Claiming the unborn are equal to the those who have been born, is patently false, and purely an opinion not based on much of fact. One must assume that living tissue in the womb has received the breath of life, as in the Soul of man.
There is absolutely no doubt that which is growing in the womb is living, as my arm is living, but to state categorically that the living tissue is a human being as we know a living breathing human, is to stretch knowledge far beyond what we know.
There is no one I know on the face of this earth that has the knowledge to tell me without any doubt, when a fetus in the womb becomes a human in the sense of "Thou shalt not kill", and in the scriptural sense of receiving a soul. This great mystery, is the deceptive battle attempting to be won by two parties, neither of which has the knowledge to be completely correct.
The pro-lifers think that because tissue is living, that means it is murder to kill it. In the same sense if I lose an arm, it is dead, but certainly not murder as most would have us believe. On the other hand the pro-aborts lean way to far in the other direction, just to spite those who they thing are trying to force their views on them, thus wanting free reign to abort for equally false and deceptive reasons we have all been beaten about the head and shoulders with, that we are tired of the continual tirade.
If the two sides of the battle would both agree that they know very little about the whole issue, return to each state deciding for those residing in their individual states what the law relative to abortion will be, and let the Supreme Court be man enough to strike Roe v Wade down, as should have been done as soon as Roe recanted her lying testimony before said court, we would all be a lot better off and cure much of the rancor associated with this difficult moral issue.
Christians in the name of Christianity, need to stop calling those on the other side murderers, when they do not know that is an absolute truth, and those on the other side, need to exercise a little restraint and realize that choice begins and ends with the decision to have sexual relations, and after that the choice is to accept what those relations created.
Oh I almost forgot, FLAME AWAY.
"There is no one I know on the face of this earth that has the knowledge to tell me without any doubt, when a fetus in the womb becomes a human"
Yup. But the burden of proof should be on the Abortionists: do not destroy it until you can prove without any doubt that the fetus is NOT human.
You've got your morals reversed, and are using the same line of reasoning that justified the enslavement of Africans.
You'd have a point if the fetus' DNA was the same as the mom's. As it is different, that proves we're talking about a completely different life.
Our whole culture is based on the intrinsic worth of the human being. A human being's worth does not start when he has capability X or Y. It simply is. When the human being exists, his worth exists. That's the meaning of equality.
"There is no one I know on the face of this earth that has the knowledge to tell me without any doubt, when a fetus in the womb becomes a human in the sense of "Thou shalt not kill", and in the scriptural sense of receiving a soul."
I reject Protestant Bible-only interpretations because you can make the Bible say anything you want it to. I can tell you with certainty why Catholicism considers the unborn child an equal, and I can tell you from a purely philosophical point of view why the unborn child is an equal, but biblical prooftexting doesn't amount to anything, especially when two people are coming from two different methods of exegesis.
I'd say when science could show it has human DNA or the cell shows human HLA antigens. There doesn't seem to be any point that a human fetus was anything other than human --- new tests -- DNA probles etc could show it is nothing but human.
Are you saying that given enough time your arm would grow into a sentient being?
Good post, Wita. I doubt that many here will actually understand your point, however.
You've got to be joking?
The equivalence of you losing your arm is the abortionist ripping the unborn baby's arm off and then the baby survives. Unless you think that the unborn baby losing that arm and surviving is equivalent to killing you.
Jeremiah 1:5
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee
Luke 17:2
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
I read your post and I won't flame you. But I will ask you to read and consider the following:
We will focus on 4 main areas
1. The scientific facts of Life before Birth.
2. That pro-abortionists admit that abortion kills babies.
3. The unborn person as recognized by law.
4. The importance of teaching our children about life before birth.
When does life begin?
We have ABSOLUTE Irrefutable truth, Scientific proof
http://www.roevwade.org/upl39.html
* In 1981, a US Senate committee held hearings on when human life begins. Speaking on behalf of the scientific community was a group of internationally known geneticists and biologists who had the same story to tell, namely, that human life begins at conception - and they told their story with a profound absence of opposing testimony.
