Illinois Supreme Court: Girls under 17 must inform parents if aborting

Let’s put it this way: equating prevention of a blastocyst of less than a couple hundred cells from implanting is not the equivalent of dismembering an embryo of five weeks who can feel itself being ripped apart.

Equating the two dilutes the horror of abortion.

I point out that I’m a medical researcher because my perspective gives me a very clear view of what is meaningful life, and what just exists. I can guarantee that placing human cells—which have unique DNA and are unquestionably alive—in a dish will never result in a human being. They will grow indefinitely as long as I feed them, but the qualities that make a clump of human cells into a human being are absent.

There simply is no objective basis on which to say that a zygote of a couple hundred cells is any different than the few million cells in the dish. The only difference comes when that embryo develops to the point of having a nervous system—its interface with the world. Then it becomes aware, which is essential for a human being to exist.

There simply is no objective basis on which to say that a zygote of a couple hundred cells is any different than the few million cells in the dish.

Sure there is. You can take that zygote in the petri dish, place it in many a woman (and perhaps one day, a fancier petri dish), perhaps even after years on ice, and that tiny human life will grow and change, but at no instant the change is any more dramatic than many other stages in development. You know that plenty of people with as much brains and training, and more as you have found such a objective basis, even if you have not.

Others still, and not just the Peter Singer loonies, would argue that the primitive status of a barely developed nervous system hardly qualifies as being self-aware. These types of arguments have been used in the Terry Schiavo case (where the argument is made that the nervous system is not functional, I know you are NOT making that argument).

Then it becomes aware, which is essential for a human being to exist.

I have not heard that definition before from a medical professional before. The definition of aware is one that can be played with. You set the bar quite low (a good thing in my opinion), but there is "no objective basis" not to place it higher.

I understand very well that many people have a romantic notion that life begins at conception. I do not like this notion, for a number of reasons—one being that it hands pro-aborts a handy argument to use against us. They will point at the formless mass of a few dozen cells, laugh at the notion that anyone could think that is a baby, and extrapolate that out to include a baby at several months, who clearly is a baby by any measure. Another reason is that considering the zygote right after fertilization as a human being is conferring human status to something that only has a potential of becoming human—it doesn’t account for what it is right now. Again, that feeds right into the pro-abortion argument, because it is a much more difficult task to convince someone that a *potential* has equal standing to an existing human—and the idea of *potential* baby is extrapolated out to include the fetus all the way up to birth.

I try to explain very clearly, but it is difficult because my understanding of biology, and what exactly life is, comes from years of growing and observing human cells in flasks.

The idea that life can suddenly exist where there was no life is ludicrous. It is a continuum. I will never say that life “begins” at conception—it doesn’t. All that happens at conception is that two cells fuse together to become a single cell. That is not an unusual event; cells fuse all the time.

There is absolutely no objective criterion that distinguishes a zygote. None. It has no higher order structures (like organs or tissues) and is utterly unaware of its existence. My objective criterion is that an organism has to both be aware of its existence and be human in order to be worth preserving.

You can make a zygote in a petri dish. You can even implant it in a woman. The chance that it has the ability to go on and grow into a human being is actually pretty low.

You can take an adult’s skin cells and put them in a petri dish. You can douse them with the proper growth factors to induce them to start a developmental pathway. The chance that they’ll continue to grow and become a baby is lower than that of the fertilized ovum, but it exists (and this has been done in animals).

People love to insist that the presence of unique DNA has some special significance. But it doesn’t. The DNA affects how the person will look and act, but has nothing to do with the fact of the person being a human being. It’s a trivial matter to make human cells have unique DNA in the lab. On the other hand, one could theoretically make a million identical humans starting with an adult’s skin cells. They won’t be a single person in a million bodies—they will be a million people who look alike.

Identical twins result from a zygote breaking into two parts; they are definitely two separate people.

