A very brief history of Human Life

The oldest fossil record of life we currently have is over 3.5 billion years old.

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Earliest evidence for life on Earth

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The earliest identified organisms were minute and relatively featureless, and their fossils look like small rods, which are very difficult to tell apart from structures that arise through abiotic physical processes. The oldest undisputed evidence of life on Earth, interpreted as fossilized bacteria, dates to 3 Ga.[52] Other finds in rocks dated to about 3.5 Ga have been interpreted as bacteria,[53] with geochemical evidence also seeming to show the presence of life 3.8 Ga.[54] However, these analyses were closely scrutinized, and non-biological processes were found which could produce all of the "signatures of life" that had been reported.[55][56] While this does not prove that the structures found had a non-biological origin, they cannot be taken as clear evidence for the presence of life. Geochemical signatures from rocks deposited 3.4 Ga have been interpreted as evidence for life,[52][57] although these statements have not been thoroughly examined by critics.

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The cyanobacteria have an extensive fossil record. The oldest known fossils, in fact, are cyanobacteria from Archaean rocks of western Australia, dated 3.5 billion years old. This may be somewhat surprising, since the oldest rocks are only a little older: 3.8 billion years old!

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Cyanobacteria are among the easiest microfossils to recognize. Morphologies in the group have remained much the same for billions of years, and they may leave chemical fossils behind as well, in the form of breakdown products from pigments. Small fossilized cyanobacteria have been extracted from Precambrian rock, and studied through the use of SEM and TEM (scanning and transmission electron microscopy).

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At right is a layered stromatolite, produced by the activity of ancient cyanobacteria. The layers were produced as calcium carbonate precipitated over the growing mat of bacterial filaments; photosynthesis in the bacteria depleted carbon dioxide in the surrounding water, initiating the precipitation. The minerals, along with grains of sediment precipitating from the water, were then trapped within the sticky layer of mucilage that surrounds the bacterial colonies, which then continued to grow upwards through the sediment to form a new layer. As this process occured over and over again, the layers of sediment were created. This process still occurs today; Shark Bay in western Australia is well known for the stromatolite "turfs" rising along its beaches.

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In some cases, the stromatolites were infiltrated with a mineral-rich solution which fossilized the bacteria along with the layers, but more often only the layers are preserved.

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The oldest stromatolites date to the Early Archaean, and they became abundant by the end of the Archaean. In the Proterozoic, stromatolites were widespread on earth, and were ecologically important as the first reefs. By the close of the Proterozoic, the abundance of stromatolites decreased markedly, though cyanobacteria continued to leave a fossil record, such as Langiella and Kidstoniella known from the Lower Devonian Rhynie chert.

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The cyanobacteria have also been tremendously important in shaping the course of evolution and ecological change throughout earth's history. The oxygen atmosphere that we depend on was generated by numerous cyanobacteria photosynthesizing during the Archaean and Proterozoic Era. Before that time, the atmosphere had a very different chemistry, unsuitable for life as we know it today.

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Photosynthesis

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While contemporary cyanobacteria are linked to the plant kingdom as descendants of the endosymbiotic progenitor of the chloroplast, there are several features which are unique to this group.

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Carbon fixation

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Cyanobacteria use the energy of sunlight to drive photosynthesis, a process where the energy of light is used to split water molecules into oxygen, protons, and electrons. Because they are aquatic organisms, they typically employ several strategies which are collectively known as a "carbon concentrating mechanism" to aid in the acquisition of inorganic carbon (CO2 or bicarbonate). Among the more specific strategies is the widespread prevalence of the bacterial microcompartments known as carboxysomes.[15] These icosahedral structures are composed of hexameric shell proteins that assemble into cage-like structures that can be several hundreds of nanometers in diameter. It is believed that these structures tether the CO2-fixing enzyme, RuBisCO, to the interior of the shell, as well as the enzyme carbonic anhydrase, using the paradigm of metabolic channeling to enhance the local CO2 concentrations and thus increase the efficiency of the RuBisCO enzyme.[16]

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Metabolism and organelles

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As prokaryotes, cyanobacteria do not have nuclei or an internal membrane system. In most forms, the photosynthetic machinery is embedded into folds of the external cell membrane, called thylakoids. Cyanobacteria get their colour from the bluish pigment phycocyanin, which they use to capture light for photosynthesis. In general, photosynthesis in cyanobacteria uses water as an electron donor and produces oxygen as a byproduct, though some may also use hydrogen sulfide[18] a process which occurs among other photosynthetic bacteria such as the purple sulfur bacteria. Carbon dioxide is reduced to form carbohydrates via the Calvin cycle.[citation needed]The large amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere are considered to have been first created by the activities of ancient cyanobacteria.[citation needed]

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The first life thus is >3.5 billion years old, and it was likely even simpler than the prokaryote cyanobacter shown above.Since that time the only way that life has been observed to reproduce and diversify in single cell life forms is by mitosis (cell division), with occasional Horizontal gene transfer.Then some 1.6—2.1 billion years ago ago eukaryotes appeared

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Origin of eukaryotes

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Eukaryotes can reproduce both asexually through mitosis and sexually through meiosis and gamete fusion. In mitosis, one cell divides to produce two genetically identical cells. In meiosis, DNA replication is followed by two rounds of cell division to produce four daughter cells each with half the number of chromosomes as the original parent cell (haploid cells). These act as sex cells (gametes — each gamete has just one complement of chromosomes, each a unique mix of the corresponding pair of parental chromosomes) resulting from genetic recombination during meiosis.

