Below are some useful words and phrases assoicated with pregnancy and abortion as well as with the referendum campaign.
Term | Definition |
Ante-natal | Before birth. |
Fertilisation | The joining of sperm with ovum, completed when their nuclei are combined, to make a genetically new individual. |
Foetus (Latin, ‘young, offspring’) | The developing human from eight weeks after fertilisation up to birth. |
Gestational age | The baby’s age calculated by estimating pregnancy as starting from the first day of the mother’s last menstrual period. |
Morula (Latin, “mulberry”) | The earliest stage of human embryo development; the first four days of life when the growing cell cluster looks like (but is not) a berry. |
Sentient capacity | The ability to feel sensations such as pain. |
Zygote (Greek, ‘joining’) | The new, one-celled being formed when sperm fertilises egg; the zygote of the species Homo sapiens is a human being at the earliest stage of life. |