You can take two zygotes, smush them together, and get one person with two sets of DNA. This happens naturally. The resulting people are called chimeras. In the lab, this is done with mice all the time, as a step in genetic engineering the mice for specific traits.

These biological realities create a huge problem for the notion that fertilization = start of a human being. But if you look at the start of a human being being the point at which a bunch of human cells develop the capacity for self-awareness—beginning at 3 weeks, the same time as the heart beat—there is no problem.

We all know that the brain is the center of our awareness. And that the person ceases to exist when the brain stops functioning (”brain death”, which leads shortly to the rest of the body dying). The concept that a human exists when there is functional brain tissue should not be difficult to understand.

Dear Ex-DemMom,

You have packed a lot in afairly short response.

“I understand very well that many people have a romantic notion that life begins at conception.”

I don’t really appreciate the kind of deprecative adjectives you toss at people who disagree with you, including a number of extremely well regarded scientists. I’ll drop just one name, Jérôme Lejeune, as his credentials are utterly beyond reproach and his understanding of life beginning at conception (fertilization) is well-known, and one he had been very vocal about.

If by romantic, you mean a willingness to give consideration for things that may not be measurable or observable by science as it now stands, well, then we must completely part ways. To the degree that it matches up with materialism, it is derivative of the same mindset that leads to Marxism.

In an earlier post, you described something as not being MEANINGFUL human life, because (among other things, it had not developed a cortex). Once you start tossing around words like MEANINGFUL (outside of a statistical setting, as in a meaningfully significant sample size), you are outside of the realm of hard science, as science cannot assign meaning.

You describing a growing human being, only of a few cells, as being “potential” life, is language I have only heard by pro-abort making an emotional plea. If it is growing, it is life.

“There is absolutely no objective criterion that distinguishes a zygote.”

Of course, there is. that is why we have the word “zygote”.

“People love to insist that the presence of unique DNA has some special significance. But it doesn’t. [ . . . ] one could theoretically make a million identical humans starting with an adult’s skin cells. They won’t be a single person in a million bodies—they will be a million people who look alike.”

Yup, and those people who love to insist aren’t assigning teh uniqueness of the DNA to the clones or twins from each other, but to the new being that is neither mother or father. I agree that DNA is not the be-all and end-all, and as you know, the mindset that you are deriding existed before DNA was even discovered, as people had a pretty good idea what has to go where for the generation of new animal or human life for some time.

“Identical twins result from a zygote breaking into two parts; they are definitely two separate people.”

Definitely, I know identical twin men who both have severe autism, only with nearly opposite behavior. One seeks extreme and continual stimulation, the other wants quiet and very little sensory stimulation. The same genes probably contributed to the condition, but they are extremely different from each other. But the question you touch on here is actually an interesting point, but more related to philosophy than science. If you have a fertilized ovum, and it is a new human being, and that human being undergoes twinning, which one is the original? If the answer is neither, what happened to the original? Issues like these would need a thread of their own (actually more) to work through, and some of them may be irresolvable by current human knowledge.

“The idea that life can suddenly exist where there was no life is ludicrous.”

First time I have ever heard a western scientist say that. A Big Bang approach even requires the positing that life came to exist where there was no life.

“We all know that the brain is the center of our awareness. And that the person ceases to exist when the brain stops functioning (”brain death”, which leads shortly to the rest of the body dying).”

No, we don’t know that a person ceases to exist at anything we can measure as brain death. You certainly are aware that people have come back from brain death, still being the same person. We do not know when death occurs.

“The concept that a human exists when there is functional brain tissue should not be difficult to understand.”

The concept is not difficult to understand, and some who move along that line require a certain level of functioning (or awareness) to award any moral value to such a being. Even we accepted the three week definition that you choose as a starting line, it does not follow that because creatures with functional brain tissue are living human beings, that this is the only criterion to employ. I’m speaking in terms of Aristotelian logic, one of the necessary perecursors of modern scientific method.

