A picture is worth a thousand words, champ.
Posted on 07/23/2008 7:14:35 PM PDT by Interposition
• At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45, and, at current rates, about one-third will have had an abortion.
• Forty-three percent of women obtaining abortions identify themselves as Protestant, and 27% as Catholic.
• Women who have never married obtain two-thirds of all abortions.
• Eighty-seven percent of all U.S. counties lacked an abortion provider in 2005; 35% of women live in those counties.
• In the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court ruled that women, in consultation with their physician, have a constitutionally protected right to have an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy—that is, before viability—free from government interference.
• In 1992, the Court reaffirmed the right to abortion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. However, the ruling significantly weakened the legal protections previously afforded women and physicians by giving states the right to enact restrictions that do not create an “undue burden” for women seeking abortion.
• Congress has barred the use of federal Medicaid funds to pay for abortions, except when the woman’s life would be endangered by a full-term pregnancy or in cases of rape or incest.
• Seventeen states use public funds to pay for abortions for some poor women, but only four do so voluntarily; the rest do so under a court order. About 13% of all abortions in the United States are paid for with public funds (virtually all from state governments).
• Family planning clinics funded under Title X of the federal Public Health Service Act have helped women prevent 20 million unintended pregnancies during the last 20 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at guttmacher.org ...
Psalms 51:5 – “Look, I was guilty of sin from birth, a sinner the moment my mother conceived me.” The Net Bible has an exegetical note on that verse:[4]
14 tn Heb “Look, in wrongdoing I was brought forth, and in sin my mother conceived me.” The prefixed verbal form in the second line is probably a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive), stating a simple historical fact. The psalmist is not suggesting that he was conceived through an inappropriate sexual relationship (although the verse has sometimes been understood to mean that, or even that all sexual relationships are sinful). The psalmist’s point is that he has been a sinner from the very moment his personal existence began. By going back beyond the time of birth to the moment of conception, the psalmist makes his point more emphatically in the second line than in the first.
Any philosophy disassociating being from person is diametrically opposed to Psalm 51:5.[5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] Person is concurrent with, not subsequent, or prior to, being.[13] Every philosophy against that objective fact is an arbitrary artifice based solely on man-made subjective criteria that can be used to dehumanize murder victims. Americans are no less guilty than Nazis for exterminating millions made in the image of God (Gen. 9:6).[14]
Tertullian, in De Anima 27, acknowledged special revelation: “Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does."[15] Delayed ensolument – quickening - animation resulted from Aristotle’s imprecise conclusions from general revelation.[16] Christians must jettison the imprecise; and hold fast to the precise truth.
The 2007 Summer edition of Human Life Review precisely narrows the time frame of the incipient stage for a new human being: “The event at which a new, unique person is formed and personhood is gained is the event wherein a genetically unique, one-celled human is formed. This event occurs no earlier than when a human sperm penetrates the zona pellucida of a human ovum during the fertilization process, creating a one-celled human who possesses a full complement of human DNA, and occurs no later than when that first cell begins the process of mitosis to divide into two cells.” [17] This event is significantly prior to implantation; and clearly demonstrates that abortificants preventing implantation of nascent humans being is tantamount to chemical warfare. Societies tolerating this barbarism forfeit any claim to Judeo-Christian civilization, notwithstanding songs, mottos, and pledges to the contrary.
What does “viability” have to do with anything? The 1973 Roe v. Wade majority opinion lacks viability outside the womb of the corrupt courtroom that illegitimately spawned the chimerical text.[18] [19] [20] [21] Texas should have insisted that Congress never gave the court jurisdiction to hear the case in the first place. Federal courts are totally dependent on the President to bring their anti-Constitutional opinion to term and unleash it against the States. The United States President can join a minority opinion of one, or none and make a majority by the Constitutional prerogative of executive review.[22] [23] If the President can keep a Congressional opinion from becoming law by a veto, he can certainly keep a majority opinion that is not law from being enforced.[24] A President is under no conscionable, moral or legal mandate to enforce an anti-Constitutional opinion. The Tenth Amendment,[25] [26]listed twice in the mission statement of Free Republic @ About Free Republic, gives this prerogative to each State of the Union. If members of this forum do not support that principal, who will?
