I recently posted this on the abortion debate forum, but I thought it could be useful here, as well. This contains as many anti-abortion arguments as I could think of, and my answers/rebuttals to them. It's long, sorry!
Most people who are anti-abortion imagine if not quite a full term baby, at least a very far along, well developed fetus being ripped apart limb by limb during an abortion. This is due mainly from falsified pictures of so-called abortions that they have been subjected to. The truth is a lot different.
These are the words of a doctor who works at an abortion clinic, regarding a pro-life video about abortion he had just seen:
"A nurse who once worked for me was here last week with two friends. After the video was over, one said to her, "I suppose you are accustomed to seeing this." She, appropriately appalled by what she had just seen, replied, "I have never seen anything like that in my life!" Well, I've never seen anything like that either, and I see the face of abortion almost every working day."
A skilled filmmaker can easily fool people who want to see a straw man as the real thing. The pictures shown in that video, all supposed to be of abortuses taken from a dumpster behind a Houston abortion clinic, were a montage of near-term stillbirths and very late second trimester abortions, with, perhaps, one set of fetal parts from a 12 to 14 weeks fetus, and a few fetal parts. The pictures were taken using a variety of techniques and magnifications from varying distances in order to achieve maximum emotional impact. In fact, in the words of the video's maker, it was made expressly to "horrify" and to "outrage" Pro-Life partisans, and to "inflict excruciating psychic anguish...(on women who have had abortions and on)...their friends, families and the fathers of their children." And all this is presented as being the result of common abortion practice. (After our seminar that night I showed those in attendance the reality. I said, "I brought several specimens from abortions done in my clinic in the past two days. As you view these specimens, I would like you to keep in mind the images that we were all subjected to last Tuesday night.")
All of the intact fetuses presented in the video, Hard Truth, were late second and third trimester and near term stillborn infants or spontaneously aborted fetuses, rather than the result of a safe legal abortion.
In Pro-Life rhetoric, there is no distinction made between a fertalized egg or an embryo and a baby; between a fetus and a child or adult. And indeed, at forty weeks, there is little difference between the brain of a normal fetus and that of a baby only a few days older. But there is a greater functional difference between the brain of an eighteen week fetus and a six month old baby than there is between the brain of a baby chicken and a ten year old child. Between a six week embryo and a forty week fetus there is a greater functional nervous system difference than between an oyster and a full-term infant!
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/6/18845/81261
As you can see, a real abortion looks nothing like what we have been led to believe. Here are some interesting facts:
Abortions Involve Embryos Not Fetuses
"For a long time, nearly 90 percent of abortions in the U.S. have taken place in the first trimester," she said. "But in recent years, women having an abortion have been able to do so earlier and earlier in the first trimester. Currently, more than 6 in 10 abortions occur within the first eight weeks of pregnancy, and almost 3 in 10 take place at six weeks or earlier."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-abortion_17jan17,1,6923007.story?track=rss
Here is what the embryo actually looks like in the majority of abortions. Please note the actual size in the upper left corner of the picture: click on the word "source":
SIZE: 9.0 - 11.0 mm
TIME PERIOD: 37 - 42 days post-ovulation
http://www.visembryo.com/baby/16.html
Once the truth about what an actual abortion entails is realized, usually the person against abortion will posit a new objection. That is, regardless of how small an embryo is, it is still a human life, and should be protected exactly as we protect out born children. They will even go so far as to claim that even scientists agree that a new person is formed when fertilization takes place. But that is not true. Here are some examples of science saying something else entirely:
When Does Life Begin?
Sperm and egg are the beginning of life and should be protected as vigorously as an embryo
http://www.alysion.org/truelife/truelife.html
A very respected doctor was asked if we should value the embryo more than we value the sperm and egg. He said no, they are equal:
DR. OPITZ: As a matter of fact, there's a continuum even into the germ cells (sperm and eggs) which ought to be treated with exactly the same respect as the fertilized ovum, as the implanting ovum, as the developing embryo, simply because germ cells, for example, are extraordinarily vulnerable to teratogens, viruses, x-radiation, chemicals, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera which in the long run, being damaged in any one of these wanton and random kind of race may harm humanity infinitely more than the loss of a trisomic baby.
http://www.bioethics.gov/transcripts/jan03/session1.html
One of the reasons people say the fertilized egg is as valuable as a born person is that the fertilized egg has all of the DNA, 46 chromosomes, that it needs to make a complete human being. When asked why they don't value a sperm or egg, they tell us that sperm and eggs only have half of the genetic material (23 chromosomes) needed. But that is not true.
