Researchers publishing this week in a British Medical Journal affiliate journal have coined a new term that will radically change how we talk about “contraception”. In the newly published article “Embracing Post-Fertilization Methods of Family Planning” [http://jfprhc.bmj.com/content/39/4/244.extract] the prominent pro-abortion authors encourage us to throw off the mindset that there is anything wrong with killing an embryo, even after implantation, even when it is clear that such embryocide is by all legal and medical definitions an abortion.
But, blurring definitions of medical terms is not new to pharmaceutical researchers longing to be free of the constraints of protecting human life. In order to allow a window of opportunity for drug development and embryo research, the term “conception” was given an official new definition. [See Gacek “Conceiving Pregnancy” at www.frc.org/…/conceiving–pregnancy-us-medical-dictionaries-and-their- definitions-of-conception-and-pregnancy ] Prior to the 1960’s, the word “conception” was understood to be a lay term for “fertilization” that is the union of the sperm cell and egg cell membranes to form a unique, new human organism called an “embryo”. It was also understood that the term “pregnancy” began with “conception”.
But, in the 1960’s, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology officially announced that the lay term “conception” now had a new medical definition: “conception= implantation”. Since implantation happens roughly 7 days after fertilization, this change in definition meant that “pregnancy” doesn’t begin until a week after fertilization, Drugs which killed an embryo after fertilization but before implantation could not technically be called “abortifacient,, since “abortion” is the termination of a “pregnancy”, and a “pregnancy” didn’t happen until “conception=implantation”. Never mind that the science of biology for over 200 years prior to that time disagreed. “Conception” was now a political and not a scientific term.
This change in the definition of the beginning of pregnancy allowed for an undefined status for the embryo from fertilization to implantation. So, researchers coined the term “fertilized egg”. There is no such thing scientifically as a “fertilized egg”. Once the sperm and egg membranes fuse, the sperm cell no longer exists. The egg cell no longer exists. What does exist is a new human organism called a “one-celled embryo, or “zygote”. This one celled embryo has all the characteristics of any other human organism, as has been well published by University of Utah professor and embryology researcher Dr. Maureen Condic.[http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/life-defining-the-beginning-by-the-end-24] But, the political significance of killing an “embryo” is much different than the political significance of killing a “fertilized egg”.
So, researchers uniformly began talking about the action of drugs on “fertilized eggs”, and the disruption of the reproductive cycle such that a “fertilized egg” can’t implant in the endometrial lining as an acceptable method of preventing a clinically recognized pregnancy at the end of a woman’s cycle. Thus the term “contraception” morphed in meaning from only the prevention of fertilization to include the prevention of implantation, which happens when the embryo is already a week old. This ambiguity in definitions allowed the public media to brush aside concerns about “contraceptives” such as Ella [Ella-One, Ulipristal], which is known to profoundly inhibit implantation [and also to kill implanted embryos].
But, with this new article just released, we are seeing the first attempt to “soften up” the public and the medical profession to the idea that even implantation is not a bright line. The proponents of “post-fertilization contraception” who authored this article maintain that the existence of the embryo whether before or after implantation is irrelevant to the “greater good” of reproductive choice, and that the medical profession needs to not hesitate in destroying embryos at whatever stage of development.
But the authors have over-reached. Many, if not most couples are profoundly concerned about what happens to the embryos that they procreate. Many, if not most couples would not use a method of family planning which involved the known destruction of their unborn children. It is the responsibility of pro-life physicians, especially obstetricians and gynecologists to provide couples with accurate information on the mechanisms of action of drugs known to cause embryonic death, such as Ella and RU-486, and whatever new “post fertilization” family planning method arises in the future. The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists [www.aaplog.org] will continue to speak for the protection of human life from fertilization until natural death. We ask our international medical colleagues to join our voice for life.
Donna J. Harrison, M.D. Executive Director and Director of Research and Public Policy