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Fossils

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The origin of the eukaryotic cell is considered a milestone in the evolution of life, since eukaryotes include all complex cells and almost all multicellular organisms. The timing of this series of events is hard to determine; Knoll (2006) suggests they developed approximately 1.6—2.1 billion years ago. Some acritarchs are known from at least 1.65 billion years ago, and the possible alga Grypania has been found as far back as 2.1 billion years ago.[69] The Geosiphon-like fossil fungus Diskagma has been found in paleosols 2.2 billion years old [70]

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Hypotheses for the origin of eukaryotes

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Different hypotheses have been proposed as to how eukaryotic cells came into existence. These hypotheses can be classified into two distinct classes — autogenous models and chimeric models.

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Autogenous models

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Autogenous models propose that a proto-eukaryotic cell containing a nucleus existed first, and later acquired mitochondria.[95] ...

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Chimeric models

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Chimeric models claim that two prokaryotic cells existed initially — an archaeon and a bacterium. These cells underwent a merging process, either by a physical fusion or by endosymbiosis, thereby leading to the formation of a eukaryotic cell. ...

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All multicellular life involves eukaryotic cells, and they appear to be monophyletic, descendant from a single cell.In sexual reproduction the process is a little more complicated than mitosis

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Meiosis

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Meiosis Listeni/maɪˈoʊsᵻs/ is a specialized type of cell division that reduces the chromosome number by half, creating four haploid cells, each genetically distinct from the parent cell that gave rise to them.[1] ..

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In meiosis, DNA replication is followed by two rounds of cell division to produce four potential daughter cells, each with half the number of chromosomes as the original parent cell. ...

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Because the number of chromosomes is halved during meiosis, gametes can fuse (i.e. fertilization) to form a diploid zygote that contains two copies of each chromosome, one from each parent. Thus, alternating cycles of meiosis and fertilization enable sexual reproduction, with successive generations maintaining the same number of chromosomes. For example, diploid human cells contain 23 pairs of chromosomes including 1 pair of sex chromosomes (46 total), half of maternal origin and half of paternal origin. Meiosis produces haploid gametes (ova or sperm) that contain one set of 23 chromosomes. When two gametes (an egg and a sperm) fuse, the resulting zygote is once again diploid, with the mother and father each contributing 23 chromosomes. This same pattern, but not the same number of chromosomes, occurs in all organisms that utilize meiosis.

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There is no new "creation of life" or added material observed through either mitosis or meiosis reproductive mechanisms, it is just a flowing of life from parent to offspring, a continuous flow that has been going on for over 3.5 billion years.Thus the pro-life claim that "life is created at conception" is factually flawed misinformation.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : title

Exploring this further:

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Human Development Chart:

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sperm & ovum	form	Zygote - single cell capable of growth into a human being
zygote		lasts 30 hours, then makes first division
morulla or blastula	up 5days	ball of undifferentiated totipotent cells
Blastocyst	by day 5	Hollow Ball of cells, external and internal different. ca. 100 cells inner 50 are pleuripotent stem cells. External will become placenta, internal will become embryo
	day 7 - 9	Blastocyst implants in wall of uterus (55% of Zygotes never reach this stage.)
	day 14 - 16	Blastocyst develops line of dark cells down centre that will become the spinal chord. Real differentiation has begun.
Embryo	day 14 to week 8
Embryonic phase: gastrula	day 30	Lengthens and differentiates into ecto-, meso-, & endo derm
Embryonic phase ends	week 8	At this point enough development to call a foetus. All organs and structures found in a newborn infant are now present.
foetus	week 9- 12	Major organs have begun to develop. Recognizably human, but cannot survive outside the womb.
		15 % of pregnancies miscarry during weeks 4-12
foetus	week 24	About 11 inches long and weighs about 1lb 10 oz.
foetus	weeks 29 - 39	Most healthy foetuses delivered during this period survive, earlier ones may need mechanical help to survive.
birth of baby	week 39
child	8 - 11 yrs	Capable of independent survival

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bold for emphasis.So a zygote is "capable of growth into a human being" ... except that 55% never reach day 9, implanting in wall of uterus. That is more than half of zygotes are not "capable of growth into a human being" leaving 45% zygotes after the first week.We don't have numbers from week 1 to week 4 but we can assume it is the same or higher for the weeks 4 to 12 when 15% miscarry. Thus we can assume 15% x 11 weeks / 8 weeks = 20.6% ... and this is likely low because the number of miscarriages drops with time.... so of the 45% that do proceed to week 12, ~20.6% miscarry, meaning that 55% + 45%x20.6% = 64% are lost naturally, leaving only 36% of the original zygotes with any hope of growing into a living breathing human being.Miscarriages continue to occur right up to birth, including premature birth and still-birth. A still-born fetus has no hope of growing into a living breathing human being. Furthermore ...

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Blighted Ovum: Symptoms, Causes and Prevention

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A blighted ovum (also known as anembryonic pregnancy) happens when a fertilized egg attaches itself to the uterine wall, but the embryo does not develop. Cells develop to form the pregnancy sac, but not the embryo itself. A blighted ovum occurs within the first trimester, often before a woman knows she is pregnant. A high level of chromosome abnormalities usually causes a woman’s body to naturally miscarry.

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One of the first things you need to know if you have been diagnosed with a blighted ovum is that this is a loss. Give yourself time and permission to grieve. This is a type of miscarriage, and you can help yourself in the grieving process by learning more about surviving a miscarriage.