Dr. Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, Harvard medical School, gave confirming testimony, supported by references from over 20 embryology and other medical textbooks that human life begins at conception.
* "The Father of Modern Genetics" Dr. Jerome Lejeune told the lawmakers: "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence. Human life begins at conception "
* Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman, Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic, added: "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception."
Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor, University of Tennessee, testified: "The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception."
* Dr. Landrum Shettles, sometimes called the "Father of In Vitro Fertilization" notes, "Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind." And on the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, "To deny a truth [about when life begins] should not be made a basis for legalizing abortion."
* Professor Eugene Diamond on the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade: "...either the justices were fed a backwoods biology or they were pretending ignorance about a scientific certainty."
14 weeks
At 15 weeks, this non-viable disposable blob of tissue is sucking it’s thumb
16 weeks
18 weeks
Pro-Choice Advocates Agree that Abortion Kills Humans.
http://www.leaderu.com/humanities/casey/ch3.html#S4
Many abortion advocates have agreed that abortion kills human life: A 1963 Planned Parenthood brochure says that life begins at conception: This is a direct quote "An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun."
Similarly, Dr. Mary Calderone, former director of Planned Parenthood has stated that "abortion is the taking of a human life"
Dr. Magda Denes who performed two years of research in an abortion facility and compiled her results told a Chicago newspaper "There wasn’t an (abortion) doctor who at one time or another in the questioning did not say ‘this is murder.’"
The unborn person as recognized by law.
One False objection the Roe court had to the unborn as a person interpretation is the lack of precedent to support it. But there was a federal court precedent for the unborn as a person reading of the Fourteenth Amendment just 3 years before Roe v. Wade, though this fact was virtually ignored by Justice Harry Blackmun and the Roe Court.
From Constitutional Persons: An Exchange on Abortion
The common law basis of our system embodied in the principle of stare decisis and the just requirements of consistency in applying the law demand a respect for precedent. To this objection I offer two replies. First, there was a federal court precedent for the unborn person reading of Fourteenth Amendment before Roe v. Wade, though this fact was virtually ignored by Justice Harry Blackmun and the Roe Court.
In Steinberg v. Brown (1970) a three-judge federal district court upheld an anti-abortion statute, stating that privacy rights "must inevitably fall in conflict with express provisions of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law."
After relating the biological facts of fetal development, the court stated that "those decisions which strike down state abortion statutes by equating contraception and abortion pay no attention to the facts of biology."
"Once new life has commenced," the court wrote, "the constitutional protections found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments impose upon the state the duty of safeguarding it."
Yet in commenting on the unborn person argument in Roe, Justice Blackmun wrote that "the appellee conceded on reargument that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." He did so despite the fact that he had cited the case just five paragraphs earlier!
The failure of both appellees and the Court to treat this case is both unfortunate and inexplicable. Second, while our system is based upon a reasonable and healthy respect for precedent, this has never prevented the Court from revisiting and modifying precedent when the erroneous foundation and unjust results of that precedent become manifest. Such is the case with respect to abortion and the Fourteenth Amendment.
Let’s review the milestones of a person’s life before they are born:
· By the seventh day of life, the new person is planted in the uterus, home for the next nine months.
· By day 17, the blood cells and the heart are formed.
· By day 24, there is a heartbeat.
· By six weeks, the child’s nervous system is controlling their body. He or she now looks distinctly human. Throughout pregnancy the child is mostly in control--even to what day they will be born.
· By day 45, the baby has his own brain waves, which he will keep for life.
· By seven weeks, he has all the internal organs of an adult (though he weighs only one-thirtieth of an ounce and is less than one inch long.)
· By eight weeks, all external organs are formed, by nine to ten weeks, he can drink and breath amniotic fluid.
