Is a Human Zygote an Organism?

[fedor50]

Actually, it is not false...and I have read the textbooks as well....far more of them, I would wager than you have yourself. I do hold medical degrees although I am not an MD...I am a DMD/DDS.

For all your definitions, are you going to argue that being a zygote is not simply a stage in human development?.. The medical dictionary defines development as the act of developing.

That a zygote is the beginning of human development does not mean that a zygote is a human being.

There are plenty of examples of this: cake mix is the beginning of a cake (but is not a cake yet), the bride's entrance is the beginning of a wedding (but is not the wedding itself), the '.' character is the beginning of this post (but the post was not a post until I hit 'send'), and so on.

What is a zygote before it is an organism? a zygote is a totipotent stem cell then it is an embryo (a collection of pluripotent stem cells) then it is a foetus (a collection of increasingly differentiated cells). Eventually it will become an organism, but it will always remain a collection of cells.
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[fedor50]

Of course it is an organism...or are you going to argue that it is not capable of growth, or metabolizing nutrients....would you care to argue that it does not, in fact, send out a chemical message to its mother's body advising her of its existence so that her immune system does not attack it?....would you care to argue that it's DNA is not distinctly different from either it's mother or it's father? Can you make any rational argument whatsoever that it is not precisely what it is?....it is the first stage of development of a human being. Now, if you can provide some evidence that once the zygote divides, it has, in fact metamorphosed into something it wasn't before other than a human being in the earliest stage of development, by all means, lets see the work.

All of that is true except for ONE thing: A zygote is not able to maintain homeostasis which is a fundamental criteria for life. When I talk about biological dependence, THAT is what I am talking about. Is the zygote capable of maintaining life without the biological interaction of the woman?

 

[fedor50]

Of course it is an organism...or are you going to argue that it is not capable of growth, or metabolizing nutrients....would you care to argue that it does not, in fact, send out a chemical message to its mother's body advising her of its existence so that her immune system does not attack it?....would you care to argue that it's DNA is not distinctly different from either it's mother or it's father? Can you make any rational argument whatsoever that it is not precisely what it is?....it is the first stage of development of a human being. Now, if you can provide some evidence that once the zygote divides, it has, in fact metamorphosed into something it wasn't before other than a human being in the earliest stage of development, by all means, lets see the work.

Premise 1: You claim a zygote is an individual human organism
Fact 1: A zygote cleaves and becomes multi-celled by asexual reproduction (mitosis)
Fact 2: A multi-celled zygote can be split in two and end up as two individual human organisms
Conclusion: individual human organisms are capable of natural asexual reproduction.

Either the facts are wrong, or your premise is.

You decide...

 

[fedor50]

Of course it is...when you whittle past all of the semantics, it is exactly that black and white. Ask yourself, is the zygote alive? If it is not, then you are correct that the life did not begin once conception was complete. You clearly, can not make that argument though, so you are left perhaps wishing that the life is not begun at the time conception is complete but it is a fruitless and doomed wish.

My point is that not ALL human beings lives begins at conception. Some human beings lives start from the result of twinning which is NOT conception, hence not ALL human beings lives start at conception as you love to so frequently say.

So what? In our earliest possible stage of development we are capable of asexual reproduction. Goodie for us. We are gaining and losing abilities all along our developmental journey. For a very short period of time, we have that ability....it doesn't change what we are at that stage of our lives.

*le sigh*

My point is that your reasoning leads to the conclusion that human organisms are naturally capable of asexual reproduction, when this is not the case.

Sorry, it is you who has missed the point. Shallow thinking. I didn't even consider social dependence. Would you like to try and argue the point that you are not biologically dependent on the lives of other living things for your very survival? Good luck with that one

I am not biologically dependent on another organism for homeostasis and maintaining my life. If a zygote separates from a woman, it INSTANTLY dies.

What species were we before we "become" human beings. Even one celled organisms are bona fide members of some species....which one did you belong to before you "became" homo sapiens sapiens?

I belonged to the species that was human, but I was NOT yet a human being. As a zygote, I was a totipotent stem cell.

I don't have a definition. I accept the one that medical science provides and don't try to weasel my way around it. An individual form of life that is capable of growing, metabolizing nutrients, and usually reproducing. At even our earliest stage there is no argument that we are alive, we are capable of growing and metabolizing nutrients. We are what we are.

