Sources for “Deconstructing Three Pro-Choice Myths”

Today Oregon Right to Life is hosting the “Together We Advocate” Conference, the largest pro-life conference in the Pacific northwest. Monica Snyder, SPL co-leader, will be giving a slightly updated version of her presentation “Deconstructing Three Pro-Choice Myths,” including where those myths come from and the research that undermines the myths’ claims. Here are the sources used to create the presentation.

• “When Does Life Begin? It’s Not So Simple.”
  Elissa Strauss, Slate, 4/4/2017
• “Republicans Need to Be Countered on False Claims About
  Embryos,” Scott F. Gilbert, Huffington Post, 9/23/2015
• “Bill Nye: Can We Stop Telling Women What to Do With Their Bodies?”
  Big Think, 9/22/2015
• “Marco Rubio demanded people look at the science on
  abortion. So we did.” Philip Bump, The Washington Post,
  5/15/2014
• “When Does a Human Life Begin? 17 Timepoints,”
  Ricki Lewis, DNA Science Blog, 10/3/2013

• Scott Gilbert,
  Developmental Biology, 11^th Edition. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer
  Associates, 2016: “Fertilization accomplishes two separate ends: sex (the
  combining of genes derived from two parents) and reproduction (the
  generation of a new organism).”
• T.W. Sadler,
  Langman’s Medical Embryology, 10th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott
  Williams & Wilkins, 2006:”Development begins with fertilization,
  the process by which the male gamete, the sperm, and the female gamete,
  the oocyte, unite to give rise to a zygote.”
• Erich
  Blechschmidt, Brian Freeman, The Ontogenetic Basis of Human Anatomy: The
  Biodynamic Approach to Development from Conception to Adulthood, North
  Atlantic Books, June 2004: “We talk of human development not because
  a jumble of cells, which is perhaps initially atypical, gradually turns
  more and more into a human, but rather because the human being develops
  from a uniquely human cell. There is no state in human development prior
  to which one could claim that a being exists with not-yet-human
  individuality. On the basis of anatomical studies, we know today that no
  developmental phase exists that constitutes a transition from the
  not-yet-human to the human.” & “In short, a fertilized egg
  (conceptus) is already a human being.”
• Keith L. Moore,
  The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition.
  Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003: “Human development begins at
  fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm
  (spermatozoon development) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to
  form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent
  cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” And
  “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an
  embryo).”
• Scott Gilbert,
  Developmental Biology, 6th Edition. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates,
  2001:“When we consider a dog, for instance, we usually picture an adult.
  But the dog is a “dog” from the moment of fertilization of a dog egg by a
  dog sperm. It remains a dog even as a senescent dying hound. Therefore,
  the dog is actually the entire life cycle of the animal, from
  fertilization through death.”
• Ronan R.
  O’Rahilly and Fabiola Müller, Human Embryology & Teratology, 3rd
  Edition, New York: Wiley-Liss, 2001: “Although life is a continuous
  process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary
  circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when
  the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the
  oocyte.”
• Ida G. Dox, B.
  John Melloni, Gilbert Eisner, The HarperCollins Illustrated Medical
  Dictionary, 2001: “An Embryo is an organism in the earliest stages of
  development.”
• Human
  Embryology, William J Larsen, 3rd Edition, 2001: “In this text, we begin
  our description of the developing human with the formation and
  differentiation of the male and female sex cells or gametes, which will
  unite at fertilization to initiate the embryonic development of a new
  individual.”
• William J.
  Larsen, Essentials of Human Embryology. New York: Churchill Livingstone,
  1998: “Human embryos begin development following the fusion of
  definitive male and female gametes during fertilization… This moment of
  zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic
  development.”
• Bruce M.
  Carlson, Patten’s Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York:
  McGraw-Hill, 1996: “Almost all higher animals start their lives from
  a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)… The time of fertilization
  represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the
  individual.”
• Keith L. Moore
  and T.V.N. Persaud. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth
  Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993:
  “Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr.
  zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The
  common expression ‘fertilized ovum’ refers to the zygote.”
• Clark Edward
  Corliss, Patten’s Human Embryology: Elements of Clinical Development. New
  York: McGraw Hill, 1976. “It is the penetration of the ovum by a
  spermatozoan and resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to
  the union that constitutes the culmination of the process of fertilization
  and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual.”
• E.L. Potter and
  J.M. Craig, Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant, 3rd edition. Chicago:
  Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975: “Every time a sperm cell and ovum
  unite a new being is created which is alive and will continue to live
  unless its death is brought about by some specific condition.”
• J.P. Greenhill
  and E.A. Friedman, Biological Principles and Modern Practice of
  Obstetrics. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1974: “The term conception
  refers to the union of the male and female pronuclear elements of
  procreation from which a new living being develops. It is synonymous with
  the terms fecundation, impregnation, and fertilization.”
• Leslie Brainerd
  Arey, Developmental Anatomy, 7^th Edition. Philadelphia: Saunders,
  1974: “The formation, maturation and meeting of a male and female sex cell
  are all preliminary to their actual union into a combined cell, or zygote,
  which definitely marks the beginning of a new individual. The penetration
  of the ovum by the spermatozoon, and the coming together and pooling of
  their respective nuclei, constitutes the process of fertilization.”

“Biologists’ Consensus on ‘When Life Begins’,” Steven Andrew Jacobs, Social Science Research Network, July 25 2018