The notion that life begins at conception is a variation on a very ancient cultural theme: penis worship.
I’m slow sometimes, but after years of writing about abortion rights it finally occurred to me that “life begins at conception” is one more version of a multi-millennial infatuation with the penis as symbol and proof that manliness is next to godliness.
On the surface, conservative Evangelical and Catholic insistence that life begins at conception appears to be aimed at elevating the status of fetus over woman. But just beneath the surface, what it elevates is the status of the penis—and anyone who has one.
What creates the wonder of a new person? Forget about the maturation of germ cells, and the nine-month labor of a woman’s body, and painstaking parental nurture. It’s a sperm, a penile projectile shot forth by the ultimate organ of demi-divinity. Sperm penetrates egg and voila! A person! A new soul! All the extraordinary and unique value we accord to human life is created instantaneously.
Three Millennia of Penis Worship
Once noticed, the pattern is inescapable. Our ancestors thought that the penis was literally divine.
Dharmic cultures worshiped it by whacking stalactites and stalagmites out of caves and air-roots off of trees and carving phallic shapes out of granite by the thousands. Abrahamic cultures took the opposite approach and insisted the penis was so precious and powerful that it couldn’t be seen, even in art, and had to be chiseled off of statues or at least covered with fig leaves.
They also insisted that a man’s magic wand could permanently transform a female from one kind of being to another, from a prized “virgin” into a worthless “whore.” In medieval Catholicism’s recipe for sexual hang-ups, the prior touch of a penis (or lack thereof) became the most defining aspect of a woman’s identity, economic value, and moral virtue. Penis penetrates female and voila! No longer a whole person! The same magic wand that made her valuable could also do the reverse.
Same Old Same Old
Fundamentalists who are anchored to the Iron Age by sacred texts and patriarchal traditions still hold to this archaic view, though they may use updated terms like “licked lollypop” or “chewed gum”—and some do offer second chances through “born-again virginity.”
But at least in the West, millennials finally are catching on to how ridiculous the whole virginity thing is. As one Facebook meme put it recently, “I don’t believe in virginity. Why? Because nobody’s penis is important enough to change any part of my identity.”
The idea that a penis can permanently change a woman’s value and the idea that a penis can instantaneously create a new soul both derive from the idea that men uniquely, were made in the image of God and that the penis (circumcised, of course) is the supreme symbol of man’s divinely anointed headship. And once they are packaged together, the idea that life-begins-at-conception starts sounding as transparently male-aggrandizing and silly as the idea of virginity.
No You Didn’t Build That
Yes, the occasional sperm does end up inside an egg rather than a towel. And yes, sperm-penetrates-egg is a necessary – if insufficient – step in person formation. But the incredible process of making a new person begins long before conception and continues long after. To the trained eye, conception is no more or less magnificent—or critical—than the creation of the egg or the sperm itself, or of the many stages of transformation that come after.
In the subconscious of a patriarchal male or religious institution intent on preserving privilege, the claim that a penis can create a new person—or better yet, a new soul, almost ex nihilo—may flow naturally and logically from man’s god-like qualities and “rightful” dominance. But from an outside vantage the men making such claims seem rather like puffed up architects who scribble partial plans and then claim they build buildings. Nice fantasy, but in the real world both buildings and people get made one step at a time. Construction is slow and hard and takes teamwork.
Everything’s a Project
In the case of forming a new person, two bodies produce germ cells that independently hold half of a biological blueprint. If each half works well enough and they meet, then a woman’s body starts the structural engineering to determine whether the design actually works. For very good reasons, the answer usually is no; the engineering team rejects the project and dumps it into the porcelain circular file. Most embryonic humans get booted out so fast that nobody even knows they existed. If and when engineering gives the preliminary go-ahead, a woman’s whole body gears up to start building a person. Her circulatory system pumps up blood flow. Her bones and teeth transfer calcium to the construction site. Her digestive system demands enough food for two.