“Viability” isn’t the only occurrence of gross conceptual error about the Court. Planned Parenthood v. Casey did not give states the “right” to do anything. States have powers, not rights.[27] They have a right to exercise those powers given by the people, not by a court![28] Only those made in the image of God (Gen. 9:6) have rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence.[29] Government is granted power to secure those rights.[30] The protection of human life is one of the paramount duties of state government. Any court opinion violating that power is void! The 30 states with unenforced abortion laws should not delay their enforcement another day![31]
Murder, in cases of rape or incest, is still murder. 36 states have fetal homicide laws based on the same propositions that abortion is murder.[32]
Federal courts took 4 words, “due process and equal protection,” from an obsolete Amendment[33][34] and annihilated the Construction.[35] One thing children in adult bodies[36] on federal courts[37] do not need is more words to play around with. They need less jurisdiction,[38] not more words. The only thing that needs amending is the pro-life electorate’s attitude about the text and internal logic of Constitution. Politicians will follow that amended lead, or get out of the way of the ones that do.
[1] http://www.ctsfw.edu/library/files/pb/1545 On this point John CALVIN in his interpretation of Psalm 51 is in AGREEMENT WITH LUTHER. The word "conceived" (yechemathni, derived from yacham or chamam, which mean "to warm7') is interpreted by him literally as "hath warmed herself of me," here with reference to procreation.2 Calvin continues: The passage affords a striking testimony in proof of original sin entailed by Adam upon the whole of humanity. It not only teaches the doctrine, but may assist us in forming a correct idea of it . . . the Bible, both in this and other places, clearly attests that we are born in sin, and that it exists within us as a disease fixed in our nature. David does not charge it upon his parents, nor trace his crime to them, but sits himself before the Divine tribunal,. confesses that he was formed in sin, and that he was a transgressor ere he saw the light of this world.On the basis of Scripture, then, we need to stress that the baby from the time of conception is a sinful human being and thus is born with sin. We need to stress, in the teaching of this doctrine, sin from the time of conception and not only from the time of birth. Sometimes we tend to be unclear on this matter.
[2] http://www.lifeoftheworld.com/believe/abortion.php The Law of God reveals their sin to them and they feel guilt and great sorrow, and they begin to wonder what can be done about it or if there is any hope at all. The woman who has had an abortion needs to hear that for this sin too the blood of Jesus Christ was shed, and that there is in Him now full and free forgiveness.
[3] http://arizonarighttolife.org/userfiles/File/Abortion_and_the_Law_1.pdf "The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being and it is a most monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man's house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light" - John Calvin – Protestant Reformer - (1509-64) - Commentarius in Exodum, 21,22) HINT TO McCain: this is from ARIZONA Right to Life.
[5] http://www.ccel.us/Swindoll.chap1.html One of the most capable linguistic authorities I have ever met — a Hebrew scholar par excellence — is Bruce Waltke (a Ph.D. from Harvard University) and one of my mentors during my seminary years. He writes of this Psalm 51:5 passage rather clearly, first quoting from Edward R. Dalglish's authoritative work on Psalm 51: In Psalm 51:5, the psalmist is relating his sinfulness to the very inception of life; he traces his development beyond his birth . . . to the genesis of his being in his mother's womb — even to the very hour of conception. 8 Dr. Waltke then adds: . . . in tracing his spiritual condition to the time of conception, David goes on to note that already in his fetal state the moral law of God was present in him. http://www.abortionfacts.com/online_books/cplbo/AbortionandtheXian.Chap4.asp Professor E.R. Dalglish, in his authoritative work on Psalm 51, comments, "In Psalm 51:7 [English v. 5] the psalmist is relating his sinfulness to the very inception of life; he traces his development beyond his birth to the genesis of his being in his mother's womb -- even to the very hour of conception."[9] In confessing his personal guilt for his adultery with Bathsheba, David traces his involvement with sin to the very beginnings of his existence. This application of moral and spiritual categories to David as a conceptus suggests a relationship to God and the moral law even in his embryonic state. In the next verse David goes on to confess that already in his mother's womb the moral law of God was present with him. According to the King James Version the text of Psalm 51:6 reads, "Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me know wisdom." Waltke, following the suggestion of Dalglish, argues that the Hebrew words rendered "inward parts" (tehoth) and "hidden part" (satem) properly refer not to David's body, but rather to his mother's womb.[10] This interpretation is supported by the close connection of verse 6 with verse 5,
[6] Bruce K. Waltke, "Reflections From The Old Testament On Abortion," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 19.1 (1976): 3-13. Finally, Psalm 51:5 f. (7 f. Hebrew) in particular supports the notion that at the time of conception man is in a state of sin and that man’s spiritual, moral faculty is already present in the fetus. If this exegesis of Psalm 51:5 f. is correct, and to the best of my knowledge it is, then it seems an inescapable conclusion that the image of God is already present in the fetus. No evangelical would deny that a baby is a human being and that it is made in the image of God, that is, that it has the capacity for spiritual, rational and moral response. The question, then, is, “Does the fetus have that capacity?” The answer of Scripture is that it does and that this capacity was already present at the time of conception.