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A blighted ovum is the cause of about 50% of first trimester miscarriages and is usually the result of chromosomal problems. A woman’s body recognizes abnormal chromosomes in a fetus and naturally does not try to continue the pregnancy because the fetus will not develop into a healthy baby. This can be caused by abnormal cell division, or poor quality sperm or egg.

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There was never any hope that the zygotes that ended up as empty sac pregnancies could have grown into a living breathing human being, and these are fairly common among miscarriages.

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What to Know About Ectopic Pregnancy

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For pregnancy to happen, the ovary has to release an egg into the fallopian tube, where it stays for about 24 hours. There it has to come in contact with a sperm to be fertilized. The fertilized egg stays in the fallopian tube for 3 or 4 days before it heads to the uterus. There it attaches to the lining and continues to grow until a baby is born.

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But if the fertilized egg implants in your fallopian tube or somewhere else in your abdomen, you end up with what’s called an ectopic pregnancy. In these cases, the pregnancy can’t continue normally, and it requires emergency treatment.

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These pregnancies require medical intervention to prevent the death of the woman, whether or not you call it abortion, and (not trying to be insensitive, just factual) there is no hope of these types of pregnancy ever becoming a living breathing human being. So there should be no objection to this medical intervention.And there is more information pertinent to the issue of actually resulting in a living breathing human being ...

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Premature babies' disability risk

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Forty per cent of very premature babies have significant learning disabilities, ...

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The programme has had exclusive access to the unpublished Epicure study, the largest study of its kind.

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Just over 1,200 were born alive and 811 were admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit. Of these 314 survived to go home.

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The first phase of the study revealed at two and a half years old 50% of those studied had some form of disability.

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In a quarter of the children severe disabilities were identified, including cerebral palsy, blindness, deafness and arrested development.

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The latest results show that 40% of the surviving children had moderate to severe problems in cognitive development at the age of six, compared to 2% of a control group of their classmates.

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But Professor Kate Costeloe, Prof of Paediatrics, Queen Mary, University of London, who also worked on the study said: "I would hope that people understand that being born early is a very, very serious business, that survival is not high, and that should children survive, their likelihood of having life-long problems - particularly in respect of learning is high.

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"At 23, 24 weeks I have sometimes thought that if these outcomes are as good as they can be, should we be doing this."

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Bright Asamany, born at 24 weeks, is one of the most severely disabled of all the children who were born in 1995 ... his father, Kennedy, says ... if they had another baby born as early as Bright, he would say "turn off the machine, there is no need to continue".

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Check the table above for where 24 weeks fits in the development of the fetus, as this appears to be the lower limit of premature birth that can survive with medical assistance, even if the quality of life is severely diminished -- and some parents may justifiably choose to turn the machine off.And that should be their right to choose, just as family has the right to choose to turn off the machines at the end of life for terminally ill parents.But what is indisputable is that over 64% of conceptions have no hope of ever becoming a living breathing human being. That is not "creation" of life.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : ..Edited by RAZD, : weeks 1 to 4 estimated

One could argue with equal fervor as the pro-life crowd that a fully functional non-dependent human being begins at 8 or 9 years old, as depicted in the "Home Alone" movies.But this is unreasonable because humans are a social support species that look after their young and the young of others.Traditionally people have considered that the baby is alive when it draws it's first breath, the breath of life.There are fundamental physical differences between a fetus and a baby, including some changes that occur shortly after birth before the baby is fully functioning as a living breathing laughing human. These changes are part of the challenge in helping prematurely born babies to live (which they normally do not do when there is no treatment):

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Differences between fetal and postnatal

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Remnants of the fetal circulation can be found in the adult.

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Fetal	Developed
foramen ovale	fossa ovalis
ductus arteriosus	ligamentum arteriosum
extra-hepatic portion of the fetal left umbilical vein	ligamentum teres hepatis ("round ligament of the liver")
intra-hepatic portion of the fetal left umbilical vein (ductus venosus)	ligamentum venosum
proximal portions of the fetal left and right umbilical arteries	umbilical branches of the internal iliac arteries
distal portions of the fetal left and right umbilical arteries	medial umbilical ligaments

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In addition to differences in circulation, the developing fetus also employs a different type of oxygen transport molecule in its hemoglobin from that when it is born and breathing its own oxygen. Fetal hemoglobin enhances the fetus' ability to draw oxygen from the placenta. Its oxygen-hemoglobin dissociation curve is shifted to the left, meaning that it is able to absorb oxygen at lower concentrations than adult hemoglobin. This enables fetal hemoglobin to absorb oxygen from adult hemoglobin in the placenta, where the oxygen pressure is lower than at the lungs. Until around six months' old, the human infant's hemoglobin molecule is made up of two alpha and two gamma chains (2α2γ). The gamma chains are gradually replaced by beta chains until the molecule becomes hemoglobin A with its two alpha and two beta chains (2α2β).

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There are profound differences between a human fetus and a living breathing baby human, and calling a fetus an "unborn baby" is inaccurate and apparently intentionally misleading, playing on emotion rather than objective empirical evidence.Call me a traditionalist if you will, but I believe that the change from fetus to living breathing baby occurs at birth, when the first breath is taken and the life-support dependence on the umbilical chord is severed.Until then, from zygote to fetus, it lives on life support at the pleasure of the woman.Enjoy

Sadly this is not always true. Miscarriages occur right up to birth, and even then still-births occur, and then sometimes early infant deaths occur (especially among premies) due to developmental incompleteness or incompatibility.As you can see from Message 4 and above there are profound differences between a human fetus and a living breathing human baby. Once it survives the first several months the likelihood of growing old steadily increases, agreed.A child may be capable of independent survival at 8 or 9 years of age, but it takes until the age of 20 or so for the brain to fully develop the cognitive ability to make fully reasoned decisions and consider the consequences of actions.We also as a society tend to take care of babies and children, but malnutrition and poor education opportunities limit some from reaching their full potential. Certainly anyone that is pro-life should agree.

