[Remedy]

Are unborn children human beings? Are they persons? No doubt about it. The following essays argue the pro-life case...

• When Do Human Beings Begin? former NIH bench research biochemist Dianne Irving demonstrates the scientific fact that the lives of human beings--and human persons--begin at conception. Personhood Begins At Conception Professor Kreeft explains what exactly a "person" is. Is the Unborn Less Than Human?Dr. Beckwith explains why it does not make sense to argue that a human being is created at implantation, quickening, or birth. When Does a Human Become a Person? Continuing the previous essay, Dr. Beckwith demonstrates why other functional criteria given for personhood--such as sentience, brain development, and viability--are inadequate. He then refutes the "gradualist" position. Finally, he discusses the positions of various abortion and infanticide advocates like James Rachels, Mary Wollenkott, and Michael Tooley. Does Life Begin At Implantation? Dr. Beckwith addresses the phenomena of monozygotic twinning, hydatiform moles, choriocarcinoma, blighted ova, cloning, and fertilization wastage, that fail to disprove the position that human life begins at conception. Scientific and Philosophical Expertise: An Evaluation of the Arguments on Personhood -- Biochemist, Dianne N. Irving, Ph.D argues that positions which assert that early human embryos are not persons are based on inadequate philosophical principles and faulty scientific data. The Human Rational Soul in the Early Embryo Professor Heaney discusses the various theories of "ensoulment" A Survey of Arguments for Immediate versus Delayed Animation Thomist Philosopher Scott Sullivan critically analyzes the theory of mediate animation. The Tiniest Humans -- an interview with the renowned geneticist Jerome Lejeune and the father of modern embryology, Sir Albert William Liley

Some abortion advocates are willing to concede that unborn children are human beings. Surprisingly enough, they claim that they would still be able to justify abortion. According to their argument, no person-no unborn child-has a right to access the bodily resources of an unwilling host. Unborn children may have a right to life, but that right to life ends where it encroaches upon a mother's right to bodily autonomy. The argument is called the bodyright argument.

• The Bodyright Argument: A Pro-life Response -- By Brian D. Parks- comprehensive analysis of the bodyright argument, including a discussion of the various pro-abortion analogies to pregnancy, and a refutation of the positions of Philosophers Judith Thomson, Susan Mattingly, Patricia Jung, Frances Kamm, Margaret Little and others. The Changing Pro-Life Argument: Does the Humanity of the Unborn Matter Anymore? Professor Beckwith introduces and refutes the famous argument from "bodily rights". A Woman's Right Over Her Body? In an excerpt from his book The Moral Question of Abortion, Dr. Schwarz addresses arguments in defense of abortion that are based on a woman's "right" to control her own body. Unplugging a Bad Analogy Doris Gordon, the National Director of Libertarians For Life, refutes a famous argument put forth by philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson. Abortionists, Violinists and Burglars Professor Kaczor addresses Thomson's arguments from a different angle. A Fetus is NOT a Parasite chordate embryologist Dr. Thomas L. Johnson. Begging the Question Dr. Viera explains why the statement "a woman has a right to control her own body" begs the basic question in the abortion debate--is she only affecting her own body when she aborts?

What many people fail to realize is that most of the arguments used to justify killing unborn children could be used with just as much force to justify killing newborn children and, in some cases, even full-grown adults.

• I Was Once a Fetus -- mathematician and philosopher Dr. Alexander Pruss .The Real Problem with Abortion -- Mark McNeil examines two competing positions on the issue--the position of moderate pro-life advocate Don Marquis and the position of liberal abortion advocate Mary Anne Warren. McNeil concludes that neither position sufficiently explains why it is wrong to kill human beings, and introduces his own viewpoint.

---

ED : Respect Life Curriculum Guidelines

Below are excerpts from the first 12 pages of the 108 page document Respect Life Curriculum Guidelines. It was published in 1977 by the Department of Education, United States Catholic Conference of Bishops.
The purpose of making these excerpts available here:
Primarily to advance the common sense logic that if we want to create a culture of life we should properly educate our children-- starting when they are very young, about the sanctity of life. These Guidelines are an authoritative work and should be faithfully implemented.
Abortion was "legalized" in the Soviet Union in 1920. China followed suit about a decade later. Great Britain "legalized" abortion in 1954. Nineteen short years later, Roe v Wade was decided. The major Christian Church's were aware of what was spreading throughout the world, and had 50+ years of advanced warnings. Even with these Guidelines available since 1977, students today are woefully ignorant of the battle between the cultures of life and death.
The spirit in the schools of one generation, is the spirit in the Government of the next.
The Missing Key of the Pro-Life Movement covers pro-life education thoroughly. It faithfully builds upon the bishops Guidelines, offering more evidence as to why comprehensive education beginning in kindergarten and lasting through high school and into adulthood is going to be necessary in order to defeat the culture of death.

