A Fetus Is...

[Hauldren Collider]

What species is it then?

Please learn what meiosis is. Sperm only has 23 chromosomes. Hence, not strictly "human". It's not particularly useful to assign a "species" to it, since it is a reproductive cell.

You're basically asking the same question as "what species is an unfertilized chicken egg?" It's not a chicken, it hasn't been fertilized.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Please put in terms that we can understand.

Mommy and Daddy have a special cuddle...

[giblets]

Please learn what meiosis is. Sperm only has 23 chromosomes. Hence, not strictly "human". It's not particularly useful to assign a "species" to it, since it is a reproductive cell.

You're basically asking the same question as "what species is an unfertilized chicken egg?" It's not a chicken, it hasn't been fertilized.

You're not human if you have the wrong number of chromosomes? So you wouldn't object to killing people with, say, Trisomy 21? You Nazi.

[Provost Harrison]

...for life, not just for Christmas.

[Hauldren Collider]

I don't pretend to be a biology expert. I ****ing hated biology. The only good thing about that whole class was the gel electrophoresis* lab, even though nobody fully understood it. But for god's sake gribbler, are you going to make me explain the difference between trisomy and gametes?

One has only half the genome and cannot replicate, the other simply has a mutation.

*this sounds complicated and sophisticated but I swear you basically just play with expensive jello and pipettes

[giblets]

Well, you claimed sperm is unhuman because it doesn't have the right number of chromosomes. So I took your logic to its logical conclusion. Sorry if you don't have the intellectual honesty to accept the ramifications of your own assertions.

Now, do I think someone with Trisomy 21 is identical to a human sperm cell in every possible way? No, but they are similar in a manner that is relevant to this discussion. Their DNA isn't the same as mine, but they're still human.

[loinburger]

You will not find a single reputable reference that defines the embryo or fetus as a distinct organism than that of the child that the embryo/fetus may eventually develop into - rather, the embryo/fetus is the child that it will may eventually develop into. Example 1. Example 2. Example 3. Example 4. Likewise a gamete is a human cell but is not a human being for much the same reason that a red blood cell is a human cell but is not a human being. Example. You may call the embryo/fetus a parasitic organism if you like, but it is a human parasitic organism - it is a human organism at the start of its life cycle. The gametes are not human organisms, they are human cells. Humans with trisonomy are humans with a mutation/birth defect because they are organisms; if you could mutate a sperm that could survive on its own then you'd have a sperm that was also an organism (and then we could debate whether or not it was a human organism), so good luck with that, but until you do so gametes are not distinct organisms any more than red blood cells are distinct organisms.

[Provost Harrison]

I don't pretend to be a biology expert. I ****ing hated biology. The only good thing about that whole class was the gel electrophoresis* lab, even though nobody fully understood it. But for god's sake gribbler, are you going to make me explain the difference between trisomy and gametes?

One has only half the genome and cannot replicate, the other simply has a mutation.

*this sounds complicated and sophisticated but I swear you basically just play with expensive jello and pipettes

It's really quite simple. I used to do a lot of SDS PAGE back at university.

[Hauldren Collider]

It was pretty fun, actually. It was one of the only real labs we did in biology. It sounds really impressive, but I was surprised to find out that paternity tests and DNA comparisons are such a simple process. The point of the exercise was analyzing the differentiated DNA but the only part anyone cared about was making the agarose gel

[giblets]

You will not find a single reputable reference that defines the embryo or fetus as a distinct organism than that of the child that the embryo/fetus may eventually develop into - rather, the embryo/fetus is the child that it will may eventually develop into. Example 1. Example 2. Example 3. Example 4. Likewise a gamete is a human cell but is not a human being for much the same reason that a red blood cell is a human cell but is not a human being. Example. You may call the embryo/fetus a parasitic organism if you like, but it is a human parasitic organism - it is a human organism at the start of its life cycle. The gametes are not human organisms, they are human cells. Humans with trisonomy are humans with a mutation/birth defect because they are organisms; if you could mutate a sperm that could survive on its own then you'd have a sperm that was also an organism (and then we could debate whether or not it was a human organism), so good luck with that, but until you do so gametes are not distinct organisms any more than red blood cells are distinct organisms.

That made a lot more sense than the crap HC posted about chromosome number

[loinburger]

It's true that gametes (sperm and ova) are missing a bunch of chromosomes since that's the nature of meiosis, but their missing chromosomes are not the reason that they're not human beings - they're not human beings because they're not viable. If the missing chromosomes were the only reason they weren't human beings then white blood cells would be human beings (since they have all of the necessary chromosomes), and that would be silly.

[giblets]

HC seems to have implied that I wasn't aware of the fact that sperm cells have one set of chromosomes. What a twit.

[Al B. Sure!]

gribbler is such an *******

[giblets]

What is Al posting in this thread and why is it so much more important than finding a job?

[loinburger]

He doesn't need a job, he's joining the Marines in nine months