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Life of the Mother "Exception"

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An "exception" means a child intentionally killed. A physician should never postpone his efforts to save the mother in order to take time out to kill the child. If a doctor can only save the mother and not the child also, that is a tragedy, but it is not an intentional killing. Unintentional, unavoidable, and accidental death is not the same as intentional killing.
A personhood amendment has no exceptions. But what if a pregnancy threatens the life of the mother? The doctor's goal should be to save mom and the baby if possible. The goal should never be to kill the mother to save the baby, nor to kill the child to save the mother.

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While I do not agree with the emotional tone and twisting of word definitions, I think we can agree that the life of the mother is more important than the potential life of the fetus. Let’s look at the actual details before you apply a broad brush and sweeping statements. Abortion is currently legal and thus it cannot be called murder.Calling a skunk cabbage a rose does not make the flower smell like one. Before those machines became available, and indeed in location around the world where they are not available, the people die, and they die natural deaths. Thus it cannot be murder to provide them, and then withdraw that life-support when it no longer is useful, for reasons discussed below.The legal standard of death is very clear:

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What Is the Medical Definition of Death?

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Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, 31st Edition, republished on the website of Merck & Co, defined death as (accessed May 11, 2007):

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• "death (death) (deth) the cessation of life; permanent cessation of all vital bodily functions. For legal and medical purposes, the following definition of death has been proposed-the irreversible cessation of all of the following: (1) total cerebral function, usually assessed by EEG as flat-line (2) spontaneous function of the respiratory system, and (3) spontaneous function of the circulatory system...
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• brain d[eath]. irreversible brain damage as manifested by absolute unresponsiveness to all stimuli, absence of all spontaneous muscle activity, including respiration, shivering, etc., and an isoelectric electroencephalogram for 30 minutes, all in the absence of hypothermia or intoxication by central nervous system depressants. Called also irreversible coma and cerebral d[eath]."
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  May 11, 2007 - Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary

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Since I last wrote on this subject in 2004 (Legal Death, Legal Life, Personhood and Abortion), the second definition of death has been added. This is consistent with the "higher brain death" concept of personhood discussed below. So we are now discussing a person, and this applies to end of life personhood issues.The above definitions of death are used to determine when a terminally ill person has passed the threshold from human life to not human life, even though significant portions of living cells still persist. This allows for organ transplants, say of a kidney to improve the quality of life for a person that was on dialysis.Of course the decision to pull the plug lies with the family, in consultation with the doctor and after review of the prognosis. The family can also decide whether or not to allow organ transplants (depending on any directives of the patient, such as no heroic measures).

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Biology, Consciousness, and the Definition of Death(PDF)

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Some philosophers and scientists have argued that the whole-brain standard does not go far enough, Several leading authors on the subject have advocated a higher-brain standard, according to which death is the irreversible cessation of the capacity for consciousness, This standard is often met prior to whole-brain death, which includes death of the brainstem -- that part of the brain which allows spontaneous respiration and heartbeat but is insufficient for consciousness, Thus, a patient in a permanent coma or permanent vegetative state (PVS) meets the higher-brain, but not the wholebrain, standard of death.

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From the present perspective, then, the core-meaning argument does not settle the question of the nature of human death. A more promising approach, on this view, is to take seriously the fact that we are not only organisms; we are also persons. According to one prominent argument for the higher-brain standard, the capacity for consciousness is essential to persons -- essential in the strict philosophical sense of being necessary: Any being lacking this capacity is not a person. It follows that when someone permanently loses the capacity for consciousness, there is no longer a person associated with the body. The person who was, is no more -- that is to say, she is dead. Thus, the argument goes, human death is captured by the higher-brain standard.

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Finally, any effort to base a standard for human death on "our" values confronts the problem of value pluralism. While liberal intellectuals, and perhaps a majority of Americans, are likely to regard a future of permanent unconsciousness as meaningless, many people -- some of them religious fundamentalists -- would disagree, For the dissenters, biological life in PVS or permanent coma is at least life and therefore valuable (perhaps infinitely so), For at least some of these people, such a state is meaningful because it is a gift from God, a gift that must not be thrown away through active killing -- or defined away with a new definition of death.

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lt is firmly established, both in case law and in medical ethics, that competent adult patients have the right to refuse life-supporting medical treatments, even artificial nutrition and hydration. By the same token, an appropriate surrogate can refuse life-supports on behalf of the legally incompetent if there is sufficient reason to believe the patient would have refused treatment in the present circumstances. Because of this broad legal and moral right to refuse treatment, life-supports that are unwanted or are considered unhelpful-- including life-supports for permanently unconscious patients -- can be terminated without first declaring the patient dead.

