Hearts beat because cardiac muscle cells have the ability to rhythmically self-contract, without outside interference, as long as they have nutrients. I’ve had the heart of a very dead frog in my hand and it was beating. The brain only controls heartbeat rhythm, not the actual beating, so a bunch of cardiac cells rhythmically contracting is not indicative of any more life than any other non-beating cell, even if it seems emotionally relevant.
Epistaxis
I think a gynecologist would be mighty surprised if the ultrasound on an 18th-day embryo showed a six-month-old in clothes, like that picture. Here is what it should look like. Notice the lack of a beating heart.
Polly
“How come when it’s a fetus, it’s an abortion, but when it’s an egg, it’s an omelet?”
The eggs we use in omelets aren’t fertilized. So, the comparison, and hence the joke, breaks down somewhat. It’s still funny on a rhetorical level if little things like fertilization aren’t important to you.
Gabriel
Is this real? Or is it photoshoped?
absent sway
I’m lovin’ it!
SmilingAtheist
The billboards are hysterical! It reminded me of George Carlin immediately. Too funny! As for the abortion issue, it’s quite simple, women naturally abort fertilized fetuses, shall we get over the abortion issue now?
