Posted on 04/07/2006 4:19:28 PM PDT by cpforlife.org
TRENTON, N.J., April 7, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a stunning reversal for abortion providers, a New Jersey Appellate Court has issued a unanimous opinion that the factual contention that a first trimester abortion terminates the life of a human being is a question to be decided by a jury. In the sixteen page opinion in Rosa Acuna v. Dr. Sheldon Turkish (Appellate Docket # A-4022-03T5), the the Court remanded the case for trial, ruling that whether a first trimester abortion terminates the life of a complete, unique human being presents a fact question for a jury to decide.
Mrs. Acuna contends that she submitted to an abortion after her regular gynecologist -- who she saw for abdominal pain -- recommended that she have an abortion. When Mrs. Acuna asked Dr. Turkish whether her baby was already there, he told her "Don't be stupid, it is just some blood," according to Mrs. Acuna. Mrs. Acuna wanted to know if there was a human being already in existence. Even Dr. Turkish has acknowledged that he would have told her that there was just some "tissue" that was being removed.
Mrs. Acuna has stated that she relied upon representations of Dr. Turkish, and submitted to the abortion procedure. Three weeks later she was rushed to a local hospital because of heavy hemorrhaging and was told by a nurse that the doctor had "left part of your baby in you."
Mrs. Acuna's attorney, New Jersey attorney Harold J. Cassidy, is also the chief counsel for four parties in litigation involving the same factual contentions, currently pending in the Federal District Court in South Dakota and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis. In that case, Planned Parenthood sued South Dakota Governor Michael Rounds and Attorney General Larry Long claiming that a South Dakota law enacted in 2005 - - which requires abortion doctors to disclose to a pregnant mother the fact that the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being -- violates the free speech rights of the abortion doctors.
The Acuna case, which is a jury trial, and the South Dakota Planned Parenthood v. Rounds case (Fed. District Ct. Case No. 05-4077; U.S. Court of Appeals Case No. 05-3093) are the only two cases of their nature in the United States. For the fist time in abortion jurisprudence, both cases will decide whether a first trimester abortion terminates the life of a living human being, and implicates questions surrounding the beginning of biological life.
"Mrs. Acuna is grateful that the Appellate Court has again ruled in her favor so that she will be permitted to try her case in a court of law," Mr. Cassidy stated.
"Planned Parenthood in the South Dakota case had pointed to the second lower court decision in the Acuna case before the U.S. Court of Appeals. Its reliance upon the lower court decision that conflicted with the prior Appellate decision was misplaced, and today's opinion will be brought to the attention of that court before the oral argument on April 20th."
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Jury selection should be interesting.
Wow.
Gee, what else could it have been?
A fish?
A bird?
A hangnail?
A bicycle?
If they are presented with the truth there can be only one ruling in the case.
What does modern science conclude about when human life begins?
http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/apologetics/AP0805W3.htm
Many people mistakenly feel that abortion is a "religious" issue. But it is not. It is a scientific issue and, specifically, a biological issue. The scientific authorities on when life begins are biologists. But these are often the last people consulted in seeking an answer to the question. What modern science has concluded is crystal clear: Human life begins at conception. This is a matter of scientific fact, not philosophy, speculation, opinion, conjecture, or theory. Today, the evidence that human life begins at conception is a fact so well documented that no intellectually honest and informed scientist or physician can deny it.
In 1973, the Supreme Court concluded in its Roe v. Wade decision that it did not have to decide the "difficult question" of when life begins. Why? In essence, they said, "It is impossible to say when human life begins."3 The Court misled the public then, and others continue to mislead the public today.
Anyone familiar with recent Supreme Court history knows that two years before Roe V. Wade, in October 1971, a group of 220 distinguished physicians, scientists, and professors submitted an amicus curiae brief (advice to a court on some legal matter) to the Supreme Court. They showed the Court how modern science had already established that human life is a continuum and that the unborn child from the moment of conception on is a person and must be considered a person, like its mother.4 The brief set as its task "to show how clearly and conclusively modern science—embryology, fetology, genetics, perinatology, all of biology—establishes the humanity of the unborn child."5 For example,
In its seventh week, [the pre-born child] bears the familiar external features and all the internal organs of the adult.... The brain in configuration is already like the adult brain and sends out impulses that coordinate the function of other organs…. The heart beats sturdily. The stomach produces digestive juices. The liver manufactures blood cells and the kidneys begin to function by extracting uric acid from the child’s blood.... The muscles of the arms and body can already be set in motion. After the eighth week… everything is already present that will be found in the full term baby.6
This brief proved beyond any doubt scientifically that human life begins at conception and that "the unborn is a person within the meaning of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments."7
In fact, prior to Roe v. Wade, nearly every medical and biological textbook assumed or taught that human life begins at conception. That human life begins at conception was an accepted medical fact, but not necessarily a discussed medical fact. This is why many textbooks did not devote a discussion to this issue. But many others did. For example, Mr. Patrick A. Trueman helped prepare a 1975 brief before the Illinois Supreme Court on the unborn child. He noted,
We introduced an affidavit from a professor of medicine detailing 19 textbooks on the subject of embryology used in medical schools today which universally agreed that human life begins at conception… those textbooks agree that is when human life begins. The court didn’t strike that down—the court couldn’t strike that down because there was a logical/biological basis for that law.8
Thus, even though the Supreme Court had been properly informed as to the scientific evidence, they still chose to argue that the evidence was insufficient to show the pre-born child was fully human. In essence, their decision merely reflected social engineering and opinion, not scientific fact. Even during the growing abortion debate in 1970, the editors of the scientific journal California Medicine noted the "curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-uterine until death."9
Even 25 years after the abortion revolution that politicized scientific opinion, medical texts today still often assume or affirm that human life begins at conception. For example, Keith L. Moore is professor and chairman of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. His text, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, is widely used in core courses in medical embryology. This text asserts:
The processes by which a child develops from a single cell are miraculous….