Egg and Sperm Have 46 Chromosomes Each
"In human embryology, "diploid" means the cell contains "46" chromosomes; "haploid" means the cell contains "23" chromosomes. In fact, immature germ line cells (both female and male) are diploid (not haploid) until the last period of their growth and development. Both must pass through two stages of meiosis (meiosis 1 and meiosis 2) before the number of chromosomes in the cell is halved. Spermatogonia are diploid until their last weeks of maturity; and primary oocytes remain diploid until and unless they are fertilized by a sperm (otherwise, they die as diploid). Amazingly, in maturing oocytes, meiosis 1 and meiosis 2 can take up to 50 years and, again, they finally become haploid only if they are fertilized. This can be verified in any human embryology text book."
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_118erroneous101.html
Here is another example of a scientific site stating that the first step in making a human being is NOT fertilization, but before that, when the sperm and eggs are made:
"[P]roducing a whole new organism requires sexual reproduction, at least for most multicellular organisms. In the first step, specialized cells called gametes—eggs and sperm—are created through a process called meiosis."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/About/primer/genetics_cell.html
Even nature does not think embryos are as valuable as born people. The vast majority (up to 80%) of fertilized eggs and embryos die before they are born.
This has nothing to do with abortion, birth control, or any other reason. This happens in every fertile, sexually active woman:
80% embryo loss
"PROF. SANDEL: [W]hat percent of fertilized eggs fail to implant or are otherwise lost?
DR. OPITZ: The answer to your first question is that it is enormous. Estimates range all the way from 60 percent to 80 percent of the very earliest stages, cleavage stages, for example, that are lost."
http://www.bioethics.gov/transcripts/jan03/session1.html
In fact, the numbers of embryos lost are so huge, they make abortion pale in comparison.
Natural procreation causes more embryo loss than abortion:
"The rate of natural embryo loss after conception in unassisted human reproduction is high, some suggest as high as 80 percent,101 and the fact of natural loss is fairly well known, so that persons who engage in or permit the pursuit of conception through unassisted reproduction are knowingly bringing about the conception of many embryos that will die.
Moreover, they suggest, the high rate of natural embryo loss should bring into question the views of those who believe that early-stage human embryos merit equal treatment with human children and adults. If so many die in the natural course of things, how do we not treat natural procreation as a great fountain of tragedy and carnage? They argue that the natural rate of embryo loss, and our response to it, should teach us something about the limited significance of human embryos in the earliest stages."
http://www.bioethics.gov/background/monitor_stem_cell.html
"We now know that for every successful pregnancy which results in a live birth, many, perhaps as many as five, early embryos will be lost or 'miscarry' (although these are not perhaps miscarriages' as the term is normally used, because this sort of very early embryo loss is almost always entirely unnoticed).
How are we to think of the decision to have a child in the light of these facts? One obvious and inescapable conclusion is that God and/or nature has ordained that 'spare' embryos be produced for almost every pregnancy, and that most of these will have to die in order that a sibling embryo can come to birth. Thus the sacrifice of embryos seems to be an inescapable and inevitable part of the process of procreation. .**"
http://richarddawkins.net/article,157,Collateral-Damage-1-Embryos-and-Stem-Cell-Research,Richard-Dawkins
I had to add a piece that would go in the section discussing natural embryo loss, specifically about how just trying to conceive a child through sexual intercourse causes embryonic death:
If you truly value each embryo as much as each born child, then you would have to be against anyone ever having another child, because more embryos die than are ever born, so the bottom line is, you kill more unborn children than ever get born, just in the process of trying to have a born child.
If your first reaction is that, well, that loss is really just part of nature, and so it's not that bad, then I ask you this:
If it is ok that up to 9 embryos die for every child born, would it be ok if some of your born children died while we were trying to conceive another?
