THE HUMAN EMBRYO

 

When and where does fertilization occur?

Sperm enter the womans vagina, swim through the cavity of her uterus and out through her Fallopian tubes. This can take as brief a time as five minutes to pass through the uterus and reach the tubes, and as brief as another 15 minutes to pass through the tubes and reach the ovaries. The egg, breaking out of the shell of her ovary, is penetrated by the head of one spermatozoa. Immediately the ovum creates a chemical or electrical charge or fence preventing other sperm from entering.

The pronucleus of the sperm, containing its 23 chromosomes, in about 12 hours migrates to meet the ovums pronucleus with its 23 chromosomes. Their fusion takes about 2 hours.

Then in another 18 hours this 46 chromosome nucleus divides into two cells.

Then into 3 cells at which time some new opinion believes the "decision" is made to stay single or pro-gram to divide into twins.

Then to 4 cells, to 8, to 16 and on and on. Jones and Schraeder, "The Process of Human Fertilization," Fertility and Sterility, vol. 48, no. 2, Aug. 1987, p. 191 Word Wars, E. Diamond, Physician, Nov. 1992, Pp. 14-15 Personal Communication, J. Lejeune 1994

What is this "moment of conception" bit?

Most use the moment of sperm penetration as the "moment of conception." Others wait until their pronuclei fuse at 12-14 hours to say conception is a completed process. In either case this new human life is complete at the first cell stage.

This is then only a single cell?

Yes. But a remarkable and unique one. This single cell is now either male or female. This human is unique, i.e., never before in the history of the world has this exact individual human existed. Never again in history will another exactly like this human exist.

This being is complete, i.e., nothing else no bits or pieces will be added from this time until the old man or woman dies nothing but nutrition and oxy-gen. This being is programmed from within, moving for-ward in a self-controlled, ongoing process of growth, development, and replacement of his or her own dying cells.

This living being is dependent upon his or her mother for shelter and food, but in all other respects is a to-tally new, different, unique, and independent being.

How does it grow?

This single celled human being divides into two cells, each containing the same total and identical DNA message, the same total contents. Two becomes three, three becomes four, then eight, sixteen, etc., as it moves down the Fallopian tube. Ultimately, each human beings body contains 30 million cells. When sufficient cells are present, organ formation, body structure, and function begins. Cell doubling occurs only 45 times. That timing is as follows:

Ive heard that another animal also has 46 chromosomes!

True, but not 46 human chromosomes. Different species have different types of chromosomes.

But what of a human with 47 chromosomes, doesnt this disprove your "humans have 46" statement?

Certain humans have 12 toes. Others are born with one arm. Are they human? They certainly are, but they are humans with an abnormality. A "Triple X" or a Downs Syndrome human has an extra chromosome. Are they human? Yes, but humans with an abnormal number of chromosomes.

This tiny human moves down the Fallopian tube?

Yes, and at about one week of life, at the blastocyst stage of about 128 to 256 cells, it implants into the nutrient lining of the uterus. There, only three days later, this tiny male or female human sends a chemical-hormonal message into the mothers body, which stops her menstrual periods.

The new being controls her body?

Yes, for the balance of pregnancy. It is the develop-ing baby who enlarges her breasts to prepare her for nursing and softens her pelvic bones in preparation for labor. It is even the baby who "determines his own birthday." A. Liley, A Case Against Abortion, Liberal Studies, Whitcombe & Tombs, 1971

Isnt the fertilized ovum only a potential human being?

No. This is not a potential human being; it is a human being with vast potential. One could say that the sperm and ovum, before their union, constitute a potential human being. Once their union is completed, however, they have become an actual human being.

What if this being dies soon after fertilization? Was it human then?

Human death can occur at any time during our journey through life. This could be minutes after fertilization or 95 years after fertilization. Human death is merely the end of human life.

There are those who claim that about 20% are lost in the first week. If this is so, it would mean that there is a mortality rate of almost 20% in the first week of life. This is not relevant to the question of whether or not this is human life anymore than infant mortality is a justification for infanticide, or death in old age justifies euthanasia. All it means is that the mortality rate in the first week of life may be 20%.

