{"id":308218,"date":"2024-03-10T13:31:05","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T18:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=308218"},"modified":"2024-03-08T17:07:53","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T23:07:53","slug":"no-morally-significant-difference-human-embryo-newborn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/no-morally-significant-difference-human-embryo-newborn\/","title":{"rendered":"There is no morally significant difference between a human embryo and newborn"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Major media outlets have been attempting to discredit Live Action’s “Baby Olivia” video, which offers a medically accurate, animated look at life in the womb beginning at the moment of fertilization. Though “Baby Olivia” has the support of doctors and medical experts, The Washington Post<\/a> described the video as “not technically wrong but potentially confusing,” because it uses fertilization to date the pregnancy rather than the date of a woman’s last menstrual period (during which a child has not yet been conceived<\/em>). It claims that this two-week difference is “morally significant” in the abortion debate, while it dehumanizes the preborn child at every turn.<\/p>\n

But there is no morally significant<\/em> difference between a human embryo and a human newborn. They are both equally human and equally worthy of protection.<\/p>\n

Patrick Lee<\/a> (a John N. and Jamie D. McAleer Professor of Bioethics and Director of the Institute of Bioethics at the Franciscan University of Steubenville), along with Robert P. George (McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University and a member of the United States President’s Council on Bioethics and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology) note<\/a> in a study:<\/p>\n

The human embryo is the same individual as the human organism at subsequent stages of development. The evidence for this is the genetic and epigenetic composition of this being\u2014that is, the embryo’s molecular composition is such that he or she has the internal resources to develop actively himself or herself to the next mature stage\u2014and the typical embryo’s regular, predictable and observable behaviour\u2014that is, the embryo’s actual progression through an internally coordinated and complex sequence of development to his or her mature stage.<\/em><\/p>\n

The study continues, “[T]o destroy a human embryo is precisely to destroy a new, distinct and complete human organism, an embryonic human being.”<\/p>\n

Some images below may be disturbing to readers.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The heart<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Washington Post attempts to dehumanize preborn children by denying fact.<\/p>\n

It quotes Michael Belmonte, an OB\/GYN and fellow at the pro-abortion activist group the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Belmonte attempts to downplay an embryo’s heartbeat as the Post reports, “The video\u2019s ‘heartbeat’ mentions are also problematic, he said, because the heart would not yet be developed at the point that Live Action claims. He noted that the video uses the sound of a fully developed heartbeat, rather than the electrical impulses that would actually be heard.”<\/p>\n

However, the heart is the first organ that begins to function and at three weeks is working to pump blood to the rest of the embryo, though it does not yet have four chambers. Doctors and scientists confirm this. The heart is an electrical system and the beat is electrical impulses, but since some people struggle to imagine any person<\/em> without a heartbeat being alive, euphemisms hammer home the false idea that human embryos aren’t human.<\/p>\n

Euphemisms such as ‘electrical system’ are meant to distract people from scientific reality.<\/p>\n

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