hard questions - answers to the issues

What's the big deal about human embryos?

So, what’s the big deal about killing human embryos in order to do research on stem cells? Are embryos really tiny human lives? Yes, says nationally-renowned physician Dr. John C. Willke. “Human life begins at the union of sperm and ovum,” notes Dr. Willke. “During that first day, this is properly termed a fertilized egg. However, this single-celled human body divides, divides, and divides again, so that nearing the end of the first week this embryo, now called a blastocyst, numbers several hundred cells. To obtain an embryonic stem cell, the researcher must cut open this embryo, thereby killing him or her and extracting stem cells.”

“After the first day, a number of names apply to various developmental stages of the same living human, fertilized egg or zygote (a single cell), a blastocyst (many cells), embryo, fetus, infant, child, adolescent, etc. During the first week, this tiny new human floats freely down his or her mother’s tube, dividing and sub-dividing as the journey is made. At about one week of life, he or she plants within the nutrient lining of the woman’s uterus. In about three more days, having sent roots into the wall of the uterus, this new human sends a chemical hormonal message into the mother’s blood stream and this stops her menstrual period. Four days later, the embryonic heart begins to beat and three weeks after that, brain waves are measurable.”
“ The biologic fact is that from day one, inside and then outside of the uterus, this is one continuous, uninterrupted period of growth and development. It is impossible to draw a line in time and to say that before this time, this was not a living human, and after this, it is. This is, in fact, a living human at the first cell stage and remains so until the old man or woman dies. Accordingly, killing this living human embryo at day four or five, at week four or five or at year four or five is, in fact, killing a living human.”

Whoa! Thanks, Dr. Willke, for not mincing words. We asked and you explained. You rock!