Not only is the process slow and costly—like any construction project, it’s dangerous. Eight hundred American women die every year from pregnancy. Around the world, it’s that many every day. Most of us survive the project, but we do endure nausea and swollen ankles and fatigue, and irreversible wear and tear. When we women choose to incubate a child, which we often do quite gladly, we do so knowing our bodies and lives will never again be the same.
So, patriarchs, love your orgasms all you like, but don’t fall for the weirdly puffed up idea that they make babies. Penis power is solely limited to fertilizing eggs. And a fertilized egg is a fertilized egg—no less, no more.
Real Fatherhood
Silly willy worship aside, many men deserve real credit for making children, because they take on the actual parenthood project in a deep and devoted way. Wanting to be good parents of healthy children, they wear condoms till the time is right, put their lives in order, bring home prenatal vitamins, and make peanut butter sandwiches in the middle of the night.
When pregnancy ends, they endure labor vicariously (yes vicarious pain hurts), anxiously awaiting the slimy little creature that will spill out in a puddle of blood. Labor over, they gingerly hold a sweet-smelling, flannel-wrapped burrito and look into eyes that are seeing the world for the first time and fall in love.
Back in the home they have helped to create, they wipe spit-up off shirts and go to work bleary-eyed when illness strikes and a child can’t sleep. In better times, they get down on the rug and play pretend and read stories even though maybe—just once in a while—they’d rather be playing video games or reading the Times. They understand that making something as wonderfully complex as a fully-fledged, thriving person takes everything a parent can give for decades, and they give it.
Name It
Conception worship is willy worship. It diminishes fatherhood by trivializing the many other parts of themselves that men can and do bring to the process of creating
a new person—heart and mind, labor and love. And it diminishes all of motherhood.
So, if you’re one of the guys who either is or intends to be a real father—please call out posers who think themselves endowed with some divine instrument that can turn an egg into a precious little person. And if you would, while you’re at it, you could do us women a favor by calling out the equally-ludicrous conceit that the touch of a penis turns a female from one kind of being into another. Men don’t have magic wands in their pants—just body parts, and exaggerating the power of your dick just makes you one.
Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Her articles about religion, reproductive health, and the role of women in society have been featured at sites including AlterNet, Salon, the Huffington Post, Grist, and Jezebel. Subscribe at ValerieTarico.com.
AwayPoint 
This is wonderfully refreshing writing. Thank you for sharing it with us.
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Some delightful turns of phrase here. I loved the baby packaging description – from a “slimy little creature” to a “sweet-smelling flannel-wrapped burrito.” LMAO
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Oh, I agree, except with your view of pregnancy. No matter how “helpful” the man is, or how badly his vicarious pains hurt, his life and continued health isn’t on the line. There’s more I want to say, I’m just not sure how to word it. But yes, I am very tired and angry that just because a man’s sperm impregnated a woman it somehow means he is equal. Men don’t create babies. Women do. Once that egg is ferilized, it relies on the woman, not the man, for *everything*. Men couldn’t help, even if they wanted to.
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Well, Suzie, have fun with your immaculate conception. Oh, and don’t ask a man to rub your feet, or be a doctor, or bring you food, or play a role in paternity… In other words, don’t be such a jerk.
Yes, once fertilized, the egg is all yours to care for, and your life might be threatened. But your care is just as important as that of the egg. It’s okay to rely on fellow human beings, and it doesn’t make you weak, if you do. It’s okay to have needs that you can’t provide for all on your own. It’s okay to need a man to help you. As long as those needs don’t become a systemic expectation based on the false pretenses of gender roles, there’s no reason to push an entire gender away.
In the respect that an entire community contributes to a woman’s health and well being, that entire community, men included, created their baby.
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Did you just mansplain conception to her? And then #notallmen her?
Impressive.
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hmmm…rubbing feet and bringing food doesn’t actually require male attention. Sounds too much like “male rolemodel” maybe is feeling a little lost without the spotlight?
