Life begins @ conception

FERTILISATION

n. The fusion of male and female gametes during sexual reproduction to form a zygote.
Oxford Dictionary 1990

At the Moment of fertilisation 23 chromosomes from each parent combine to create a unique individual human being when the nuclei from the sperm and the ovum combine.

The life of a baby begins long before he or she is born. A new individual human being begins growing in the mother's uterus at fertilisation and, if the baby's life is not interrupted, he or she will someday become an adult man or woman. Medical science has given us that answer to determine when life and therefore humanity begins. The magic moment is: conception. It is at that moment that the unique combination of chromosomes that define you first came into existence.

Before conception, that blueprint did not exist anywhere; after conception, it did. From that point on, your body grew and developed, but unless you get an organ transplant or some such artificial addition nothing new is added except food, fluids, and oxygen. Scientifically, biologically, and medically, life begins at conception.

BEYOND DISPUTE

As the world-renowned French geneticist Jerome LeJeune asserted, "To accept the fact that after fertilisation has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a matter of metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence."

The scientific evidence is beyond dispute:

• The unborn baby is alive from the moment of fertilisation. She has a heartbeat at three weeks and brain waves at six weeks.

• She is complete. She is programmed from the inside for an ongoing process of growth and development. She has 46 chromosomes in the cells of her body - the scientifically verifiable human genetic code.

• The unborn baby from the moment of fertilisation is a unique human being - never to be repeated in all of history. She has her own genetic code and is biologically different from her mother or father. She a unique individual.

• Nothing magic occurs at birth which suddenly makes an unborn baby human. The baby is the same baby, whether inside or outside the uterus. Every unborn baby is a complete, individual living human being from the earliest moment of his or her existence at fertilisation

     

 French geneticist Jerome LeJeune

PROCESS OF CONCEPTION

The medical researcher Karl Ernst von Boar first theorised it in 1828. Over the next several decades doctors and researchers were able to observe the process of conception in the laboratory, first in animals, later in humans, and by the 1850s this was well-recognised scientific fact. Ultrasound, intrauterine photography, genetic engineering ... all have confirmed and reconfirmed what was discovered in the 1800s.

What's changed is that the medical establishment has changed its "knowledge" to conform to the prevailing political winds.

Today we usually declare someone to be clinically and legally dead when we can no longer detect brain waves using an electroencephalo-gram (EEG). So if we say that someone is dead when brainwaves stop, perhaps we should say that he is alive when brainwaves start. When do brainwaves start? We can measure them at 6 weeks.

But that is not to say that brainwaves are not present prior to that time. Merely to say that we are, as of now, incapable of measuring them. 

HEARTBEAT

Before the idea of "brain death" came along, we used to declare someone dead when his heart stopped beating. So if you're dead when your heart stops beating, perhaps you're alive when you're heart starts beating. When does this happen? At just three weeks after conception. 

Watch a video of the embryonic heartbeat here 

SPECIAL BLUEPRINT

These are human chromosomes. They are found in every cell of your body. Every one is a copy of the set found in that single cell that you began as. They make up the complete plan, the blueprint, for a person. Modern science is only beginning to understand the code that this plan is written in, but a skilled lab technician with the proper equipment could examine these chromosomes and tell a few simple things. Chromosomes come in pairs. There are supposed to be exactly 46 chromosomes. If you have too few or too many, than this person has some serious physical deformity.  

  Human chromosomes

LINKS

• Read an interesting article by Patrick Lee and Robert George on when life begins