Associated Press and Reuters are reporting the story of Noah, a boy who was conceived in a fertility clinic and was rescued as an embryo while he was frozen in a cannister of liquid nitrogen.
AP writes:
COVINGTON, La. - Sixteen months after being rescued as a frozen embryo from a hospital flooded by Hurricane Katrina, Noah Benton Markham entered the world Tuesday morning and was greeted by his cheering family.
Notice how the sentence structure suggests identity: Noah Benton Markham was that embryo. He wasn't a blob of tissue. Note that embryos in fertility clinics are frozen very early-- it has to be earlier than the blastocyst stage, because that's the stage of implantation. They would have to be younger than the 1-week stage of gestation.
But was that embryo an anonymous clump of cells? No.
Same thing with the Reuters story:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A baby boy who as a frozen embryo was saved from the flood spawned by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 has been born in a hospital in the New Orleans area and named for Noah, who safely navigated the biblical flood.
Same thing-- the boy WAS an embryo-- it's a stage of his development.
Denying that embryos are human beings is pure scientific and sociological blindness. It'd be more honest to simply admit they're discriminated against.