Human development is a continuous process that begins when an ovum from a female is fertilized by a sperm from a male. Growth and differentiation transform the zygote, a single cell... into a multicellular adult human being.10
The reference to the "miraculous processes in a purely secular text is not surprising. Even a single strand of DNA from a human cell contains information equivalent to a library of 1,000 volumes. The complexity of the zygote itself according to Dr. Hymie Gordon, chief geneticist at the Mayo Clinic, "is so great that it is beyond our comprehension."11 In a short nine months’ time, one fertilized ovum grows into 6,000 million cells that become a living, breathing person.
Further, medical dictionaries and encyclopedias all affirm that the embryo is human. Among many we could cite are Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary, Tuber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, and the Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health, which defines the embryo as "the human young from the time of fertilization of the ovum until the beginning of the third month."12
In 1981, the United States Congress conducted hearings to answer the question, "When does human life begin?" A group of internationally known scientists appeared before a Senate judiciary subcommittee.13 The U.S. Congress was told by Harvard University Medical School’s Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, "In biology and in medicine, it is an accepted fact that the life of any individual organism reproducing by sexual reproduction begins at conception...."14
Dr. Watson A. Bowes, Jr., of the University of Colorado Medical School, testified that "the beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter—the beginning is conception. This straightforward biological fact should not be distorted to serve sociological, political or economic goals."15
Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School noted: "The standard medical texts have long taught that human life begins at conception."16
He added: "I am no more prepared to say that these early stages represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty... is not a human being. This is human life at every stage albeit incomplete until late adolescence."17
Dr. McCarthy De Mere, who is a practicing physician as well as a law professor at the University of Tennessee, testified: "The exact moment of the beginning [of] personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception."18
World-famous geneticist Dr. Jerome Lejeune, professor of fundamental genetics at the University of Descarte, Paris, France, declared, "each individual has a very unique beginning, the moment of its conception."19
Dr. Lejeune also emphasized: "The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence."20
The chairman of the Department of Medical Genetics at the Mayo Clinic, Professor Hymie Gordon, testified, "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception."21
He further emphasized: "now we can say, unequivocally, that the question of when life begins… is an established scientific fact…. It is an established fact that all life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception."22
At that time the U.S. Senate proposed Senate Bill 158, called the "Human Life Bill." These hearings, which lasted eight days, involving 57 witnesses, were conducted by Senator John East. This Senate report concluded:
Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being—a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.23
In 1981, only a single scientist disagreed with the majority’s conclusion, and he did so on philosophical rather than scientific grounds. In fact, abortion advocates, although invited to do so, failed to produce even one expert witness who would specifically testify that life begins at any other point than conception.24
Many other biologists and scientists agree that life begins at conception. All agree that there is no point of time or interval of time between conception and birth when the unborn is anything but human.
Professor Roth of Harvard University Medical School has emphasized, "It is incorrect to say that the biological data cannot be decisive…. It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception, when the egg and sperm join to form the zygote, and that this developing human always is a member of our species in all stages of its life."25
In conclusion, we agree with pioneer medical researcher, Landrum B. Shettles, M.D., Ph.D., that, "There is one fact that no one can deny; human beings begin at conception."26
Again, let us stress that this is not a matter of religion, it is solely a matter of science. Scientists of every religious view and no religious view—agnostic, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, Christian, Hindu, etc.—all agree that life begins at conception. This explains why, for example, the International Code of Medical Ethics asserts: "A doctor must always bear in mind the importance of preserving human life from the time of conception until death."27
This is also why the Declaration of Geneva holds physicians to the following: "I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception; even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity."28 These statements can be found in the World Medical Association Bulletin for April 1949 (vol.1, p. 22) and January 1950 (vol. 2, p. 5). In 1970, the World Medical Association again reaffirmed the Declaration of Geneva.29
What difference does it make that human life begins at conception? The difference is this: If human life begins at conception, then abortion is the killing of a human life.
