Thirty years ago some embryos were produced by in vitro fertilization (IVF), and the mother had them frozen. Recently, one of those embryos was brought to term and born. It's a fascinating, and in some ways troubling, development, but some of the commenters to the report, in an apparent attempt to dump snark on pro-lifers, displayed alarming ignorance of basic biology.
One commenter wrote that "Since right wingers think life begins at conception is this baby old enough to go to war?" Another asked if "people who believe life begins at conception would sell liquor to this baby."
Implicit in these questions is the assumption that it's preposterous to believe that an embryo is a living entity, but of course it obviously is. Do these people think that the cells that comprise an embryo are non-living cells? Are the cells inert? Are they dead? It's simply absurd to imply that metabolizing, replicating cells are not alive.
If those who made these comments meant to suggest that the embryo is not really human then perhaps they'd be willing to tell us what sort of embryo it is. What sort of being was it that ultimately grew into a human baby? It wasn't the embryo of a cow or a frog or a tulip. Obviously, the being, or entity, which was frozen thirty years ago was a human entity. It was a living human being.
Another point: The assumption throughout the X thread that forms the basis for this article is that this newborn baby is actually thirty years old, but of course, it's not thirty years old. Everyone's age is calculated from the date of his or her birth, not the date of one's conception. This baby (its name is Thaddeus Daniel Pierce) was born on July 26th of this year and thus, as of this writing, is a little over one week old.
Blaise Pascal once stated that our first responsibility is to think clearly. That's good advice in any case, but in discussions that have life and death implications it has special salience.