"Is a zygote an organism" is not a scientific question. Science is testable, empirically supported, and eternally evolving. "Is a zygote an organism" is a question concerning scientific semantics, not the 'hard science'

A zygote is a part of the womans body. The placenta is defined as "uniting ("incorporating to form a single whole") the foetus to the maternal uterus". A zygote is biologically linked to the woman, even though it has different DNA - just like a transplanted organ.

Oh yeah, and just in case you try going there, DNA is largely irrelevant to this issue. Also did you know that the zygote and mother often exchange cells:

Microchimerism
the most common form is ... whereby immune cells ... from a fetus pass through the placenta and establish cell lineages within the mother. Fetal cells have been documented to persist and multiply in the mother for several decades [1] After giving birth, about 50-75 % of women carry fetal immune cell lines. Maternal immune cells are also found in the offspring ... though this phenomenon is about half as frequent as the former.

Judging by this references a zygote is at best equivalent to an organ, at worst equivalent to a blood cell. The fact that it has different DNA is irrelevant - a transplanted heart would have this just as much, and many of the blood cells in your body have no DNA in them (hence my use of them as an example). The only thing which makes a zygote significantly different is the fact that it will one day develop into an organism if the right conditions are met - but then, so will a sperm cell (again, if the right conditions are met) and this also does not make the zygote an 'individual', just different from the other parts of the mother. In fact, that a zygote is defined this way...

Zygote
1. The cell formed by the union of two gametes, especially a fertilized ovum before cleavage.
2. The organism that develops from a zygote.
... broadly : the developing individual produced from such a cell

...implies that the single cell itself is not an organism, nor an individual.

 

[fedor50]

Sorry, it is you who has missed the point. Shallow thinking. I didn't even consider social dependence. Would you like to try and argue the point that you are not biologically dependent on the lives of other living things for your very survival? Good luck with that one

Again, you intentionally miss my point. I was taking something 'capable of independent existence' to mean something that, if biologically seperated from all other organisms, would still live. A zygote is biologically reliant on the mother for it's survival; her lungs breathe for it, her heart transfers oxygen and nutrients to it (or at least, to the placenta which unites the two), her immune cells often protect it. A newly born baby may rely on external support, but not in such a basic way - and not from one unchanging person; it's viability at which this changes.

A Zygote cannot do as you claim, it cannot live ('exist') apart from the mother.

 

[fedor50]

I don't have a definition. I accept the one that medical science provides and don't try to weasel my way around it. An individual form of life that is capable of growing, metabolizing nutrients, and usually reproducing. At even our earliest stage there is no argument that we are alive, we are capable of growing and metabolizing nutrients. We are what we are.

We've been over this multiple times. It is not an individual because it is not capable of independent existence; it is not genetically unique because of twinning; it is not separate because it is a parasite; it is incomplete because it hasn't fully developed; it is not viable in the sense of surviving outside of the womb; and it is not capable of maintaining its life apart from the mother.

 

[fedor50]

Of course you consider it to be a right. You are as transparent as glass. Life must be so easy for sociopaths. Look at all the effort you have put into trying to deny that a fresh shiny new human being is something other than what it is so that you can convince yourself that you are not a sociopath for wanting it to be OK to dispose of it for any reason. If you didn't believe there was a right to live, then you could make the amoral sociopathic argument in good conscience....you didn't, therefore you believe in a right to life....as if belief were required...it is enumerated into our constitution.



Don't we, as a society, pay people to do exactly that? Don't firemen die all the time trying to save someone who is dying in a fire? You have a right to live but not at the expense of my life....your right to live does not trump my own right which is why I say clearly that if a child represents a genuine (as opposed to a statistical) threat to its mother's life then she has every right to self defense. Any genuine threat can be determined well before the threat becomes acute.



Now you have left semantics and are just being stupid and sarcastic. If that is the best you can do, then you may as well just hang it up...you have lost.



Of course it does, it is enumerated in black and white in our constitution and the concept of one individual's rights ending where they infringe on another's are quite clear. Your life isn't any more important than mine and there is no requirement that I forfeit my life so that you can keep yours....but by the same token, I certainly can not end your life because you are an inconvenience to mine. Are you really so obsessed and blinded by your need to feel that you are on the right side of this discussion that you are going to try to argue that the words don't exist in that document?

