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--- trtl:education:team:presentations:abortion [2023/01/03 18:35] – old revision restored (2023/01/01 20:09) 65.108.46.72
+++ trtl:education:team:presentations:abortion [2024/02/08 14:12] (current) – fixed syntax error balleyne
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 <note tip>You can swap these photos out with photos of yourself, or photos of someone you know. (You can keep the ultrasound video/photos, and just say something like, "what about a child at this age?")</note>
-  * **Next step: science** "First, we need to look at science and ask the question: when does life begin?"
+But just before we look at science, let's consider for ourselves the "options" for when human life begins. Does human life begin before fertilization, at fertilization, or some time after? FIXME would need to edit the slides
-  * **Next step: kindergarten**
-    * //(introduce kid, e.g. "This is Noah on his first day of kindergarten.")//
+**Before Fertilization**?
-    * "Some people say that everything you need to know in life you learned in kindergarten. But would you say that kindergarten is when life begins?" //(move on immediately)//
-  * **Next step: preschool** "Okay, how about a bit earlier, in preschool?"
+  * Before fertilization, we have sperm and eggs, i.e. gametes. Are sperm and egg equivalent to the embryo? Here's one way to think about it:
-    * //(briefly)// "This is when Noah is old enough to have a conversation, to use full sentences, to do some things on his own. Is this when life begins?" //(move on immediately)//
+    * If you take a sperm cell, and give it what it needs to live – nutrition, a safe environment – and wait 1 year, or 15 years, what will happen? You will still have a sperm cell.
-  * **Next step: toddler** "How about when he was a toddler? When he was first using words and communicating, walking on his own? How about then?" //(move on immediately)//
+    * If you take an egg cell, and give it what it needs to live – nutrition, a safe environment – and wait 1 year, or 15 years, what will happen? Again, you will still have an egg cell.
-  * **Next step: infant** "Or maybe when he was an infant? Bright-eyed, smiling, making sounds and reacting to faces, starting to recognize people and be aware of his surroundings. Is this the start of his life?" //(move on immediately)//
+    * In contrast, if you take a zygote, and give her what she needs to live – nutrition, a safe environment – and wait 1 year, or 15 years, what will happen? You will have an infant, or a teenager.
-  * **Next step: newborn** "Maybe we need to go earlier to birth. Maybe his life begins when he was born. Who thinks life begins at birth?" //(quick show of hands, quick acknowledgement, then move on immediately to challenge with the next step)//
+    * A gamete has 23 chromosomes, while a zygote has a complete set of DNA. A gamete stays a gamete until the transformation of fertilization. A zygote, in contrast, continues to grow older, into a blastocyst, an embryo, a fetus, a newborn, an infant, a toddler, etc. A gamete is a human part, while the embryo is a human whole. We know the difference between a human part and a human whole.
-  * **Next step: second trimester ultrasound video** //(let video play while briefly talking over it)//
-    * "Well, what about just a few weeks earlier, halfway through pregnancy?"
+**After Fertilization**?
-      * //(very quickly make some observation about his humanity)//
+  * Now let's entertain the possibility that human life begins some time //after// fertilization.
-        * moving
+    * Meet my friend's son Noah on his first day of kindergarten. Imagine Noah walked through that door and you had never met him before. Would you assume that his life began at that moment? That he puffed out of nowhere and started living when he walked through the door? Of course not! We know that he grew from a younger version of himself.
-        * maybe sucking his thumb
+    * Now here’s toddler Noah. Would we say that Noah’s life began when he was a toddler? Again of course not. We know he grew from a younger version of himself.
-        * can feel pain about halfway through pregnancy
+    * How about at infancy? Did Noah’s life begin when he was an infant? No, because we know that a few months earlier, he was born.
-        * a few weeks after this, would have been able to survive outside the womb if born prematurely
+    * And where did newborn Noah come from? He was not brought by the stork that’s for sure. He was delivered from her mother's body, at birth. Newborn Noah grew from an earlier version of himself–namely, the fetus.
-    * "Maybe life begins about halfway through pregnancy then?"
+    * This is fetal Noah at 21 weeks. You can see him making a lot of movements. He must be alive, right? Maybe sucking his thumb, kicking…. He can feel pain about halfway through pregnancy. A few weeks after this, he would have been able to survive outside the womb if born prematurely. Maybe you’re thinking, well he’s a not human, he’s just a fetus.
-  * "Okay, but maybe you're thinking: he's not human, he's just a fetus"
     * "We have to ask ourselves: what //kind// of fetus is he? Because you can have..." //(slow down just a bit to let photos sink in)//
     * **next step: elephant** "an elephant fetus"
@@ Line 138: / Line 137: @@
       * "First, you're a zygote, then a blastocyst, then an embryo until about 8 weeks, then a fetus from 8 weeks until birth, then a newborn until a month after birth, then an infant, until you're a toddler, and so on until you're a teenager, until you're an adult."
       * **"Age-range terms like fetus or embryo don't tell us //what// species someone is, but //how old// someone is."**
-  * **Next step: first trimester** "How about at 10.5 weeks, in the first trimester when most abortions happen? Maybe this is when life begins?"
+      * Let's go back to fetal Noah at a much earlier stage in the 1st trimester when most abortions happen.
-    * you can see his: nose, eyes, arms, mouth
+      * At 3 weeks is when the heart starts to beat and around 5 weeks is when brain activity can be detected with an EKG scanner. Where did fetal Noah come from? Did he magically appear in his mother’s womb? We know he grew and matured from an earlier version of himself namely, the embryo.
-    * "Maybe it's when he has a heartbeat, at 3 weeks? Or when we can measure brain waves, at 6 weeks?"
+      * And we know that the embryo came to be as a result of the sperm fertilizing the egg. And whereas the sperm and egg–by themselves–will never develop into a toddler or teenager, won't that single-celled human zygote develop into a toddler and teenager? Tiny as he is, Noah is a human whole who will self-direct his own growth. It is at fertilization when human life begins.
 **Transition: immediate**