Of very early pregnancies, "22% ended before pregnancy was detected clinically." "The total rate of pregnancy loss after implantation, including clinically recognized spontaneous abortions, was 31%." The testing used was able to detect pregnancy accurately by day seven or eight.  Wilcox, et al., "Incidence of Early Loss of Pregnancy" New Eng. J. Med., vol 319, no. 4, July 28, 1988, p. 189

One reason for the apparent high percent of pre- or immediate post-implantation loss may be due to chromosome abnormalities. Wramsby et al., "Chromosome Analysis of Human Oocytes . . ." New Eng. J. Med., vol. 316, no. 3, Jan. 15, 1987, p. 121

Ive heard the fertilized ovum described as only a blueprint. What of this comparison?

The blueprint of your home is merely the plan for your home. After using this instruction sheet to build your house, you can throw the blueprint away. It has not become the house. The fertilized ovum is not the blueprint, but is, in fact, the house in miniature. It, it-self, will grow into the house in time. It is the house already.

Your home was built piece by piece until it ultimately assumed a shape which could be identified as a house. The tiny human, who you once were, developed into the adult you now are, but you were there totally at conception. All you needed to become the adult you now are was nutrition, oxygen, and time.

But it is so small. How can it be human yet?

If the only scientific instruments you use are your own unaided eyes, then a common judgment that you might make would be that "it isnt human until it looks human." We do have microscopes, ultrasonic movies, stethoscopes, and genetic knowledge now, all of which go far beyond the limited knowledge obtained by sight alone. To base your opinion solely on what you see, rather than upon what science is capable of telling you, isnt very rational.

What of a cell from some part of a persons body which can be kept alive in a tissue culture, either separated from his living body or maintained after that person has died. Does this not upset the concept of the fertilized ovum as a human life?

No. Those cells were a part of a complete human body and can only reproduce themselves as a specific type of cell. The fertilized ovum is not a part of another body, but is a whole body him or herself. It (he or she) will not merely reproduce, but is, in totality, a complete human being and will grow into a full adult if given time. Any one of hundreds of millions or billions of these cells in a humans body can die and we do not say that human has died. When a single fertilized ovum cell dies, however, the entire new human being dies. The other important difference is that the fertilized ovum, which subdivides and multiplies into many cells, moves immediately in the direction of specialized and differing parts, which are organized as a single unified complex being. Cells from parts of an adult human body in a tissue culture can only reproduce their own kind and cannot go on to develop differing specialized parts.

Wouldnt a successful human clone upset this reasoning?

First, there has never been a human clone. It may well be that man, the highest species, can never be successfully cloned. However, even granting that possibility, the clone, at the first moment of his or her existence, would be an intact and complete human life. He or she would be, in effect, the identical twin of the donor human, but of a different age. Being a total human, this living human would, in justice, be due the same protection of the law as the older donor human. R. McKinnelly, Professor of Genetics and Cell Biology at the University of Minnesota, who does frog cloning, has said, "I never expect to witness the construction of carbon copy humans. I do not believe that nuclear [the cell nucleus] transplantation for the purpose of producing human beings will ever routinely occur." R. McKinnelly, Cloning, University of Minnesota Press, 1979, p. 102

Cant we consider the developing embryo a form of plant or animal life which only becomes human at some later state of development?

Definitely not! The fertilized seed or ovum of a plant, or an animal, or of a human, at the time of fertilization and beginning growth, already is, in totality, that plant, animal, or human. Because of our present scientific knowledge of chromosome and gene structure and because of the intricate genetic programming that we are now aware of, we know that a plant can only develop into what it already is that is, a plant.

An animal, a dog, for instance, can only develop into a dog and a specific species of that dog. All this is predetermined and already exists in totality when fertilization occurs. The same is true of a human.

But can you then call an acorn an oak tree?

That is like saying "can you call an infant an adult?" Rather, you must ask "are they both complete oaks?"

Yes they are, all the acorn needs to develop into an adult tree is time and nutrition.

What of twins?

Non-identical twins are two separate individuals created by the union of two eggs and two sperm. Identical twins, however, occur when one fertilized ovum or zygote apparently splits into two, after which each of the two divided parts (each now a zygote in itself) grows independently in the very same manner toward full development and maturity as the average single zygote will. This occurs sometime between fertilization and implantation, but never after implantation.