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I was quite pleased to find this still on the web even though the previous link no longer works.My mother had dementia, and for over a decade her abilities dwindled and eroded until at the end she was a shell of the vibrant, curious and witty person we knew growing up. She wasn’t totally gone, but she also was not totally there. My dad looked after her and dealt with it as best he could, keeping her home and out of institutions, getting assistance at the end (when she needed 24 hour care). In the end she died peacefully at home in his arms. If dad had institutionalized her she likely would have passed much sooner, so this is a decision he made to maintain as best he could the quality of her life. ummm because objectively it doesn’t? A zygote has neither brain, lungs nor heart. At 4 weeks (30 days) they still have not developed. By week 8 they have, but there are still critical developments that need to occur before birth to result in a living breathing baby, and any misstep will likely result in miscarriage.Certainly a zygote passing through the uterus without implantation has no measurable difference from a skin cell dying from sunburn and being sloughed off.In fact the cells in your body are constantly changing as new cells are made (mitosis) and old cells die (apoptosis).

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Does the Human Body Really Replace Itself Every 7 Years?

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It's a neat idea, and one that has caught the popular imagination. Here's how the story goes: Every seven years (or 10, depending on which story you hear) we become essentially new people, because in that time, every cell in your body has been replaced by a new cell. Don't you feel younger than you were seven years ago?
It is true that individual cells have a finite life span, and when they die off they are replaced with new cells. As The New York Public Library's Science Desk Reference (Stonesong Press, 1995) notes, "There are between 50 and 75 trillion cells in the body.... Each type of cell has its own life span, and when a human dies it may take hours or day before all the cells in the body die." (Forensic investigators take advantage of this vaguely morbid fact when determining the cause and time of death of homicide victims.)

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I injured my finger, getting a small blood blister under the nail near the cuticle, and I have observed over the couse of several weeks that it is migrating to the finger tip as new cells fill in behind it and old cells are sloughed off at the tip (part of the dross under your fingernails is dead skin cells). The reason you don’t maintain a tan is because the skin surface dies and sloughs away as new cells grow behind them.Curiously, this means that the 8 or 9 year old child that just reaches the capability for independent survival does not have any of the cells it was born with. So we see that the decisions around personhood and death deserve a pluralistic approach to allow people with different belief systems to choose when and how to declare death, and such a pluralistic approach should also apply to when a human person begins.So the question then becomes when does personhood begin.Enjoyps -I lost the first version of this just as I went to post it, I notice that you edited your post, and I have accommodated that.

Actually 7-10% of blastocysts become "empty sac" pregnancies, an embryonic sac with nothing but liquid inside.Not a human life as I understand it.Enjoy

So you agree that a pluralistic approach should be used where the decision is made by the family in consultation with the doctor after reviewing the prognosis.Thanks,Enjoy

When that fertilized egg (zygote) never implants in the uterus it can never become a living breathing human.When that fertilized egg (blastula) only develops into an empty sac it can never become a living breathing human.At the other extreme, a fetus that is still-born can never become a living breathing human.And the question is then what is a human. It is not a cell, or our bodies would be filled to overflowing with humans.Enjoy

So you are not pro-life, just pro-fetus.And I have always found this opinion to be bizarre. At one end you object to socially sanctioned termination of a potential human and at the other you approve of the socially sanctioned murder of a fully developed human. So you don't believe in even the possibility of rehabilitation or the possibility an innocent person is wrongly convicted. Sad.Back in the 70's iirc it was shown that educating convicts reduce recidivism dramatically, letting people return to society in a constructive way, prepared to work with a GED or more. Conservatives objected to them getting free education instead of being punished and scrapped the programs.Likewise education has show dramatic reduction in teen pregnancies, but conservatives object and want to keep children ignorant of how their own bodies work.Curiously I find such conservative ideas against educating people to improve their lives morally objectionable.Other countries do better than the US imho, and not just in banning capital punishment:

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Prison is not for punishment in Sweden. We get people into better shape

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Our role is not to punish. The punishment is the prison sentence: they have been deprived of their freedom. The punishment is that they are with us, says Nils berg, director-general of Sweden’s prison and probation service.

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Since 2004, Swedish prisoner numbers have fallen from 5,722 to 4,500 out of a population of 9.5 million, and last year four of the country’s 56 prisons were closed and parts of other jails mothballed. In contrast, the prison population in England and Wales is 85,000 out of a population of 57 million.

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With reoffending rates at about 40% — less than half of those in the UK and most other European countries — does he attribute this success to the country’s effective policies on prisoner rehabilitation? We obviously believe that it is part of the explanation; we hope we are doing something right. But it’s going to be very difficult to prove that scientifically. We are increasing our efforts all the time, he says.

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Unlike England and Wales, where since 2004 anyone convicted by the courts is categorised as an offender, the implication in the Swedish model is that sentenced individuals are still primarily regarded as people with needs, to be assisted and helped. As well as having rehabilitation at the heart of its penal policy, the other huge difference between the Swedish and UK approaches is the role of politicians.

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He adds, however, that the country’s well-educated population appreciates that almost all prisoners will return to society. So when you go into a political dialogue, there is a fair amount of understanding that the more we can do during this small window of opportunity when people are deprived of their liberty, the better it will be in the long run.