I know that you thought that you had an argument but like all other pro choices, your argument was shallow in the extreme...weasel words and semantics do not a rational, philosophical argument make. You have engaged in, what I would call, a poor to mediocre piece of sophistry that I doubt even convinced you, yourself if you are even moderately intelligent.... but an actual rational argument that we are ever something other than human beings?...or that it is OK to kill another human being who represents an inconvenience to you?....you haven't even come close.

Even if you believe that an actual right to life exists, that only applies to persons.

U.S. Code § 8 - “Person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual” as including born-alive infant

(a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.

(b) As used in this section, the term “born alive”, with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after such expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.

(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being “born alive” as defined in this section.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/1/8

As such by LAW, a zygote is not considered a person.

 

[fedor50]

I don't have a definition. I accept the one that medical science provides and don't try to weasel my way around it. An individual form of life that is capable of growing, metabolizing nutrients, and usually reproducing. At even our earliest stage there is no argument that we are alive, we are capable of growing and metabolizing nutrients. We are what we are.

Then explain to me how human egg cells are not also organisms according to you. They do react to stimuli, hardening the zona pellucida when a sperm enters. They do develop, from germ cells to oogonia to oocytes, etc. They are part of a system that maintains homeostasis. They can reproduce through fertilization or parthenogenesis.

In what way is a zygote an organism that a human egg cell isn't?

 

[palerider]

That a zygote is the beginning of human development does not mean that a zygote is a human being.

If it is a stage in human development, and metamorphosis is not one of the stages we go through, then what is it? It is as immature as a human being can be...that's all.

There are plenty of examples of this: cake mix is the beginning of a cake (but is not a cake yet), the bride's entrance is the beginning of a wedding (but is not the wedding itself), the '.' character is the beginning of this post (but the post was not a post until I hit 'send'), and so on.

Same old tired failed analogies that all pro choicers use. You gave me the impression that you had something new...you don't.

What is a zygote before it is an organism?

A zygote doesn't exist before it is an organism. It comes into being as an organism...as a human being at its most immature state.

a zygote is a totipotent stem cell then it is an embryo (a collection of pluripotent stem cells) then it is a foetus (a collection of increasingly differentiated cells). Eventually it will become an organism, but it will always remain a collection of cells.
.

All undeniably stages of human development. Human at the beginning...human at the end....never any other species...never any other sort of creature...never anything else.

 

[palerider]

All of that is true except for ONE thing: A zygote is not able to maintain homeostasis which is a fundamental criteria for life. When I talk about biological dependence, THAT is what I am talking about. Is the zygote capable of maintaining life without the biological interaction of the woman?

Sorry but there all sorts of organisms that live in extremely narrow sets of conditions and if those conditions change they can not survive...and therefore it is self evident that homeostasis is not a fundamental criteria of life...it is a criteria for highly adaptable life forms, but not a criteria for life itself.

The science dictionary states clearly that homeostasis is a tendency in an organism....not a requirement of being an organism.

Unsurprisingly, your argument is breaking down at every point.....because it is all semantics and straw men.

 

[palerider]

Premise 1: You claim a zygote is an individual human organism
Fact 1: A zygote cleaves and becomes multi-celled by asexual reproduction (mitosis)
Fact 2: A multi-celled zygote can be split in two and end up as two individual human organisms
Conclusion: individual human organisms are capable of natural asexual reproduction.

Either the facts are wrong, or your premise is.

You decide...

As I said for a very short period of time human beings are capable of asexual reproduction....so what. We gain and lose abilities throughout our long developmental cycle. That is the nature of development. The gain of, or loss of an ability does not make us more or less human, it is just how we develop.

Semantics...semantics...semantics...coupled with a fundamental ignorance, either deliberate or natural, of the nature of a biological organism.

 

[palerider]

I do not have time to continue to chase all these multiple posts you make on each of my responses...if your thoughts are that disorganized, then perhaps you should put some more thought into your argument before presenting it.

I am perfectly willing to have this discussion, but you are going to have to do your part and keep it concise....which is tough when your argument is no more than semantics....words and words and words wrapped around the truth in an attempt to conceal it.

The term human development describes our growth and maturation from the time of our conception till we die...we are what we are during all stages of our development...we never metamorphose into something else...we only become more and more mature. That is the hard cold basic fact...no amount of semantics, sophistry, mental masturbation, or cranial gymnastics can ever overcome that basic fact.

 

[fedor50]

I do not have time to continue to chase all these multiple posts you make on each of my responses...if your thoughts are that disorganized, then perhaps you should put some more thought into your argument before presenting it.

