Physicians, Petri dishes, and Pregnancy
By Ruben Obregon
In response to the articles "Contraception
Deception" and "Medical
Dictionaries Prove Plan B Advocates
Wrong", many readers (including
physicians) defended the position that
fertilization isn't the start of
pregnancy. More often than not, they
responding with one or more of the
following arguments:
1. The definitions used by physicians
are different than the ones used by
nurses and other medical professionals.
2. An embryo must be implanted in the
uterus for a woman to be pregnant.
3. Petri dishes can't be pregnant;
therefore a woman isn't pregnant at
fertilization.
4. Pregnancy begins at implantation due
to the fact that is the earliest point
it can be detected.
Before addressing these individual
points, the word "pregnant" must be
examined.
DEFINITION OF "PREGNANT"
Just what exactly does this word
connotate? For quite some time now, the
word simply meant that a woman was
carrying her young inside her body.
To illustrate what the long standing
meaning of this word, I'll use the
entries contained in the 1828 and 1913
editions of Webster’s Revised Unabridged
Dictionary:
Pregnant: 1828 edition: Being with
young, as a female; breeding; teeming.
[1] 1913 edition: Being with young, as a
female; having conceived; great with
young; breeding; teeming; gravid;
preparing to bring forth. [2]
More recent definitions can be found
at:
Medical Definitions
Essentially, the historical
definition of pregnancy is that it is
the state of carrying young prior to
birth. There is nothing magical about
the Petri dish which has altered
scientific reality concerning this fact.
If a new offspring exists within a
woman, anywhere, she is pregnant –
regardless of the location of the tiny
human.
PHYSICIANS USE THE SAME
DEFINITIONS
Some claim the definitions used by
physicians are somehow different than
that used by nurses or other medical
professionals. Yet all of these
professions rely on the same
medical dictionaries regardless if
they are physicians, nurses, or
technical writers. Publishers do produce
medical dictionaries tailored to
specific specialties, but these versions
use the same definitions -- despite the
intended audience.
Concerning the practical aspects of
fertilization and implantation, just
what is a physician capable of
understanding that a nurse practitioner,
physician's assistant, or an educated
lay person isn't? Just what is this
mystery that only physicians are capable
of understanding?
(I suspect that this particular claim
is based largely upon arrogance and
denial...)
IMPLANTATION IN THE UTERUS IS NOT
REQUIRED
Some would argue, in the face of
science and medical fact, that pregnancy
doesn’t begin until implantation in the
womb. Yet ectopic pregnancies exist
outside of the womb, and are recognized
by the medical community at large as
pregnancy.
Ectopic pregnancies disprove the
claim that medical science insists that
pregnancy *must* take place in the womb.
A further objection is that
extra-uterine pregnancies have
*implanted* and therefore are considered
pregnancies. Yet, the word “ectopic”
only implies that the tiny human
implanted in the wrong place, not that
pregnancy didn't exist until
implantation. In fact, the first time
the word "etopic" was used to describe
pregnancy, it was simply used to
describe a pregnancy which was
extra-uterine and nothing more. [3]
PETRI DISHES CAN'T BE PREGNANT
Now it's time to address the Petri
dish and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).
The Petri dish is often erroneously
offered as proof that fertilization is
not the start of pregnancy. The line of
reasoning is this: A Petri dish holding
a new life can't be pregnant; therefore,
a woman is not pregnant at
fertilization.
Petri dishes, while capable of
holding newly created life, are not
capable of reproducing themselves, nor
do they carry their own offspring.
A Petri dish holding a tiny human is
no more pregnant than an incubator
holding a premature baby is. Machines,
glass, plastic are objects and not
beings. The word "pregnancy", in the
biological and medical sense, is
restricted to living beings.
A pregnancy which originates from
fertilization in a Petri dish (IVF)
skips the normal fertilization "phase".
This does not mean that implantation
marks the start of all pregnancies, it
only means that this particular method
of achieving pregnancy skips
fertilization inside of a woman. It's
the exception to the rule, not the rule
itself.
And when the little humans created
via IVF are transferred into a woman's
body, this condition meets the
definition of pregnancy (carrying young)
-- even though implantation may not have
yet taken place. Remember, despite the
claims of the IVF and contraception
advocates, the medical definition of
pregnancy does not require that
implantation occur.
Life created in a Petri dish only
proves that life can be created and
exist outside of a woman -- not that
women aren't pregnant at fertilization.
DETECTION DOES NOT DEFINE THE
START OF PREGNANCY
That brings us to the claim that the
earliest possible start of pregnancy is
when it can first be detected (with
accuracy): implantation.
Let's apply this claim to cancer. No
credible physician will tell a cancer
patient that they did not have cancer
prior to a positive diagnosis. Instead,
they say things like "we caught it
early" or "we caught it too late". But
they would never say "you never had
cancer until we could diagnose it." Yet,
when it comes to the state of pregnancy,
this is exactly what some OB/GYNs and
medical organizations are promoting. In
their twisted view, pregnancy only
starts at the earliest possible moment
of diagnosis -- implantation.
A diagnosis of pregnancy at
implantation is simply that – the
discovery of an existing but previously
un-diagnosable condition. A positive
diagnosis isn't the beginning of a
condition, nor does it cause a
condition, it’s merely the confirmation
or discovery of it. After all, pregnancy
tests do not cause pregnancy and cancer
tests do not cause cancer -- they only
confirm the presence or absence of these
conditions.
The earliest point at which pregnancy
can be reliably detected does not define
when pregnancy begins, it only indicates
the earliest point this pre-existing
condition can be detected.
CONCLUSION
To sum it up, Petri dishes can't be
pregnant, women are pregnant at
fertilization, pregnancy tests are
simply diagnostic tools for a
pre-existing condition, and "pregnancy"
in this context is restricted to
biological beings. It's sad that many
physicians, after extensive years of
education and doctorate degrees, can't
grasp these simple concepts.
FOOTNOTES
[1] 1828 edition of the Webster’s
Revised Unabridged Dictionary,
available online at
http://machaut.uchicago.edu/websters
[2] ibid.
[3] "Definition of Ectopic",
Medterms.com, "The term 'ectopic'
comes from the Greek 'ektopis' meaning 'displacement'
('ek', out of + 'topos', place = out of
place). The first person to use 'ectopic'
in a medical context was the English
obstetrician Robert Barnes (1817-1907)
who applied it to an extrauterine
pregnancy: an ectopic pregnancy."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ruben Obregon is the President and
co-founder of No Room for Contraception.
He has worked in the pro-family movement
for the past 16 years on issues ranging
from education to marriage.
