{"id":278824,"date":"2022-10-28T16:36:43","date_gmt":"2022-10-28T21:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=278824"},"modified":"2022-10-31T23:59:14","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T04:59:14","slug":"unique-life-begins-fertilization-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/unique-life-begins-fertilization-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"A unique human life begins to exist at fertilization, despite claims to the contrary"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Live Action founder and president Lila Rose appeared on two episodes<\/a> of The Dr. Phil Show this fall \u2014 and in episode one<\/a>, Dr. Phil went head to head with Rose, insisting she was wrong about when life begins. Dr. Phil claimed that there is no scientific consensus on when a new human life begins, but the evidence \u2014 dating back to the 1800s \u2014 says otherwise.<\/p>\n

Dr. Phil told Rose, \u201cThe scientific community does not have a consensus about when human life begins\u201d and that the \u201cbody of scientific literature\u201d points to different moments in development at which different scientists believe life officially begins.<\/p>\n

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Yet,\u00a0scientific<\/a> journals<\/a>,\u00a0textbooks<\/a>, and professionals\u00a0agree \u2014 the moment when a new, distinct human organism begins to exist is fertilization<\/em>. In fact, the American College of Pediatricians\u00a0states<\/a> that for “millennia” the following has been known:<\/p>\n

The predominance of human biological research confirms that human life begins at conception \u2014 fertilization. At fertilization, the human being emerges as a whole genetically distinct, individuated zygotic living human organism, a member of the species Homo sapiens, needing only the proper environment in order to grow and develop.\u00a0The difference between the individual in its adult stage and in its zygotic stage is one of form, not nature.<\/em><\/p>\n

The first true understanding of when a unique human life begins came after Matthias Jakob Schleiden and Theodor Schwann discovered<\/a> in 1839 that an embryo develops<\/a> from a single-cell zygote. They observed that the single-cell zygote was alive and an independent human. This led to the American Medical Association’s 1859 statement<\/a> strongly opposing abortion (though the group is now firmly and radically in support<\/a> of abortion).<\/p>\n