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I think you are jealous because you can’t write as effectively as Valerie Tarico can. Plus you sound like a MRA (Men’s Rights Advocate), those vile misogynists who smear women at every turn. Really, M.R., you are the ‘jerk’ with your name calling and pretentiousness.
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Bursting your bubble, male example of sexism at its finest!…another woman can rub our feet, be a doctor, and play a parenting role. So get off your high horse and stop thinking that you as a man are indispensable to the process after a 15 second contribution.
As for bringing us food, it’s usually women doing the shopping and cooking, and other women bringing in food after the birth…..so you don’t even get that one as an exclusive either.
As for protection, there are just not that many wolves, lions, and roving gangs of murderous humans as there used to be.
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A woman can just as easily rub another woman’s feet, be a doctor, bring her food, and play a role as a parent. In other words anything you can do any other able-bodied person of any gender can also do once that one sperm, and in rare cases two sperm fertilize an egg. Don’t be so pompous.
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Don’t get your feathers so ruffled, what Suzanne says is the biological truth!
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The Catholic Church gives women a sop by saying the ‘virgin Mary’, and by extension all each woman, is a “sacred vessel”. Also, before science, the church taught that the man’s “seed” made up the totality of what was implanted. The idea is that the man deposits a tiny fully formed ‘homunculus’, a little male human into the woman’s womb.
What about females who are conceived, you ask? A female was seen as inherently inferior and thus called “misbegotten males”. We haven’t come very far since then it would seem.
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I agree completely!
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What a wonderful doorway into the beauty of reason. I love to read these posts because they lift the weight of oppression from my mind and reinforce the idea that we don’t have to give in to the constant pressure to conform to the oppressive rules and ideas of those who would lead us into fascism. It is warmth and comfort and flowers for the mind.
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Thank you! What kind words.
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This is a fantastic post! I’ve often wondered just what nasty places some guys are putting their genitals if just one contact is supposed to befoul a girl.
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Yeah really!!! If just the mere touch of a man’s penis is supposedly enough to permanently make a woman “dirty”, then by that logic men’s penises must be inherently fucking FILTHY. I guess that bit of logic has always escaped their minds. 😏
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Reblogged this on frauenfiguren and commented:
interesting – and in my opinion, truthful – thoughts.
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The vagina has also been celebrated and worshiped for thousands of years, tens of thousands even. The Venus figurines and fertility statues testify to this. There was a time, before patriarchal civilizations where the women were revered for their mysterious life giving powers, A human life is certainly more than a zygote, but a nurtured, cultivated soul. A man should feel privileged to enter the sacred yoni flower, the yoni and lingam united as one in love is the right purpose for a penis,(fertilization wise, or otherwise, many pleasurable uses for a penis!) and properly all partners should leave enhanced from the genital contact, not lessened in any way, certainly not befouled.
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As someone who has professionally (for many years) studied those “Venus” figurines, there is no proof that they indicate a reverence for the “mysterious life giving powers” of the female. Sorry, but that is a projection of our ideas onto the past.
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Love it! :)
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Really creative way of explaining things, Valerie! Thanks so much for continuing to shed light on the whole “life begins at conception” idea being constantly promulgated by patriarchists.
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The whole idea that life begins at conception is ludicrous. At no stage does “life” magically appear in a zygote, a blastocyst, embryo, or foetus. Life began on earth 3.8 billion years ago and hasn’t been interrupted since. A foetus was never inorganic and suddenly becomes organic.
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great point John Zande ….love it when the obvious sort of reaches up and bites at ya!
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Not only that, but there is not “point” of conception. It takes quite some time for the sperm to make its way into the egg, and then DAYS before that egg starts dividing. The egg was a living clump of non-thinking flesh before this process started, and continues being a living clump of non-thinking flesh a few days later.
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I greatly enjoy the clear and creative thinking inspired by this essay!
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“The whole idea that life begins at conception is ludicrous. ”
Yes, but the idea that an individual human life begins then is a scientific fact.
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Hi Norrie.
Incorrect. A human being can die, and the legal, scientific and medical definition of death is not in dispute: it is the cessation of sustained EEG activity.
