Pregnancy

[Angel*Star]

Yes, I caught that! I still stand that PREGNANCY begins at conception. My body starts working for the baby to implant. If it does not for some reason due to body malfunction, I was still pregnant, I just did not know it. I still say God loves that little one.

[princessgianna]

As some one has already posted, let's define the word "pregnant" from online Webster dictionary.

[quote]preg·nant 1 (prgnnt) KEY

ADJECTIVE:

1 Carrying developing offspring within the body.
2
a)Weighty or significant; full of meaning: a conversation occasionally punctuated by pregnant pauses.
b)Of great or potentially great import, implication, or moment: "It was a politically pregnant time in Poland" (New York).
3 Filled or fraught; replete: "This was, from the Party's point of view, both deplorable in itself and pregnant with danger for the future" (Robert Conquest).
4 Having a profusion of ideas; creative or inventive.
5 Producing results; fruitful: a pregnant decision.[/quote]

[quote]1 Carrying developing offspring within the body.[/quote]

If at conception , there is a child, then at conception the lady is pregnant.

Edited July 5, 2009 by princessgianna

[scardella]

I was talking with my brother-in-law over the weekend about it, and he gave me a more nuanced answer that struck me as a quite interesting answer:

He likened pregnancy to marriage. In marriage, once you give your vows, you are really and truly married. However, that marriage has not come to its fullness until it is consummated. (For example, before consummation, it is possible for the Church to dissolve the unconsummated marriage according to the Petrine (or is it Pauline?) principle.) In the same way, he stated, a woman is truly pregnant once the child is conceived. However, the fullness of pregnancy is not achieved until the little baby blastocyst is implanted into the waiting blanket of fertility that the woman's uterus has created, which forms the living bond between the mother and child.

On another note (particularly to Angel*Star):
Because the child's dignity is rooted in being made in the image and likeness of God, it is the child's existence alone that determines his right to life. That is, saying the mother is not pregnant yet has nothing to do with the understanding that the child has dignity and is loved by God. To tie that dignity to the mother carrying the child would be an injustice to the children conceived in IVF clinics. That conception is an injustice, no doubt, but they are made in God's image and likeness just like any other child.

[scardella]

Interesting article on Wikipedia:
[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginning_of_pregnancy_controversy"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginning_of_...ncy_controversy[/url]

[Nihil Obstat]

IVF is a good point. If an egg and sperm are united in a petri dish, nobody is pregnant, no matter who the gametes belong to.

[Archaeology cat]

I feel like giving a sarcastic answer that, since the 40 weeks is counted from the first day of the LMP, that pregnancy thus starts before conception.

scardella, I like the answer your BIL gave.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='scardella' post='1912530' date='Jul 6 2009, 10:00 AM']I was talking with my brother-in-law over the weekend about it, and he gave me a more nuanced answer that struck me as a quite interesting answer:

He likened pregnancy to marriage. In marriage, once you give your vows, you are really and truly married. However, that marriage has not come to its fullness until it is consummated. (For example, before consummation, it is possible for the Church to dissolve the unconsummated marriage according to the Petrine (or is it Pauline?) principle.) In the same way, he stated, a woman is truly pregnant once the child is conceived. However, the fullness of pregnancy is not achieved until the little baby blastocyst is implanted into the waiting blanket of fertility that the woman's uterus has created, which forms the living bond between the mother and child.[/quote]
I like that answer.

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1912820' date='Jul 6 2009, 05:10 PM']IVF is a good point. If an egg and sperm are united in a petri dish, nobody is pregnant, no matter who the gametes belong to.[/quote]
This is a good point. There is life (conception) but no pregnancy. And, if the embryo did not implant it would not be considered pregnancy, even if there had been conception.