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It's not that "they" have defined pregnancy as beginning at implantation. That's simply the biological reality. Pregnancy is a condition of a woman, not of a fertilized egg or embryo.

As demonstrated by IVF, conception can occur outside the body, and in fact the embryo can develop outside the body to as far as the blastocyst stage without any ill effects, because it is inherently an independent entity through that stage. Nobody is pregnant when an embryo is in a petri dish dividing up to the blastocyst stage. At that stage (with or without an interruption of decade or more, while it sits in a freezing nitrogen tank), you could still randomly transfer it into any one of a group of women whose uterine linings are at the right stage, and have an equal chance of any one of those *women* becoming pregnant. But until it forms a functioning connection to a uterine lining, none of the women are pregnant.

While I don't share the views of most here, that early embryos should be regarded as full-fledged human beings, I respect intelligent arguments in support of that position. What I don't respect is people throwing around baseless accusations in an attempt to promote that position. Defining pregnancy as beginning at implantation is not some conspiracy by people who don't think embryos should be considered as being on a par with fully developed humans who have been born and no longer have or require a physical connection to their birth mother. It's a biological fact that is fully understood, accepted, and taught by all well-informed biologists and physicians, including those who *do* believe that a just-fertilized egg has the ethical status of, and should have the legal status of a young child.

Then obviously you don't read any of my posts about RKBA, or public schools, or prosecution/punishment of criminals, or federal income taxes, or "welfare", or private property rights, . . .

Actually, that's not true. For an embryo to be "left by itself" is exactly what nature does -- it's fertilized in the fallopian tube, and then is essentially dumped into the uterus, where it may or may not ever implant. IVF puts it in the same place, just via a different route.

The "relatively low" success rates of most fertility clinics are due to the fact that most of their patients are people who have been trying for a long time, both the natural way, and with non-invasive methods (e.g. just taking pills to promote ovulation), and have not been able to have a baby yet. Most of them have serious and/or complex problems impairing their fertility (sometimes involving a combination of male and female problems), and the science and technology haven't advanced yet to where these problems can be reliably overcome.

If you look at certain subsets of IVF patients/treatments, you'll see that the fertility clinics' success rates are right up there with nature's success rates (which are nowhere near as high as most people imagine). For women not beyond their early 30s, whose only "problem" is that they got their tubes tied (or blocked by a previous infection or tubal pregnancy), the overall success rate is virtually 100% -- usually takes 2-3 rounds of IVF to get a baby, but that's the same with natural conceptions. Most couples don't establish a viable pregnancy in the first month of actively "trying" the natural way, because the majority of naturally fertilized eggs don't progress all the way to the live birth stage -- most of the ones that don't either fail to implant or stop developing before the woman even knows she's pregnant. The IVF success rates are virtually identical for older women (even to age 50 and above) using donor eggs from younger donors. So IVF technology itself has reached a point where it's on a par with nature. But a majority of the patients doing IVF have little to no chance of having a baby the natural way, and thus statistically, IVF (even using their own eggs/sperm) provides a very significant boost in their success rates, despite the success rates being low in comparison to those of young healthy couples using either natural means or IVF.

Another interesting aspect is that some women have cycle irregularities that cause the implantation-receptive stage of the uterus to never coincide with the time when a naturally ovulated/fertilized egg will reach the uterus. This type of problem can be corrected by IUI or IVF (and sometimes by even less invasive methods). A narrower category of patients have what is known in Orthodox Jewish circles as "halachic infertility" -- i.e. they're only infertile due to following Orthodox Jewish law about the required delay between the end of the menstrual period and the resumption of sexual relations. If they'd have sex sooner after their period ends, they'd get pregnant the natural way, but they won't. There are some large Orthodox Jewish families out there whose children are entirely the result of IUI or IVF intervention to get around this problem (usually only IUI is needed). http://www.jewishwomenshealth.org/article.php?article=9 If you read through the gory details of the relevant Jewish law ( http://www.jewishwomenshealth.org/article.php?article=12 ), you'll marvel that Orthodox Judaism hasn't completely died out (and in fact, I strongly suspect that many individual lines DID die out on account of this, leaving few women in these communities who are naturally prone to cycle parameters that leave no intersection between following the mind-boggling law and capacity to reproduce).

Actually, it's always been the definition of pregnancy, everywhere except extremist "pro-life" NON-medical circles. Refer to any obstetrics and gynecology textbook if you don't believe me.

Long before attachment to the uterus the woman’s body is doing all sorts of stuff in response to the fertilization of the ovum. Her body knows darn well that she’s pregnant, long before implantation in the uterine wall.

No, her body knows nothing of the sort. You're showing your ignorance with this statement. If the lining of the uterus is *already* expressing a certain carbohydrate molecule (which is only expressed for a few days in each cycle), then a normal embryo will react to the presence of that carbohydrate by beginning the implantation process, and triggering further responses from the uterine lining. The woman's body has no reaction to the presence of the embryo prior to the initiation of the implantation process, and in the earliest stages the physical changes are still very localized to a tiny area of the uterine lining (which is not a permanent part of the body).

The presence of an embryo is not able to cause the expression of the necessary carbohydrate, and one element of the "rhythm method" of birth control is timing sex long enough after ovulation that the normal uterus will no longer be capable of implantation, even though the egg can still be fertilized for a bit longer.

If you really care about these things, why not read up on them from actual medical sources?

It was true then, and it still is (though since today’s birth control pills are lower-dose than those “way way back”, you’d need a couple extra for reliable effect).