In 1979, the Conference of the Medical Royal Colleges, “Diagnosis of death” declared: “brain death represents the stage at which a patient becomes truly dead.” This was updated in the 1980s and 1990s to state that brainstem death, as diagnosed by UK criteria, is the point at which “all functions of the brain have permanently and irreversibly ceased.” It was further still updated in 1995 (to present) to state, “It is suggested that ‘irreversible loss of the capacity for consciousness, combined with irreversible loss of the capacity to breathe’ should be regarded as the definition of death.” This is mirrored in the U.S’s Uniform Determination of Death Act (§ 1, U.L.A. [1980]) which states: “An individual whose brain stem (lower brain) has died is not able to maintain vegetative functions of life, including respiration, circulation, and swallowing [is dead].” And this is equally mirrored in the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS) Statement on Death and Organ Donation, which defines death as: a) Irreversible cessation of all function of the brain of the person.
Simply put, how can you “kill” something that cannot “die”? How can you turn something “off” that is not “On”?
As the anti-abortionist, Professor John R. Goldenring (Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College), states in his “Development of the Fetal Brain,” a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine:
Don’t conflate potential with an actual human being.
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Apologies, I should add:
It is not until week 24/25 when the foetal brain begins to exhibit sustained EEG activity, but it is not until week 27/28 until there is full bilateral synchronisation. That is when you may consider the foetus “On.”
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You haven’t been reading the replies. I gues it’s easier to just proclaim that something is a “scientific fact” than to acquire the least bit of knowledge about it.
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Abortion restrictions, abortion bans all stem from archaic religious beliefs and all sadistic, punitive, patriarchal religions hate women. Sin came into the world through a woman therefore, it’s always our fault. Hence, why we have ideas like blaming the victim especially, when it comes to women and how they conduct themselves in society. Women are so sexualized either way, too much, too little, all due to the male gaze and we are to blame for “tempting” men for raping us.
Women can’t even take care of their own reproductive health. It is being legislated out of our control as I write this. Women are being imprisoned for miscarriages, being forced to carry a stillborn to their maybe, natural course of things, birth. In other words, Modern Medical Technology that can make a woman’s reproductive life the healthiest life to offer is being legislated against women by, you guessed it, men. Mostly Christian white men and the Catholic Church are behind it. Not just in the US but, globally as well. So in other words, again, a bunch of sadistic, misogynistic, punitive, patriarchal, pedophile clergy are dictating the global laws of women’s reproductive lives and the healthcare we need by refusing access for only this part of our healthcare, the most crucial part of our healthcare thereby, forcing women into reproductive slavery and having to endure reproductive torture not seen for over 100 years.
If it were cancer they would have no problem with us having healthcare provided with all the Modern Medical Technology we can access. However, our reproductive health? They are pulling us back to 3rd century ideological beliefs rather than science facts. Modern day healthcare only applies when they (men) deem god’s approval? The only place healthcare is denied is for women’s reproductive healthcare because, the patriarchal god of 2000+ years ago said so?
I’ll say it again this IS reproductive slavery and torture for anyone who goes through a difficult pregnancy to be denied Modern Medical Technology is Barbaric. For anyone who suffers a miscarriage to then be jailed for a life sentence over it, we are criminalizing women over their natural reproductive process which is complex and still dangerous for women especially, without access to Modern Medical Technology. Women will suffer needless excruciating pain and the maternal and birth death rate will sky rocket. This is insane and cruel to say the least. But, hey, misogyny has no bounds.
Because, women’s entire healthcare, reproductive and otherwise is a whole package under the umbrella of women’s healthcare. Just like we don’t parcel out men’s pancreatic cancer or penile erectile dysfunction from men’s healthcare, it is your entire healthcare. And the world doesn’t seem to have a god to dictate to men what part of your healthcare you can benefit from Modern Medical Technology and what should be refused. Funny, how it works out for you guys, you are universally covered, as for women? We set a special place aside to allow for an archaic, cruel and barbaric, to say the least unreasonable religious doctrine to place restrictive access over a decision that is solely for her and a physician to make.
