They said it.
From testimony before a Senate Subcommittee:
In 2002, the National Academy of Sciences acknowledged that “in medical terms” the embryo is a “developing human from fertilization” onwards.
Richard M Doerflinger, testimony before US Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Washington DC, September 24, 2004
Share on FacebookDr. Sean O’Reilly, Director of the Neurobiology Research Training Program at George Washington University:
“[T]here is nothing in the entire phenomenon of the transmission of life that deserves more to be called an event, scientifically speaking, that does fertilization. It is the natural and scientific boundary at which a new and genetically unique human individual can be said to begin his existence. We conclude, therefore, that by objective and scientific criteria the individual human being is a person throughout his [or her] entire biological development from conception, which is synonymous with fertilization, to natural death… Any other conclusion would be arbitrary, unsupportable by scientific fact or rational argument, divorced from objective reality, and based on a particular ideology, philosophy or creed.”
Direct report on S. 158 by Dr. Sean O’Reilly, dated July 2, 1981
Quoted on page 28 – 29 of Randall J Hekman Justice for the Unborn (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant Books, 1984)
Share on FacebookIn an article in New Scientist, a task force of scientists came to the following conclusion:
“The task force finds that the new recombinant DNA technologies indisputably prove that the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a living human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine.”
Under Evidence Cited:
“The task force cited scientific advances since 1973 as showing an embryo to be a “whole, separate, unique, living, human being” from the moment of conception. The advances in question include DNA fingerprinting, which shows a pattern of DNA that can identify an individual, and the polymerase chain reaction, which makes it possible to amplify and extract that information from a single cell. Techniques that show an embryo has a complete set of DNA “have proven that each human being is totally unique immediately at fertilization”, the panel’s report says. The task force also cited findings that control of growth and development are established by the embryo’s DNA after the third division of the fertilized egg: this stage is reached long before the embryo is implanted in the womb, which has previously been cited as signifying when personhood began.”
“When does life begin?” New Scientist 3/18/2006, Vol. 189, Issue 2543
Share on FacebookIn the article “Fetal Psychology” in Psychology Today, a researcher explains how the birth process is only a minor event in the life history of an individual, as no new brain development occurs in the baby as he or she travels down the birth canal.
Birth may be a grand occasion, says the Johns Hopkins University psychologist [Janet DiPietro], but “it is a trivial event in development. Nothing neurologically interesting happens.”
Janet L. Hopson “Fetal Psychology” Psychology Today, Sep/Oct98, Vol. 31 Issue 5, p44, 6p, 4c.
Share on FacebookBernard J Ficarra, M.D, who wrote the book Abortion Analyzed, writes about how life begins at conception:
“A composite, unified, sacrosanct, unanimity of thought as to when life begins can be determined by studying embryologic physiology. Scientifically acknowledged pronouncements should be more acceptable in determining the onset of human life than legal opinion.”
Bernard J Ficarra, M.D. Abortion Analyzed (Laurel, MD: Health Educator Publications, Inc., 1989) 9
Read 40 quotes by scientists and science textbooks proving life begins at conception.
Share on FacebookDeclaration by Dr. David Fu-Chi Mark, a distinguished molecular biologist:
A human being at an embryonic age and that human being at an adult age are naturally the same. The biological differences are due only to the differences in maturity. Changes in methylation of cytosine demonstrate that the human being is fully programmed for human growth and development for his or her entire life at the one cell stage.
Report of the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion, pp.21-25. quoted in United Families International Guide to Family Issues: Abortion (Gilbert, Arizona: United Families International, 2007) 24
In March 1990, Dr. Jerome Lejeune, one of the world’s leading geneticists, testified before the Canadian Legislative Committee studying Bill C-43, An act Respecting Abortion. Dr. Lejeune told the Parliamentary Committee:
“We know, beyond any possible, doubt, that when the sperm enters the ovum all the information required to make a human being…is present. We also know, with the same degree of certainty, that no subsequent genetic information, after fertilization is passed on to a human being.
This is neither the opinion of a moralist nor the hypothesis of a metaphysician, it is a very specific observation made in the course of experiment. If it were not true that all the information required to define each human being is present at fertilization, In-Vitro Fertilization would not be possible. If a human being did not exist at fertilization, it would be impossible for a sperm to enter an ovum in a test tube and for the embryo that may result to be transferred to a woman who is not the biological mother. In other words, the fact that In-Vitro Fertilization exists proves, beyond a doubt, that human life begins at fertilization.”
“ABORTION A Briefing Book For Canadian Legislators” Campaign Life Coalition NATIONAL PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE July 2002
Share on FacebookFrom a book on how to do abortions:
“The use of special instruments such as the Bierer or Sopher forceps, which improve the ability to crush and extract fetal parts, are recommended by some operators… The basic technique involves extracting large fetal parts and pieces of placenta with the forceps and using the suction cannula to remove fluid and smaller portions of tissue…
The obtained products must be carefully inspected at the end of the procedure because retained tissue can have greater consequences at these later stages of gestation.”
Ronald T Burkman, M.D. Handbook of Contraception and Abortion (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1989) 136
C Ward Kischer, professor of anatomy and human embryology:
“Every human embryologist, worldwide, states that the life of the new individual human being begins at fertilization (conception).… We exist as a continuum of human life, which begins at fertilization and continues until death.”
Christine Watkins, editor The Ethics of Abortion (New York: Greenhaven press, 2005) 5
Share on Facebook“Reproduction depends on the union of male and female gametes (reproductive, or germ, cells) each with a half set of chromosomes, to form a new individual with a full, unique set of chromosomes.”
Human Physiology: From Cells to Systems 2nd Cd Ed,Sherwood, Kell & Ward, 2013, 2010, Nelson Education Ltd. 709
See more quotes saying life begins at conception here.
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