[7] J. Carl Laney, "The Abortion Epidemic: America's Silent Holocaust," Bibliotheca Sacra 139: 556 (1982): 342-354. David traces the origin of his sin with Bathsheba to his own conception: “Behold I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps 51:5). The “iniquity” and “sin” referred to here are David’s.31 David is relating his sinfulness to the very inception of his life—before birth. This indicates that the moral law of God was already present and operative in David in his prenatal state. Since Scripture attributes moral guilt to David as an unborn child, a strong likelihood exists that he was human before birth.
[8] http://homepage.mac.com/francis.beckwith/bibsac.pdf A Critical Appraisal of the Theological Arguments for Abortion Rights. Bibliotheca Sacra 148 (July-September 1991): 337-355. Psalm 51:5 does clearly state that it was David who came into existence at conception. Second, even if this passage were claiming that the unborn are potential sinners, this would still imply that the unborn are actual human persons, since only actual persons can be potential sinners, just as only actual persons can be potential violinists, philosophers, basketball players, or deli managers. And third, the passage is not saying that David, as a zygote, performed a sin, but rather, that he was CONCEIVED A SINNER BY VIRTUE OF BEING ADAM’S DESCENDANT. That is to say, Adam’s sin nature is passed on to all who share his human nature. But this supports the pro-life position, for, as Geisler points out, “the very fact that humans are declared sinners from conception reveals that they are human, that is, part of the fallen human race. It is only by virtue of being part of the Adamic human race that we are conceived in sin (see Rom 5:12).”
[9] http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/sanctity.html Psalm 51:5 says, "Behold I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me." David is not suggesting that he was born as the result of a sinful relationship. What he is saying is that from the time he left his mother's womb, even from the moment he was conceived, he was a sinner. David, therefore, was not some amorphous blob of tissue at conception, but a spiritual being with a sin nature. Some may object that I am using a modern day definition of conception and applying it to a 3,500-year-old text. However, conception was recognized as the beginning of life. They understood that the seed of the man needed to be combined with the seed of the woman and out of that union, a new life was brought forth. While our technical knowledge may be more precise, the idea is still the same.
[10] http://www.apuritansmind.com/Apologetics/McMahonHumanBeingsAndAbortion.htm Psalm 51:5 states, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” King David, in this psalm on penitence, first states that “I” was “brought forth.” The Hebrew word is chuwl in the Pulal, and is in the perfect mood or tense. Literally it refers to being “made” in iniquity, and is first person. David is speaking of himself – that “he” had a relationship with God, in sin, IMPUTED to him, AT THE MOMENT HE WAS CONCEIVED or shapened in the womb. In chet (sin) David was yacham (conceived). He had a relationship with God from the moment the egg was fertilized by the sperm. At that point, David can say “I” apart from both his father and his mother at the point of conception. David is not his mother at the moment he is conceived. From that point the comparison of numeric cells between David’s mother and David himself is irrelevant. David, at conception, is his own person – he is a human being.
[11] http://www.probe.org/content/view/1142/47/ The psalmist states that he was a spiritual being from the point of conception. This isn't saying that he sinned while in the womb, but that he recognizes that from the earliest part of life, he was a sinner.
[12] http://www.bmei.org/brmm/vol09no6.php The Bible is clear that individual human life begins at conception (Genesis 4:1, Psalm 51:5, Luke 1:31) and that it is a special work of God's design (Psalm 139:13-15). God even plans the creation of individuals and their life's work before they are born (Psalm 139:16-18, Jeremiah 1:5).
[13] http://www.l4l.org/library/falassum.html This means that if we are persons with the right to be free from aggression later in life, we are persons even at conception. http://www.l4l.org/library/someinfo.html As libertarians, LFL's interest in the abortion debate is in everyone's unalienable rights. LFL's reasoning is philosophical, not religious. Some LFL associates are religious; others, such as Gordon, are atheists.
