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It doesn't ever use the gills to breathe. It gets its oxygen through the umbilical cord from the mother. The gills are most likely just leftover from some period of time when our ancestors lived in the ocean, but they never function.

But you're correct, the fetus does not breathe until it is born.

This is terribly juvenile, unscientific, and displays either ignorance or wishful thinking.

This above list is a generalized, dumbed down version of the basic scientific "requirements" for something to be considered "alive," and at best I'd hope it stops being taught after 3rd grade in favor of something more accurate.

- Food - Fetuses need nourishment. They get it through the blood. All living things need nourishment to survive - some way of intaking energy (plants don't eat, they get energy from photosynthesis and sunlight, for example)


- Clothing - Humans don't need clothing.

- Shelter - Humans can survive without shelter from the elements (depending on which elements, in what quantities).

- Air - Not all living things need air. The scientific term is actually respiration. Fetuses don't need this because they get oxygen from the woman's body distributed through the blood.

- Water - this falls in with food. All living things need water through nourishment... but how they get it is not important. Again, plants suck it up through their roots. Fetuses don't need to drink water because the woman does it, and the woman, in being hydrated, keeps the fetus hydrated.



Seriously. This is a horrible list. It's based on absolutely nothing of any validity. It in no way addresses the personhood of the fetus (the baby-ness), and it is not at all convincing because you might as well just made up requirements arbitrarily... there's no justification to those things. Like I said, the list really seems like a 3rd grader's dumbed down version of the necessities of life.





Liquid oxygen? Are you sure? Because liquid oxygen exists only at temperatures of -360 degrees F. I somehow don't think it would survive.

Then bring up fetuses! Ask, "if this is true, what about fetuses?" Point out "but people can live without clothing in the proper environments!" "Not all animals/living things need 'air,' for example, 'fish.'"

It's shameful that students are still being taught that in 6th-8th grade.

The main point that I derived from this earlier was that fetusus can't survive exactly the same way that babies and humans do.

the fetus is completely dependent on the woman for its life subsistence. So, even if it was removed from the womb fully intact, it would not survive on its own.

Also, when I looked at this topic, I remembered the "Maslow hierarchy of needs" which explains that humans need their physical needs met before they can meet their emotional needs, before they can meet their individual self-actualization skills.

Thanks goes to Talon to challenge the accuracy of the information being passed around as fact.

Liquid O2 has a light blue color (sky blue, one might say, even though that has nothing to do with why the sky is blue xd ). And that liquid stuff is pretty spiffy. I wonder if they could get adults to breath it... a la evangelion.


I think you're thinking of "responds to stimuli" which is as close to sentience as you get when it comes to requirements for life.

Keep in mind - every requirement for life must meet both humans and the tiniest amoeba. Being aware, being able to feel, being able to think - none are necessary to be alive.

that's right, my 9th grade science teacher tried to drill the bolded part into our heads but i obviously forgot (he was a bad teacher, that's probably why, i think the only reason he taught was because he was the 8th grade football coach). i took chemistry when i was in high school so i'm not at the top of my game when it comes to biology. i regret it, though, because i hated chemistry.

anywayssss, she probably told us that it was sentience. she was/is a 7th grade teacher, after all. not saying anything bad about 7th grade teachers, but she wasn't the greatest. at all. =/

Hmm... If adults were to breathe Liquid O2, I think that the lungs would try to expel it. I seem to be remembering something about liquids irritating the lungs. Also, on another note, I do remember something about the development of a membrane that allows the oxygen particles to be breathed in and separates the water from the oxygen. Think back to the picture of the parakeet in the fish tank watching the fish. xd Just 'cause it looks neat, here is a pic of LOX (liquid O2).



The article is here. It even shows a diagram.