Are you suggesting that an unborn belongs to another species? If so, please identify which species it belongs to and when it undergoes a metamorphosis into a human being. It's ridiculous to suggest that the offspring of two human beings could be something other than a human being at any point of development.
No, I'm not suggesting the unborn belong to another species. What I'm saying is we don't know if the fertilized cell/conception has the necessary ingredients to become a human being. A cell from a person's skin usually has the same DNA as the person's heart and lungs and blood and brain and .....in other words the skin cell has the same DNA as a human being but it is not a human being. It is a skin cell.
Neither scientists nor anyone else know if every fertilized cell has the necessary components to be considered offspring just as a skin cell is not considered offspring. That is the point. Scientists went through that when they first started cloning. They "made" what they thought was a fertilized cell or an "offspring" but nothing developed and when we realize 50% of fertilized cells or offspring spontaneously abort it's reasonable to conclude they were not all offspring. They could have been nothing more than two cells which fused similar to how two cells can fuse in the womb resulting in two hypothetical people becoming one. Two unique DNAs fusing to become one. If they were Bob and Bill is the resulting product Bob or Bill or neither but a John? If the fusing results in a John and John continues to divide and grow does that mean John is the offspring of Bill and Bob?
Who decides these things? Who knows enough about conception to decide? With all the brains and technology scientists can not even reproduce guaranteed results. Some age and die prematurely. Others contract strange illnesses and deformities.
This idea that anti-abortionists believe science knows all about conception and human beings when it comes to abortion is the same old re-play from times past when people talked about souls entering male fetuses before female fetuses and how the movement of the fetus, the quickening, was the soul moving in. We can look back now and see the silliness of it but it wasn't silly then. Laws were based on such foolishness even though people didn't have a clue about what was happening and it's the same thing today.
For thousands of years people have played around with woman's rights regarding abortion. Any reason, regardless how absurd, was used to prevent abortion going as far as, "1869 – Pope Pius IX forbids all abortions in exchange for France’s Napoleon III acknowledging papal infallibility. France’s population experienced a sharp decrease over the previous 60 years." Of course France's population declined and women stopped having babies. All they were doing was producing offspring to send to the slaughter of war. Talk about a deal made in hell! Can we honestly condemn women after all the lies and bullshit they were fed?
As for the cells being a human being "at any point of development" do we know what hormones or other "ingredients" are supplied by the mother to produce a baby? As the fetus is developing inside the woman do we have any idea if the natural electrical charge of her body starts certain processes? What the hell do we really know beside the obvious that if a pregnancy does go to completion a woman is going to bear a human being and not a goat. Our ancestors figured that one out a long time ago.
And, finally, "Not only is it a life, but, “by its intrinsic biological nature,” it is a human life from the moment of conception, for “it can be nothing else."
Yes, it can be something else. It can be a bunch of cells just like liver or kidney or skin cells and they sure as hell are not considered a human life.
I'm reminded of a quote attributed to Lord Kelvin circa 1900, "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." Of course, a gentleman by the name of A. Einstein threw the proverbial wrench in that.
When scientists really know what happens, when they can determine a fertilized cell/conception has all the necessary components, then I'll consider it a baby/human being. It's long past time for women to have the benefit of the doubt. They've been lied to for centuries and like many things in today's society the truth is coming out.
Again, refer to msg. #172. http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2315693&page=1 There is no more tolerance for the lies and assumptions and mistakes that have been made in the past which caused untold grief to women.