Studying cell structures and activity can be an extremely laudable thing, but I am disturbed when the “black box” knowledge gained from the study gets confused with understanding the brain or human life.

I am also disturbed that you assert a unique understanding that almost no one (credentialed hard scientist or other) accepts as practically self-evident.

Without realizing it, you seem to have fallen into many of the same philosophical errors of Descartes, without even being directly exposed to his writings.

Trying to have a discussion with someone who reacts emotionally instead of looking at and considering the facts gets extremely tedious.

My motivation in trying to educate people about the nuances of early development is an effort to counter the pro-aborts. I pay a lot of attention to what pro-aborts say, and how they justify killing babies and dismissing the pro-life position. They become very sophisticated in their techniques: I saw a TV program the other day in which some neuroscientist was claiming to have proof that life doesn't actually start until a kid reaches the age of 5... because younger children presumably don't have a sense of self. In the same program, another neuroscientist claimed that fetuses have no awareness because they do not react to pungent smells or loud noises (I guess the fact that they haven't started making odor receptors or hair cells responsible for hearing isn't a possibility). There are very dedicated efforts to try to "prove" that because certain developmental milestones have not been reached, it's okay to kill the kid--and if they are able to convince enough people, it will become legal to kill up to age 5--or even age 25, because that is when the brain finally matures. I am motivated by the desire to counter these sophisticated arguments by people clearly wishing to establish a "scientific" support of abortion.

In order to counter these clear attempts to push abortion support into legalized infanticide and toddlercide, people who call themselves pro-life absolutely MUST become more sophisticated about the science involved. I'm sorry, but while a simplistic statement like "life begins at conception" is easy to say to someone who does not understand the first thing about biology, it is such an oversimplification of the processes involved that it is incorrect. Life does not suddenly begin at any point--it takes living cells to fuse, and those living cells were produced by a living organism, etc. Biologically speaking, each sperm and ovum is a human being, but it is of the haploid type of human that cannot live independently nor does its life have any meaning. All organisms alternate between haploid and diploid generations... I'm sorry, is this getting too technical for you? My point is that you may have heard that oversimplification many times, and it *is* romantic--a sudden beginning of life has a nice symmetry with the sudden ending of life, etc.--but the reality is far more complex.

I should also point out that once cells differentiate to become nervous system cells, they function as nervous system cells. The idea that a fetus's developing brain is inert until something switches it on like a light is a pro-abortion fiction that has no basis in reality.

Once again, my concern is with saving lives. I'm painfully aware that pro-aborts mock pro-lifers for saying things like "life begins at conception"--haha, that idiot thinks the egg is the same as a newborn baby. I would love to see pro-life advocates take on a more sophisticated message.

BTW, a person who is brain-dead is *not* coming back. Necrotic tissue simply does not suddenly start living again. There are cases where brain activity has been too low to be detected by the EEG, but other tests can show that the brain is still alive. A comatose person is not brain dead, and sometimes wakes up (and I am utterly against hastening the death of a comatose person). Terry Schindler was never brain-dead until her husband-in-name-only got the courts to agree to have the hospice murder her; she was severely brain damaged and otherwise healthy.

P.S. I am not interested in discussing philosophy. I am sure there are other people who would love to discuss that with you; I am not one of them. Also, I am not interested in emotionalism or knee-jerk responses. Please try to make your responses logical, fact-based, and objective if you want to respond.

Despite the fact that MDs are not trained in life-processes nor do they understand them in nearly the same detail as a biochemist, I would be genuinely surprised if any of them thought that a fertilized ovum is functionally the same or has the same capability of feeling and awareness of a six month old fetus.

That isn't the question. The question is, is the fertilized ovum a unique human life, abd whether the capacity for awareness is part of that equation.

I'm sorry, is this getting too technical for you?

That kind of remark does not reflect well on your powers of persuasion, and only invites return fire.