OF COURSE NOT, RIGHT? But why? Their deaths would just be part of nature, exactly equivalent to the embryos that die so that one can be born, right?
The answer is, no one really values an embryo as much as they do a born child, no matter what they think.
In fact, In Vitro Fertilization Kills Less Embryos Than Sexual Intercourse:
"[D]efenders of in vitro fertilization point out that embryo loss in assisted reproduction is less frequent than in natural pregnancy, in which more than half of all fertilized eggs either fail to implant or are otherwise lost. This fact highlights a further difficulty with the view that equates embryos and persons. If natural procreation entails the loss of some embryos for every successful birth, perhaps we should worry less about the loss of embryos that occurs in in vitro fertilization and stem-cell research. Those who view embryos as persons might reply that high infant mortality would not justify infanticide. But the way we respond to the natural loss of embryos suggests that we do not regard this event as the moral or religious equivalent of the death of infants. Even those religious traditions that are the most solicitous of nascent human life do not mandate the same burial rituals and mourning rites for the loss of an embryo as for the death of a child. Moreover, if the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions; alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research combined."
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/3/207
Large numbers of embryos, in other words, die as collateral damage in any case, side effects of normal, natural attempts to get pregnant.
http://machineslikeus.com/articles/CollateralDamage1.ht
"If the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions: Alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research combined," declared Michael Sandel, a Harvard University government professor, also a member of the President's Council on Bioethics.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/34948.html
Let us start with the free and completely unfettered liberty to establish a pregnancy by sexual reproduction without any "medical" assistance.
What are people and societies who accept this free and unfettered liberty committing themselves to? What has a God who has ordained natural procreation committed herself to?
We now know that for every successful pregnancy that results in a live birth many, perhaps as many as five early embryos will be lost or "miscarry" (although these are not perhaps "miscarriages" as the term is normally used, because this sort of very early embryo loss is almost always entirely unnoticed). Many of these embryos will be lost because of genetic abnormalities but some would have been viable. How are we to think of the decision to attempt to have a child in the light of these facts? One obvious and inescapable conclusion is that God and/or nature has ordained that "spare" embryos be produced for almost every pregnancy, and that most of these will have to die in order that a sibling embryo can come to birth. Thus the sacrifice of embryos seems to be an inescapable and inevitable part of the process of procreation.
http://newhumanist.org.uk/443
In vitro fertilization, IVF, is a wonderful technique whereby couples that cannot conceive normally are helped to achieve their dream. The woman is stimulated by hormone injections to super-ovulate. As many as a dozen eggs are harvested from her ovaries under general anaesthetic. An attempt is made to fertilize all these eggs with her husband’s sperm, in a dish. Of those that are fertilized, two, or occasionally three, are chosen for insertion into the uterus. The remainder are either flushed down the drain, or used for research, or frozen for future possible use. Of the two or three that are implanted, the expectation is that no more than one will survive. Sometimes twins are born and very occasionally triplets. But doctors do not implant three conceptuses in the hope of making triplets. Quite the contrary. In the unlikely event that all three implant successfully and develop, normal practice is to kill at least one of them. A surplus is provided in the hope that one will survive. IVF doctors, in other words, do what nature (or God if that is how your mind works) does anyway: they budget extra embryos which are destined to die as collateral damage in the course of bringing one of their siblings to term.
http://machineslikeus.com/articles/CollateralDamage1.html
Sexual Intercourse While Trying to Conceive Causes More Embryo Loss Than Abortion:
If you truly value each embryo as much as each born child, then you would have to be against anyone ever having another child, because more embryos die than are ever born, so the bottom line is, you kill more unborn children than ever get born, just in the process of trying to have a born child.
If your first reaction is that, well, that loss is really just part of nature, and so it's not that bad, then I ask you this:
If it is ok that up to 9 embryos die for every child born, would it be ok if some of your born children died while you were trying to conceive another?
OF COURSE NOT, RIGHT? But why? Their deaths would just be part of nature, exactly equivalent to the embryos that die so that one can be born, right?
The answer is, no one really values an embryo as much as they do a born child, no matter what they think.
