General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: OOPS: McCarthy Accidentally Posts & Frantically Hides Extreme MAGA Agenda (But We Have Screenshots [View all]ShazzieB
(16,348 posts)I know of four:
Zygote: An ovum that has just been fertilized but hasn't yet subdivided into multiple cells.
Blastocyst: The ball of cells that forms when a zygote subdivides into multiple cells, about five to six days after a sperm fertilizes an egg. It implants in the uterine wall, eventually becoming the embryo and then the fetus.
Embryo: About 10 to 12 days after fertilization, the blastocyst develops into an embryo. It remains an embryo until about nine weeks after implantation, when it then becomes a fetus.
Fetus: The stage from about week nine until birth.
Note: The forced birthers like to talk about protecting the unborn beginning with "conception." They define "conception" from the moment of fertilization (the zygote stage). However, it's not possible to diagnose a pregnancy until implantation in the uterine wall has occurred, and it's believed that, in the normal course of events, between 1/3 and 1/2 of fertilized eggs never fully implant.
Imo, this means, even IF one buys into the notion of pre-birth "personhood" (a very, very big "if," it's ludicrous to extend such a status to every egg that gets fertilized. We know that there is no pregnancy until implantation, which means these people want to define "personhood" as beginning before there's an actual pregnancy!
This obsession with "personhood" beginning at the moment a sperm fertilizes an ovum is why the forced borthers want to outlaw all forms of birth control that they believe might possibly interfere with implantation in some way. This includes all hormone-based forms of birth control, which they insist (based on no scientific evidence whatsoever) prevent implantation.
For more on when pregnancy begins and the implications of how that is defined, see: https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2005/05/implications-defining-when-woman-pregnant