---

Death as Deliverance: Euthanatic Thinking in Germany ca. 1890-1933 Writing in 1989, the late Cardinal John O'Connor of New York City, an ardent pro-life advocate, predicted that euthanasia would "dwarf the abortion phenomenon in magnitude, in numbers, in horror." When one considers the sheer number of abortions that are performed each year and that have been performed over the last two decades, this statement borders on fantastic. But Cardinal O'Connor's are not the words of someone given to exaggeration. While there is nothing inevitable about human predictions, O'Connor's words are haunting. What is it that can hinder this "prophecy" from coming to pass?

[Remedy]

1. We now know, basically, that a fetus is alive and, of course, is human. By most definitions, an unborn baby is a person. But if Bork and the conservatives on the court don't see it that way, we have some persuading to do. 3 posted on 02/23/2003 8:22 PM EST by Cicero
2. disenfranchisement by tacit agreement will be applied to embryonic and fetal individual human beings, in order to legally exploit individual humans for their body parts ... cannibalism is about to be convention in our twisted, 'amoral' society. 9 posted on 02/23/2003 9:48 PM EST by MHGinTN
3. Someone should remind the justices that the life cycle of the human species is well known. Like all mammals, it begins at fertilization.17 posted on 02/24/2003 12:19 AM EST by hocndoc

[Consort]

Hypnotize a person and regress them to their infancy, then to their time in the womb as a fetus and as an embryo, going back week by week, then day by day, then hour by hour, minute by minute...until you can't go back any further and see if it coincides with the approximate date of conception.

[alisasny]

After watching a fetal operation to cure spinal bifida I am truly convinced that life begins at conception. I wish more people could be made to watch this film. The surgery was done at 24 weeks and the leg at the knee was shown as well as the fully developed hand of the baby. He was born 10 weeks later at 34 weeks and is doing very well. Try and tell his parents he was not alive that day.

In addition one child was born at the time of the surgery and did live! I believe he was 3 when they showed him again, doing well and no brain swelling. Almost able to walk but still in need of braces. Developing slow but doing excellant by all accounts considering how traumatic his entry into the world outside the womb was.

Amazing science at work.

[MHGinTN]

Remedy, a few years ago, when I learned of the extensive fetal tissue/fetal body harvesting industry (which is now well over a billion dollar buisness), I tried to find a law firm or pro-life lawyer willing to sue any abortion clinic that provided fetal body tissue to the harvesting/selling industry on the grounds that the willing consent was not in order since there is absolutely no address to the issue of dead or alive for the individual from whom the body parts are to be or have been harvested for sale and or exploitation. As the following paragraph so amply notes, the assumption of alive must be over-ridden before organ harvesting may proceed legally.

      The ability to act as an integrated whole is the only function that departs from our bodies in the moment of death, and is therefore the defining characteristic of "human life." This definition does not depend on religious belief or subjective judgment. From the landmark case of Karen Ann Quinlan (1976) on, the courts have consistently upheld organismal function as the legal definition of human life. Failure to apply the same standard that so clearly defines the end of human life to its beginning is both inconsistent and unwarranted.

I have yet to find a legal representative willing to approach the exposure of this glaring inconsistency where fetal tissue harvesting and exploitation of only moments before alive individual human beings occurs. The very acts performed prior to the killing and harvesting evidence the truth that the process of exploitation of body parts begins well before the assualt and killing ... the harvesters are allowed to view the files and physical characteristics of the human host with in utero child, prior to the abortion, to determine which specimens are most desireable. Since there is no death certificate, no proof that the little one was dead when harvested, the very distinct possibility arises that an alive individual human being of fetal age can be send on ice to the requesting research facilities. Does it happen? I don't have proof of such, but the very possibility is not eliminated with the current procedural methodology which assumes falsely that the harvested source is in fact dead (because the assumption is made arbitrarily that the source was not alive to begin with). The same fallacy in assumption without proof is the basis upon which embryological aged individual human beings are and will be exploited for their body parts.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[MHGinTN]

(((PING)))))) to a very important read! Please, read this vital essay.

[RightWhale]

All this will soon be moot. The time is coming when maybe 30% of births will be natural, the rest will be in vitro or whatever. Beyond this, The Matrix Reloaded doesn't begin to show what is coming, and some of it is here already and some more is beginning. Schools won't teach subjects but will produce gov't-approved dispositions. The gov't will drug those pupils who are having trouble adapting to the social environment. Oh, nevermind, it's happening already.

[Frank_2001]

Excellent article!

[happygrl]

BRAVO ! BRAVO ! BRAVO !

The materialists will be hoisted on their own petard, the material truth and evidence of life !

[victim soul]

Bump and read later

[bourbon]

thanks for posting this essay. I read it in First Things just recently and was considering posting it myself until I saw that you had beaten me to it.

All the time, I hear people say you have to be "religious" to be pro-life. Usually, they mean by this statement 1) that pro-lifers are driven to their views by specific religious commands or doctrines and 2) that pro-life positions cannot be defended on a strictly rational or scientific grounds. While most pro-lifers are religious (like me), it is a rank falsity to say that one must be religious to be pro-life. Additionally, I find the subtextual argument that religious arguments are irrational per se to be quite offensive.

That said, I think that this essay is a wonderfully concise and clearly rational defense for viewing life as beginning at conception. Consequently, it occurs to me that this essay could be a powerful tool in convincing non-religious types that abortion is a moral evil.