You’ve probably seen this type of poster/billboard coming from the pro-life movement:
PZ Myers says that information may be true — the “non-functional primordia of those organs” exist at 28 days — but the picture is misleading. If they wanted to be accurate, the poster would look more like this:
All of their billboards are like this, listing a known developmental landmark, the earlier the better, and showing a picture of a post-natal infant as if that has any relevance. It’s an attempt to make an emotional tie to developmental events. It works with a lot of people, too, the people who are ignorant of reality — and of course, these ads do nothing to educate them.
His piece on how an embryo is not a person is a terrific read.
