Actually I think you have misunderstood me. Please don't recount the entire biology again ChoiceOne. I am not taking issue with it. I'll take your word that it is accurate, if not in fact, then in intent. I don't disagree.
But I am not trying to say the unborn child has a life of it's own in complete separation from the woman. I am saying it is a unique human person. Not a separate and self sustaining person. It's body is not part of the woman's body (I am not saying it shares nothing with the woman, it obviously does. It's DNA is that of a unique human being, regardless of stage of growth. It is such from the start. That is the scientific differentiation between the child person and the woman person.
The courts do not recognize the person-hood of the child. I understand that. That is why I am here posting my opinions. I am developing a discussion that we hope some day will sway the courts to recognize the child.
This is the American process.
And I'm trying to say that because it doesn't have a life of its own in complete separation from the woman's life, it is not a person, even though it may have unique DNA and be human. Because it is biologically connected to the physiology of the woman, I can't draw a boundary around it and say, this is separate and is "a" human.
In the case of most conjoined twins, I can say that two distinct heads, each with a capacity for sustaining the body without the help of the other, means that each has an equal claim on that body and each deserves to be called a person. But in the case of a host twin and a parasitic twin completely contained within the host, the host can sustain the body and the parasitic twin can't, but rather is sustained by the host. Nobody objects when parasitic twins are removed from host twins, because parasitic twins are not persons.
To me, if the organisms are not completely separate, then there has to be proof that each one can live separately from the other for there to be two humans, not to say human beings. I'd say the same for cows, pigs, sheep, horses, elephants, mice, etc.: a murine embryo is not a mouse.
DNA is not the only criterion for species, let alone membership in a species: genotype and phenotype or morphology are both considered. A human embryo has an incomplete morphology that does not qualify it for being "a" human in my book, but only a human embryo. A fetus has gone through organogenesis, but an embryo hasn't. A viable fetus has gone through sufficient organ development that it could be sustained if removed. However, it has not had sufficient brain development to exhibit a distinctively human EEG. So for me, even a fetus is only in the process of becoming a human.
If it can be removed and sustained by something other than the woman's body, I can see why some claim it is "a" human even though it hasn't been removed, but before that? The woman's body hasn't finished constructing its body yet, which is why it has to be biologically attached to her.
What I'm saying is that DNA by itself is not a sufficient criterion for a human. It is a detailed outline or plan for making one, but the human doesn't come from just the plan, it comes from the actual making in pregnancy.
Sexual differentiation doesn't begin to develop until at least the seventh week. Hormonal conditions in the woman's uterus can actually result in a genetic male developing female sex organs or a genetic female developing male sex organs by the ninth or tenth weeks, though it is rare for the genetic and phenotypic sex to be fully opposed. When babies are born, it is not typical to find out what sex they are by doing a DNA test. Visual identification is used, and it is on that basis that they are claimed to be male or female and raised as boys or girls. Intersex people, in whom genotype and phenotype do not match, cannot all that easily be given a phenotype to match their genotype. That is one example of the significance of morphology.
Identical twin embryos have DNA so alike that, if the woman grows bodies for them and gives birth to them and they grow up, despite the genetic copy errors that occur in each body by the age of 30, the DNA of one of them from a crime scene could be forensically identify the other as a criminal. But those twins would each have unique fingerprints. Even as fetuses, after sufficient development, around the 17th week, their fingerprints would distinguish them clearly. I take this comparison as objective evidence of the significance of morphology.
That one cannot be human without human DNA is not the same as saying that human DNA is sufficient for being "a" human, let alone "a" human being, because one has to have a body with differentiated organs, etc., to exist outside the woman's body. And you do not have to have unique DNA to be unique, because having a sufficiently developed body can provide more conclusive evidence of uniqueness than forensic identification of DNA.
