Semantics Don’t Change Truth: The social motivations behind new definitions

Semantics Don’t Change Truth: The social motivations behind new definitions - Answers in Genesis: The move to redefine conception started in 1959 when Dr. Bent Boving at a Planned Parenthood symposium pointed out “the social advantage of [implantation preventatives] being considered to prevent conception rather than to destroy an established pregnancy.”

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists followed Boving’s advice in 1965 by adopting this definition: “conception is the implantation of an ovum.” Since fertilization cannot be detected until the time of implantation — when the physical connection to the mother’s body allows a hormone from the developing placenta to enter the mother’s bloodstream — the reasoning was that the beginning of pregnancy could be redefined to the time when we can medically detect it. This reasoning is tantamount to asking whether a man alone on a desert island really exists if no one knows he’s there. Such reasoning amounts to philosophical meandering, not science.