Abortion- Scientifically Speaking
Hello, everyone 
I will spare you from my personal views on abortion, however, I will speak of it in scientific terms.
Those of you who have taken Biology or Life Science in school might remember a scenario like this during your first week:
Teacher: “Class, how can we tell if something is alive?”
The class goes through some characteristics that they see in everyday life forms, but fails to come up with a comprehensive definition.
Teacher: This is how we can tell.
The teacher begins to write on the board.
The Four Conditions Common to all Life Forms
- All life forms contain DNA.
- All life forms are able to sense and respond to changes in their environment.
- All life forms have a means to extract energy from their environment and process it.
- All life forms have a method of reproduction.
-end scene-
So, if there are four conditions by which we can tell if something is alive, perhaps we can apply this to infants in the womb. If they fail to fulfill any of these conditions, then the pro-choice people are correct. If they fulfill each of these conditions, then the pro-life people are correct. Let’s examine this, and see how babies in the womb score.
- Babies contain human DNA, each half of the set donated by each of the parents, which are human, and so give their child human DNA.
- Babies are able to sense sensations such as pain from very early into gestation, and at all stages are able to sense the presence of food given by their mother. Having sensed this food, their cells take it in and process it.
- Babies have an umbilical chord through which they recieve food, and they are capable of performing the energy-processing function of respiration.
- Babies, at all stages, are capable of cellular reproduction, in both Mitosis and Meiosis. And once their bodies have developed, they posess eggs in the womb, and sperm in the testes, and as a Scottish scientist has found, they are viable to be planted in a barren woman’s womb and are capable of being fertilized.
So, babies do fulfill the qualifications of life at all stages after all. I will leave it here, and let you draw your own conclusions as to how ethical abortion is.
God bless,
~Lily
Erin said,
May 26, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Well said.
Joshua said,
May 26, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Let’s look at adult stem cells:
1. Adult stem cells contain human DNA, the full complement of 46 chromosomes
2. Adult stem cells can respond to growth factors and chemical changes in their environment, causing them to change into tissue cells during a healing response
3. Adult stem cells process glucose, amino acids and vitamins in order to grow
4. Adult stem cells are capable of cellular reproduction, and in fact the capacity to a cell to reproduce many times is a defining factor of a stem cell.
So, do adult stem cells count as life? Of course they do – they are alive. Bacteria, weeds and flies are also alive, so thus are lifeforms. But, we are still able to use antibiotics to kill bacteria, use herbicide to kill weeks and use bug spray to kill flies. So, unless you are a Jain, and think that ALL life deserves protection, showing that a human embryo/foetus/baby is alive is not enough to show that abortion is wrong.
Life, in the sense that you have defined it here, was present before conception (because gametes are living cells too) and is of course present after conception. The question is whether ‘human life’ exists, where ‘human life’ means a person, worthy of protection and the right to live. Human adult stem cells are not human life, but you and I are – the question is why.
snowpictsie said,
May 28, 2008 at 4:35 am
Hey, Joshua and Erin
There is a key difference between human embryos and the adult stem cells that you mentioned, Joshua.
That is that the stem cells are not independent life forms from the person they’re attached to. If the person died, the stem cells would cease to function. Thus, they are a conglomeration, and a single life form.
However, this is not the case with a mother and a child within the womb. If the child died, then the mother would not die. The child would die if the mother died, but only up to the point when the child is born. The child and the mother are not a conglomeration, but are separate life forms.
A light bulb runs by electricity. Electric currents run through the wire, and cause it to glow. The wire performs a key function in the bulb, but it is not a bulb in itself. Electricity runs through it, but it is not in itself electrical. Only within the context of the bulb is it electrical.
A baby can be born prematurely and still survive, but if a stem cell were to be removed from the person to which it belonged, and not kept in a culture, it would lose all semblance of life.
I am not one who advocates protecting every single life form which exists; such an idea is preposterous and impossible. Not to mention that I like a good steak here and there
I did not set out to prove monotonously and shove in your face that ABORTION IS WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! like so many who have turned off countless numbers of people. I simply stated a scientific case for the fact that human embryos are in fact human children. It shouldn’t require my further prodding to make the logical connection of if a fetus is a human child, than to kill a fetus is to kill a human child. All but the sickest of psychopaths would blanch at the idea of turning a gun on an innocent infant. That in itself ought to be enough to prove that abortion is wrong. However, I am not naive enough to think that it will.
cindyinsd said,
May 28, 2008 at 5:16 am
Hi, SnowPictsie.
You’ve proven that embryos are alive–so if they’re alive, what are they? Stem Cells? No, but they posess stem cells. A lump of tissue like a tumor? Certainly not–they are far too organized and complex, and they are not a part of their host’s (mother’s) body (as you’ve also explained). They posess separate and unique DNA and may even be of a different sex from their mother. Embryos, fetuses, and newly fertilized ovi are separate and unique from their host.