I am perfectly willing to have this discussion, but you are going to have to do your part and keep it concise....which is tough when your argument is no more than semantics....words and words and words wrapped around the truth in an attempt to conceal it.

The term human development describes our growth and maturation from the time of our conception till we die...we are what we are during all stages of our development...we never metamorphose into something else...we only become more and more mature. That is the hard cold basic fact...no amount of semantics, sophistry, mental masturbation, or cranial gymnastics can ever overcome that basic fact.

Hey Pale Rider, you have presented pretty good arguments that I am not prepared to argue against. That being said, I do have one more argument up my sleeve. The right to life only applies to persons.

U.S. Code § 8 - “Person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual” as including born-alive infant

(a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.

(b) As used in this section, the term “born alive”, with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after such expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.

(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being “born alive” as defined in this section.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/1/8

As such by LAW, a zygote is not considered a person.

 

[palerider]

Hey Pale Rider, you have presented pretty good arguments that I am not prepared to argue against. That being said, I do have one more argument up my sleeve. The right to life only applies to persons.

The problem with your argument as you presented it are two fold...first you have left science which you represented as the basis of your argument...second, all of the legalize you have provided is the result of language occurring after roe...if you get the legal code prior to roe you will see that according to the US government, a person was no more and no less than a human being...the court was very careful to call unborns anything alive, or human during the roe proceedings because any mention of either life, or the species they belonged to would have left them with no option other than to affirm the unborn's right to live. They played the same game you are playing....denying the truth for a political goal.

The rest is nothing more than an attempt to retroactively clean up one of the most profoundly corrupt and despicable decisions ever to come from the supreme court.

As such by LAW, a zygote is not considered a person.

And once again, your argument, for all the words and sources you have posted has been pointless....answer my earlier question...how many zygotes get aborted? Answer zero...your whole argument has been nothing more than a red herring not dealing with the abortion debate in any real way. Zygotes don't get aborted...even by the morning after pill. The unborn is much further along than the zygote stage by the time it takes up residence in the uterus where the morning after pill creates a hostile environment.

By the time the unborn reaches the uterus, where it is in danger, it is undeniably alive and by no stretch of the imagination a living organism...and undeniably human...and has a right to live so long as it isn't an imminent threat to someone else's life. Why not try the sociopath's argument for killing human beings based on their level of maturity?

 

[fedor50]

The problem with your argument as you presented it are two fold...first you have left science which you represented as the basis of your argument...second, all of the legalize you have provided is the result of language occurring after roe...if you get the legal code prior to roe you will see that according to the US government, a person was no more and no less than a human being...the court was very careful to call unborns anything alive, or human during the roe proceedings because any mention of either life, or the species they belonged to would have left them with no option other than to affirm the unborn's right to live. They played the same game you are playing....denying the truth for a political goal.

The rest is nothing more than an attempt to retroactively clean up one of the most profoundly corrupt and despicable decisions ever to come from the supreme court.

I never stopped arguing science. You never addressed my earlier question:

Explain to me how human egg cells are not also organisms according to you. They do react to stimuli, hardening the zona pellucida when a sperm enters. They do develop, from germ cells to oogonia to oocytes, etc. They are part of a system that maintains homeostasis. They can reproduce through fertilization or parthenogenesis.

In what way is a zygote an organism that a human egg cell isn't?

And once again, your argument, for all the words and sources you have posted has been pointless....answer my earlier question...how many zygotes get aborted? Answer zero...your whole argument has been nothing more than a red herring not dealing with the abortion debate in any real way. Zygotes don't get aborted...even by the morning after pill. The unborn is much further along than the zygote stage by the time it takes up residence in the uterus where the morning after pill creates a hostile environment.

By the time the unborn reaches the uterus, where it is in danger, it is undeniably alive and by no stretch of the imagination a living organism...and undeniably human...and has a right to live so long as it isn't an imminent threat to someone else's life. Why not try the sociopath's argument for killing human beings based on their level of maturity?

Hardly any zygotes ever get aborted but that isn't really the point. The argument that I have set out to prove is that a zygote is NOT an organism in the objective sense.

It is not an individual because it is not capable of independent existence; it is not genetically unique because of twinning; it is not separate but attached to the womans body via the placenta. A zygote is biologically linked to the woman, even though it has different DNA - just like a transplanted organ. And it is not capable of maintaining its life apart from the mother, therefore it cannot be a separate individual.