· From this age on is just a matter of time for growth. Before he is born, he can suck his thumb, cry (if he had air), and recognize his mother's voice and heartbeat.
· By the fourth month the child weighs about 5 ounces and is between 6 and 7 inches long. He has developing fingernails and eyelashes, and already has unique fingerprints that will remain the same for the rest of his life.
· At 32 weeks of gestation - two months before a baby is considered fully prepared for the world, or "at term" - a fetus is behaving almost exactly as a newborn. And it continues to do so for the next 12 weeks.
· By nine weeks, a developing fetus can hiccup and react to loud noises. By the end of the 2nd trimester it can hear.
· Just as adults do, the fetus experiences the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep of dreams.
· The fetus savors its mother's meals, first picking up the food tastes of a culture in the womb.
· Among other mental feats, the fetus can distinguish between the voice of Mom and that of a stranger, and respond to a familiar story read to it.
· Before the first trimester is over, it yawns, sucks, and swallows, as well as feels and smells. By the end of the second trimester, he or she can hear; toward the end of pregnancy, can see.
This so called “Women’s Right to Choose…to abort her baby” has as its foundation, three main points:
1. It must ignore universally acknowledged biological facts,
2. It denies federal and state laws that clearly identify the unborn as a person with rights.
3. It promotes a blatant lie that “It’s” a woman’s body” When clearly “IT” is her baby within her body.
Many people who have trouble with the abortion issue say. “Please do not quote religious or moral codes” And yet the founder of NARAL used religious and moral codes as a wedge to create dissension against religious and moral leaders by their followers in favor of abortion. He also admitted to lying about every statistic to show a false need for legalized abortion. It’s all here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1030729/posts?page=12#12
“Abortion and euthanasia are crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection. In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it.’" (The Gospel of Life, no. 73)
The single most important thing we can do as Christians is to teach our children about the sanctity of life before birth, and promote this to all of our friends and our families.
Note from a friend: I gave my 10-year-old daughter a little book filled with the most marvelous actual photos of unborn babies in all phases of pregnancy. When she started hearing about abortion, I would show her pictures of the tiniest, most perfectly formed little babies, and explain that some people didn't think these were actually little humans and it was ok to kill them. She was very disturbed and troubled by this. She said if everyone had this book, no one would ever kill their babies. And with that I MUST say that comprehensive education for school-aged children is THE MISSING KEY OF THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT .
Since the decision of Roe v. Wade, tens of millions of Christian school students could have received a Pro-Life education. This group would today constitute a huge voting block; and with them, the culture of death might have already been defeated.
We must start with being mindful that young children are naturally pro-life. Ask a young child who has a pregnant mother what is inside his mother's “tummy,” and he will likely respond that it is his baby brother or sister. It is so simple to a child.
The sad reality is that the duration of the abortion holocaust is prolonged by Christians who vote for pro-abortion candidates. This can only end with a new generation of Christians fully educated on the sanctity of Life before birth.
“The solution to ending the culture of death does not realistically lie with changing the minds of pro-abortion adults; it lies with preserving the 99+ % of children that are naturally pro-life on their first day of school.”
Roe v Wade is null and void. It is the invalid fiat ruling of 7 men. It has as much validity as the Dred Scott decision or of the Nazi courts. It is the antithesis of both the Declaration and the Constitution. Yes it’s ruling has the effect of law, just as the case in Slavery and just as in the case in Nazi Germany. If it is not overturned it will one day be understood as on of the main factors in what would dissolve our Republic.
It is easy to tell that you have never been pregnant. From the minute I found out I was pregnant, (twice) I knew that I was carrying life, our little baby. Sadly, both of our unborn babies died.
We still mourn their deaths. Not you, or anyone else can convince my husband and I that those were not babies.
wow - takes courage to post that.
You should read Aristotle and Plato's views concerning potential. I think you will find that your argument falls apart.