{"id":60785,"date":"2016-03-01T07:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T14:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=60785"},"modified":"2019-05-20T14:43:04","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T21:43:04","slug":"names-for-the-unborn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/names-for-the-unborn\/","title":{"rendered":"Names for the unborn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following on from yesterday’s post, recent discussions on Facebook have reminded me of how the abortion debate often turns around the question of language.<\/p>\n

A few months ago I had posted an article about abortion and one of my friends wrote this response:<\/p>\n

“You’re going to\u00a0have a hard time convincing someone zygote development at 4 weeks is a fetus… When we talk in terms of a 6 week fetus it’s probably closer to bundles of cells than it is to a fetus…”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

My friend’s response shows why it’s important to have a good grasp of biology when speaking\u00a0about the unborn. What do we mean when we use words like “zygote”, “embryo” and “fetus”?<\/p>\n

\"Development\"<\/p>\n

“Zygote”, “embryo” and “fetus” are all simply labels which describe the developmental stage of the human child, much like “infant”, “toddler” or “teenager”. A zygote is a diploid cell which is the result of fertilization of an egg by a sperm. After about twenty-four hours, cell division begins and we move from the zygote phase<\/strong> of development to the embryonic<\/strong>. After eight weeks, we move from the embryonic to the fetal<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Hopefully it’s now clear as to why I’d never try to convince someone that “zygote development at 4 weeks is a fetus”<\/em><\/span>…because it’s not! It would be as nonsensical as\u00a0talking about an\u00a0eight-year-old toddler or a twenty-year-old teenager.<\/p>\n

Developmental Cheat Sheet<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Zygote:<\/strong>\u00a0Human development within the first 24 hours<\/p>\n

Embryo:<\/strong> After 24 hours of life, when cell division has begun. It remains in this stage for the first eight weeks.<\/p>\n

Fetus:<\/strong> A development stage following eight weeks of life up until birth.<\/p>\n

Infant:\u00a0<\/strong>Up to twelve months after birth<\/p>\n

Toddler:<\/strong>\u00a01-3 years after birth<\/p>\n

Adolescent:<\/strong>\u00a0The time after birth when conversation is exchanged for incoherent grunts and parents are treated as a cross between an ATM and a taxi service.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Regardless of the name we use to describe someone’s age, all humans deserve to be protected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following on from yesterday’s post, recent discussions on Facebook have reminded me of how the abortion debate often turns around the question of language. A few months ago I had posted an article about abortion and one of my friends wrote this response: “You’re going to\u00a0have a hard time convincing someone zygote development at 4 weeks is a fetus… When<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[232,3636,1563,1560,2969,1559,1728,1601,3635,3634],"class_list":["post-60785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","tag-abortion","tag-biology","tag-development","tag-embryo","tag-featured","tag-fetus","tag-pro-choice","tag-pro-life","tag-terms","tag-zygote"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Development-1.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60785"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71415,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60785\/revisions\/71415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}