No, what's going on here is that LifeSite is deliberately misusing terms in order to excite their largely ignorant readership, which will then provide LifeSite with more revenue. Read the article again. The claim is that the clinic "implanted" the embryos, and an hour later, told her the wrong embryos had been used and offered her the morning-after pill. No clinic has the capability to "implant" embryos, and no embryo has the capability to implant within an hour of being transferred (or of arriving naturally) into the uterus.

The woman had a loose embryo floating around in her uterus, and the morning-after pill ensured that it would never implant (though there was a much better than even chance that it wouldn't have implanted anyway).

It doesn't. This woman wasn't pregnant, any more than the test tube the embyro had just come from was "pregnant". She just had an unimplanted embryo floating around loose inside her.

LifeSite is, as usual, distorting facts in the interest of maximum sensationalism. They use the term "implanted" repeatedly in the article, even though they surely know (unless they're just totally clueless about all of this stuff) that the embryo had only been *transferred*. Transfer comes first, and then the hope (in normal cases) is that implantation will subsequently occur (in a few days), but often it doesn't. Same as with natural conceptions -- a fertilized egg floating down the fallopian tube into the uterus may implant at which point the woman becomes pregnant; but very often it does not implant, and the woman never becomes pregnant.

*Nothing* causes abortion in a woman who isn't pregnant.

However, this one apparently forgot to flush the toilet to provide audio credibility for his lie, The homeowner doesn't mention anything about hearing a toilet flushing.

Very thoughtful of the homeowner, though, to take the guy at his word and usher him into the bathroom to wait for police to arrive. Or maybe the homeowner was just thinking this was the best way to protect his carpet and furniture from "messes", since even assuming the fellow hadn't really needed to use the bathroom originally, he most likely did *now*, what with having a gun pointed in his face and all.

Actually, most of it is very demonstrably devised by for-profit companies who love the fans' money and want them eternally alive and buying the endless stream of obsession-feeding junk that said companies are spewing out to induce the fans to hand over their money.

REAL vampirism??? If Wohlberg thinks there's such a thing as real vampirism, he's a *lot* more unhinged than the silly teenagers who are going through a phase of pretending to be vampires.

However, it was banned from the LDS Church-owned Deseret Books after complaints from Church members about it's heavy content of teen activities that violated Church standards (e.g. Bella and Edward lying in bed together at night, after Edward has snuck in Bella's bedroom window to avoid detection by Bella's father), and a lot of other generally unwholesome stuff that isn't exactly "uplifting".

Isn’t what already specified in the lease? Can’t sublet? Yes, but it’s impossible to enforce. It’s not like the landlords are going to help enforce it — they’re not going to get paid any more than the government-decreed rental rate no matter what, and when tenants are having trouble making the rent payments (like now), it’s actually beneficial to the landlords to let this sort of arrangement proceed undisturbed.

When there’s an active, public market in “no-tel” rentals, it obviously greatly increases the amount of this going on, and the profitability. Easier to outlaw it completely.

Better yet, get rid of all the unConstitutional rent control laws, and let private property owners set their own rules re sublets. But of course, that’s far too radical a proposal for the NYC government to consider. Only tweaks to the socialist system are open for consideration.

On a related note, there’s also quite of bit of similar stuff going on in public housing projects, though obviously not as a susbtitute for real hotels. A friend of mine lived in such an arrangement briefly, where the apartment was officially leased to a welfare mother who supposedly had multiple children (including teens) living there, thus qualifying her for a huge apartment. But only two younger children actually lived there, and the woman (who obviously wasn’t paying a dime for the apartment in the first place) was renting out rooms at standard NYC rental rates. The welfare crowd is actually very pro-capitalism, as long as somebody gives them the capital for free.

Part of the issue is that some of these apartments are rent-controlled or rent-stabilized (technically different in NYC, but same concept). The result is that the leaseholder is making a fat profit, while the actual owner of the property is forced by the government to rent the apartment for way below market rates.

It’s incidents like this that make me very sympathetic to LEOs who display a short fuse in encounters with citizens. The story a few months back, about an officer who shot dead a drunk who was attempting to drive away despite being boxed in, was an example. I couldn’t believe the number of posters howling about how the shooting was “unnecessary”, because the perp couldn’t have actually gotten away in the vehicle on account of being boxed in. The guy was totally out-of-control, had rammed another vehicle with his car, and repeatedly refused police orders to get out of his car. As far as I’m concerned, that crosses the threshold to where police are justified in shooting first and asking questions later.

The silencer ban really needs to be challenged by a plaintiff (or group of plaintiffs) in an area where target shooting on private residential property is common and generally accepted, but where neighbors are bothered by the noise. It needs to be challenged as infringing on the rights of people who enjoy peace and quiet.

I’ve long thought that the real purpose of the silencer ban was to discourage widespread shooting on private property that isn’t designated as a range for private club or public use, with the goal of de-normalizing family shooting practice on their own properties, promoting the idea that people who like to keep up their shooting skills are anomalous “gun nuts”, and promoting local ordinances prohibiting discharging a firearm within city/town limits. It’s certainly never had the slightest utility in crime prevention, since makeshift silencers can be whipped up easily and people intending to use guns in crime are obviously not going to be afraid of violating the silencer ban.

Let's hope they're making sure he refrains from *private* ministry too!

It’s a state school, so I can’t get too worked about this. Though I can get pretty worked up about the fact that state schools exist in the first place . . .

Indeed. I'd sort of hoped tht 60Gunner's prolonged absence was due to his have traded in writing on FR for writing a book.

Glad to see you back. I’d wondered what happened to you. Please write a new story soon!

Awwww, that's really sweet.