On Apr 25, 2005, at 8:20 AM, Julia Thompson wrote:
Ronn!Blankenship wrote:At 06:11 PM Sunday 4/24/2005, JDG wrote:It is well known that a significant fraction (1/3?) of fertilized eggs never make it to a live birth.At 11:59 AM 4/15/2005 -0400, Max wrote: >JDG wrote: > > Let's connect the dots: >> >> -human life begins at conception > >This is scientifically debateable.
Really? This would require the [group of cells] to be something other
than human life between the meeting of the sperm and the egg, and the
beginning of human life. During this time the [group of cells] would have
to be either: a) not human or b) not alive or c) both.
More like 1/2, I think. But I don't have a reference to cite on that.
50%.
<http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001488.htm>
It's funny; i covered this very ground last week but John chose to overlook it.
I know of someone who had had more than one baby the first time around and was having an early ultrasound after she'd discovered she was pregnant a second time. The first ultrasound revealed 2 fetuses, but only 1 heartbeat was detected. The second ultrasound a couple of weeks later revealed only 1 fetus. (There is speculation that the "vanishing twin" syndrome is more common than we think, but I'm not sure how common it supposedly is.)
By John's argument the surviving twin should be tried for murder. After all s/he presumably killed and possibly engulfed his/her sibling, and since a mass of undifferentiated cells is equal to "human" in his lexicon, it's abundantly clear that the x-week-old is guilty. (Unless some other fetus snuck in there in the night and did the deed.)
Fratricide, infanticide and cannibalism are serious crimes. I say we try the offender as an adult and don't hold back on the death penalty if there's a guilty verdict.
That's only sensible, right?
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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