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FETAL DEVELOPMENT: Scientific and Spiritual Proof of Life

The Beginning of Human Life

Medical Science Clearly Reveals: An Individual Human Life Begins at Conception

Scriptural References

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The Beginning of Human Life

The following references illustrate the fact that a new human embryo, the starting point for a human life, comes into existence with the formation of the one-celled zygote:

"Zygote. This cell results from the union of an oocyte and a sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being."

"This [ a zygote] highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual."

[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology. 6th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998, p. 2, p. 18]

[Note: This text is used for medical students at the University of Nebraska Medical Center]

* * *

"Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote."

[England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31]

* * *

"Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).

"Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."

[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]

* * *

"Embryo: the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation has occurred, when the organism becomes known as a fetus."

[Cloning Human Beings. Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, MD: GPO, 1997, Appendix-2.]

* * *

"Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus."

[Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146]

* * *

"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term ‘embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy."

[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]

* * *

"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."

[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]

* * *

"Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism.... At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.... The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life."

[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]

* * *

"I would say that among most scientists, the word ‘embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."

[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]

* * *

"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."

[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]

* * *

"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."

[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]

* * *

"The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are...respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development."

[Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17]

* * *

"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."

[O'Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists "pre-embryo" among "discarded and replaced terms" in modern embryology, describing it as "ill-defined and inaccurate" (p. 12}]

* * *

"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual."

[Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]

* * *

"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....

"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....

"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we non-medical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.

"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. ‘Don't worry,' a doctor might say, ‘it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"

[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]

2/26/98

Medical Science Clearly Reveals: An Individual Human Life Begins at Conception

Medical Textbooks and Scientific Reference Works:

	Dr. Bradley M. Patten's textbook, Human Embryology, states, " It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatazoan and the resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that...marks the initiation of the life of a new individual." ¹
	*Dr. Louis Fridhandler in the medical textbook Biology of Gestation, refers to fertilization as "that wondrous moment that marks the beginning of life for a new individual." ²*
	Time and Rand McNally's Atlas of the Body states, "In fusing together, the male and female gametes produce a fertilized single cell, the zygote, whch is the start of a new individual." ³
	Encyclopedia Britannica, says, "A new individual is created when the elements of a potent sperm merge with those of a fertile ovum, or egg." ⁴

Prominent Scientists and Physicians:

	The late Dr. Jerome LeJeune, Professor of Genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, and discoverer of the genetic cause of Down Syndrome said, "After fertilization has taken place and a new human being has come into being. It's no longer a matter of taste or opinion, and not a meta-physical condition, it is plain experimental evidence." ⁵
	Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School: It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive...It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." ⁶
	Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo clinic: "By all criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception." ⁷
	Ashley Montague, Geneticist and Professor at Harvard and Rutgers, who is unsympathetic to the pro-life cause, said clear, "The basic fact is simple" Life begins not at birth, but conception." ⁸
	Dr. Landrum Shettles served twenty-seven years as attending obstetrician-gynecologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. He was a pioneer in sperm biology, fertility, and sterility and is internationally famous for discovering male-and female-producing sperm. His intrauterine photographs of pre-born children appear in over fifty medical textbooks. Dr. Shettles states, "I oppose abortion...because I accept what is biologically manifest--that human life commences at the time of conception--and...because I believe it is wrong to take innocent human life under any circumstances. My position is scientific, pragmatic and humanitarian." ⁹

¹Bradley M. Patten, Human Embryology, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968) 43.

²L. Fridhandler, Gametogenesis to Implantation, " Biology of Gestation, Vol. 1 ed. N.S. Assau (New York: Academic Press, 1968) 76.

³Time Magazine and Rand McNally, Atlas of the Body (New York: Rand-McNally, 1980) 139, 144.

⁴"Pregnancy," The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed. Macropedia, Vol. 14 (Chicago: Encyclo. Brit., 1974) 968.

⁵Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981)

⁶Ibid

⁷Ibid

⁸Ashley Montague, Life Before Birth (New York: Signet Books, 1977) vi.

⁹L. Shettles and D. Rorvik, Rites of Life: The Scientific Evidence of Life Before Birth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. 1983) 113.

Summary of Scripture References Concerning the Unborn

Human Life Begins in the Womb:

Genesis 16:11 and 25:21-26 (with Hosea 12: 2-3 and Romans 9:10-13)

Exodus 21:22-15 (see also Numbers 35)

Jeremiah 1:5

Isaiah 7:14; 44:2,24; 46:3; 49:1,2: 53:6

Job 3:11-16; 10:8-12; 31:15

Psalms 22:9-10; 130: 13-16

Ecclesiastes 5;15 and 11:5

Luke 1:13-15 and 1:39-44

Human Life Begins at Fertilization.

Psalms 51:5

Luke 1:35-36 (also Matthew 1:18-20)

God Knows Us Even Before We Are Conceived.

Judges 13:3-7

Jeremiah 1:4-5

Ephesians 1:4 (also Matthew 25:34 and Revelation 13:8 and 17:8)

Punishment for Causing a Spontaneous Abortion

Exodus 21:22-25

Numbers 35:22-34

Slaying of the Innocent Is a Heinous Crime.

Deuteronomy 27:25

Luke 17:2

Jeremiah 7:6 and 22:17

Psalms 106:37-38

Proverbs 6:16-19

Matthew 18:10-14

Abortion for Rape and Incest is Never Allowed

Genesis 19:36-38 and 50:20

Romans 8:28

Genesis 38 (see also Ruth 4:18-22, Matthew 1:3 and Luke 3:33)

Abortion for Birth Defects is Never Allowed

John 9:1-3

Acts 17:25-29

Psalms 94:9

Romans 8:28

Leviticus 19:14

Isaiah 45:9-12

Abortion for the Mother's Mental Health Is Never Allowed

Genesis 50:20

Romans 8:28

Abortion to Conceal Fornication or Adultery Is Never Allowed.

Genesis 16:2-4 and 21:1-18

Genesis 38 (see also Ruth 4:12)

Children Must Not Be Sacrificed for Any Reason.

Ezekiel 16:20-21

Jeremiah 32:35

Exodus 1:15-17

Psalms 106:37-42

II Kings 16:3, 17:17, and 21:6

Deuteronomy 12:31 and 18:10-13

Leviticus 18:21, 24, 30

Children Are a Gift from God.

Genesis 30:1-2; Psalms 127:3-5

Our Response:

We Will Be Judged on Our Response.

Genesis 9:5-6

Jeremiah 7:5-6

Matthew 25:34-40

Galatians 6:9-10

We Must Not Follow the Master of This World.

Numbers 35:33

Romans 12:1-2

Leviticus 18:21, 24 & 29-30

We Must Protect the Fatherless.

James 1:27

Zachariah 7:9-10

Isaiah 1:23 & 10:1-2

We Must Care for Pregnant Women in Need

James 2-14-26

Matthew 23:3-4, 11, 12 and 25:31-46

Rescue Those Being Dragged to the Slaughter!

Proverbs 24:11-12

Isaiah 1:10-17 and 29:13