BreezeWood
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- Oct 26, 2011
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There is literally no embryologist who doesn't believe that human life begins at conception.
Why life doesn't begin at conception
Why life doesn't begin at conception
Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services released a draft of its latest strategic plan, which will guide the agency from 2018 to 2022.
This is a religious definition of life, not a scientific one. Health and Human Services is a government organization. Its actions should be evidence-based, not faith-based, and this decidedly unscientific language should be eliminated from its strategic plan.
As an infertility specialist, I witness human fertilization in the laboratory every day. The human egg is a single living cell and it becomes a one-cell embryo if it successfully combines with a live sperm. No new life is formed — the egg and the sperm were already alive — and fertilization is not instantaneous. Nearly 48 hours pass from the time sperm first bind to the outside of the zona pellucida, the human eggshell, until the first cell division of the fertilized egg. The two newly formed cells then have the potential to give rise to a human being, but only if they are appropriately nurtured so that they continue to divide and then successfully implant in the uterus.
From a scientific perspective, life doesn't begin at any one point, it is a continuum. For HHS to define it as beginning at conception is a transparent attempt to justify restrictions on certain contraceptives as well as abortion. It may also have an unintended consequence: the restriction of infertility treatments, especially in vitro fertilization.
the gov'ts function is not to pander the views of misogynist religious radical perspective but to function for the benefit of society as a whole.