On gestational age.
One of the conflicts I've seen between pro-choicers and antis on the intarweb is about the accuracy of captioned anti-abortion photos. I'd like to clear up where the disconnect seems to lie in the claims made about embryonic development.
In doctors' offices, gestational age is measured from the first day of the last menstrual period, because most women don't actually know when fertilization took place. It is a more practical way of measuring. So, on the first day of your first missed period, you are considered approximately 4 weeks pregnant, though fertilization occurred 2 weeks ago (and implantation a couple days after that). Somewhat confusing, but it's all just so there can be a common language to converse in.
Antis measure from the date of fertilization, but they don't generally say so. The appearance is that embryos develop more quickly than most people think they do by about two weeks. It's not false information, but it is generally presented in a misleading way.
Other misleading things that antis do:
1. Present pictures from abortion techniques that are no longer used (old photos, or ones from other countries).
2. Show primarily 2nd trimester abortion pictures, implying that they are more common than they really are.
3. Juxtapose abortion photos with holocaust mass graves, implying that abortion is genocide.
In doctors' offices, gestational age is measured from the first day of the last menstrual period, because most women don't actually know when fertilization took place. It is a more practical way of measuring. So, on the first day of your first missed period, you are considered approximately 4 weeks pregnant, though fertilization occurred 2 weeks ago (and implantation a couple days after that). Somewhat confusing, but it's all just so there can be a common language to converse in.
Antis measure from the date of fertilization, but they don't generally say so. The appearance is that embryos develop more quickly than most people think they do by about two weeks. It's not false information, but it is generally presented in a misleading way.
Other misleading things that antis do:
1. Present pictures from abortion techniques that are no longer used (old photos, or ones from other countries).
2. Show primarily 2nd trimester abortion pictures, implying that they are more common than they really are.
3. Juxtapose abortion photos with holocaust mass graves, implying that abortion is genocide.