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Who would have thought that improving the prisoners ends up improving the whole society. What an offensive socialist program that is [/sarcasm]Have you ever heard about the "Birdman of Alcatraz"? It shows that an inmate sentenced to life can still make positive contributions to society. It is not that simple, the people involved in the decision do so because of several factors, often it is the severely deformed fetus with no chance of a normal life. Recently the news was all about the zika virus causing birth defects resulting in extremely tiny brains and babies with constant pain and short lives. So I can understand that some may consider abortion mercy in such a case while others don't and proceed to birth. That is their choice as far as I am concerned.We also have instances where the mother will survive but be permanently disabled and they have a right to make a quality of life decision about their life.Or the parents are impoverished barely able to feed and house themselves to say nothing of the care of a child, one that would be sentenced to a life of malnutrition and poor health, a very low quality of life for the child.Or the mother is a drug addict and the fetus has been affected by the drugs and can never become a normal person, another low quality of life for the child born mentally challenged.Or the father has disappeared or been killed and the mother knows she won't be able to provide a good life on her own, a decreased quality of life for parent and child.Such decisions are not made lightly. I've known women that remember the day, how old the child would be, but still would have made that decision again. And that is HER choice.Enjoy

And mothers I know that had late miscarriages have similar feelings. One couple was trying to have a child had several miscarriages until they could no longer bear it, even though they went through extreme measures to keep the fetus (staying in bed, special diet, some medications, all to no avail). It would be abnormal to not morn the loss.But that doesn't solve the problem of unwanted pregnancies.In my opinion a fully pro-life position would be about the quality of life for all people:

• sex education to teach children about how their bodies function
• free contraceptives so that sex experimentation and enjoyment doesn't create a pregnancy that isn't wanted - we are evolved to enjoy sex
• counseling on how to improve\maximize the chances of having a healthy baby
• including effects of alcohol, drugs and malnutrition and programs to solve those problems before pregnancies
• free pre-natal care for wanted pregnancies (one of the things Planned Parenthood offers)
• nutritional supplements if needed for healthy mother and healthy baby
• safe birthing location
• post natal care and continued nutritional provision to ensure healthy growth from baby to toddler, toddler to child, child to teenager and teenager to adult
• universal healthcare for parents and children to ensure a healthy life as much as possible
• education of the child so that they are enriched and optimizing their chances for a quality life

If you don't meet that standard, imho, you are not pro-life.The goal would be for every pregnancy to be a wanted pregnancy in a healthy, happy environment.And it would be about rehabilitation and education and counseling guidance of lawbreakers rather than punishment and murder, treating drug use as a medical condition instead of a crime.It would be about emptying the factory prisons of the mass incarceration pogrom of people convicted of minor crimes because they are poor uneducated and colored. Three strikes and you're in for life, even if you are 14. These prisons do more damage to society than abortions.Enjoy

No it doesn't, otherwise it could survive and grow outside the woman\uterus. Except when that "interference" comes from within the DNA or from conflict with the woman (blood incompatibility) or when it goes through the uterus and down the toilet because it failed to attach to the uterus wall.Because 55% if zygotes never attach to the uterus in the first week, and 15% will end up as miscarriages (due to natural interference) during weeks 4-12. Curiously we don't know how many miscarriages occur between weeks 1 and 4, but it is likely to be higher than 2% per week because the rate of miscarriages drops with time.Assuming the same rate of miscarriages for the 11 weeks from the end of the fist week (where we are down to 45% of the original zygotes) as document for the 8 weeks between week 4 and 12 gives15% x 11 weeks / 8 weeks = 20.6% miscarriagesSo 20.6% of the remaining 45% of zygotes = 9% ending up in miscarriages on top of the 55% lost in the first week, for a total of 64% of the original zygotes that don't have the stuff to become human beings.Only 36% of the original zygotes have the 'stuff' to make it to week 12, and they are not out of the woods yet. Miscarriages still occur right up to birth with still-borns. Unless continuing the pregnancy will kill the woman or disable her permanently, unless the fetus will develop abnormally and severely handicapped such that survival at birth is unlikely. Deaths after birth occur, often because of internal deformities or incomplete developments. More often with preemies. And yet we aren't talking instinct and emotion, we are talking objective empirical evidence.People have ultrasounds, not to make a picture for their wall or to check the sex, but to see if the fetus is malformed or damaged. Other tests are also made to ensure health and proper development, like Amnio Tests, especially in older women:

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Why Is an Amniocentesis Performed?

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A complete anatomical ultrasound will be done prior to amniocentesis. but amniocentesis is performed to look for certain types of birth defects, such as Down syndrome, a chromosomal abnormality.

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Because amniocentesis presents a small risk for both the mother and her baby, the prenatal test is generally offered to women who have a significant risk for genetic diseases, including those who:

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• Have an abnormal ultrasound
• Have a family history of certain birth defects
• Have previously had a child or pregnancy with a birth defect

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Amniocentesis does not detect all birth defects, but it can be used to detect the following conditions if the parents have a significant genetic risk:

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• Down syndrome
• Sickle cell disease
• Cystic fibrosis
• Muscular dystrophy
• Tay-Sachs and similar diseases

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Amniocentesis can detect certain neural tube defects (diseases where the brain and spinal column don't develop properly), such as spina bifida and anencephaly.

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Some people that want a healthy normal baby will choose to abort one that is damaged so that they can proceed to try again.That is THEIR choice.It's not propaganda, it's FACT.Enjoy

As long as it is a loving respectful sharing marriage, yes. My wife and I got married after getting pregnant because we wanted to be sure it worked before making such a life commitment.But a "marriage" where the husband comes home drunk and beats the wife when the baby cries is not a better environment than a single mother can provide by herself. Wouldn't that come under teaching children about sex, how their bodies work (and how to respect each other)? Wouldn't that come under counseling on how to improve\maximize the chances of having a healthy baby? So you are in favor of open sex education and teaching respect and cooperation. good. And it is denounced because they don't listen to what the pregnant woman wants, they tell her what they want and impose their values on the pregnant woman. That is evil.imho if you want to convince someone to carry a baby to term they should adopt the mother and provide a happy respectful home for her and the child. So where are they before the pregnancy, are they teaching sex education?Enjoy

Faith, In your opinion.In msg 10: when does personhood begin I talked about personhood and the pluralistic approach to declaring when the essential essence of a person is dead, and how it is legally and morally up to the family to decide when to pull the plug on a terminally in person:

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The above definitions of death are used to determine when a terminally ill person has passed the threshold from human life to not human life, even though significant portions of living cells still persist. This allows for organ transplants, say of a kidney to improve the quality of life for a person that was on dialysis.

