I know abortion is a very contentious
issue and that's an understatement as I
see a lot of people when they're arguing
online in different places when they're
arguing about abortion is they basically
end up getting hung up on the argument
of whether or not a fetus is a human
being or not and the science is fairly
clear on what the answer is
Is a fetus a human being? Before arguing abortion.
hi i'm matt dom and this is jack wagon
so I wanted to cover the issue of
whether or not an unborn child is a
child whether it's a human being whether
a zygote and embryo and a fetus whether
or not those are human beings are not
now I'm not talking about abortion I'm
not talking about the morality of
abortion it's just that when abortion
comes up this seems to be one of those
topics that people talk about and it
seems like a lot of people make some
pretty basic biological errors when
they're talking about this subject and
so I think without any opinion on
whether was about abortion about whether
it should be okay or not first you have
to establish this fact whether or not it
is a human being that's in the womb I
mean once you establish if it is then
you can always have that argument about
abortion afterwards so I'm a biomedical
engineer and so I know a decent amount
about biology but when we're starting
this argument I want to start this in a
way that you would if you're approaching
an engineering problem I want to come at
this from the boundary conditions and a
boundary condition is just simply an
area that's pretty easy to understand
where anybody can walk into the room and
they can see that okay this is fairly
obvious now the thing is what I've seen
is that you'll have people who claim to
be doctors and I'm not saying you know
they they for all intents and purposes
are doctors right but the problem is
they say well I'm a doctor and this is
my opinion on this subject whether or
not you know a zygote an embryo or a
fetus is a human being and the problem
is they don't really give much evidence
backing that up they just simply say I'm
a medical professional and therefore you
ought to listen to me the only reason
saying I'm a medical professional holds
any weight is because we just assume
that that person knows a certain amount
of information that the public comment
would not know and so what I want to do
in this video is give you that
information that they're going to be
working with so when you have a doctor
who says you know I'm a doctor and a
fetus is not a human being or you have
somebody says I'm a doctor and a fetus
is a human being you don't just have to
take their word at it because they're a
doctor and they agree with you you can
actually analyze
why that opinion isn't if you were in
the room with them or you had the
opportunity to ask them you could
actually ask them why they think that
and so looking at it a boundary
condition would be am i a human being
and I think that is as silly as that
sounds it's a question I ask because I
think everybody can agree on it and we
can move from that point of agreement
into more murky territory where people
do disagree the answer to that question
is yes I obviously am a human being now
the question is what makes me a human
being from a biological perspective
there's a couple different things number
one I'm a human being because I have a
certain DNA I have a certain genotype I
am of the species homo sapien sapien and
that's just the fancy latin way of
saying that i'm of the particular
species that human beings are the other
important thing is that I'm also a
living creature I mean I could just if I
just had a corpse and it used to be a
person and they had passed away then
they would still have the DNA and it
still would have been from that species
but it's not a living creature anymore
now what exactly does it mean to be a
living creature in biology there's
they've argued about this for a very
long time I mean literally for thousands
of years what exactly makes a living
creature now one thing that you see
that's in common amongst pretty much all
of the people who argue is there's about
seven different things that qualify
something is living now obviously
sometimes their name slightly
differently sometimes they're presented
a little bit differently depending on
what biology textbook you use but when
you look at like the underpinnings of
biology and the history of biology what
you see is pretty evidently is that
there's this pattern of these seven key
factors emerging so the first one of
those is organization and specifically
organization on a cellular level and
this is super critical that you an
object or that that we consider as a
creature that's living and it is
organized as a bunch of cells those
cells then require a certain condition
to be met for them to
because of their cell wall and the way
that they operate and so the next
property is called homeostasis in
homeostasis is simply the ability of a
creature to regulate its internal
structure its internal things like
solidity like acidity or even internal
temperature these are super critical on
a cellular level and it's super critical
on a even larger level being able to
regulate your internal system to be able
to do that that requires energy and so
you need to have a metabolism which is
the third item to be able to have a
metabolism that means that you can take
nutrients and you can process those
nutrients into energy that can be used
for different functions now so depending
on what kind of living creature it is
sometimes they have to go out and
procure that and other creatures can
just exist in an environment that is
called nutrient-rich the next one then
is the reaction to stimuli when a
creature is in a particular setting and
they're stimulated whether or not they
don't like the condition or whether
they're stimulated by the presence of
nutrients that they can use in their
metabolism they then react to that so in
while maintaining homeostasis while
maintaining some kind of internal
regularity they might sense the