To deny this fact is scientifically impossible.30
VERY interesting turn of events.
It sure could be.
Pro-Choice Advocates Agree that Abortion Kills Humans
Excerpts of chapter 3 from The Public Policy of Casey v. Planned Parenthood by Michael G. Smith
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: "An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun."[1] Former Planned Parenthood President Faye Wattleton admits that the preborn are alive in her 1986 book:
"There are many sperm cells in the [seminal] fluid. If one of them meets an egg cell inside the mother, new life can begin to grow... If one of your friends is pregnant, ask her to let your child 'feel the baby move.' ... A baby grows in a special place inside the mother, called the uterus -- not in her stomach. In nine months it is born."[2]
Similarly, Dr. Mary Calderone, former director of Planned Parenthood has stated that "[a]bortion is the taking of a human life"[3] and Dr. Alan Guttmacher,[4] former president of Planned Parenthood and founder of the Guttmacher Institute, the research affiliate of Planned Parenthood, has stated "[f]ertilization has then taken place; a baby has been conceived." [5] [6] While many abortion defenders readily concede that abortion kills human life, it is necessary to expound on this point because examining the nature of the unborn human being at the point of conception shows the inherent dignity that we all share from our biologic beginnings that are hidden from eyes of the world.
Not only have representatives from the nations largest abortion provider agreed that life begins at conception, but others who support abortion have agreed that abortion is murder. Dr. Magda Denes who performed two years of research in an abortion facility and compiled her results [7] 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.’" [8] Even Kate Michelman, President of N.AR.A.L. seems to be moving in the direction of agreeing that abortion is murder by her statement that "[a]bortion is a bad thing." [9] Others who have at one time been heavily involved with abortion have later agreed, such as "Jane Roe" Norma McCorvey, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, and Carol Everett.
In addition, everyone who uses the term "fetus" unwittingly acknowledges that the unborn human is an unborn child because fetus is Latin for "unborn child." Unfortunately for the unborn child, the term fetus has fallen into use as a way of dehumanizing the unborn child, as shown by the primary use of this term by people when they are arguing for abortion rights, in comparison to when they are discussing a baby that is wanted by the mother.
[1] Pamphlet: Plan Your Children (Planned Parenthood, 1963).
[2] Faye Wattleton, How to Talk with Your Child About Sexuality 95 (1986).
[3] Dr. Mary Calderone, Illegal Abortion as a Public Health Problem, 50 American Journal of Public
Health 7, 951 (1960)
[4] Katherine S. O'Keefe, Crypto-Eugenics: The Hidden Agenda of Planned Parenthood Appendix B
(1991)
[5] Birth Control and Love: The Complete Guide to Contraception and Fertility 12 (1961) quoted in
Stephen M. Krason, Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution: A Critical Study of Roe v. Wade
and Doe v. Bolton and a Basis for Change 445 (1984)
[6] Planning Your Family 16 (1964)
[7] In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death in an Abortion Hospital (1976)
[8] Daily News, Oct. 22, 1976
[9] Philadelphia Enquirer, Dec. 11, 1993
Yes. I hope they find a way to have entered as evidence some sonograms taken at all stages of pregnancy. They may just say that such films are irrelevant since they would not be Mrs. Acuna's, per se, but you almost have to have them to prove that even though a baby cannot live outside the womb in the beginning, it still is a distinct, uninque human life.
The whole business falls into the realm of commercial speech.
The Liberals have a real problem here after having made millions of bucks off the cigarette industry digging around in the exact same body of law. If they campaign in the courts (what Liberals do by bringing multiple suits) to support the abortionists right to lie to clients, they stand a chance of having this body of law picked up by the Supreme Court ~ and there go those cigarette bucks. If they refuse to support the abortionists, some of their little buddies will be put out of business.
So many decisions, so much money, oh what will the Liberals do.
We won that debate long ago.
But you don't understand. Life doesn't begin until the mother starts thinking of names. Uups. She can't be a mother until life begins. So, the er... 'fetus bearer' starts thinking of names, yes, then the 'fetus bearer' becomes a mother. [Affirmative nod.]
That about sums up their logic.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with a bunch of liberals deciding this.
Funny. It's simple and easilly understood by someone pro-life. But our legal system is so convoluted that this causes confusion.
Let me guess, it'll be 12 pro-lifers that lie and say they had no prior opinion?
disturb nesting turtle eggs and they can slap you with the destruction of an endangered species... abort a baby and it is just some tissue...
what messed up people pro-choicers are...
teeman
Clarification Please! Either we are all complete, unique humans or nobody is. Come on, who is totally complete in themselves? If someone is missing a finger does that make them a nonperson? What if someone needs to "grow up" a little more, does that make them a nonperson because they are not completely mature. We are all obviously unique, but what is meant by complete? The only completeness I know comes through Christ. He is the one who makes us whole. Does that mean that I think all non-Christians are not humans therefore that they do not deserve for their lives to be protected under the law, of course not!
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