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

Thanks to Pro, who has indeed shared an informative, civil, and productive exchange with me. I had hoped that the resolution that "ACOG is wrong" would have been abandoned by now, as the claim that conception is both implantation and the establishment of pregnancy has been proved to not only be acceptable, but a better alternative to opposing definitions and terms. I have further arguments, however they will be omitted from this round. I hope only to clarify the debate that has just occurred. In previous rounds, I have mentioned how the methods of defining pregnancy that Pro uses have some terribly inaccurate implications. Defining pregnancy as "having or containing an unborn child within the body" would mean that the swallowed embryo in question could be dead, or stop developing in the stomach, but still manage to make the person who swallowed it pregnant. I was not attempting to ridicule or mock anyone, or anything; I was simply stating that defining pregnancy in that way ignores what a pregnancy biologically is. It's technically acceptable to be a man with a dead embryo in your stomach and refer to yourself as pregnant, but biologically speaking, you wouldn't be. Biologically speaking, the system of child development that we talk about when we say "pregnancy" only occurs once implantation has. If we define it as occurring before then, most pregnancies technically involve no embryo, last about eight days, and end without any major development. Certainly, I do agree with my opponent that if an embryo were swallowed and continued to live and develop in the fashion of regular pregnancies, it would be accurate to say that a pregnancy did occur. That has yet to be proved possible, however, and until then, all pregnancies occur once a fertilized egg has been implanted in the uterine wall of a female. The example in question is absurd, but it displays the differences in what a pregnancy can be considered to be. We can define the relationship of pregnancy as being spatial, or biological. Pro's definition allows for, and primarily includes, questionable spatial relationships. An unborn in your nose can be defined as pregnancy, but once again, the biological relationship and development of pregnancy is best described as occurring once implantation has. My definitions demonstrate the different relationships that can be considered pregnancy, and strongly suggest that ACOG's has superiority. What is the biological difference between a fertilized egg that dies before developing in a petri dish, and in the uterus? I would argue that there is none, and so a biologically accurate establishment of pregnancy is implantation. The spatial difference is arbitrary, and a wholly semantic thing to base a debate upon. If pregnancies are biological facts, then a definition should represent these facts. The "negative consequences" in question are false logical implications and communicative errors. We give definitions in order to share ideas about actual occurrences, and the definitions that present pregnancy as occurring before implantations present skewed ideas. The idea of pregnancy should be true to it's physical and biological counterpart. My opponent has said that in some cases, pregnancies do start at implantation. The cases in question were In Vitro pregnancies that have external fertilizations, followed by manual implantations. I asked about the events that occur just prior to the actual implantation, and Pro appears to have changed his mind in a way that suits his case. In doing so, he has rendered such a question irrelevant to this debate. Sorry for wasting the reader's time, along with my opponent's. I never meant to bring up the horrific implications of defining pregnancy as my opponent wishes as an argument. I was merely presenting that quote as evidence for the idea that ectopic pregnancies are not exceptions to, but rather act in accordance with ACOG's view of implantation. Ectopic pregnancies cannot develop the way that pregnancies can. Biologically speaking, they are very similar, but different enough that the definitions that ACOG uses still apply to the biological events more than alternative definitions. Considering the possession of dead embryos pregnancy is certainly more inaccurate and common than to refer to the hosting of a dying tubular development as not quite being a pregnancy. That being said, the description of ectopic pregnancy is "With an ectopic pregnancy, the fertilized egg implants somewhere outside the uterus"[1]. There's still implantation in an ectopic pregnancy, so it would appear that an adherence to the facts suits ACOG better than Pro. All pregnancies do require a fertilized egg to start. They also require an implantation. ACOG and I agree that a dead embryo can be found within a person's body without that person being pregnant. I have said earlier, that in order for a human pregnancy to develop at all, an implantation/conception must occur. That is not the case for ovoviviparous animals, and so we can not treat them exactly the same. Equating them in such a way ignores the biological relationship that is pregnancy, and how it occurs in various animals. It is illogical to suggest that defining a pregnancy should involve criteria that does not reflect the actual nature of the situation. I would like to acknowledge Pro's fish analogy, and simply say that a more accurate word would be fertilization. To conceive is to: "become pregnant with (young)"[2] "(Of a woman) become pregnant"[3], and "become pregnant"[4]. Finally, I'd like to remind everyone that even if you do not agree with the idea that all pregnancies start at conception (i.e., implantation), arguing that they are wrong in their claim would plainly be false. Pregnancy can be defined as "The state of carrying a developing embryo or fetus within the female body" [5], and I have already proved that the embryo only begins to develop once implanted. I really hope that my case was enough to convince the readers that ACOG is not wrong in their claim. Thank you all for reading, thanks especially to those who vote. I'd mainly like to thank Chuz-life, however, as he did instigate the debate to begin with. [1]http://www.mayoclinic.org... [2]http://www.merriam-webster.com... [3]http://www.oxforddictionaries.com... [4]http://www.macmillandictionary.com...