It’s up to every woman and man to fight with your religious leaders, your political representatives for women’s complete, autonomous, with no outside interference of her relationship with her doctor, full, all inclusive of everything the world’s Modern Medical Technology can offer reproductive healthcare. A woman’s reproductive health is between her and her physician. No husband, no religious leader, no government, NO ONE should impede women’s healthcare. This is solely for her and her alone to make with the advice and care of a physician. PERIOD, END OF CONVERSATION!!!
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PREACH!!!! 👏🏼👏🏼
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The Bible says that sin came into the world through Adam, because he fully knew the choice he was making. Eve was deceived. If everyone will be asked to read the science, it’s only fair that the science side be asked to know what the Bible actually says.
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Generally atheists know what the Bible says better than Christian’s do. Many people leave Christianity because they read the Bible–not just the parts that get talked about in church.
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it’s only fair that the science side be asked to know what the Bible actually says.
OK.
By the bibles own chronology of events, the angels were created before the earth, and the earth before man (Job 38:4-7). Evil, however, entered Creation before the earth, and therefore before man… an event witnessed in the fall of Yhwh’s most beautiful creation, Lucifer (Ezekiel 28, Isaiah 14). Creation, therefore, was diseased before the earth was even shaped, and the tumour Christianity blames on Adam was already growing before Yhwh fashioned man. The angels fell before man. Original sin does not lay at Adams feet, but the angels.
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Loved it!
On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 8:08 PM, ValerieTarico.com wrote:
> Valerie Tarico posted: “The notion that life begins at conception is a > variation on a very ancient cultural theme: penis worship. I’m slow > sometimes, but after years of writing about abortion rights it finally > occurred to me that “life begins at conception” is one more version” >
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I believe in almost everything you have stated here, but I believe this is only one aspect of the topic. Granted that religious dogma is almost entirely male dominated and misogynistic but there are secular sides to the abortion debate. My wife and I made an informed decision to have children and, aside from my limited contribution in the fertilization and incubation process, we came to a consensus of child rearing (my role was the primary breadwinner, and my wife was the primary caregiver).
I believe this role and decision-making process has to be taken into consideration into the greater debate of abortion rights. If it is the sole responsibility of the woman to decide abortion rights, then it is the sole responsibility of the woman in dealing with the aftermath of that decision. This, by extension, includes all of the responsibility and costs of child-rearing if she decides to have the child.
Having and raising children in this day and age should be a civilized informed decision of both parents. If men are taken out of the equation, then they should be taken completely out of the responsibility. And I don’t mean this from any concept of religious dogma, I am an agnostic and a firm believer in equal rights and opportunities for all genders (including perceptions thereof), races, nationalities and even religions (as long as their dogmas don’t infringe upon the rights of others).
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I agree with you on this and have written several articles recently calling for a greater degree of reproductive empowerment for men.
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I also agree with you on that!
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Valerie,
You have really outdone yourself with this essay. Simply brilliant! It caused me to look at the “life begins at conception” from a whole new perspective. Keep up the great writing.
Karen
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Along these same lines, people used to believe that the sperm contained a tiny human. The mother was merely “fertile soil” where the seed was planted and grew.
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I thought this was pretty good, good enough to try and figure out a way that I could somehow make Ted Cruz and that ghastly Carly have to read it.
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I approach conception as a result of man’s desire for companionship of his own kind. Genesis is conceptually the most far-reaching and least-understood Bible book. Within, it spans millions of years, not just 6,000, and it outlines mankind in relation to his creator, a being that we cannot quantify nor subjugate nor pervert; one who created us to be companions but not without qualifying.
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genesis, like the rest of the bible, is a meme that persists without regard to to any intrinsic merit. Those who believe in god and/or the bible might just as well do as the mormons did — write your own ideas down and claim them to be the infallible works of a supreme being. Remember the angel (bony) maroni?
