Why ‘Roe’ Will Go but NOT Because of Kavanaugh

By Dianne Irving, PhD

There has been an intense effort in the past weeks to stir up the pro-abortion lobbies to blame the appointment of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court for an eventual refutation and rejection of Roe v. Wade et al. Given that Justice Kavanaugh is a political “conservative,” he is, more relevantly, a judicial “conservative” (i.e., he would decide any case according to the principles in our Constitution, and not on the basis of his private political opinions). And he and the other justices would need to acknowledge the long-known objective scientific facts of human embryology that Roe refused to acknowledge. It will be because of those long-known accurate scientific facts that Roe will be overturned, not because of any mere political position held by any of the Supreme Court justices.

Incredibly, while Roe was being decided, the Court refused to acknowledge those long-known objective scientific facts of human embryology—when all they would have had to do is go to the library and look them up! Indeed, the Carnegie Stages of Human Embryonic Development have been posted in libraries across the country and the world since 1942! However, the Court not only refused to acknowledge those scientific facts, they also refused to allow certified human embryologists to testify before them (indeed, human embryologist C. Ward Kischer and other human embryologists wrote to them several times offering to testify). Clearly, medical physicians, philosophers, and theologians should not be considered “experts” in the field of human embryology! So why would those involved in the Roe decision not want to know about those long-acknowledged scientific facts of human embryology?

Those long-known and internationally acknowledged relevant and critical objective scientific facts that will overturn Roe v. Wade et al. include . . . Irving, “Caution Again: Need to Use Newer URL’s for Carnegie Stages for Issues Concerning the Early Human Embryo” (Jan. 1, 2015).

The Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development were instituted in 1942 by the National Museum of Health and Medicine’s Developmental Anatomy Center—not new! They are based on internationally acclaimed research going back to the 1880s (Wilhelm His’ 3-volume tome Human Embryology) and have been consistently updated since 1942 to the present by the international nomenclature committee on human embryology consisting of 20-23 PhDs in human embryology from around the world (FIPAT, go to page 10, see first two footnotes at bottom of the page). Note that FIPAT not only acknowledges the Carnegie Stages, but also rejects the fake term “pre-embryo” as unscientific and misleading. (Can’t get more objective than that!)

The Carnegie Stages of Human Embryonic Development cover 23 stages, from the beginning of the biological development of the early human embryo and throughout the embryonic period (i.e., through the end of 8 weeks of development). (“Stages Table” gives extensive details for each Stage.) Both sexual reproduction (fertilization, fusion of sperm and oocyte) and examples of a-sexual reproduction (no fertilization, but rather splitting or separation of totipotent cells used, e.g., Stages 2-5) are fully documented.

Carnegie Stage 1 can be found HERE.

As documented in Carnegie Stage 1a, the new human being/human organism, begins to exist at “first contact” of the male sperm with the female oocyte (“egg”) at the beginning of the process of fertilization:

Embryonic life commences with fertilization, and hence the beginning of that process may be taken as the point de depart of stage 1. . . . Fertilization is the procession of events that begins when a spermatozoon makes contact with an oocyte or its investments and ends with the intermingling of maternal and paternal chromosomes at metaphase of the first mitotic division of the zygote (Brackett et al., 1972). . . . Fertilization, which takes place normally in the ampulla of the uterine tube [not the uterus], includes (a) contact of spermatozoa with the zona pellucida of an oocyte, penetration of one or more spermatozoa through the zona pellucida and the ooplasm, swelling of the spermatozoal head and extrusion of the second polar body, (b) the formation of the male and female pronuclei, and (c) the beginning of the first mitotic division, or cleavage, of the zygote. . . . The three phases (a, b, and c) referred to above will be included here under stage 1, the characteristic feature of which is unicellularity. . . . (c) Zygote. The cell that characterizes the last phase of fertilization is elusive. . . . Thus the zygote lacks a nucleus. (emphases added)

Carnegie Stage 1a, along with Carnegie Stages 2-5, is crucial for refuting bioethical political arguments “pro” the use of: abortifacients (such as Plan B, IUD’s, etc.); early abortion while the human embryo is still in the woman’s fallopian tube; embryo flushing; several “pluripotent stem cell” techniques; the use of bits and pieces of human embryos for stem cell culture media, “controls,” etc.; embryo “donation,” and several other practices and techniques used in IVF and ART research laboratories and “infertility” clinics, etc. See Carnegie Stages 2-5 at:

Similar current accurate resources for the Carnegie Stages can be found also online at “The Virtual Human Embryo”. The Carnegie Stages can even be bought as an iPhone app. The Carnegie Stages can also be found on DVDs purchasable from the Endowment for Human Development.

So how could it be that Roe claims the following? “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology areunable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. [410 U.S. 113, 160]” (emphases added)

Indeed, given the accurate scientific facts of human embryology, this Roe claim rejecting the concept of “personhood” of the human embryo and fetus would also have to be rejected: “IX . . . A. The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a ‘person’ within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, [410 U.S. 113, 157] for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.” (emphases added)

Thus if the accurate scientific facts are acknowledged, a Supreme Court decision must recognize that the immediate product of sexual reproduction is both a human being as well as a human person. “Personhood” thus begins when the human being begins to exist—at the beginning of the process of fertilization with “first contact” of the male sperm with the female oocyte, Carnegie Stage 1a.

The bottom line is that when the current Supreme Court is required to review the Roe decision, they will of course need to turn to and acknowledge the long-known objective scientific facts of human embryology that Roe refused to acknowledge. THAT is why Roe will go, NOT because of Justice Kavanaugh’s or any of the other Supreme Court justices’ political positions.

This article has been reprinted with permission and can be found at lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_810roewillgo.html.