"We now know that for every successful pregnancy which results in a live birth, many, perhaps as many as five, early embryos will be lost or 'miscarry' (although these are not perhaps miscarriages' as the term is normally used, because this sort of very early embryo loss is almost always entirely unnoticed).
How are we to think of the decision to have a child in the light of these facts? One obvious and inescapable conclusion is that God and/or nature has ordained that 'spare' embryos be produced for almost every pregnancy, and that most of these will have to die in order that a sibling embryo can come to birth. Thus the sacrifice of embryos seems to be an inescapable and inevitable part of the process of procreation. .**"
Large numbers of embryos, in other words, die as collateral damage in any case, side effects of normal, natural attempts to get pregnant. source
In fact, In Vitro Fertilization Kills Less Embryos Than Sexual Intercourse:
"[D]efenders of in vitro fertilization point out that embryo loss in assisted reproduction is less frequent than in natural pregnancy, in which more than half of all fertilized eggs either fail to implant or are otherwise lost. This fact highlights a further difficulty with the view that equates embryos and persons. If natural procreation entails the loss of some embryos for every successful birth, perhaps we should worry less about the loss of embryos that occurs in in vitro fertilization and stem-cell research. Those who view embryos as persons might reply that high infant mortality would not justify infanticide. But the way we respond to the natural loss of embryos suggests that we do not regard this event as the moral or religious equivalent of the death of infants. Even those religious traditions that are the most solicitous of nascent human life do not mandate the same burial rituals and mourning rites for the loss of an embryo as for the death of a child. Moreover, if the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions; alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research combined."
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/3/207
Both natural procreation and ART involve a process in which embryos, additional to those
that will actually become children, are created only to die.
It is debatable whether natural reproduction imposes any risk at all on any embryo. The risk
of dying (let us assume it is 80%) is inherent to the embryo’s nature. It is not as if the same
embryo could have been created without that chance of dying
http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:IQhcY1sfGLwJ:www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/Resources/Cloning_StemCell/embryo_research.pdf+john+harris+embryo+loss+part+of+procreation&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
What are some of the potentially relevant moral features of natural reproduction?
1. Natural reproduction involves a very high rate of embryo loss. We have assumed that four
out of five embryos perish during attempts at natural reproduction.1
2. These deaths are an unavoidable part of natural reproduction. Some of these are
genetically abnormal and could never survive. But some will be genetically normal and could
have survived, if uterine or other conditions were different. However, the deaths of these
embryos are unavoidable given the current state of knowledge.
3. There is an alternative to natural reproduction: childlessness through contraception or
abstinence.
4. Natural reproduction is voluntary. The precise fraction of embryos that
perish during natural reproduction is not crucial. Even if 99% of embryo perished during
natural reproduction, embryo rightists and other defenders of natural reproduction would go
on regardless. What is crucial is that the practice necessarily involves some embryos dying
and some surviving.
http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:J_zZsHzaJhMJ:www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/Resources/Cloning_StemCell/creation_lottery_harris_savulescu.pdf+john+harris+embryo+loss+part+of+procreation&cd=13&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
embryo loss researched:
In my own lab in Helena where I did all of the autopsies on all pregnancy losses for 18 years, the rate of chromosome abnormalities was a little bit higher [than 80%].
http://www.bioethics.gov/transcripts/jan03/session1.html
NFP Kills More Embryos Than Abortion
Those who worry about early embryonic death should be as concerned about the rhythm method as they are about other forms of contraception, like Plan B, and about embryonic stem cell research, he asserts.Natural family planning is the more widely used, contemporary term for the broad range of techniques aimed at helping women to predict fertile days so they can avoid having sex then. These techniques may rely on cues like the presence of cervical mucus or small changes in body temperature, which occur
around the time of ovulation. Dr. Bovens notes that some couples choose this approach because they worry that other forms of contraception, like birth control pills, may act in part by preventing an early embryo from implanting in the womb.
However, if a fertilized egg produced on the fringe of the fertile window is less likely to develop and implant, he writes, "the same logic that turned pro-lifers away from morning after pills, I.U.D.'s and pill usage should make them nervous about the rhythm method."
