The Missing Science
Guest Blog post by Brooke Stanton, Founder, Contend Projects
Did you know that when a human being begins to exist is a scientific issue and not a philosophical or religious one? And, that the science has been settled for a very long time? Did you also know that the scientific experts to ask about this most fundamental question are the experts in the science of Human Embryology?
For over 100 years, Human Embryology has stated that in sexual reproduction a new, whole, individual, living human being begins to exist at the beginning of the process of fertilization, i.e. at “first contact” between the sperm and the oocyte (“egg”). When these two mere cells make first contact and fuse, immediately specific human proteins and enzymes are produced (not sperm or “egg” proteins and enzymes), and a new single-cell human being, with his or her own new, unique human genome and complete set of DNA begins to exist. This is an objective, empirical and modern scientific fact, and is documented in the Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development as Carnegie Stage 1a.
One of the main reasons the basic ‘facts of life’ are so confusing today is because of the court ruling in the Roe v. Wade case. In his majority opinion, Justice Blackmun wrote that the beginning of human life could not be determined, saying the “disciplines of medicine, philosophy and theology” were “unable to arrive at any consensus”, and “we need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.”
Most people do not know that the academic disciplines Blackmun referenced have no bearing on the science of Human Embryology. Human Embryology is the only scientific field that specializes in when a human being begins and his or her early development. Yet, no human embryologists testified in the Roe v. Wade case.
And so, because the science has been obscured for so long, today many people still believe that the question is not settled, and are making uninformed and erroneous decisions, policies and laws concerning a human embryo and a human fetus.
Contend Projects aims to reverse this deeply harmful trend. We are working to make the internationally acknowledged empirical scientific fact of when a human being normally begins simple, accessible and relevant for everyone.
