Woman, 26, gives birth to baby who spent 24 years as frozen embryo

http://wishtv.com/2017/12/19/woman-26-gives-birth-to-baby-who-spent-24-years-as-frozen-embryo/

So, since Republicans believe that life begins at conception, then this kid should be able to drink alcohol and vote immediately, right?

 

SCIENCE!!!

 

When do you believe life begins?

 

This is really cool, but it's a little crazy to wrap my mind around. So if this embryo hadn't been frozen and had been delivered naturally, she would have been only 1.5 years younger than the woman who ultimately gave birth to her? So conceivably, it would be possible for a birth mother to actually be younger than the child depending on when the embryo--

 

Heh. You said "conceivably."

 

sounds like a sitcom to me! In ten years she'll be 35, old enough to run for president - how cool would that be?

 

So will this baby be eligible for Social Security by 2057 or 2082?

Ha! Trick question. Social Security will be dead as a doornail long before either of those dates.

Long live the donor class!

 

frozen for 24 years? This is a great example of why we might overlook life in other locations other than earth. As a frozen embryo does it meet the definition of life? Is it taking in any fuel and expending any energy? Is it breathing, moving, etc? My point is maybe the way we detect life is overlooking life hiding in plain sight. What if an entire planet has all life forms frozen until conditions change and they start to move & function until they are frozen again?

 

Then we'll kill them later, I'd imagine.

 

Awww...

 

Awesome. Now we just need to figure out how to do that for every tissue type perfectly in vivo, and we'll have cryonics solved.

You think this is flippant, but it's not, really. We've just defrosted a 24-year old embryo.

EDIT: seems this embryo was just a single cell at the time. Phooey.

 

Just one cell? Big deal.....child's play (no pun intended).

wrote a song about it!

 

I agree with your first statement.

The second statement is irrelevant. The U.S. could "grant a lifeform the legal status of personhood" from age 8 to 88 for all I care. That doesn't satisfy or change this primal, metaphysical question.

When does life begin?

 

Why don't you tell us what you..."think"?

 

I see life as a giant inverted binary tree. Life begets life. Once life is conceived it exists.

 

To me it's not a political question, but a metaphysical one.

 

Nice try. You're the one who conflated the age of the individual with the age of the species which I thought was quite humorous and so "agreed" with. I assume that's why you added the borg emoticon. But even the question of the species has a political component (should we teach creationism or evolution?).

You knew what I was asking. It might be purely a political question of "rights & privileges" to you, but only if you're willing to completely ignore the biological/metaphysical aspect. (Unless you're arguing there's no such thing as an individual.)

 

Well this Republican believes that life begins at implantation in the uterine wall. So that's that.

 

A human sperm and a human ovum are alive, though neither has a complete human genetic code.

A human zygote is a living organism with a complete human genetic code. That organism is a human life at that point.

When the life becomes worthy of protection is then somewhat arbitrary.

 

I think that’s a thoughtful and consistent opinion actually.

(Except I would argue that it stands contrary to the very foundation of liberalism and its so-called cult of the individual.)

 

Consciousness, or lack thereof, or at least demonstrable potential therefor (I certainly don't mean to say that coma patients aren't worthy of protection of the law!). Consciousness may be an emergent phenomenon, but that doesn't make it less real. Absent that, life is just a particularly complicated machine, and destroying a machine is not a moral act.

 

Roy Moore agrees!

 

This baby is way too old for Roy Moore.

 

You're too old for Roy Moore!

 

Anyone born in the 20th century is too old for Roy Moore!