From the moment of fertilization until the day of birth, the extraordinary life of a fetus is chronicled in this awe-inspiring volume drawn from the latest in pre-natal research. "How Life Begins, taking advantage of the relatively recent advent of ultrasound technology and other imaging techniques, offers a month-by-month guide to what a developing baby is seeing, hearing, dreaming about, and how it is accomplishing the miracle of preparing to be human. Readers will discover: How a fetus's eye movements work to "boot up" the computer that is its brain How the hands and feet commit programmed suicide to create fingers and What role genetics plays in determining an infant's sexual identity and personality How the baby becomes the choreographer of the mother's labor, and the director of his or her own birth Interviews with leading researchers combine with truly remarkable photography to make "How Life Begins an unforgettable journey marking the passage from single cell to bright-eyed baby.

From the moment of fertilization until the day of birth, the extraordinary life of a fetus is chronicled in this awe-inspiring volume drawn from the latest in pre-natal research. "How Life Begins, taking advantage of the relatively recent advent of ultrasound technology and other imaging techniques, offers a month-by-month guide to what a developing baby is seeing, hearing, dreaming about, and how it is accomplishing the miracle of preparing to be human. Readers will discover: How a fetus's eye movements work to "boot up" the computer that is its brain How the hands and feet commit programmed suicide to create fingers and What role genetics plays in determining an infant's sexual identity and personality How the baby becomes the choreographer of the mother's labor, and the director of his or her own birth Interviews with leading researchers combine with truly remarkable photography to make "How Life Begins an unforgettable journey marking the passage from single cell to bright-eyed baby.

In contemporary discussions of abortion, both sides argue well-worn positions, particularly concerning the question, When does human life begin? Though often invoked by the Catholic Church for support, Thomas Aquinas in fact held that human life begins after conception, not at the moment of union. But his overall thinking on questions of how humans come into being, and cease to be, is more subtle than either side in this polarized debate imagines. Fabrizio Amerini—an internationally-renowned scholar of medieval philosophy—does justice to Aquinas’ views on these controversial issues. Some pro-life proponents hold that Aquinas’ position is simply due to faulty biological knowledge, and if he knew what we know today about embryology, he would agree that human life begins at conception. Others argue that nothing Aquinas could learn from modern biology would have changed his mind. Amerini follows the twists and turns of Aquinas’ thinking to reach a nuanced and detailed solution in the final chapters that will unsettle familiar assumptions and arguments. Systematically examining all the pertinent texts and placing each in historical context, Amerini provides an accurate reconstruction of Aquinas’ account of the beginning and end of human life and assesses its bioethical implications for today. This major contribution is available to an English-speaking audience through translation by Mark Henninger, himself a noted scholar of medieval philosophy.

Approach each day with joy, build positive expectations, and begin living your best life with this year of devotions designed to strengthen your faith and resolve. Bestselling author Joel Osteen writes, "When you get up in the morning, the first things you should do is set your mind in the right direction . . . and then go out anticipating good things." Now, for the first time, Pastor Osteen presents a tool to accomplish that goal. Based on his book, Your Best Life Now, he offers prescriptions for positive living in 365 daily messages. Each message is accompanied by a relevant scripture.

Scientists and philosophers have long struggled to answer the questions of when human life begins and when human life has inherent value. The phenomenon of identical (monozygotic) twinning presents a significant challenge to the view that human life and human personhood begin at conception. The fact that a single embryo can split to generate two (or more) genetically identical embryos seems to defy the notion that prior to splitting an embryo can be a single human individual. In Untangling Twinning, Maureen Condic looks at the questions raised by human twinning based on a unique synthesis of molecular developmental biology and Aristotelian philosophy. She begins with a brief historical analysis of the current scientific perspective on the embryo and proceeds to address the major philosophic and scientific concerns regarding human twinning and embryo fusion: Is the embryo one human or two (or even more)? Does the original embryo die, and if not, which of the twins is the original? Who are the parents of the twins? What do twins, chimeras, cloning, and asexual reproduction in humans mean? And what does the science of human embryology say about human ensoulment, human individuality, and human value? Condic's original approach makes a unique contribution to the discussion of human value and human individuality, and offers a clear, evidence-based resolution to questions raised by human twinning. The book is written for students and scholars of bioethics, scientists, theologians, and attorneys who are involved in questions surrounding the human embryo.

This book introduces readers to the many arguments and controversies concerning abortion. While it argues for ethical and legal positions on the issues, it focuses on how to think about the issues, not just what to think about them. It is an ideal resource to improve your understanding of what people think, why they think that and whether their (and your) arguments are good or bad, and why. It's ideal for classroom use, discussion groups, organizational learning, and personal reading. From the Preface To many people, abortion is an issue for which discussions and debates are frustrating and fruitless: it seems like no progress will ever be made towards any understanding, much less resolution or even compromise. Judgments like these, however, are premature because some basic techniques from critical thinking, such as carefully defining words and testing definitions, stating the full structure of arguments so each step of the reasoning can be examined, and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of different explanations can help us make progress towards these goals. When emotions run high, we sometimes need to step back and use a passion for calm, cool, critical thinking. This helps us better understand the positions and arguments of people who see things differently from us, as well as our own positions and arguments. And we can use critical thinking skills help to try to figure out which positions are best, in terms of being supported by good arguments: after all, we might have much to learn from other people, sometimes that our own views should change, for the better. Here we use basic critical thinking skills to argue that abortion is typically not morally wrong. We begin with less morally-controversial claims: adults, children and babies are wrong to kill and wrong to kill, fundamentally, because they, we, are conscious, aware and have feelings. We argue that since early fetuses entirely lack these characteristics, they are not inherently wrong to kill and so most abortions are not morally wrong, since most abortions are done early in pregnancy, before consciousness and feeling develop in the fetus. Furthermore, since the right to life is not the right to someone else’s body, fetuses might not have the right to the pregnant woman’s body—which she has the right to—and so she has the right to not allow the fetus use of her body. This further justifies abortion, at least until technology allows for the removal of fetuses to other wombs. Since morally permissible actions should be legal, abortions should be legal: it is an injustice to criminalize actions that are not wrong. In the course of arguing for these claims, we: 1. discuss how to best define abortion; 2. dismiss many common “question-begging” arguments that merely assume their conclusions, instead of giving genuine reasons for them; 3. refute some often-heard “everyday arguments” about abortion, on all sides; 4. explain why the most influential philosophical arguments against abortion are unsuccessful; 5. provide some positive arguments that at least early abortions are not wrong; 6. briefly discuss the ethics and legality of later abortions, and more. This essay is not a “how to win an argument” piece or a tract or any kind of apologetics. It is not designed to help anyone “win” debates: everybody “wins” on this issue when we calmly and respectfully engage arguments with care, charity, honesty and humility. This book is merely a reasoned, systematic introduction to the issues that we hope models these skills and virtues. Its discussion should not be taken as absolute “proof” of anything: much more needs to be understood and carefully discussed—always.