Decries All Fetal Personhood Laws,” 18 October 2025.
When does a developing fetus
becomes “human?” Does human life begin at conception
or sometime later in the pregnancy? When, later in the
pregnancy? What if you are wrong
about your dating by even a few days? Could you mistakenly
be ending a human life because it
does not meet your assigned definitions? Does the developing
fetus have legal rights as a
person or are they/is it not yet human? Is it not obvious
that an ectopic pregnancy is a
miscarriage and that it becomes a triage situation and
therefore, not an abortion?
The overall conversation is seen by
many as a religious question, and it is, but a rational
and scientific case can be made for opposition to abortion
without any resort to religious
arguments. Many people will not listen to anything
even remotely religious, but they might
listen if the
discussion can be framed in a scientific way.
We have often been told to
"follow the science." This is a good and valid idea. In order to
remain completely
uniform in thought, this advice should be consistently applied. This
article
will present, in a highly simplified way, the scientific
information necessary for a case against
abortion and some forms of birth control.
This is a very simplified
presentation of human conception and the passage of genetic
information from the parents to the offspring. The
information may seem to be complicated and
overwhelming, but at least a simplified basic understanding
is necessary for a scientific critique
of the practice of abortion. That is what I will attempt to
provide for you here. It is necessary to
start at the beginning.
DNA (deoxy-ribonucleic acid) is a
molecule consisting of two strands of nucleotide
bases (adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine) paired
together in two long strings arranged in
the shape of a helix.
DNA, a very complex and, at the same time, a very elegantly simple
molecule, is present
in every cell of the human body and contains, in coded form, all the
information necessary to build and maintain the entire body.
Combinations of the four bases in
pairs contain the entire human genome; the genetic
code which determines a person's sex, hair color, voice,
skin color, height, body type, number of
fingers and toes, fat distribution, eye color, genetic
diseases, intelligence level, possible allergies,
digestion, athletic ability, blood group typing, etcetera,
etcetera, etcetera. The codes literally
determine everything about your physical body and genetic
science clearly says that all the
information about you as a human individual is present from
the moment of conception.
A very simplified explanation is
this: each spermatozoan carries 23 chromosomes
containing copies of the father’s DNA and each egg cell contains
23 chromosomes containing
copies of the mother’s DNA. At fertilization, the two sets
of chromosomes unite to produce the
zygote which has a total of 46 chromosomes (23 from the
father and 23 from the
mother). There are, of course, abnormal situations when
this process is distorted and birth
abnormalities result.
So, half of the individual’s
genetic information comes from the mother and half from the
father. The chromosomal pattern in the fertilized egg is a
hybrid of the coded instructions
present in each of the two source cells, made from them but individually
different from each of
them; a fully separate genetic code, a totally distinct
individual. To the mother’s immune
system, the fertilized egg is “Not Me,” it is a foreign
body.
The human female produces ova
(eggs) which her body recognizes as "Me." Except in
rare cases of autoimmune disease, such as in immune
oophoritis, the immune system leaves
the ovaries and the eggs alone. In autoimmune oophoritis, the
body's immune system attacks
the ovaries as being “Not Me” and causes ovarian inflammation,
severe damage, and fibrosis.
Normally, when a sperm wins the
frantic race to the egg, the egg immediately allows
the spermatozoan to enter and mix the DNA which it
carries with the DNA which is present in
the egg. The resultant
mixture of chromosomes is "Not Me," which presents a severe problem
because, if the body’s immune system is functioning properly
it does not like "Not Me" and it
begins to makes moves to get rid of the "Not Me." It
attacks "Not Me" to protect itself from
viruses, bacteria, and other organisms like yeast
or protozoa. This is the reason why transplant
patients must take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of
their lives. The transplanted tissues are
"Not Me" and would be killed if the body’s
defenses are not properly suppressed.
To protect itself, the fertilized
egg starts making proteins which tell the body, "move
on, there's nothing to see here."
The proteins serve to hide the "Not Me." The body only sees
the "Me" and leaves the transplanted tissues
alone.
Once the embryo implants and begins
to increase in size, it rapidly becomes too "Not
Me" for the immune system to ignore, so the placenta
takes over, releasing hormones, such as
progesterone, human chorionic gonadotropin, and other factors,
to prevent rejection of the
fetus.
The
placenta is a temporary organ which contains both maternal and fetal tissue.
Most
people recognize that the placenta nourishes the fetus,
provides the fetus with oxygen, and
allows in some of the mother’s protective antibodies since
the fetus’ immune system is not yet
functioning. It also allows the fetus’ waste products out
into the mother’s blood system where
they can then be
properly eliminated. What people may not realize is that the placenta also
acts as a barrier and filter between the mother “Me” and the
fetus “Not Me,” protecting the
“Not Me” from being killed.
Because of
the placenta’s construction, the fetus and the mother effectively never come
into contact with one another. Under the best of circumstances, the two
bloodstreams never
mix. There are even two different types of hemoglobin at
play, adult and fetal. The mother and
the fetus may also have different blood serotypes.
Remember that the fetus is "Not
Me, " foreign tissue to the body of the mother. So,
what you have is, mother ("Me") and fetus ("Not
Me"). Because the fetus has been effectively
disguised, the mother’s immune system, under normal
situations, does not attempt to kill the
foreign material, the developing baby.
This scientific information is one
reason why there is so much controversy over when the
fetus becomes a separate, individual, and legally protected human,
but this argument will not
convince everyone. The fertilized egg is clearly human
tissue and is clearly genetically distinct
from tissue derived from the mother. None of this can answer
the question of whether human
life legally begins at conception, at the first detectable
heartbeat, or later.
Thirty-eight of the United States
recognize the “unborn child” as a human and, in 2004,
United States President George W. Bush signed the Unborn
Victims of Violence Act which views
unborn children as humans if they are injured or killed
during the commission of specific federal
crimes such as terrorism. The United States courts have
declared that these laws do not apply
to legal abortions. My question is, “Why
not?” Is the only difference that the murdered child is
wanted and the aborted child is not?
.......................................................................................................................................................
If you wish to know more, see these links.
Very good:
Kent,
Athol, “Why Doesn’t a Mother Reject Her Fetus?” Reviews in Obstetrics and
Gynecology, 2009, Winter, : 2(1): 67-68. This web page is from the Journal
Article Summary Service of the National Library of Medicine and is published by
the National Institutes of Health. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2672992/ (A quotation from this article, “It is a
wonder of pregnancy that the fetus is not rejected by the mother’s immune
system.”)
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Simplified:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
DNA to RNA to proteins
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Detailed information on proteins:
http://www2.chemistry.msu.edu:80/faculty/reusch/VirtTxtJml/proteins.htm
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Chromosomes
http://images.yourdictionary.com/chromosome
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act (Public Law 108-212-Apr.
1, 2004
https://www.congress.gov/108/plaws/publ212/PLAW-108publ212.pdf
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Arguments on the Abortion Issue, For and Against
https://www.britannica.com/procon/abortion-debate/Con-Quotes
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