Posted on 07/08/2005 6:06:03 PM PDT by wagglebee
I've saved this and the response to it for today, Open Line Friday, to share with you. This woman is a subscriber at RushLimbaugh.com. She said, "Rush..." Her name is Anita. "Rush, I'm a die-hard fan. Though I was raised to support a woman's right to choose, since becoming a mother and listening to you over these many years, I've come to strongly believe that abortion is wrong. But because I'm conservative and believe in property rights, I can't reconcile the government's involvement in the ultimate property right to your own body. Can you help me?"
So I thought about this, and I wrote her back. I said: Dear Anita, perhaps I can. Our Declaration of Independence states that as free human beings, we are entitled to LIFE," and I put that in all caps, "liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Declaration also says that these rights are "inalienable" and "granted by our Creator," God. If our government does not stand for and protect these basic rights, which are the essence of our creation and humanity, then it will not protect any others. In our history, we've had human beings, members of the Supreme Court, give us the disastrous Dred Scott decision, which established that we as human beings could consider certain of our fellow human beings as our property.
Dred Scott permitted whites in this country to own black slaves and eventually this decision was struck down. So, Anita, your child is not your personal property. Your body may be, but your child isn't. Your child is a distinct and individual human being that you helped to create and produce -- and no one owns that child's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So she wrote back and she thanked me, said she "hadn't looked at it that way;" she "appreciated that perspective." So I wanted to share that with you. One of the reasons why is because here we've had these Supreme Court decisions on property rights, private property rights, and you can see how some people interpret all of these, and extrapolate them to other issues in what may be the beginning of their education process. So I thought it was a great question that she asked and I was happy to be able to answer it for her.
Sorry for this long post but this is an article worth reading that reinforces and expands on what Rush said today:
"While the demand for abortion grows,1 so does the scientific case against the arguments often used to support it. Recent powerful evidence comes from immunology.
Half a century ago, when the amazing mechanism of the human immune system was first being uncovered, Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir Peter Medawar made a significant comment. He declared that the survival of the genetically different child within a mother's womb contradicted the immunological laws that were thwarting their attempts at tissue transplantation.2 The immune system normally detects the presence of any "foreign" tissue in the body and it immediately sets up a defence against it (primarily what is now called the "killer T cell" mechanism).
This caused early experiments in organ transplantation to fail--the recipient's immune system attacked and rejected the donor's "foreign" organ tissue. So why doesn't the mother's womb detect the presence of the "foreign" tissue of the developing embryo and try to attack and reject it?
We now know that it does! And this is the cause of many miscarriages. Recent research has shown that the developing child puts up a very specific defence against the killer T cell attack. And as long as the defence mechanism works properly, the pregnancy will proceed to full term. However, when the defence mechanism fails, miscarriage results
In a landmark 1998 paper, researchers at the Medical College of Georgia, in Augusta, USA, found that the mammalian embryo (they worked with mice) produces a special enzyme, called indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, or "IDO," which suppresses the mother's T cell reaction and allows pregnancy to proceed.2 Follow-up work in humans revealed the same effect, and it was also demonstrated that the IDO was produced on the embryo side of the placental membrane (which separates mother from child) and not on the mother's side.3 Further work in mice showed that IDO production peaked during the formation of the placenta--the most crucial time for establishing that vital link between mother and child.4 And the most recent work in humans has established beyond doubt that IDO is a specific mechanism at the mother-child interface for preventing the mother's immune system from rejecting the child.5
But what does this have to do with abortion? Well, a common argument in favour of abortion is that a mother has the right to control what happens to her own body.6 However, this research shows very clearly that the baby is not part of the mother's body. The baby has a unique genetic makeup (only half its chromosomes come from the mother, the other half come from the father, and each combination of chromosomes is unique) and that condition is sufficient to cause the mother's immune system to identify the baby as "foreign" and it mounts an attack via the killer T cell system. In the mouse experiments, when IDO production was artificially suppressed, the mother's womb rapidly rejected the embryos.2 It is only because the baby is normally well prepared for life in the womb by producing IDO and suppressing the mother's T cell reaction, that pregnancy can be healthy and go full term.
This research also highlights the fact that the child's individuality--its unique genetic makeup--exists from the moment of conception. At conception, the new person's genetic instructions come together for the first time--in a single cell called the zygote. But it is not until day 6 that IDO production kicks in.5 Why day 6? Well day 6 is a preparation for day 7, when the new embryo first attaches itself to its mother's womb so that it can draw nutrients from its mother's bloodstream.7 This is exactly the time when the mother's killer T cells would normally begin to attack and reject it--if not for the amazing protection already provided by IDO production on the previous day.
Psalm 139:13 tells us that God "knit me together in my mother's womb" and in Isaiah 46:3 God says "you whom I have upheld since you were conceived" (NIV). IDO is a marvellous part of God's system for individually "upholding" us in the womb and we should not violate it, or indeed the commandment not to take innocent human life, through the proliferation of abortion."
References and notes
1. For example, legally restricted late-term (>20 weeks) abortion was introduced into Western Australia in 1998. Under this legislation, 95% of requests have been granted and terminations as late as 8 months have been approved. See Dickinson, J.E., Late pregnancy termination within a legislated medical environment, Aust. N.Z.J. Obstet. Gynaecol. 44(4):337-341, 2004.
2. Munn, D.H., et al., Prevention of allogeneic fetal rejection by tryptophan catabolism, Science 281(5380):1122-1124, 1998.
