From: Larry Margolis <margoli@watson.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: The fundamental question of abortion
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 22:59:13 GMT
Reply-To: margoli@watson.IBM.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: The Village Waterbed

In  <pp031es@fido.asd.sgi.com>  cj@eno.wpd.sgi.com (C J Silverio) writes:
> ---
> luebeckd@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu writes:
> |Nearly all debate on abortion degenerates into this fundamental question.
> |Can this question be adequately answered?
>
> I hope EEB reposts her stuff about brain development.

A couple of articles of interest...

=======================================================================
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
>From: eeb1@ellis.uchicago.edu (e elizabeth bartley)
Subject: Re: does a fetus have a brain...

_Clinical Embryology for Medical Students_, Third Edition
by Richard S. Snell, M.D., Ph.D., pp. 70-75

This is from a chart of the age of fetus and how developed various
systems are.  I'm including its "Gross appearance" and its
"Nervous system".

  Age     Gross appearance                       Nervous system
(weeks)
  1st     Fertilization
          Cleavage of zygote
          Blastocyst enters uterine
            cavity
          Trophoblast, inner cell mass
  2nd     Zona pellucida disappears.
          Blastocyst enlarges.
          Implantation.
          Syncytiotrophoblast and
            cytotrophoblast formed.
          Primary chorionic villi.
          Formation of embryonic disk,
            ectoderm, endoderm, amnion,
            and yolk sac.
          Extra-embryonic mesoderm.
          Extra-embryonic coelom.
          Primitive streak.
          Mesoderm and notochord.
  3rd     Head and tail folds                Neural plate.
                                             Neural folds.
                                             Partial fusion of neural folds.
  4th     Body narrow and tubular;           Neural tube.
            C-shaped.                        Three primary vesicles of brain.
          Connection with yolk sac very
            narrowed; limb buds appear.
          Placenta begins to form.
  5th     Head increases greatly in size.    Telencephalon.
          Face is forming.                   Diencephalon.
          Limb buds show limb, forelimb,     Mesencephalon.
            hand, or foot.                   Metencephalon.
                                             Myelencephalon.
                                             Cerebral hemisphere.
  6th     Head dominant.                     Flextures of brain obvious.
          Oral and nasal cavities confluent.
          Curvature of embryo diminished.
          Fingers and toes recognizable.
  8th     Head nearly as large as rest of    Rapid growth of central
            body.                              nervous system.
          Facial features more distinct.     Expansion of fore-brain vesicle.
          Eyes directed more anteriorly.
          Neck established.
          Limbs more developed.
          Digits of hands and feet
            separated.
          Fetus covered with epitrichium.
          Retrogression of tail.
  12th    Rapid growth in fetal length.     Brain and spinal cord well
          Head still relatively large.        developed.
          Eyes look anteriorly.             Cauda equina.
          External ears on side of head.    Filum terminale.
          Eyelids fused.
          Lanugo present.
          Nails.
          Sex recognition possible.
  16th    Further rapid growth in fetal     Cerebellum prominent.
            length.                         Myelination begins in spinal
          Eyes widely separated but           cord.
            eyelids fused.
          Auricles of ear high up on side
            of head.
          Fetus looks human.
  20th    Lanugo covers entire body.
          Vernix caseosa present.
          Hair present on head.
          Mother detects quickening.
  24th    Skin wrinkled and red.            Myelination begins in brain.
          Head still relatively large.
          Face child-like.
          Eyebrows and eyelashes present.
          Eyelids open.
  28th    Skin wrinkled.
          Subcutaneous fat appearing.
          Fetal contours more rounded.
          Hair on head longer.
  32th    Fetus looks wrinkled and scraggy.
          Lanugo hair has disappeared from face.
          Vernix caseosa thick.
          Nails reach end of fingers.
  36th    Fetus looks plumper and rounder.   Cerebral fissures and
                                               convolutions rapidly
                                               developing.
  40th    Fetus fully developed.             Lower end of spinal cord L3.
          More subcutaneous fat present.
          Lanugo hair disappear.
          Nails project beyond ends of fingers and toes.
=======================================================================
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
>From: wreck@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com (R. Cage)
Subject: Re: Steve Arnold: Need more info
Summary: Get real, Arnold.  We've been over this many times before.
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1992 14:59:16 GMT

In article <1992Feb08.000657.50875@yuma.acns.colostate.edu> sa114984@longs.LANCE
>     I acknowledge that the woman is a person.  My question is whether the
>unborn baby is a person.

Not in the first trimester.  I'm going to break up your list a bit.

> A fetus has a heartbeat, a unique blood type, individual fingerprints....

So do the brain-dead.  They're certainly NOT human beings, Arnold.
The presence of these attributes is completely irrelevant.

> A fetus has brainwaves.

What KIND of brainwaves?  We've had quotes that if you put 3
neurons in a Petri dish, you'll get "brainwaves", Arnold.  I
don't think that anything in a Petri dish can be a person.
And until the fetus's brain is well beyond the bounds of
Petri-dish neuron culture, I don't think it can be either.

> A fetus can feel pain, it can move around.

Wrong.  Dead, flat-out wrong.  SOME fetuses can, certainly.
But "A" fetus?  ANY fetus?  Wrong.  I excerpt from:
"Documentary challenges claim of fetal pain", in the
Ann Arbor News, 31 August 1985:

     "Does the brain even exist at conception?" narrator
     Jaworski asks early in the broadcast.

     "NO!!!" shoots back Dr. Michael Bennett, chairman
     of the neuroscience department at New York's Albert
     Einstein School of Medicine.

     "Can there be a person without a brain?" Jaworski inquires.

     "No, no way," replies Bennett.  "You can't be a person
     without a brain, you can't be a dog without a brain,
     you can't be a cat without a brain or a chicken without
     a brain."

     Though her documentary did turn out to be a rebuttal to
     "The Silent Scream", Jaworski admits she was uncertain
     which way her research would lead her when she began the
     project.

     But to a person, Jaworski's "impeccably credentialed"
     scientists concurred that "there are no brain neurons
     prior to four weeks of fetal development.  They contend
     that the cerebral cortex, the portion of the brain
     needed for thought, feelings and conscious awareness,
     is the last part of the brain to fully develop."

     In fact, asserts neurologist and neuroscientist Dr.
     Dominick Purpura, former dean of the Stanford University
     School of Medicine, and current dean at Albert Einstein
     School of Medicine, before the 28th week of development
     the cortex lacks sufficient axons, dendrites and synapses
     to sustain the processes of thought, feeling and aware-
     ness the documentary deems necessary for "personhood".

     "We're putting the boundary condition, the limit, the
     minimal time for personhood to begin," Purpura says.  "It's
     not three months, it's not two months, it's seven months.

End quote.  You can see that the people who KNOW about brains
and nerves, who have made a life of studying them and what
they do, say differently.  Their testimony calls you either a
liar or a complete ignoramus; which would you rather be?
[...]
--
Russ Cage              wreck@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com  russ%rsi@sharkey.cc.umich.edu
=======================================================================

Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion