Evidently, as we now know, there is no "moment of conception." The ovum is just as alive before it is fertilized as it is after, and who could deny that sperm are alive and behave purposefully? Does not the ripe, gravid ovum, coursing its way down the fallopian tube, actively emitting chemical signals in the hope of attracting sperm, have a potential for becoming human? Does not the sperm, in their multitudes, swimming vigorously by the hour in their quest to impregnate an ovum, also have a potential to become human?
The destiny of each depends upon the other, but that does not lessen their potential for becoming a human being. Each carries half of the instructions for making a unique human being. Each are genetically unique beings and when the two become one, we begin our development as multicellular organisms. But our true birth came earlier in the process of gametogenesis when a mature egg emerged from its mature follicle, and when sperm emerged from their seminiferous tubules to await their turn--their chance for continued life, in the epididymis before completing their maturation en utero. The unfertilized ovum requires a sperm to unite with if it is to continue its life, but then the conceptus requires a womb to realize its potential for life and so on to the infant who needs love and care to survive. Dependence on a precondition does not eliminate potential nor the right to life.
http://www.alysion.org/truelife/truelife.h
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