Trying to have a discussion with someone who reacts emotionally instead of looking at and considering the facts gets extremely tedious.

I think you would have a hard time finding much in the way of emotional arguments on my side of the discussion, you certainly have not quoted me making one. You do seem unwilling to accept that anyone could assign meaning to human life, even if a cortex has not yet developed.

I'm sorry, but while a simplistic statement like "life begins at conception" is easy to say to someone who does not understand the first thing about biology,

That is an extremely condescending thing to say. Of COURSE life begins at some instant in time, just as an individual human life ends at an instant in time.

The funny thing is, the big league pro-aborts (e.g. head of Catholics for a Free Choice) acknowledge that pro-lifers have gotten quite sophisticated, so I don't think we are lacking from scientific understanding on our side among the rank and file, for the most part. Feel free to be more forthcoming about your qualifications, but don't assume that the folks who have come out loud for "life begins at conception" are just some undereducated pediatricians; attending some pro-life fora would disprove that usually on day one. You obviously are NOT aware of whom Dr. Jerome Lejeune was, and have cited no greater authority than yourself in any of these discussions.

I appreciate that you don't want to provide pro-aborts with an opportunity to make pro-lifers look silly, which in part happens when members of the stooge media try to take questions that would need a good journal length article to answer and force it into a sound bite. However, the truth should never be sacrificed in this prudential consideration. If a unique human life begins at with the successful fertilization of the ovum, than it does.

While I am not willing to say that the humanity of a creature depends on the capacity of self-awareness, or a developed cortex, I appreciate that you are actively showing pro-aborts that their ideas of development are wrong, and are a desperate attempt to make the facts fit what they desire to be true.

With many of the pro-aborts, they are willing to assign a "meaning" to human life either in one of the stages you describe, or even solipsistically ("it is a life when the woman accepts it is a life"), these attitudes will not be addressed by science, but by philosophy (including natural law) and a moral foundation. Even the scientific ultrasounds that have been extremely effective in turning the hearts of both mothers and fathers only work with those who have either an emotional or moral response based on a philosophical or religious understanding quite unrelated to the science at hand. The hard sciences are a fine tool for helping people observe phenomena to the degree that it can be observed. It is not suited to answer the big questions on its own.

P.S. I am not interested in discussing philosophy.

Science without philosophy is dead. When the pro-abort hears all of your arguments, and says, "I don't care". You are stuck. A truly educated person, a true doctor ... teacher, MUST have am underlying philosophy, even without realizing it. When I said earlier that the Marxist approach is just about as materialistic, I didn't mean to imply that you were a Marxist, but that an observational science-only approach can easily lead to a Marxist approach to reality (and has in many).

If your underlying philosophy varies from others on this board, or in regular life, your sincerely held beliefs will not sway them based on your credentials, as there are more with an equal or greater level of credentials who accept or are indifferent to abortion on demand well into the pregnancy.

Since we are both concerned with reducing the number of abortions (all of the surgical ones taking place farther along in development), I would request that you avoid belittling remarks of those who disagree with you, or to those who take an approach not rooted merely in observational laboratory science. We all have plenty to learn, proven by your wonderful handle (exDemMom), and most of us I hope are ex-something-or-other that makes us better than we were. Right now, our points are going past each other largely because we have a different idea of what human life is, and what "meaningful" human life is. I appreciate that while I found a number of your remarks condescending, they were without vitriol. I do understand that you believe your holdings very deeply (and they seem obvious to you). You do understand that just as you have to resist many of the strong leftist currents and presumptions in your field, many of us have long since stopped taking the word of somebody due to a long string of letters after a name, including many with a long string of letters.

I did not address every point you made in your piece (as my response is long as it is, and I also agree with many of them, just not as to their applicability.) You work in a very important field for people who identify themselves as conservative. I wish you the best, even though our underlying philosophical disagreement makes concord on this issue unlikely for the time being.

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