THE TALMUD ON WHEN LIFE BEGINS? The Washington Post has an article today on the theological debate over the use of stem cells, a subject that has been touched on before in PaleoJudaica. I'm not interested in getting into the debate, but this paragraph caught my eye (my emphasis):

DeLay and others who oppose stem cell research on theological grounds might be surprised to learn that it is not Abraham but Adam whose life and circumstances are interpreted by Jewish and Muslim thinkers when they assess the morality of this science. In Genesis, God breathes into a lump of clay to form the first man, Adam. Thus, life is seen as beginning when organs, particularly the lungs, develop, since it is then that the vital spirit arrives. The Talmud states that before 40 days, what is in the uterus is akin to water, not a human being. DeLay would do well to return to the Bible, because rabbis and imams who read it as their source of inspiration would not concur that Abraham's life and Muhammad's life were defined some seven to eight days after their conception, the time when researchers take stem cells from the blastocyst.

Is it true that the Talmud says this? If so, can anyone give me the reference?

UPDATE: Nachum J. Stone refers me to Bekhorot 21b and Carla Sulzbach to Yebamoth 69b.

UPDATE (1 June): For somewhat related matters, see my earlier post "Abortion and the Torah."