Posted on 05/29/2019 7:55:54 AM PDT by Heartlander
When was that first established? Any citationsyou can offer? I am genuinely interested to learn about it.
“When was that first established? Any citations you can offer?”
You want me to cite natural law? I cited the 5th and 14th amendments, but natural law is a philosophical presupposition which the founders subscribed to, as we can observe in The Declaration of Independence, which describes the “laws of nature and of nature’s God” as the basis for the United States to rightful independence.
While Aristotle is often attributed to being the first person to formalize the idea of natural law, he did not actually think that human life began at conception. He supported abortion during early phases of pregnancy only, but this was because the scientific knowledge of conception and fetal development was extremely limited. It must be understood, however, that natural law is not based on science, but scientific observation is useful in this discussion. For example, an ultrasound can allow us to gather a great deal of information about babies in their mothers’ wombs.
So, it is a scientific fact that babies are unique, living human beings with their own unique DNA and blood, from the moment of conception. And defining personhood, under natural law, must take into consideration what is known scientifically.
So I still think as I thought originally: you’re generally right on the issue, but you are stretching it with your definition of natural law going to “personhood” at conception. Natural law is a concept that obviously has come to the fore at different times in history, but it is also generally predicated on a set of ideas that have been presumed to comprise such over time.
“you are stretching it with your definition of natural law going to ‘personhood’ at conception. Natural law is a concept that obviously has come to the fore at different times in history”
I think you are overthinking it. Natural law exists, just like gravity exists. We do not make it up. We attempt to recognize it and cooperate with it.
“What is a human being?” That’s a simple question.
Perhaps unethical researchers will create chimeras, and we will have to debate what rights they have. But a baby is a human being.
“When does life begin?” That’s another simple question.
And the answer is equally simple: At conception. An egg and a sperm are cells from a woman and a man, respectively. When they join together at conception, they form a brand new, unique, individual. That is not conjecture (like it was during the times of Aristotle). It is a scientific fact.
Either we treat the lives of all human beings as sacred, and not to be discarded and thrown away carelessly or lightly; or, we live by the subjective whims of opinion and fleeting emotions.
This is not the danger of a slippery slope. We’ve already gone down the slippery slope and crashed. Once we, as a society, begin to treat some lives as unimportant or the responsibility to protect some lives as inconvenient, the stage is set for genocide. ANY life can become worthless based on mere inconvenience.
Abortion is part of a hellish nightmare that most of society simply blocks out, even when our conscience and the empathetic part of our souls are screaming at us. So, we distract ourselves from it with music, video games, TV and movies, sports, drugs, alcohol, sex, or anything to drown out the painful feelings we must experience if we face up to the reality of the world we live in.
All human persons have an inalienable right to life. This is self-evident and can be discovered through observing nature. It is natural law. And unborn babies are human persons and, therefore, also have a right to life.
Of course, from a pragmatic standpoint, whether someone is pro-life is more important than a philosophical agreement about what constitutes natural law. So, I do not mean to be argumentative. We agree about what matters most on the issue of abortion.
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