temperature outside is changing and so
react accordingly whether that is you
know in human beings if you're cold you
can just move towards a heat source or
you can start moving around and
generating more heat based on increasing
your metabolism the next thing after
that is then growth once you store up a
certain amount of nutrients from
metabolism you can then start growing
beyond just simply maintaining
homeostasis you can grow and you see
that all the time that things grow from
you know infancy and then they grow into
adulthood and eventually they get to
adulthood and eventually they'll end up
dying and passing away but before you
actually die and while you're living
that growth is super critical because at
some point creatures are always growing
whether they're growing new tissues or
whether the
actually growing in physical size so the
seventh property is reproduction and
basically it's just the ability to
produce other creatures that have the
same genetic makeup as the original now
in human beings and other creatures you
produce offspring that don't have exact
the exact same genetic makeup they have
some genes here and there that are
different but essentially they still
transfer on DNA and you produce another
creature that's of the same species and
that goes to this last and final seventh
point and that is the heredity of traits
so once you have that offspring you pass
on your DNA to the offspring and when
you pass on the DNA to the offspring
generally the offspring is going to
inherit certain traits that the parent
had so when I have certain
characteristics like having green eyes
or brown hair I'm getting those
characteristics from my father and my
mother so I think those are the two
criteria that are required for something
to be considered a human being it has to
be a living creature and it also has to
be of the species Homo Sapien sapien and
that's determined by the DNA of the
thing now some people make the
additional requirement that the thing
has to also be conscious and they say
that the thing has to possess
consciousness the thing is most
biologists reject this and the reason
for that is because it leads to some
absurd consequences if you look at it
and you say well I have to be conscious
to be a human being when I'm sleeping it
means I'm no longer a human being and
that leads to some fairly interesting
things because why should me being a
person be entirely dependent on whether
or not I hit my snoozle button or not it
doesn't make any sense that we would say
that you have to be conscious because
there are many points in your life where
you are not going to be conscious and
that does not reduce the fact that you
are a human being and you don't simply
toggle from being a human being to not
being human being to back to being a
human being again and so I think if we
look at it and we go from the boundary
condition and we say that okay these two
conditions are what determines you as
we can move from there we can say well
am i a human being that sounds like a
silly question but the thing is I think
it's something that's fairly obvious to
everybody watching the video yes I am a
human being if we then go to a 9 year
old is a 9 year old a human being well
you could argue that the 9 year old
doesn't meet two of those requirements
for being a living creature the ability
to reproduce and the ability to pass on
hereditary traits the objection to that
by biologists would just simply be well
you know that 9 year old is not an adult
of that species yet when that child
becomes an adult of that species they
will have the ability to reproduce they
have the biological code for it and they
have the biological code that they can
transfer on and so the argument
essentially is that if left to their own
devices with sufficient nutrients and
ability to grow into adulthood they will
eventually have that ability to
reproduce and so you see that the
nine-year-old still meets the
requirement for being a living creature
and also is of the species homo sapien
sapien now if we extend this back to a
newborn infant we can see that it's the
same thing not much has changed between
the 9 year old and the newborn infant
other than size the newborn infant is
still living creature who has not
reached biological adulthood but it is
still a living creature and it also is a
member of the species homo sapien sapien
now if we look at say a fetus which is
in still in the womb and we look at a
fetus that is say 30 seconds away from
being born not much has changed between
the newborn infant and the fetus other
than simply the biological designation
the name that we give it in in biology
and also its position it was in the womb
and it no longer is in the womb and so
if we look at that it seems like at that
point at least immediately before birth
a fetus is still a human being because
it still meets the requirements of being
a living creature and it's still the
species Homo sapiens sapiens it still
has the DNA
of a person or of a human being or of
you know a creature that is Homo Sapien
sapien it still has that DNA and it's
still living now I guess the interesting
thing then becomes well what if we push
it back it seems like that at least
should be pretty uncontroversial given
how we've defined what a human being is
given what biology thinks about that if
we push that back say 220 weeks if that
in 20 weeks into the pregnancy if the
fetus is born at that point the fetus
can still survive outside of the womb
and if we look at it the fetus at that
point still is a living creature and
they still are a member of the species
homo sapien sapien and if they're
provided shelter and care and nutrients
they will eventually grow into a newborn
infant they will grow into a nine year
old and then they'll grow into a
biological adult if we extend that back
even further even prior to viability
which is the point where the fetus could
be born and still survive outside the
womb if we look at a fetus that is much
earlier in development we see that that