Dr. Bovens also contends that opponents of abortion ought to favor barrier methods, like condoms, because these are likely to cause fewer embryonic deaths. "Even a policy of practicing condom usage and having an abortion in case of failure would cause less embryonic deaths than the rhythm method," he writes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/health/13rhyt.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
If it is callous to use a technique that makes embryonic death likely by making the uterine wall inhospitable to implantation, then clearly it is callous to use a technique that makes embryonic death likely by organising one’s sex life so that conceived ova lack resilience and will face a uterine wall that is inhospitable to implantation.
http://civilliberty.about.com/b/2006/08/28/the-rhythm-method-as-abortifacient-a-response-to-john-b-shea.htm
Plan B Causes Less Embryo Loss than not Using it
Nevertheless, even if in some cases ECPs work by inhibiting subsequent implantation of a fertilized egg, these probably would be outnumbered by other cases in which fertilization of an egg that would not have subsequently implanted naturally is prevented because ECPs inhibited ovulation. Therefore, on balance, ECPs probably reduce the incidence of fertilized eggs that do not subsequently implant.
http://ec.princeton.edu/questions/ec-review.pdf
Another favorite area of attack is birth control. Many pro-life people are against birth control, and they claim that many forms of contraception actually cause abortions. They claim that some bc works by making the uterus inhospitable to fertilized eggs, so these eggs cannot implant and die instead. But this is not true.
Hormonal birth control does not cause embryos not to implant:
Ovulation causes theuterine lining to thicken. Women on the pill do not ovulate, so their uterine linings are thinner, which is why some anti-birth control people say the fertilized eggs won't be able to implant, because the lining isn't thick enough. What they didn't mention in that in order for a woman to have a fertilized egg in the first place, while she is on the pill, ovulation must take place. Ovulation thickens the lining. In other words, if a woman ovulates while on the pill, her uterine lining will thicken and the fertilized egg will implant.
The following is from a pro-life physicians' website. It debunks the birth control as abortifacient theory:
"In the extensive literature we have reviewed, no writer has addressed this very significant question: In a menstrual cycle on the "pill" in which ovulation occurs, what is the histology of the endometrium six days after ovulation (the time of implantation)? Certainly the hormone milieu and endometrial histology will be different from a menstrual cycle on the "pill" in which ovulation does not occur (i.e.,the typical atrophic, or "hostile," endometrium).
The FSH-LH-estradiol surge the day before ovulation, and the resulting corpus luteum formation, with its ten to twentyfold estradiol and progesterone output, should produce significant changes in the endometrium. In a normal menstrual cycle, on the day of ovulation the uterine lining (proliferative endometrium) is not receptive to implantation. Seven days of follicle and corpus luteum hormone output transform it to "receptive." The same follicle and corpus luteum hormone output, when ovulation occurs in a "pill" cycle, should have a similar salutary effect on the pill-primed endometrium. It is highly probable that the so-called "hostile to implantation" endometrium-- heralded (without proof) from the beginning by the "pill" producing companies, echoed (without investigation) by 2 generations of scientific writers, and now adopted (as a scientific fact) by some sincere prolife advocates-- simply does not exist six days after ovulation in a pill cycle. What is currently known about the endometrial response to corpus luteum hormones suggests this conclusion. Research regarding endometrial histology on the sixth day after escape ovulation in "on pill" cycles would add useful information to the
current discussion.
Zanatu (51) reports on two women with prolonged infertility (8 to 14 months) after Depo-Provera injections: "We successfully induced ovulation with the sequential adminstration of clomiphene citrate and human chorionic gonadotropin, and pregnancy immediately followed." This suggests that once ovulation occurred, the burst of natural estrogen and progesterone from the corpus luteum simply override even the most potent hormone
contraceptive, producing a receptive endometrium, and resulting in a normal implantation and ongoing pregnancy."
Conclusion
Given the above, there is no evidence that shows that the endometrial changes produced by COCs contribute to failure of implantation of conceptions,
The following questions should be addressed by pro life physicians (who won't prescribe the pill because they claim it is an abortifacient)
1) Is it appropriate to implicate a medication as an abortive agent without the data to support such a claim? To do so creates needless hostility and division among physicians and patients who genuinely respect life from the moment of conception.