Can we say, then, that one living human being (zygote) can split into two living human beings (identical twins)?

Scientific opinion is far from unanimous about how to consider this. One way of considering it is that the original human zygote, in splitting in half (whatever exactly happens, we dont know), can be considered, in effect, the parent of the new human being. This might be a form of parthenogenesis, or non-sexual reproduction.

We know that this does occur in certain forms of plant and animal life. We could postulate this type of process to explain identical twinning in a human.

The other possibility is that the existing human being, in splitting, dies, to give new life to two new identical human beings like himself (herself).

What is crucial to either of these explanations is that, at the time when a total human being exists, he or she should be recognized as such and given all rights due other living human beings.

But the sperm has life. The ovum has life. Why is either of these lives any different than when the two join and become a fertilized ovum?

The sperm has life, but not an independent life; it shares in the life of the body of the father. The sperm is genetically identified as a cell of the fathers body. It has reached the endpoint of its maturation. It cannot reproduce itself. It is destined to fertilize an ovum or to die. It is at the end of the line.

The ovum has life, but not an independent life; it shares in the life of the body of the mother. The ovum is genetically identified as a cell of the mothers body.

It has reached the endpoint of its maturation. It cannot reproduce itself. Its destiny? To be fertilized or die. It, too, is at the end of the line.

But when sperm and ovum join, there is created at that time a new living being; a being who has never be-fore existed in the history of the world and never again will exist; a being not at the end of the line, but at the dawn of existence; a being completely intact and containing within himself or herself the totality of every-thing that this being will ever be; a being moving for-ward in an orderly process of growth and maturation, destined to live inside the mother for almost nine months and for as many as a hundred years outside.

Will you cite some scientific authorities as to human life beginning at fertilization?

In 1981 the U.S. Senate considered Senate Bill #158, the "Human Life Bill." Extensive hearings (eight days, 57 witnesses) were conducted by Senator John

East. National and international authorities testified. We quote from the official Senate report, 97th Congress, S-158:

"Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception [they defined fertilization and conception to be the same] 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." Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981, p. 7 On pages 7-9, the report lists a "limited sample" of 13 medical textbooks, all of which state categorically that the life of an individual human begins at conception. Then, on pages 9-10, the report quotes several out-standing authorities who testified personally:

- Professor J. Lejeune, Paris, discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Downs Syndrome: "Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception."

- Professor W. Bowes, University of Colorado: Be-ginning of human life? "at conception."

- Professor H. Gordon, Mayo Clinic: "It is an established fact that human life begins at conception."

- Professor M. Matthews-Roth, Harvard University: "It is scientifically correct to say that individual human life begins at conception."

But Dr. Leon Rosenberg, from Yale University, and others said otherwise!

Dr. Rosenberg did state that he knew of no scientific evidence showing when actual human life begins. But, he then defined human life in a philosophic way, and spoke to a value judgment.

To quote the Senate report (on page 11): "Those witnesses who testified that science cannot say whether unborn children are human beings were speaking in every instance to the value question rather than the scientific question. No witness raised any evidence to refute the biological fact that from the moment of human conception there exists a distinct individual being who is alive and is of the human species."

Even though Dr. Rosenberg and others used the word, "science," they did not mean biologic science. Rather, they were speaking of their philosophic beliefs such as what Dr. Rosenberg called, "the complex quality of humanness."Hearings, S-158, 24 April at 25

This confusion of provable natural biologic science with value judgments based upon non-provable theories and beliefs must be shown at every opportunity to be two entirely different ways of reasoning.

How about other proof?

See the First International Symposium on Abortion, which concluded:

"The changes occurring between implantation, a six-weeks embryo, a six-months 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." Willke & Willke, Handbook on Abortion, (1971, 1975, 1979 Editions), Ch. 3, Cincinnati: Hayes Publishing Co.

What is a pre-embryo?

It is a million sperm swimming after an ovum. When one penetrates it, the "pre" is over and this now be-comes a zygote (a fertilized egg) which on dividing is called an embryo.

But the term "pre-embryo" is used for the first week or two.