fetus if still meets our criteria for
being a human being it's still living
creature and it still has the DNA and is
still a member of the species Homo
Sapien sapien and I know this is getting
repetitive but I think it is useful to
go to these different steps and to look
at this right now the question is when
it's an embryo that's an embryo from
three days up until it's eight weeks
before that point in the gestational
process is an embryo a human being and
it seems like according to the way that
we've looked at it so far it is because
it still is a living creature it's still
if given proper nutrition and shelter
and you let it grow it's going to grow
into a fetus into a newborn infant into
a nine year old and into a biological
adult and it's still a member of the
species homo sapien sapien now if you go
a couple days just after conception we
see what is called a zygote in biology
and a zygote is just simply that
immediate process
after conception until a couple days
afterwards and it doesn't really look
like a person and that I think trips
people up a lot where they say well it
doesn't really look like a person how
could this be a human being
the thing is it still has the DNA and is
still a member of the species of Homo
Sapien sapien and additionally it still
checks all of the qualifications for
being a living creature it still has all
of those different properties and with
the contingent being that it does not
reproduce or could not reproduce at the
moment and other creatures of the same
species until later in life if if given
ample nutrition and given sufficient
shelter it will develop into an embryo
into a fetus into an infant into a 9
year old into a biological adult and so
it seems like based on those criteria
that the zygote also is a human being
and now here you might get people who
say well wait a second if we're going to
do this then you also have to extend it
back further to oversight and to a sperm
and they say well you know an egg and a
sperm are what would also qualify and
the thing is that's not actually the
case if you look at it an oversight and
a sperm are neither living creatures nor
are they of the species homo sapien
sapien and the reason for this is
because a sperm doesn't have a lot of
those other checkboxes checked for it to
be considered a living creature it
doesn't have a metabolism it basically
just runs on a certain store of energy
that it has and once that that is
depleted it simply stops working it can
adapt to certain stimuli and certain
things like that but it also really
doesn't maintain homeostasis it
basically just kind of goes and does its
thing runs out of energy and then it's
done same thing with an oversight and
oversight I mean doesn't really do
anything it it basically sits there it
does have a certain amount of built up
energy that it can expend but at a
certain point even in the presence of
nutrients it ends up
dying after a certain period of time
additionally if you look at it they're
also not of the species Homo Sapien
sapien they're kind of in this weird
middle ground right because if you look
at it both of them only have half of the
different chromosomes they each of them
only has 23 half chromosomes and it
doesn't have a complete genome those
chromosomes can't do anything without
the other half and so what you end up
seeing is that if left in with plenty of
shelter with plenty of nutrients those
things simply just stop working at a
certain point if they don't end up
coming together in conception they
basically just stop working and so
there's a stark difference between a
zygote after conception and an oversight
and a sperm prior to conception one
meets the requirements for being a human
being and the other two do not and so
then really quickly notice that there
were no religious arguments made because
this is something that gets thrown
around a lot basically people say well
you're religious and so that's why
you're making an argument and the fact
is there are plenty of people who argue
on both sides that are secular and
religion really doesn't have a lot to do
with any of the arguments the other
thing that you notice is if you actually
know much about the different major
religions is if you're Jewish then it
historically Jews thought it was
somewhere between 30 and 60 days after
conception that you know a fetus ends up
becoming a person or a human being if
you're Muslim depending on what kind of
you know branch of Islam that you follow
it's anywhere from 0 to 30 to 80 to 90
280 days after conception and then if
you're Christian a lot of different
Christian denominations actually thought
it was 30 or 60 days after conception
when you know a fetus became a human
being it turns out though as science has
just learned more about biology and
given us more facts it turns out
scientists have started thinking that it
you know a fetus becomes a person at a
sooner and sooner age and to the point
where an embryo
comes of a human being to the point
where a zygote becomes a human being and
all the way up until the point of
conception because as we've had more and
more biological information at our
disposal we've been able to make better
and better informed decisions about
whether or not that thing should be
considered a human being and as it turns
out given all of the information it
turns out science would show you that it
is a human being from conception that a
zygote is a human being that an embryo
is a human being that a fetus is a human
being that an infant is a human being
that a child is a human being and all of
those things are just simply the same
just one step along a certain process
from conception into full biological
adulthood so anyways I hope that if
people are having an argument about
abortion and things like that they can
have a more reasonable and well-informed
argument based off of this information
and you can start with a scientific
foundation for what you're talking about
so thank you for watching i'm matt dom
with jackwagon
