Part I: A brief description of the Early Life Issues.

1. When does a human being begin?[1]

Fertilization: (also known as conception) is the fusion of gametes[2] to form a new organism of the same species. In animals, the process involves a sperm fusing with an oocyte, which begins the development of the embryonic child. The spermatozoon and the oocyte[3] meet and interact in the fallopian tube. After finding the oocyte, the sperm binds to the zona pellucida, a protein membrane surrounding an oocyte.

Fusion between the sperm and oocyte plasma membranes follows, allowing the entry of the sperm into the oocyte. At this point the embryo comes into existence and is genetically distinct from either of the original sex cells.[4]

Once the single sperm cell has fused to the outer membrane of the oocyte, the membrane changes, preventing fusion with other sperm.

With the fusion of chromosomes from oocyte and sperm, a new, genetically distinct human being exists that is alive and separate from, though dependent upon the mother.

This process leads to the formation of a diploid[5] single-cell zygote[6]. The zygote is the earliest stage of human development in which the complete genotype, or genetic system of the human individual is in place .

The process of cell division continues and when the zygote has formed a ball of 12 to 32 cells it is referred to as a "morula." More division follows until the embryo has formed a small central cavity, called the blastocele. The embryo now consists of an outer cell mass, or trophoblast, that forms a hollow ball, containing an inner cell mass. This stage is called the blastocyst.

The trophoblast will later form the placenta and the cells of the inner mass will develop to form all the tissues of the child’s body. Both inner and outer cells of the blastocyst are called blastomeres.[7]

The blastocyst continues to travel down the fallopian tube until it reaches the uterus and implants in the endometrium. The human blastocyst comprises 70-125 cells.

A Genetically Distinct, Alive and Separate Human Being

The usual way most life forms reproduce, whether plants or animals, is sexually, that is, by the joining of male and female gametes from two members of the same species. In human beings, the sperm and oocyte are ready to join when they contain the requisite numbers and organization of genes in their nuclei: 23 each. When the sperm penetrates the oocyte, the two sets of chromosomes are joined and a new human being comes into existence, one with a unique and irreproducible genetic combination of 46 chromosomes.

After this genetic system is in place, the new individual begins to grow using the DNA[8] blueprint that gives its body directions on how to develop. The zygote does not change its nature and become a human being at some point of its existence, it and the adult are one and the same being.

From the first moment of fertilization,[9] therefore, a complete, living, growing, genetically distinct member of the human species comes into existence that is no “part” of the mother but is physically dependent upon her for nutrition and a protective environment.

The DNA “blueprint,” or genotype, of the new individual is complete from the one-cell stage. That a complete and living human being is fully in existence from the single-cell stage is confirmed by over a hundred and fifty years of findings in the field of human embryology and is the basis of the pro-life assertions in the Early Life Issues as well as abortion. No scientific finding in the field of human embryology has disproved this assertion.

From the moment of conception, the single-cell zygote also fulfills all criteria for independent life. Scientific textbooks give five basic characteristics or criteria for living things:

1. Living things are highly organized.

2. All living things have an ability to acquire materials and energy.

3. All living things have an ability to respond to their environment.

4. All living things have an ability to reproduce.

5. All living things have an ability to adapt.

The human embryo fulfills all these scientific requirements for life. It is highly organized and complex; scientists are only beginning to understand the intricacies of single-cell embryos. It processes nutrients from its environment even before it has attached to the uterine wall. It has the ability to respond to and adapt to its environment, and has the ability to reproduce with cell division. It is also intrinsically endowed with the potential, upon reproductive maturity, to reproduce other members of the species.

Supporting References

“A new individual is created when the elements of a potent sperm merge with those of a fertile oocyte, or egg.”

Encyclopedia Britannica, “Pregnancy,” page 968, 15th Edition, Chicago 1974

“Everyone begins life as a single cell.”

Dr. David Galton, a professor of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, London, “Eugenics: the Future of Human Life in the 21st. Century”

“I oppose abortion. I do so, first, because I accept what is biologically manifest – that human life commences at the time of conception – and second, because I believe it is wrong to take innocent human life under any circumstances. My position is scientific, pragmatic, and humanitarian…Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind.”

Dr. Landrum Shettles, discoverer of male and female producing sperm and a pioneer in the field of in vitro fertilization.