So what are they? What does the DNA say? They are not penguins; they are not fishes; they are not monkeys. They are humans. I didn’t say they will be human. They are human from the moment of fertilization. They are humans barely beginning their development, but no less human for that.
Some would argue that babes in their mothers’ arms are not yet human because they haven’t developed socially. That is patently ridiculous. If someone told you that a puppy was not canine because it hadn’t yet learned to chase a ball, you’d shake your head and look bewildered. You should. It’s a ridiculous proposition.
By this argument, one might just as well say that the mentally handicapped aren’t fully human because of their incapacities, or that slaves aren’t fully human because of their lack of freedom, or that blacks and women aren’t fully human because they “lack a soul”. Don’t think that a ridiculous argument. It’s been done.
So yes, you’re obviously and scientifically right. Embryos are alive, but not in the limited sense that stem cells (or skin cells or liver cells or blood cells) are alive. Embroyos are alive in the sense that all unique individuals are alive, whether bacteria or plants or animals. And the kind of beings they are? Human beings. What else would they be?
God’s Peace to you,
Cindy
Joshua said,
May 28, 2008 at 7:13 am
snowpictsie, during the early stages of pregnancy, during which most abortions occur, an embryo cannot be removed from a mother and survive (unless it was sustained by an artificial placenta, if they existed). Likewise, stem cells cannot be removed from the body and survive without being in a culture dish. So, it appears that dependence on a host body for survival is irrelevant, as both of these examples have such dependence but you are giving me different conclusions for each.
cindyinsd, interesting you should mention tumours, as cancer is formed when the DNA mutates enough to disrupt the regulation of growth. Thus, cancer cells actually have a “separate and unique DNA” , and may not even have sex chromosomes at all! And yet, they contain human genes, so they are certain human cells – human cancer cells.
So, neither of you have actually argued, beyond appealing to emotional reactions, why a human embryo is morally equivalent to you or I.
snowpictsie said,
May 29, 2008 at 8:48 pm
But see, Joshua, the host relationship between the mother and the child is temporary, whereas the stem cell relationship is permanent. Babies start to grow, but cannot remain there. They are developing towards being self-sustained human beings living outside of their mother’s body. A stem cell never has this priviledge. A baby is growing for the purpose of leaving the mother’s body, and a stem cell grows for the purpose of sustaining the human’s body. A stem cell will always be dependent on the owner’s body; the baby will not.
We have argued sufficiently, Joshua. We have argued with science, and not things like, “Aw, what a cute little baby. How could you stand to dissolve a little face like that in a salt bath; or suck his brains out with a vacuum hose?” That’s appealing to emotions. It is true in its own way, but I consider science a better place to approach from on this matter. Stating and proving that a baby fulfills the four conditions of life and is a separate entity from the mother is scientific. You might get emotional over it, but it is from no interjection of ours.
cindyinsd said,
May 29, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Joshua,
Okay, cancer cells do have some harmful mutations in the DNA. Not enough to turn themselves into a separate individual. You are splitting hairs. Arguing that any conglomeration of human tissue is somehow equivalent to a human fetus which, given the opportunity to live, will ultimately become a mature human being is ridiculous. Neither an appendix nor a liver nor a tumor is ever going to become a secretary of state or a lunch room lady or an asparagus farmer.
Further, arguing that the killing of a fetus is not murder on the grounds that she isn’t able to survive on her own is equivalent to arguing that pushing a man out of a flying airplane is acceptable since he would die if he fell out anyway. The fetus depends on her mother’s body to keep her safe and alive just as the man depends on the airplane to keep him safe and alive. As to that, very, very few of us humans are independent of one another, and none of us are independent of this planet, this womb, that God has surrounded us with for our provision and development.
I’m going at this from more than a scientific angle, because it cannot be scientifically proven that murder is wrong. That’s a moral issue. If there are no moral absolutes, then yes, it’s okay to murder tiny children, elderly adults, and anyone else who is not useful to “society”. It’s even okay to murder whole societies if they are not useful or worse, are inconvenient. It might even help the process of evolution along–weed out the weak and the imperfect–create a true master race.
Do you think that a world with no moral absolutes would be a good thing? Even humanists recognize the necessity of morality, though they’ve cut themselves off from the source and the strength to follow those absolutes. That a fertilized human ova is human cannot be scientifically denied unless one relies on silly logic tricks and misdirection and redefinition of the idea of “humanness” (which has been done, as I mentioned), or the definition of “life” (convenient to the one who wishes to kill, but why kill what isn’t alive?).
