A lot has been written here since I went to bed yesterday, that’s the joy of time zones. I haven’t had time to thoroughly read all of the thread, but from what I
have read there seems to be some misunderstandings about the nuts and bolts of conception that I would like to address. When people are using biological arguments to support one side or the other, I think it is important to have the correct facts in the thread.
For conception – or fertilization – to happen, first of all we need two things: A mature egg cell must be released from the ovary, and sperm must enter the vagina and further on the uterus and ovary where the egg still is. Here, one sperm cell fuses with the egg, creating what we call a
zygote. At this point, the egg is fertilized, but it is not implanted in the wall of the uterus. Some 24 hours after fertilization, the zygote starts dividing, first into two identical cells, then four, then eight, then sixteen. At this point, all the cells – that we now can call the
embryo - are identical stem cells that will later be the basis for specialized body cells. You can say that the stem cells carry the potential of developing into all kinds of cells.
A week’s time after the fusing of egg and sperm, the embryo enters the uterus wall, it
implants. If implantation does not happen, for some reason or another, the embryo will be flushed out during the next period. During the first few weeks of the pregnancy, the cells of the embryo are so much alike that it can split in two, giving what we know as identical twins. By four weeks, the rudiments of several organs are in place, including the heart. By eight weeks, we call it a fetus, and an early form of all organs are there.
There is one 100% safe way of avoiding a pregnancy: Abstaining from copulation. Contraceptives lessen the chance of pregnancy dramatically, but there are none that have a 100% guarantee against fertilization. Even if contraceptive pills have a less than 1% failure rate, 1% of the female, sexually active population using “The Pill” is potentially a lot of pregnancies. And as far as I recall, some contraception pills hinder implantation, not fertilization. If life begins at fertilization, are these then early abortions?
Someone mentioned abortions being unnatural. As I was walking to my train this morning, I realized that this is a question of linguistics. An abortion is a terminated pregnancy. Some pregnancies are terminated by human intervention, be it chemical or surgical. Some pregnancies are aborted naturally, due to the embryo or fetus having malfunctions rendering it unviable, or due to fatal incompatibilities between the mother and the fetus. In my language, the distinction between these is given by the definitions “spontaneous abortion” and “provoked abortion”. In English, on the other hand, the words are, as far as I can see, “abortion” and “miscarriage”. I am a bit fascinated by that, because to me the word “miscarry” seems to lie blame on the mother – it is as if she has proven unable to carry the fetus properly. That way, the language places guilt on the woman even for events entirely outside her control. About 1/3 of all pregnancies end in a spontaneous abortion, often before the woman is even aware of the pregnancy.
A poem that springs to my mind when this topic comes up, is Bertolt Brecht's
"Concerning the Infanticide, Marie Farrar". If you are not familiar with this poem, I firmly suggest you give it a moment of your time. He calls for something we should all find it in us to give:
You, too, I beg you, check your wrath and scorn
For man needs help from every creature born.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK0O5J6bMzY"]For those who prefer sound and video to reading poetry, this piece was amazing.[/ame]
