[hocndoc]

This statement of "Where We Stand" is a position paper of a group of Pediatricians who have spintered off from the American Academy of Pediatrics due to basic ethical differences. You may want to look at their other position statements, as well.

[hocndoc]

Take a look at this!

[Tabi Katz]

So true. I look forward to the day when doctors and scientists are again considered the authorities on the issue rather than a group of arrogant judges legislating from the bench.

[MHGinTN]

PING))))))

[cpforlife.org]

When Human Life Begins - PING

Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

[LiteKeeper]

SPOTREP - LIFE - ORIGIN

[Coleus]

DO NO HARM, ping

[zip]

ping

[zip]

ping

[gunnrmike]

You dont have to convince me! At 6 weeks, 2 days ago, we saw through an ultrasound our grand baby's heartbeat!!!!

Gunnrmike (aka Gunnrgramps)

[aruanan]

ABSTRACT. The American College of Pediatricians concurs with the body of scientific evidence that human life begins at conception—fertilization. This definition has been expounded since prior to Roe v. Wade, but was not made available to the US Supreme Court in 1973. Scientific and medical discoveries over the past three decades have only verified and solidified this age-old truth. At the completion of the process of fertilization, the human creature emerges as a whole, genetically distinct, individuated zygotic living human organism, a member of the species homo sapiens, needing only the proper environment in order to grow and develop. The difference between the individual in its adult stage and in its zygotic stage is not one of personhood but of development.

Sounds as though they've been reading the following.

September 16, 1985

Dear Editor,

snip

Genetically speaking, there is a time before which an individual of a sexually reproducing species does not exist and after which it does, be it ever so humble. From that moment to the moment of its dissolution it passes through definable stages of development and degeneration. Here are some that apply to us: zygote, embryo, fetus, newborn, infant, toddler, child, pre-adolescent, young adult, mature adult, old-aged. Upon this continuum of development place an asterisk where “it” becomes “human” and perhaps another where its humanity ceases as far as the empirical world is concerned. Many would place the asterisks at conception and death (death defined as the irreversible disruption of the continuum). I do. It is this creature appearing at conception and disappearing at death that is human. Against this, talk about seeds not being trees and fertilized eggs not being chickens shows itself for the silly ontogenocentrism that it is-- the full-grown chicken is not a fertilized egg, but both are developmental stages of the same being. An acorn is not a tree, but both are equally oak.

If “human being” is a later stage of an individual’s existence, then what is the name for the being started at conception and ended at death? On the individual level the first view calls it human whether conscious or not, crippled, retarded, senile, diseased, sinful, intelligent, female, or male. The second view permits “quality of life and “value to society” to define the parameters of being human and those who have the power to do so to define those terms, whether a woman and her physician, N.A.R.A.L, or Big Brother.

The bottom line is that there is a struggle between equality under law (metaphysics) and power as the law (empiricism), between doing what we ought and doing whatever we can get away with, between submitting our desires to a higher moral law or enshrining our desires as the only moral law.

One will never find the answers in the charts and tables of science. And for the modern man that’s scary.

[massiveblob]

Good post, and thanks for the ping

[biblewonk]

As a Christian a d a pro-lifer I usually get in trouble when I point out that the sin involved in all of these extramarital conceptions is a bigger deal, biblically, than when life begins.

[Skooz]

bump for later

[4CJ]

Bump for the unborn!

[oldcomputerguy]

I'm sorry but life begins when a baby takes it first breath not when a math formula says it does. I am neither prolife nor prochoice, it is just logic to me and in my view to nature too.

[Trinity_Tx]

"At the completion of the process of fertilization, the human creature emerges as a whole, genetically distinct, individuated zygotic living human organism, a member of the species homo sapiens, needing only the proper environment in order to grow and develop. The difference between the individual in its adult stage and in its zygotic stage is not one of personhood but of development."

Great article... but y'all better correct them about their misguided use throughout it of that specious, politically-created "zygote stage". <huge grin>

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Years ago, I heard an obstetrician giving an interview on television.

He said he feels so fortunate, because on a daily basis he gets to witness miracles as they happen.

I think the doctor's wisdom is a miracle, too.