It is wrong to deny a living human, innocent of any wrongdoing, the right to live. A human fetus is human and is alive. Therefore, it is wrong to kill a human fetus.
Now, the mother is human, too, and I’ve known a lot of women who have aborted pregnancies and I’ve never known one who didn’t wish she’d carried the baby to term. I’m sure they’re out there, but I’m just saying I’ve never met them. Mostly they tear up even talking about it and my heart breaks for them. God forgives–all we have to do is ask–but it still hurts. It’s not worth it.
God’s Grace and Peace to you,
Cindy
Joshua said,
May 30, 2008 at 2:39 am
snowpictsie, I agree that you have logically proven that a human embryo is both human and alive. But I still see only emotional arguments for why living humans should be protected from death.
Cindy, I’m sure you are all aware of Dolly the sheep, created from a mammary cell, by cloning. This demonstrates that it is (in theory) possible for any tissue cell, containing DNA, to become a full human person.
Regardless, potential is a useless criteria. After all, given the natural progression of time I will one day be a corpse. That does not justify treating me like a dead body.
Your other arguments are all very good, are still too shallow. Your arguments are just like snowpictsie’s, in that they end with “It’s alive, and human, so should be protected”, but neither of you have provided reasons for the idea that we should protect all living humans. What is wrong with death (I do think there is something wrong with it, but I want to know your opinion), and does that reason make the death of an embryo wrong?
cindyinsd said,
May 30, 2008 at 4:16 am
Joshua,
Since SnowPictsie started this post on a strictly scientific vein, I hesitate to go too far afield of that. From an evolutionary standpoint, there is no good reason to revere and respect any life–unless you are that incomprehensible creature, a theistic evolutionist. But let’s not open that can of worms. I don’t want to do that to SnowPictsie when all she wanted was to discuss abortion.
Humans seem to have a built-in moral compass. It’s possible to short it out or to make it do things it was never intended to do, but we all, if we’re healthy, have it. We know it’s wrong to put live kittens in the microwave; we know you shouldn’t sneak into your mother-in-law’s hut while she’s sleeping and put a spear through her; we know kidnapping is wrong, especially if it is our own daughter who has just been abducted to be sold into the sex trade.
Are any of these things poor traits for ensuring survival of the species? Not really. Humans don’t need housecats as a part of the “great circle of life”. Plenty of people get along just fine without them. Most adults get along fine without our parents or our in-laws, and most parents of adults have finished reproducing, so from an evolutionary standpoint, they’re useless unless they facilitate the survival of younger humans. Forcing early sex on a girl results in more children born, so that might be seen as a positive survival trait.
So where did all this “moralistic baggage” come from? It came, I believe, from YHWH, who gave us the law of love. The foregoing behaviors (and many other crimes) violate the law of love. Our obligation to love extends to the animals, but is most binding where it concerns God and those created in His image–other humans. We’re bound to treat all creatures with kindness, but it isn’t a crime to kill animals in this fallen world, whether to use for food or to alleviate a threat to our flocks and herds or to ourselves. It is, however, a crime to commit murder.
Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed;
For in the image of God
He made man. (Gen 9:6)
If you don’t accept this as either the moral law of our our own consciences or the moral law of God, there’s nothing I can do to persuade you.
What’s wrong with death? Well, that depends on whether you are the killer or the one being killed. For the infant, I believe death is the door that ushers her from this world to the next. It deprives her of the chance to live on this planet, face challenges, experience the hardships, and the joys that can only come in the midst of hardships. Sure, she’ll never again know pain, but if you murder her, you have robbed her of the priceless opportunity to make her own choices in life.
If you’re the killer, unless you’re protecting others or yourself from death or harm, you’ve committed a crime of hate. You’ve damaged yourself and you’ve deprived a human created in the image of God of the life God gave him.
Death doesn’t have a single definition, so your question, “What’s wrong with death” requires a much longer answer than it would be courteous to publish here. Maybe I’ll do a post on it sometime in my own little corner of the world.
Grace and Peace,
Cindy
Joshua said,
May 30, 2008 at 9:15 am
It would appear we differ substantially in our morality. I am an atheist, and my ethics are based on just a few beliefs – that we should respect freedoms, and that freedoms should only be interfered with to prevent greater infringement on freedoms.
Thus, I think the only thing wrong with death is being forced into it when you don’t want to. It is for that reason I do not think the death of a human infant is wrong, as a human at such a young stage of life hasn’t the ability to value its own life.
As you said, there is little we can do to persuade each other. Such a discussion would necessarily be far too in depth for the comments section of a blog.
I take my leave. Fair well.
Joshua said,
May 30, 2008 at 9:16 am
I meant “farewell”.
snowpictsie said,
May 30, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Goodbye, Joshua