"The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception."

Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor, University of Tennessee:

"I am no more prepared to say that these early stages represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the drmatic effects of puberty . . .is not a human being."

Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni, University of Pennsylavania School of Medicine.

"By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception."

Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman, Dept. of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic:

“It is the penetration of the oocyte by a spermatozoa and the resulting mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the culmination process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of an individual.”

Moore, Keith L., The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, p. 12, W.B. Saunders Co,. Philadelphia, 1974.

“…The merger is complete within twelve hours, at which time the egg – which may have ‘waited’ as many as forty years for this moment – is fertilized and becomes known technically as the ‘zygote’ containing the full set of forty-six chromosomes required to create human life. Conception has occurred. The genotype – the inherited characteristics of a unique human being – is established in the conception process and will remain in force for the entire life of that individual. No other event in the biological life is so decisive as this one; no other set of circumstances can ecen remontely rival tenotype in ‘making you what you are.’ Conception confers life and makes you one of a kind.”

Dr. Landrum Shettles, M.D., , David Rorvik, Rites of Life: The Scientific Evidence forLife Before Birth, p. 36, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids Michigan, 1983.

Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981

In April, 1981, a US Senate Subcommittee convened to examine the question, “When does life begin?” The official Senate report summarized, “there is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.”

Dr. Micheline M. Matthews-Roth of Harvard Medical School, supported by over 20 references from human embryology and other medical textbooks, testified:

In biology and in medicine, it is an accepted fact that the life of any individual organism reproducing by sexual reproduction begins at conception, the time when the egg cell from the female and the sperm cell from the male join to form a single new cell, the zygote; this zygote is the starting cell of the new system.

Most textbooks of embryology have chapters describing the history of embryology and the experiments done to show that multicellular organisms develop from a single cell, the zygote. Because these kinds of experiments in embryological development have been repeated so many different times on so many different species, and have always led to the same result…that organisms reproducing by sexual reproduction always arise from a single cell, and that they are always of the same biological species as their parents…this fact is universally accepted and taught at all levels of biological education. It is the continuous repetition, duplication and confirmation of experimental results that proves that the fact is indeed true…

It is scientifically correct to say that an individual life begins at conception…Our laws, one function of which his to help preserve the lives of our people, should be based on accurate scientific data.

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[1] The question at the head of this section is phrased slightly differently from the usual, “when does human life begin?” In the current debate, the pertinent question is not one of biology, which is settled, but of competing philosophies. Many are convinced that a human being, the biological entity that is a genetic member of the human species, exists from the single-cell stage, but will continue to insist that, though human, it has no natural rights to legal protection. The distinctions commonly made between a “human life,” a “human person,” and a “human being” will be more fully explored in the section on ethics below.

[2] Gametes: mature male or female sex cells.

[3] Oocyte: female gametocyte or germ cell involved in reproduction.

[4] The term “fertilised egg” found commonly in the media, is an error and betrays either ignorance of embryology or a bias in favour of allowing abortion or other interventions in human development like embryonic stem cell research. There is no such thing as a human “egg” and a “fertilised oocyte” is an embryo. Mammals, for the most part, do not have eggs. This topic is further explored in Part II 2.

[5] In diploid organisms (most plants and animals), each chromosome is inherited from a different parent. Haploid cells contain exactly half of a species typical full set of genetic material: in the case of humans, 23 chromosomes each. When they are ready to fuse, oocyte and sperm are haploid.

[6] A zygote is a single-cell embryo, the result of fertilization. That is, two haploid cells, an oocyte from a female and a sperm cell from a male, merge into a single diploid cell called the zygote. Twins and multiple births can be monozygotic (identical) or dizygotic (fraternal), meaning they arise from one or two separate fertilization events.

[7] The inner blastomeres are what is usually referred to in the media as “embryonic stem cells” sought by researchers. These “pluripotent” cells have the ability to form all the tissues of the human body. The removal of the inner blastomeres for research usually causes the death of the embryonic person.

^[8] DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid. A nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions specifying the biological development of all cellular forms of life (and most viruses).

^[9] Fertilization: properly understood to be a process beginning with the penetration of the oocyte by the sperm and ending with the appearance of two fused pronuclei that together contain the 46 chromosomes of human DNA, as a single-cell zygote.