Pregnancy Begins at Conception - not Implantation. ACOG is wrong.

If we define pregnant as "having or containing an unborn child within the body", then someone who has swallowed a developing embryo would be considered pregnant; The petri dish in question would contain such an embryo. Sorry for the confusion. ACOG is indeed suggesting that such a definition can technically be considered valid, but it completely disregards what we are talking about when we bring up the subject of pregnancy. If you were to graft an entire child onto the inside of your stomach, you would not actually be"considered pregnant. If an egg was fertilized in a dish and then terminated there, no pregnancy would be said to occur. The same goes for the majority of fertilized eggs within the uterus that never end up implanting at all. If you do not think that it is correct to call implantation conception and the official establishment of pregnancy, then when would you? I do acknowledge the fact that Pro says pregnancies In Vitro do begin at implantation, but why does he stop there? Why wouldn't such a pregnancy begin the moment it entered the uterus? What makes other pregnancies different? ACOG is indeed defining pregnancy accurately. Ectopic and molar pregnancies are not an exception to the definition, and I will explain why. In ACOG's statement, they go on to describe the dangers of defining personhood from the moment of fertilization; "Women's very lives would be jeopardized if physicians were prohibited from terminating life-threatening ectopic and molar pregnancies". They state that pregnancies begin at implantation, and then go on to say that ectopic pregnancies could not be terminated without such a definition. The implication being that ectopic pregnancies can not be considered pregnancies at all. That position makes a lot of sense. Pro may very well argue that they would not be called ectopic or molar pregnancies if they were not pregnancies, but he would be wrong. Imitation crab is not crab. Fool's gold is not gold. Peanuts are not nuts. Ectopic pregnancies seem like normal pregnancies at first, and they may widely be considered pregnancies (using more forgiving and questionable definitions), but they can't truly be considered as such. Every ectopic pregnancy has to be terminated [1]. Only one of three women who have had an ectopic pregnancy can ever have a child after [2]. It is very different from the pregnancies we generally refer to, and a loose denotation is the only reason to treat it like one of those pregnancies. Also, I do agree that all pregnancies begin with a fertilized egg. I also think that all pregnancies begin with a sperm, and that all pregnancies begin with an unfertilized egg. I'm also saying, that pregnancies begin with implantation. That is reasonable. I'd also like to note, that it is not simply "some" fertilized eggs that fail, but nearly two thirds of them. Is pro suggesting that, in a majority of situations, a pregnancy's cycle doesn't even make it to the embryonic stage? I do not agree that pregnancies can occur prior to implantation. The definition I provided does not allow for such a case-by-case interpretation. Let's look at it closely: the process of becoming pregnant involving fertilization or implantation or both I can see how pro interprets this. Pregnancy (and therefore conception) can start either at fertilization or implantation, depending on the scenario. However, if this is the case, then the "both" in that does not make any sense. All pregnancies require fertilization, all pregnancies require implantation, all pregnancies require both. In no scenario could you rightly say that a pregnancy started at both, rather than fertilization. This completely discounts Pro's theory, that sometimes fertilization is conception, and that sometimes implantation is conception, because never are they both conception. Webster's is giving us three ways of looking at all pregnancies. We can consider every fertilization to be a conception, we can consider fertilization as being implantation and fertilization (those two seem to be his uses of the term), and we can consider every implantation to be conception. The latter is ACOG's position, and it is valid. And once again, a conception must lead to a pregnancy, or in and of itself be the start of pregnancy. That is what a conception is: a process that leads to pregnancy. As far as fish go, I do acknowledge that most use external fertilization. However, since no pregnancy occurs, no conception occurs. I was displaying the various views on defining pregnancy. The second definition could very well refer to any human fertilized egg, however the first and third support my position. The definition of gestation does exclude all supposed pregnancies that occur outside of the uterus. Pregnancy can be said to only start at the development of an embryo, and it can also be said to only start at implantation. Embryos do not start developing until attached to the uterine wall. The source that I provided does indeed claim that implantation requires an embryo, but my source also completely discounts this idea: "The fertilized egg (zygote) grows by cell division as it moves toward the uterus, where it implants in the lining and grows into an embryo and then a fetus".[3] Other sources agree: "By the time it reaches the uterus, the rapidly dividing ball of cells " now known as a blastocyst " has separated into two sections. The inner group of cells will become the embryo"[4] This source [5] also supports such a statement. So indeed, there are various ways of defining when and where pregnancy begins. The entire point of words, however, is communicating accurately and efficiently. Having an embryo in your nose does not really make you pregnant. Comparing other species to humans is difficult. Their gestation is very different from our gestation. Implantation is not needed in order for salamanders to be pregnant because they do not require implantation in order to fully and successfully deliver their child. That is not the case for us. [1]http://www.mayoclinic.org... [2]http://www.nlm.nih.gov... [3]http://www.merriam-webster.com... [4]http://www.mayoclinic.org... [5]http://www.nlm.nih.gov...