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Of course the decision to pull the plug lies with the family, in consultation with the doctor and after review of the prognosis. The family can also decide whether or not to allow organ transplants (depending on any directives of the patient, such as no heroic measures).

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So we see that the decisions around personhood and death deserve a pluralistic approach to allow people with different belief systems to choose when and how to declare death, and such a pluralistic approach should also apply to when a human person begins.

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So the question then becomes when does personhood begin.

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So it should come as no surprise that a similar pluralistic approach can be taken for determining when personhood begins, dealing with the quality of life, and the wide variety of beliefs in families, such that no one simple rule can be applied. So we have some agreement that the known life of the mother is more important than the potential life of a fetus. In your opinion, certainly not in everyone's opinion, hence pluralism -- where families decide on a case by case basis.In The pro-life claim "life is created at conception" is just wrong I provided a chart of stages in development, and looking at the first week Up to the stage in development when the blastocyst implants I personally see no difference morally or legally between using a "morning after" pill and contraceptives when the goal is to prevent pregnancies.

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How Emergency Contraception Works
Does emergency contraception cause an abortion?

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No, using emergency contraceptive pills (also called "morning after pills" or "day after pills") prevents pregnancy after sex. It does not cause an abortion. (In fact, because emergency contraception helps women avoid getting pregnant when they are not ready or able to have children, it can reduce the need for abortion.)

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Emergency contraceptive pills work before pregnancy begins. According to leading medical authorities — such as the National Institutes of Health and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists — pregnancy begins when the fertilized egg implants in the lining of a woman's uterus. Implantation begins five to seven days after sperm fertilizes the egg, and the process is completed several days later. Emergency contraception will not work if a woman is already pregnant.

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Nor do I see any moral or legal issues with using an abortifacient like RU 486 in the early stages (first month). Looking at the table again:

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Embryonic phase: gastrula

day 30

Lengthens and differentiates into ecto-, meso-, & endo derm

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At the end of the first month of development the gastrula does not look anything like a human being with a brain and a heart and lungs, it is basically an elongated layered bag of cells. Certainly there can be no personhood issue at this stage.

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Abortifacients: An Overview

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To make an informed choice, women must know that [emergency contraceptive pills] prevent pregnancy primarily by delaying or inhibiting ovulation and inhibiting fertilization, but may at times inhibit implantation of a fertilized egg in the endometrium,

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Dr. James Trussell is the Director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton and considered to be one of the world’s top authorities on the morning after pill. He made the above statement about the drug in an academic review on the drug dated February 2013, co-authored with Dr. Elizabeth G. Raymond. The full review is available here: http://ec.princeton.edu/questions/ec-review.pdf

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There’s a new abortifacient drug you need to be aware of. It’s called ellaOne, a cross between so-called emergency contraception and the abortion pill RU 486. Its stated goal is to expand the window of opportunity of taking a drug they say prevents pregnancy after unprotected sex. But testing shows ellaOne is toxic to embryos. It also caused miscarriages in women who were found to be pregnant when taking the drugthus its true potential to the abortion industry. They want to first get FDA approval for prescription use and later for over the counter. It’s a not-so-subtle process of trying to blur the line between abortion and contraception. And they want to make chemical abortion drugs easily accessible to anyone. — Bradley Mattes, Executive Director, Life Issues Institute
Click here to learn more about ellaOne.

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Note that I have again used a pro-life source, so I judge the information should be seen as accurate. If the goal is to prevent pregnancy, then contraceptives, morning-after pills and abortifacients (like RU 486 and elleOne) are all imho both morally and legally valid means to achieve that end.But that after that first month has passed, we should be dealing with people that wanted a pregnancy but end up getting an abortion. In msg 23: moral objections differ -- life vs death I gave several examples of conditions that can lead people to choose an abortion:

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It is not that simple, the people involved in the decision do so because of several factors, often it is the severely deformed fetus with no chance of a normal life. Recently the news was all about the zika virus causing birth defects resulting in extremely tiny brains and babies with constant pain and short lives. So I can understand that some may consider abortion mercy in such a case while others don't and proceed to birth. That is their choice as far as I am concerned.

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We also have instances where the mother will survive but be permanently disabled and they have a right to make a quality of life decision about their life.

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Or the parents are impoverished barely able to feed and house themselves to say nothing of the care of a child, one that would be sentenced to a life of malnutrition and poor health, a very low quality of life for the child.

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Or the mother is a drug addict and the fetus has been affected by the drugs and can never become a normal person, another low quality of life for the child born mentally challenged.

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Or the father has disappeared or been killed and the mother knows she won't be able to provide a good life on her own, a decreased quality of life for parent and child.

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Such decisions are not made lightly. I've known women that remember the day, how old the child would be, but still would have made that decision again. And that is HER choice.

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In Message 38 I listed a bunch of reasons for people that feel an abortion is justified (in their opinions):

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Why Is an Amniocentesis Performed?

