetus, "At 8 weeks, 4 centimeters (1.6 inches) ... Everything that will be found in the fully developed human being has now been established."
Coming back to the 1981, United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, we find quotes of the invited experts. Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania, stated, "I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception... I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood and that any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human life...
"I am no more prepared to say that these early stages(of development in the womb) represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty... is not a human being. This is human life at every stage... "
Dr. Jerome LeJeune, professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, was the discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down's syndrome, states, "after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being." He added, "Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception."
Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic; "By all criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception."
Professor Micheline Mathew-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... Our laws, one function of which is to help preserve the lives of our people, should be based on accurate scientific data."
Dr. Watson A. Bowes, University of Colorado Medical School: "The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straight forward matter--the beginning is conception. This straightforward biological fact should not be distorted to serve sociological, political, or economic goals."
A prominent physician points out that at these Senate hearings, "Pro-abortionists, though invited to do so, failed to produce even a single expert witness who would specifically testify that life begins at any point other then conception or implantation. Only one witness said no one can tell when life begins."
The First International Symposium of Abortion came to this conclusion: "The changes occurring between implantation, a six-week embryo, a six-month fetus, a one-week-old child, or a mature adult are merely stages of development and maturation. The majority of our group could find no point in time between the union of sperm and egg, or at least the blastocyst stage, and the birth of the infant at which point we could say that this was not a human life."
The Official Senate report on Senate Bill 158, the "Human Life Bill," states, "Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being-- a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings."
Ashley Montague, a geneticist and professor at Harvard and Rutgers, though unsympathetic to the pro-life cause, nevertheless affirms unequivocally, "The basic fact is simple: life begins not at birth, but conception."
Dr. Landrum Shettles was for twenty-seven years attending obstetrician-gynecologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. Shettle was a pioneer in sperm biology, fertility, and sterility. He is internationally famous for being the discoverer of male-and female-producing sperm. His intrauterine photographs of preborn children appear in over fifty medical textbooks. Dr. Shettles states, "I oppose abortion. I do so, first because I accept what is biologically manifest--that human life commences at the time of conception--and, second, because I believe it is wrong to take innocent human life under any circumstances. My position is scientific, pragmatic, and humanitarian."
Scientifically there is no doubt that the zygote, and therefor the embryo, and the fetus, is a human, is a life, and an individual. Therefor abortion terminates a human individual life.
What's the pro-aborts argument against this? Well the fetus isn't sentient. Now sentience is the ability to use the five senses. But that can't be what their talking about, because the embryo by 6 weeks has all five senses, according to the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Than they must be referring to self-awareness. The problem with using self-awareness to determine whether a human individual life has the right not to be killed, is that that same determining property applies to the mentally ill, the severely handicapped, and the senile.
Essentially what they argue is that the fetus is not a person. That the embryo, and the fetus, are things, not persons. Most prochoice advocates have given up on the first arguments that the fetus isn't a human life. Science has proven beyond a doubt that the fetus is a human life, and the prochoicers knew that soon the public would learn the truth, so they changed the argument to suit their needs. The new strategy is to say, "OK, this is human life, but it isn't really a person."
Why isn't it a person? Because its not an individual. Well I've
just shown that scientifically the fetus IS an individual. In 1970, Dr. Paul Ramsey wrote, "Points in Deciding About Abortion," in which he stated, "Thus it might be said that in all essential respects the individual is whoever he is going to become from the moment of impregnation. He already is this while not knowing this or anything else. Thereafter, his subsequent development cannot be described as becoming something he is not now. It can only be described as a process of achieving, a process of becoming the one he already is. Genetics teaches us that we were from the beginning what we essentially still are in every cell and in every generally human attribute and in every individual attribute."
In 'New Perspectives on Human Abortion,' by Dr. Thomas W. Hilgers, Dennis J. Horan and David Mall, 1981, Dr. Hilgers states, "No individual living body can become' a person unless it already is a person. No living being can become anything other than what it already essentially is."
In Newsweek, 1991, the magazine stated, "Life in the womb represents the next frontier for studies of human development, and early explorations of the frontier--through ultrasound, fiber-optic cameras, miniature microphones--have yielded startling discoveries." "With no hype at all, the fetus can rightly be called a marvel of cognition, consciousness and sentience." The fetus is not a thing. The fetus is a person.
Many pro-abortion advocates state that it is alright to kill the fetus because it is not a "human being," or because it is not an "individual." They say that medical science has proven this. That no "credible" scientist would say that the fetus is an individual life. One such advocate is professor of biological science and public policy at the University of California, San Diego, Professor Clifford Grobstein. Grobstein has written that it is perfectly alright, in fact scientifically sound, to kill a 7 or 8 month fetus. Not for any helath emergency of the mother, but because the fetus is nothing but a mass, with random, unorganized brain activity, with no sense of "I."
He goes on to say that anyone who "misidentifies" individuality at conception, is a person who is unscientific and that it "harks back to preformationism, a theory that was entertained more than a century ago."
