After repeated, recent statements by U.S. President Joe Biden that he does not believe human life begins at the moment of conception, or characterizing such a belief as a matter of faith, scientists and doctors have pointed out that this belief can be arrived at through natural science alone.
TCA’s Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, a diagnostic radiologist and an ultrasonographer, also affirmed the beginning of human life at conception. She stated “there really hasn’t been a mystery about that for a very long time.”
Christie told Catholic News Agency. “A new human life begins when the egg and the sperm combine.” At the moment of conception, she said, “the first human cell of the new human being has its own DNA, which is very distinct and separate from the mom’s and from the dad’s and that is a one-cell human being.”
Christie said the claim some people make that a baby in the womb is equivalent to a mere “clump of cells” is “ignorant.”
“We are a collection of cells, we are all made of cells, but our cells are organized into organs and our organs are organized into systems and all those cells together form a human being,” she said.
“If you refer to something as a clump of cells you’re implying that there’s no organizing principle behind it, that there’s no destiny, that there’s no growth, no development. You’re basically saying it’s not alive,” she added.
Christie used the example of a tumor being a “clump of cells that grows, but nobody has ever claimed that it’s a living thing that has a destiny and a future and a way of developing into something that’s human.”
She added that “An embryo is not only distinct from his or her mother, but is alive by all the biological standards we use to denote life. There is no scientific uncertainty here, and no doubts as to this are entertained by any scientist or physician. On ultrasound I routinely use the presence of the embryonic heartbeat, as early as 3 weeks after conception, to determine that the embryo is alive. This is our medical convention, and it corresponds to the scientific reality.”
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