​

A complete anatomical ultrasound will be done prior to amniocentesis. but amniocentesis is performed to look for certain types of birth defects, such as Down syndrome, a chromosomal abnormality.

​

Because amniocentesis presents a small risk for both the mother and her baby, the prenatal test is generally offered to women who have a significant risk for genetic diseases, including those who:

​

• Have an abnormal ultrasound
• Have a family history of certain birth defects
• Have previously had a child or pregnancy with a birth defect

​

Amniocentesis does not detect all birth defects, but it can be used to detect the following conditions if the parents have a significant genetic risk:

​

• Down syndrome
• Sickle cell disease
• Cystic fibrosis
• Muscular dystrophy
• Tay-Sachs and similar diseases

​

Amniocentesis can detect certain neural tube defects (diseases where the brain and spinal column don't develop properly), such as spina bifida and anencephaly.

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And I repeat that some people that want a healthy normal baby will choose to abort a fetus that is damaged so that they can proceed to try again. And that legally and morally imho that it is THEIR choice.What is rather obvious is that society has decided that it is moral and legal to have an abortion, and that it is the family that decides, not government or doctors or strident protesters.Because that is a pluralistic approach that recognizes that different people have different values and beliefs about the beginning of personhood just as they do about terminally ill people.A duty of a moral society imho is to accommodate that pluralism in our laws so that the people can decide their personal cases according to their beliefs and the medical facts.Enjoy

Well faith, that "personhood" is not important to you, doesn't mean it is not important to other people. As I've said there are a plurality of views, not a single one.And when 55% of zygotes fail to implant that is a perfectly normal, natural part of the process, and leaving them alone will not result in a living breathing human being. That is your belief and you are welcome to it, other people have the same right to their beliefs on this issue. This again leads to a pluralist approach to let people decide how this applies to their lives.And when that genetic material produces an empty sac with no embrio inside, that too is a perfectly normal, natural part of the process, and leaving them alone will not result in a living breathing human being. There is no person there because there is no there there. Thank you.Enjoy

The title sounds like an Andy Borowitz column ...

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Florida Supreme Court Reminds Politicians That Women Are Capable of Making Their Own Decisions

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Every day, people face important medical decisions. When tough choices arise, we consult with our health care providers about the pros and cons of different treatment options. We meditate on our goals and fears. Some of us will turn to family or friends for advice. Some of us will pray.

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No one goes to the state capitol building to ask a politician their opinion.

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Yet when it comes to a woman’s decision to end her pregnancy, politicians feel entitled to insert themselves into the equation. We all agree that a woman seeking abortion care, like every other patient, should receive all medically appropriate information. But in dozens of states, legislators demand that a woman who has decided to have an abortion unlike any other patient seeking any other form of medical care delay her procedure by a certain amount of time (typically 24 hours or more) after receiving certain state-mandated information.

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Fortunately, in a victory for Florida women and for common decency, the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s decision blocking the state’s 24-hour mandatory abortion delay law from taking effect while the litigation proceeds. In upholding the preliminary injunction, the court also found that the law likely violates the Florida Constitution’s strong right of privacy.

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As the court explained, a woman can already take all of the time she needs to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy, both before she arrives at the clinic and after she receives the required counseling information. Thus, in practice, [t]he Mandatory Delay Law impacts only those women who have already made the choice to end their pregnancies.

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This is not about informed consent. To the contrary, the court observed that the law turns informed consent on its head, placing the State squarely between a woman who has already made her decision to terminate her pregnancy and her doctor who has decided that the procedure is appropriate for his or her patient.

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Moreover, if this is really just about ensuring that patients are fully informed, then why is it, the court asked, that [n]o other medical procedure, even those with greater health consequences, requires a twenty-four hour waiting period in the informed consent process?

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The Florida Supreme Court’s decision should serve as a wake-up call to politicians to stop passing laws that have no medical justification and do nothing but insult and burden women seeking abortion care.

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A victory for women and for choice.Enjoy

The term "unborn child" is a fiction of the extreme right, not reality.There are fundamental differences between a fetus and a child. The first breath and subsequent use of lungs is one, and it is major when that does not happen because the fetus died. A second is closing an opening in the heart so that the heart pumps the child's blood instead of the umbilical blood, and a third is the change from (2α2γ) hemoglobin to hemoglobin (2α2β). See Message 4An empty sac pregnancy is not an unborn child it doesn't even have any potential of ever becoming a child. It is a cluster of cells enclosing fluid, period. You can't "murder" a sac of fluid.You also can't murder a "stone baby" ...

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Lithopedion

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A lithopedion — also spelled lithopaedion or lithopdion — (Ancient Greek: λίθος = stone; Ancient Greek: παιδίον = small child, infant), or stone baby, is a rare phenomenon which occurs most commonly when a fetus dies during an abdominal pregnancy,[1] is too large to be reabsorbed by the body, and calcifies on the outside as part of a maternal foreign body reaction, shielding the mother's body from the dead tissue of the fetus and preventing infection.

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Lithopedia may occur from 14 weeks gestation to full term. It is not unusual for a stone baby to remain undiagnosed for decades, and it is often not until a patient is examined for other conditions or a proper examination is conducted that includes an X-ray, that a stone baby is found.

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This is why our legal system does not use this term -- it is medically inaccurate and misleading. Our legal system embraces a plurality of opinions, not a religious dogma of opinion.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : added second paragraphEdited by RAZD, : stone baby