Dear Fester,

An acorn is not an oak tree, but it is as much an oak as is an oak tree. A sperm is not a multicelled human, but it is as much a human as is a multicelled human.

I cannot swim up a vaginal canal and enter an ovum. A sperm cannot post to olo. We are different individuals with different capabilities. One of the cells of my liver is part of me. However, a sperm is not only a human cell. It is an entire individual. It is an one celled individual and not part of a larger assemblage as a liver cell is. A sperm is admirably suited to its function. I am suited to the things that I do.

I do not feel denigrated that I cannot fly high in the sky and discern small objects at great distances like the eagle. I do not feel denigrated that I cannot live deep in the earth as some bacteria do. I do not feel denigrated that I cannot swim up a vaginal canal and enter an ovum. The eagle, bacterium and sperm are individuals with different capabilities from me. However, a sperm is as much a human individual as I am. We are merely different forms of human beings as an acorn and a tree are different forms of oak.

i wondered..if anyone ever classified sperm..by conduct
at best i only found info..on the doners

but first..<<..Recent studies have shown that male fertility does not only depend on the absolute number of viable, motile, morphologically normal sperm that can be inseminated in a female...

..Rather, a more important parameter appears to be
the functional competence of sperm cells>>

<<.Furthermore, in a series of ground-breaking articles Moore along with Matthew Schmidt demonstrate how dominant thinking about masculinity is revealed in sperm bank marketing. Sperm represents biological cells along with ”actual” men. Sperm is masculinised to such a degree that sperm donors are depicted as supermen in contrast to other men whose sperm quality isn’t as good.

Sperm with personality
Within this narrative of masculinity the microscopic sperm cell is not just a product used to create a child but rather a warrior, fighting his way forth to the egg cell.

This doesn’t just apply to commercials for sperm banks. In their analysis of Lennart Nilsson’s documentary The Miracle of Love, the Danish gender researchers Nina Lykke and Mette Bryld point out that the egg is described in more or less passive terms as waiting for the one and only.

In other words, it represents a heterosexual romantic notion of release when the ultimate (and weary) warrior comes first and gets the waiting egg-princess.

With slogans like ”Congratulations. It’s a Viking!” and “Do Vikings need sturdier cribs?”, accompanied by pictures of beautiful blond, blue-eyed babies, Scandinavian Cryobank plays on a particular notion of Scandinavians in an American context – the stereotype of the civilised, handsome and intelligent Nordic male and their children.

anyhow//this looks more interesting
http://www.biolreprod.org/content/19/2/396.full.pdf

but
there is big head sperm
[usually X]..slow moving..long living..[4/8 days]

and smaller faster sperm..[y]..
that live no more than3 days

a window..that increases..the sex selection..
if matched with bovum release timming..[linked to woman's temp]

Sorry, david f, but I have to disagree:

>A sperm is not a multicelled human, but it is as much a human as is a multicelled human.<

>However, a sperm is as much a human individual as I am. We are merely different forms of human beings as an acorn and a tree are different forms of oak.<

A human sperm is not a human being, because unless and until it unites with a human ovum it is totally incapable of becoming a 'human being'. At least it is that way at this point in human evolution.
(Given that sexual reproduction apparently only commenced some 600 million years ago - in some early plants - a 'reverse' evolution may be possible in 'humans' whereby reproduction may become possible by simple cell mitosis. But, I think it highly unlikely.)

A human sperm may be 'product' of a human being, but that is all. Similarly, a human ovum is not a human being, for, left to its own devices it is also incapable of becoming a human being.

Whereas an acorn may grow into an oak tree - because it has the necessary genetic complement - neither a sperm nor an ovum individually has the necessary complement to undergo such a 'transformation'.

When might a human foetus reasonably qualify to be considered a 'human being'? Well, when it is reasonably assessed as being capable of surviving outside of the womb. Until that time it may only be a 'potential' human being.

A miscarriage may be considered as a 'natural' form of 'abortion', with the human vessel rejecting the developing embryo or foetus for any one of a variety of reasons, but without any external purposeful intervention.

Where is God in all of this? Why, sitting on the sidelines, as usual. The Creator of the Universe would have far larger fish to fry than worrying about fickle, weak, and infinitely corruptible 'humans' - and is almost certain to have entirely given up on 'us' a long time ago (if indeed He/She ever gave us a second thought).

Dear Saltpetre,

I described the life cycle of human beings. As do all living things humans have a life cycle. Unless we go through all phases of that life cycle the continuum that is human life stops. Like plants that have diploid and haploid phases in their life cycle humans also have diploid and haploid phases. Both an acorn and an oak are diploid as are a fertilised egg and an adult human being. An acorn, an oak sperm, an oak egg and an oak tree are all phases of the oak life cycle. Each phase is as much an oak as another phase. Likewise with humans who have corresponding phases – A fertilised ovum, a sperm, an ovum, and an adult human. Implicitly Fester and you have limited your definition of a human to only the multicelled form past a particular stage. You have created a hierarchy with one human form of human as more human than another human form. I see them all as equally human as I have not created such a hierarchy.

I mentioned the plant life cycle as an analogy. The botanist does not see the haploid form of a plant as less a plant than the diploid form of a plant. Analogously I do not see the haploid form of a human as less human than the diploid form of a human.

We define human differently. I am not going to agree with your definition, and I don’t think you will agree with mine. I define all stages of the human life cycle as equally human, and you don’t. However, we apparently agree on the mechanism of the life cycle although we label its components differently.

God or any other imaginary entity is no more relevant to the human life cycle than to the life cycle of any other organism.

Some theologians asked when human life begins. Human life does not begin except with the origin of the first humans. It is a continuum. Sperm, ovum, fertilised ovum, embryo, baby, child, adult are all phases of the continuum of humanity.

Hi David,

You would not swap a stand of oaks for a handfull of acorns, or a building for the plan of a building, so how do you see the two as being equal? Presumably you would not consider the destruction of an embryo equal to the killing of a person either.

The condition I would site for a person is consciousness, and to my knowledge that is not a property of single cells. Single cells can have the potential to divide and form people, but are not people.

Dear Fester,

I claim that a sperm is as human as a person. That is a very different thing from saying a sperm is equal to an adult human. I think we are going round and round.

You are the one setting up a hierarchy not me. I think it is unreasonable to claim that one part of the human life cycle is more human than another part of the human life cycle.

An acorn is not the same as an oak tree, but they are equally part of the life cycle of an oak. An ovum or sperm is not the same as a woman or a man, but they are equally part of the life cycle of a human.

Obviously the word, human, has more than one meaning. In describing the life cycle of a human I maintain that each life form is as human as another life form in the human life cycle. An individual in one part of the life cycle of an oak or human has a different form from an individual in another part of the life cycle of an oak or human.

Since you use the word, human, to mean something else than I mean by the way I am using the word we keep arguing. I will not respond to further posts on this subject.