Dr. Leroy Carhart, on Sucking the Brains out of Children

Dr. Carhart performed partial-birth abortions and fought against laws forbidding partial-birth abortions. in his speech to the religious coalition for reproductive choice, he puts things in perspective:

“We’re not asking for the right to suck the brains out of every child that walks down the street, we need to continue to offer safe abortions to women who need them to be done.”

Dr. LeRoy Carhart, addressing the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Omaha World-Herald, 1/2001

24 week-old unborn baby, a typical candidate for a partial birth abortion
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Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition On Life

Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.

“Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo developmentn) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).”

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Langman’s Medical Embryology On the Beginning of Life

T.W. Sadler, Langman’s Medical Embryology, 10th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006. p. 11.

“Development begins with fertilization, the process by which the male gamete, the sperm, and the femal gamete, the oocyte, unite to give rise to a zygote.”

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Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition on Human Beginnings

Keith L. Moore, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2.

“[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the beginning of a new human being.”

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Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition, On Fertilization

Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Miller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 2001. p. 8.

“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization… is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte.”

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Textbook The Human Reproductive System On the Beginning of Life

“[All] organisms, however large and complex they might be as full grown, begin life as a single cell. This is true for the human being, for instance, who begins life as a fertilized ovum.”

Dr. Morris Krieger “The Human Reproductive System” p 88 (1969) Sterling Pub. Co

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Human Life and Health Care Ethics, vol. 2: Conception Is the Beginning of Life

“The first cell of a new and unique human life begins existence at the moment of conception (fertilization) when one living sperm from the father joins with one living ovum from the mother. It is in this manner that human life passes from one generation to another. Given the appropriate environment and genetic composition, the single cell subsequently gives rise to trillions of specialized and integrated cells that compose the structures and functions of each individual human body. Every human being alive today and, as far as is known scientifically, every human being that ever existed, began his or her unique existence in this manner, i.e., as one cell. If this first cell or any subsequent configuration of cells perishes, the individual dies, ceasing to exist in matter as a living being. There are no known exceptions to this rule in the field of human biology.”

James Bopp, ed., Human Life and Health Care Ethics, vol. 2 (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1985)

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Textbook Atlas of the Body On the Start of a New Individual

Rand McNally, Atlas of the Body (New York: Rand McNally, 1980) 139, 144

“In fusing together, the male and female gametes produce a fertilized single cell, the zygote, which is the start of a new individual.”

Quoted in Randy Alcorn “Pro-life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments” (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2000)

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US Department of Health and Human Services on Newly Conceived Life

“Your baby starts out as a fertilized egg…For the first six weeks, the baby is called an embryo.”

Prenatal Care, US Department of Health and Human Services, Maternal and Child Health Div 1990

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Life Magazine “Drama of Life before Birth”

“The birth of a human life really occurs at the moment the mother’s egg cells is fertilized by one of the father’s sperm cells.”

“Drama of Life Before Birth” Life Magazine April 1965, cited in “The Facts of Life” Life Messengers,

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