2) Where do we draw the line in informed consent for responsible disclosure of known medical risks vs. a theoretical risk which is not substantiated by current scientific knowledge?"
http://www.aaplog.org/decook.htm
As to how that lie got started:
"Consensus comes from a surprising source. "The post-fertilization effect was purely a speculation that became truth by repetition," says Joe DeCook, MD, a retired OB/GYN and vice president of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. "In our group the feelings are split. We say
it should be each doctor's own decision, because there is no proof."
http://www.prevention.com/cda/article/the-post-fertilization-effect-br-fact-or-fiction/98d672e50d803110VgnVCM10000013281eac____/health/healthy.living.centers/ob.gn.health/
Another interesting thing about this misconception is that there is something that actually does cause fertilized eggs to die, and that is breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding is an Abortifacient
"Trussell said he supports doctors who say women need to know it's possible that emergency contraception may affect embryo implantation. But that's true for nearly all methods of contraception, he added - including breast-feeding.
Breast-feeding, which can have a contraceptive effect up to six months after the birth of a child, also causes changes in the uterine lining. In that respect, it carries the same possibility of interfering with implantation."
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:YZHfcK6-QKYJ:dailywashing.blogspot.com/2005/07/breastfeeding-as-abortifacient.html+breastfeeding+abortifacient&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us&client=firefox-a
"Breastfeeding causes more embryo loss than hormonal birth control."
http://www.epm.org/articles/BreastfedAbortions.html
Read this slowly. I wrote this as carefully and simply as I could.
Please feel free to ask questions after you've digested it.
1. In a non-pregnant woman, hormones from the pituitary gland, which are regulated by the hypothalamus, cause the ovarian follicle (which holds the egg) to develope and mature so it can be released and either get fertilized or be washed away in a period.
The follicle secretes estrogen and then actually ruptures in order to release the egg.
The ruptured follicle is called the corpus luteum, and it secretes progesterone, along with the estrogen I just mentioned.
The progesterone is what make the lining of the uterus/womb thicken so a fertilized egg can implant in it.
(THIS IS CALLED THE LUTEAL PHASE)
If no egg implants, this thickened lining is flushed out of the woman and it what makes a woman's period. It happens every month if no pregnancy occurs.
This lining of the uterus/womb is the important part when you read things that say "implantation failure" etc. So remember this part of how it's made each month.
How does breastfeeding screw this up?
2. When a baby suckles the nipple, inhibitory nerve impulses go to the mother's hypothalamus, which responds by inhibiting the amount of the hormones produced by the pituitary gland.
Remember this part?
"1. In a non-pregnant woman, hormones from the pituitary gland, which are regulated by the hypothalamus, cause the ovarian follicle (which holds the egg) to develope and mature so it can be released (this is called OVULATION) and either get fertilized or be washed away in a period."
It inhibits these hormones, so that OVULATION does not occur. A follicle does not ripen and mature and no egg is released.
Now fertilization of an egg cannot occur, because there is NO EGG.
Because no follicle ruptures, no egg is released, there is no estrogen and because no corpus luteum forms from the ruptured follicle, no progesterone is secreted, so no thickening of the lining of the uterus/womb occurs.
This is why there is no period, because there is nothing to fluch out.
Now as you can probably figure, a baby isn't a machine and doesn't suckle with the exact same strength and frequency all of the time. It only takes a little less suckling to change the entire cascade of events I just outined.
Specifically what causes eggs to be released and fertilized, but no period and no thickened lining of the uterus (and no implantation), is called
LUTEAL PHASE DEFECT.
The less the baby suckles, the less the hypothalamus gets that inhibitory impulse. When this confusion happens, the hypothalamus no longer inhibits the pituitary gland's production of hormones.
However, because of the irregularity of the impulse, there is enough of the hormone produced to to allow the follicle to release an egg, but not enough for the corpus luteum to form after the follicle ruptures.
Because of this there is not enough progesterone produced to allow the uterine lining to thicken up and allow a fertilized egg to implant.
Do during this luteal phase defect 100% of embryos would fail to implant, because there is no uterine lining.