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Thank you for writing this — shared it with my daughter at college and she loved it. I was incredibly frustrated with a long time friend who had known my daughter since she was 4, who heavily criticized the choice I made to make sure my daughter went to college with birth control. She then went on to ask if I wasn’t worried that she would have sex, and now I realize, that in her mind, polluted by her church, my daughter would be “less.”
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Or not under your control or that you are giving her permission and are thus a permissive parent. Friends should keep their judgments to themselves, perhaps.
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Reblogged this on ShaktiWarrior and commented:
I just read this wonderful blog by Valerie Tarico. It is brilliant and she puts biology and baby-making right where it belongs – with the woman. She also puts men and their worship of their own (and others’) penis in its’ place. Women belong to themselves whether they have sex with a man , and his penis, or not. If they choose to do so, they do not turn from one kind of person to another kind of person. They just are……a person! I hope you all like this blog as much as I did. Thank you, Valerie, very well said!
SW
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Thank you, Valerie. Well written and well said. I have re-blogged it on my own blog at Shakti Warrior.
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You are confusing “life” and “fetal personhood.” They aren’t the same thing.
An individual human life DOES begin at conception. The zygote at that point has unique, human DNA. That’s science, not “penis worship.” (Do you try to squeeze EVERYTHING into that template?). Whether it is a *person* is an entirely different (and philosophical) question. And that doesn’t touch the LEGAL question of bodily autonomy, which I think is the unanswerable pro-choice argument.
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Sorry, you have a very limited view on this and I blame the immoral ProLife Movement on this. . Unique DNA? Human (=) based on Unique DNA?…Hypothesis? . Problem 1. Our DNA changes over time. Indeed, “twinning”? The Twins will develop different DNA over time. So if your Definition or Hypothesis correct, then we would change when our DNA changes. Do we become different people at these points? Answer no. HYPOTHESIS FAILS Problem 2 On top of this you completely the important of “Genetic Expression”. Without this, who knows WHO we will be. You can only determine very few things from our DNA ….many of these “determinations’ are just probabilities based on the interaction of other Genes AND the environment. HYPOTHESIS FAILS. Problem 3: Epigenetics …you need to learn about this. Problem 4 Then we have the Hydatidiform Mole Mole. It is a result of “conception”. You understand how Science works? A model must explain all possible outcomes. A Mole? NO ONE Will say that it is a human being..and they implant in the uterus and have placentas. HYPOTHESIS FAILS. DNA is terrible way to define what a human being is..since it is subject to manipulation. Apes are 98% identical to us? And we have goats with spider Genes in them? Are they goats or spiders? We need a more comprehensive model to define what a human being is. However, you are right, person is a Legal/Philosophical Concept but we try to use Scientific evidence to support it. The ProLife “evidence” that we are a Human being at fertilization is FLAWED. You are only playing semantic games with “life” to mean human being.
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Very, very well said
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This is really one of the best things I have read in months. Thank you!!
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Well, one tiny point is not taken into consideration. Where does the right to condemn an innocent child to a slavery term of 80 years comes from ?
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I think you’re confusing life begins at sperm with life begins at conception and arguing the former with this article…
Life begins at conception, that’s simple science,that,as a feminist,I can acknowledge…
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“life begins before conception, which at least as a feminist i can acknowledge.”. See how arrogant that sounds? Maybe try “that’s my perspective.”
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Life begins at conception
No, it doesn’t. Life began on earth 3.8 billion years ago and hasn’t been interrupted since. A foetus was never inorganic and suddenly becomes organic.
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The eggs you ate this morning were they organic or inorganic ?
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The word “inorganic” means not carbon based.
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I think you just made my point.
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Than why do these eggs roth on the kitchen counter instead of hatching a chicke?
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And to complicate things:
http://www.lifenews.com/2016/05/13/iowa-court-rules-unborn-children-should-have-the-same-rights-as-born-children/
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Brilliant and humorously wise.
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Fascinating. Thank you.
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