3. Kudo, Y. and Boyd, C.A., Human placental indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase: cellular localization and characterization of an enzyme preventing fetal rejection, Biochim. Biophys. Acta. 1500(1):119-124, 2000.
4. Suzuki, S., et al., Expression of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase and tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase in early concepti, Biochem. J. 355(2):425-429, 2001.
5. Kudo, Y., et al., Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase: distribution and function in the developing human placenta, J. Reprod. Immunol. 61(2):87-98, 2004.
yeah it does suck, but you wouldn't say the hell with it, I want my living room back now, and shoot the child. Would you?
Mrs VS
To eliminate das untermunchen, of course. Just like it says right there in the Constitution. You know, the same constitution that doesn't prohibit the government from infringing on the free exercise of religion, confiscating firearms, taking property for social whim, you know.
Great post! Thanks!
Actually Children are a Gift from God to Parents.. so actually they are yours to raise in accordance with God's law.. (killing them is not an option)..... when your child is grown there comes a time in which the child will "leave their mother and father, and form a family of their own" and the cycle continues
I like the way you think. You should be a lawyer, if you're not already.
The constitutional protection of citizens is probably even deeper than the constitutional protection of property.
This is traditional Christian doctrine going back to the Church Fathers.
When God created the universe, everything He made was "good," and the last day's work was "very good." Adam's fall subjected the body to sin and death and nature to decay and death, but when Christ was incarnated in a human body it gave the human body renewed dignity.
Certainly there's nothing in the Bible about the body being "property."
The liberal side of the argument is taken of early on as they refer to a baby (unborn) as a "fetus" and not a baby. Unless of course it ironically suits their argument in rare cases when a pregnant woman is killed.
Either way, "fetus" indicates that a baby is something other than a life. That's why when engaging in discussions, I always counter the notion that pre-birth a baby is a "fetus" with the reality that it is in fact a baby.
The easy argument for that is that those admitting that a baby is merely a fetus until birth must confront the question that I pose. That question is how do they justify a prematurely born baby, say at six or seven months, with a baby of the same age, yet still in the womb, and perhaps even more developed as a result of going through a normal prenatal process?
There is no answer but to give up one side of the argument. If the side that "it's a fetus" is retained, then surely it's nothing more than a fetus after birth as well and "entitled" to the same treatment as it was in womb, namely abortion, which would be tantamount to murder under current laws.
If the side that "it's a baby" is retained, then the question becomes "at what point did it go from "fetus" to "baby"? A question for which those arguing the matter cannot possibly have an answer for, in spite of their lame efforts to have one.
The real leftists don't even want to use the word fetus, they prefer the term "clump of cells." They were livid when GE developed 3D ultrasound technology; my brother and his wife had one of these done last year, it actually looked like a photograph of a baby. The left is worried that such images will convince more women that it really is a baby.
yeah it does suck, but you wouldn't say the hell with it, I want my living room back now, and shoot the child. Would you?Time to look up the "Famous Violinist" argument.
Well, you do own whatever clothes, food, etc. you have paid for (not to mention the hospital bill for their natal day). So unless they're ready to pay back what they owe upon demand, they are your indentured servants. Just in case they read the Constitution. ; )
Even if I didn't, my husband might.
http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/abortion/unstrign.htm
Maybe the violinist needs a new racket, his music isn't as soothing as it once was.
I had to stop using the Bill Cosby line, "I brought you into this world and I can take you out."
Like so many other concepts left over from my childhood and youth, abortion has changed the way we must think and speak.
(Can you imagine "When you were nothing but a twinkle in your father's eye?" having meaning in the post abortion world? And then, there's the radicalization of relationships between men and women: I love Dean Martin, but can you imagine "Standin' on the corner, watchin' all the girls" passing PC muster these days?)
Even these women created the uterine environment and the oocyte which was fertilized.
There's an old law that someone who digs a hole is responsible for harm to anyone who falls into the hole. Even if the hole is out of the way, if someone is harmed, the hole-digger is responsible.
In the case of sexual assault, the assaulter is the one at fault, but there is still a responsibility on the part of the woman not to cause further harm. The loss to the woman of continuing the pregnancy is temporary, part of her natural functioning as a human woman. The loss to the child of being removed from her body is permanent, irreversible and ultimate - "death." The only exception is to save the woman's life or prevent significant permanent harm to her life.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
You are totally sick...what do you mean "these women created the uterine encironment"
You are sick, sick, sick....
I'm sorry, but it's true. As normal, functioning human women, their own bodies function to create the uterine environment and the oocyte. There is no blame or fault, here - it just is.
The wrong was in the rape. The child did not even exist at that time, and so can not be held responsible for the fact that he now exists. The woman is not at fault for being fertile, either.
However, in considering or acting to kill the child by removing him, she commits a new, additional wrong. She cannot kill the child except in self defense, and then only if there is no other option.
There must be "bright lines" of right and wrong which we will not cross. Intentional acts to end the life of any human being except in defense of life is one of these lines.
That's encouraging, and lends support to the notion that support for abortion (for the dwindling minority who support unconditional abortion-on-demand throughout pregnancy) is pedicated on ignorace and not merely selfishness/malice. This should be an encouragement to the pro-life community. What it means: through education about A) the ramifications of the Bill of Rights as applied to all, and B) what the unborn baby really is, does, and looks like.
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