For more information, read here:
What is the Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM)
http://www.fhi.org/training/en/modules/LAM/s1pg4.htm
and
Physiology of Lactational Amenorrhea – Mechanism of Action
http://www.fhi.org/training/en/modules/LAM/s1pg6.htm
breastfeeding32,33,34,35—may prevent pregnancy by delaying or inhibiting ovulation, inhibiting fertilization, or inhibiting implantation of a fertilized egg in the endometrium.
http://ec.princeton.edu/questions/MOA.pdf
Smoking has adverse effects on many aspects of reproductive health
There is conclusive evidence that smoking causes cervical cancer, placental complications, preterm delivery, infertility and shortened gestation
There is conclusive evidence that smoking reduces the risk of pre-eclampsia and of endometrial cancer
There is substantial evidence that smoking causes perinatal death, ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous abortion, and early menopause
There is evidence to suggest that smoking causes oral clefts
For most conditions, the risks increase with the amount smoked
Smoking cessation has an important role in the prevention of the adverse effects of smoking on women’s health
Passive smoking may increase the risks of delayed conception, spontaneous abortion, low birth-weight, premature birth and perinatal death, but the evidence is limited
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...nk&cd=19&gl=us
Health providers may express concern that an intensively breastfeeding woman can get pregnant before the return of first menses. However, there are a number of reasons why pregnancy is not likely, especially during the early postpartum period.
Researchers have discovered that the likelihood of the early return of ovulation and/or menses is very low in postpartum women who breastfeed intensively. However, some women who do breastfeed intensively may have their menses return and/or ovulate during the first months postpartum. And, in some of these cases, ovulation may precede menses.
However, research has also shown that the luteal phase of these initial cycles is often defective. A defective luteal phase is characterized by progesterone production that is not sufficient to prepare the uterus and sustain a pregnancy. Studies show that less than two percent of women who breastfeed intensively during the first several months postpartum experience an adequate luteal phase that results in pregnancy.
http://www.fhi.org/training/en/modules/LAM/s1pg11.htm
LPD is a failure of the uterine lining to be in the right phase at the right time.
http://www.inciid.org/printpage.php?...tility101&id=7
Finally, the last resort is always religious. The Bible says not to homicide, so abortion is a sin. But the Bible doesn't mention abortion., It does state plainly, however, that an embryo or fetus is NOT the equivalent of a born person:
"THERE ARE ONLY TWO passages in the Bible that speak directly to the issue of abortion, and both indicate unequivocally that abortion is not homicide:
* In Ex. 21:22-25, God tells us what to do if a man who is brawling knocks against a pregnant woman. If the woman dies, the principle of "life for life" is invoked and the man responsible for her death must be killed. If she lives but has a miscarriage, then the death of the fetus is to be compensated for by the payment of a fine, as demanded by the woman?s husband.
Thus has God revealed the status of the unborn fetus: it is not an independent, full-fledged human life, whose destruction amounts to homicide. It is a thing owned by the woman?s husband-a thing whose loss, like that of any other thing, may be compensated for with money.
* In Num. 5:11-31, God commands a husband to get an abortion for his wife if he suspects she has been impregnated by another man. A priest is to make her drink a potion and tell her, "If any man other than your husband has had intercourse with you, may the LORD make an example of you . . . by
bringing upon you miscarriage and untimely birth."
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1043401
When does life begin according to the Bible? At BIRTH:
What constitutes a human being in the biblical definition?
The classic recognition of what represents a human being is the biblical teaching concerning the creation of Adam. At first, the Book of Genesis simply states that Adam was formed to look like a human being and then God breathed into his body the breath of air (the spirit).
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
• Genesis 2:7
Until the breath of air entered the body of Adam, he was not a living soul. If anything, he was a dead soul, even if he was a living fetus. A soul only becomes a soul when the breath (the air) comes into the lungs.
There is a second point that shows this biblical teaching. In all legal matters dealing with the length of life of all human beings, it is their day of birth (or the year in which they first exited the womb) that gives them a legal existence. Thus, for a man to be able to go to war he had to be twenty years of age, or a priest to commence his official duties had to be thirty years of age. These ages for legal purposes were always reckoned from birth, not from conception. The reason for this is plain. No one could be sure in all cases just when conception took place, and even if one knew the exact moment of conception, for legal purposes one had to wait to be born to enter human society.
http://www.askelm.com/doctrine/d050201.htm