[14] http://www.jewsforlife.org/Bonfire-News.cfm Between Two Holocausts, By Bonnie Chernin Rogoff, Founder, Jews For Life
[15] http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/earlychurchfathers/tertullian.html Priests for Life. Tertullian (c. 160 - 240)
[16] http://www.catholicintl.com/epologetics/articles/pastoral/1973.htm But the idea of a delayed ensoulment did not start with Aquinas. Although the Aristotelian influence on Aquinas led him to entertain the 40-80 day waiting period, Platonic philosophy stemming from St. Augustine also seemed to lend credence to the idea.
[17] http://www.humanlifereview.com/2007_summer/Summer_2007_Review_Horne1.pdf Through all of human history it was always the human DNA that endowed
those who possessed it with their membership in the human species. 15 Human DNA is the component of each human that makes him or her a person, regardless of the many and varied definitions of when life begins.
[18] http://judiciary.house.gov/legacy/2187.htm A confession by the principal author of the most infamous decision in this century, and perhaps after Dred Scott, ever, revealing that arbitrary choice -- not discernment of the law of the land -- accounts for the result in Roe. Law, legal history, constitutional allocations of power, all ignored. The abortion right derives not from background principles of common law; not in the first principles of our constitutional republic; not as a result of careful parsing of constitutional text. The application of lethal force to the innocent unborn can be found neither in the records of the drafting of the 14th amendment, nor the accounts of that amendment's ratification. The respect due the structural reservation of health, safety and moral questions to the states under the 10th amendment was forsaken as well.
[19] http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1058038/posts Ten Legal Reasons to Reject Roe.
[20] http://www.rnclife.org/faxnotes/2001/jan01/01-01-19.html Roe v. Wade is a settled case, but it is not settled law. In fact, no law has been passed that makes abortion legal in this country.
[21] http://www.citizensforaconstitutionalrepublic.com/titus1-17-05.html Abortion Is NOT Legal!
[22] http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/ President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
[23] http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=442 Lincoln on Judicial Despotism, by Robert P. George, 2003 First Things (February 2003).
[24] http://www.peroutka2004.com/schedule/index.php?action=itemview&event_id=189 Thus, under my presidency, Roe v. Wade will not be enforced, and the member states of the Union could again open their criminal codes and begin the prosecution of the doctors and parents who would contract for the murder of an unborn child without fear of reprisal from the Chief Executive.
[25] http://media.peroutka2004.com/print/stw_butcher.pdf Standing Between the Butcher and the Baby
[26] http://www.visionforumministries.org/issues/life/the_first_100_ways.aspx The First 100 Ways Ending ‘Legal’ Abortions by Herbert W. Titus, J.D., January 21, 2003
[27] http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed39.htm The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; and, finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national.
[28] http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2046068/posts the Framers believed that the true bulwark of liberty was limited government. Few students comprehend the crucial distinction between (on the one hand) the national government as one of delegated and enumerated powers, and (on the other) the states as governments of general jurisdiction, exercising police powers to protect public health, safety, and morals, and to advance the general welfare.
[29] http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2043615/posts Creation, The Declaration Of Independence, And The History Of "Unalienable Rights" Book Review
[30] http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2041235/posts Government has no power, except that which we the people have delegated to government through the Constitution of the United States. If the question of constitutionality of a certain governmental action is at stake, it is not incumbent upon the citizen to say to the government, "Where in the Constitution does it say this can't be done? The responsibility is on the federal official to show where in the Constitution it says it can be done. Unless that power has been delegated to the federal government somewhere in the Constitution, the federal government does not have that power. The Bill of Rights is about individual rights, not state rights.
[31] http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=66440 According to a 2004 survey by the Center for Reproductive Rights, abortion could quickly become illegal -- either through the reanimation of now dormant laws or the rapid passage of new bans -- in as many as 30 states if the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade ruling. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134530,00.html 30 States Ready to Outlaw Abortion Tuesday, October 05, 2004
[33] http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2048196/posts It is a common mistake to habitually interpret the entire Constitution through four words,[21] “due process” and “equal protection” in the obsolete Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment.[22] No former slaves are alive; 2) the 13th Amendment prohibits reinstitution of slavery; 3) blacks who owned slaves were citizens of their respective states prior to the 14th Amendment.[23] : “On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."[24] This sound exegetical principal applies to the 14th Amendment.
[34] http://www.lewrockwell.com/kinsella/kinsella11.html First, the Fourteenth Amendment was unconstitutionally ratified. Second, the Due Process clause was never intended to "incorporate" the rights in the Bill of Rights. It simply makes no sense that it would have: the Bill of Rights, as noted above, was simply a safety measure to ensure that the federal government would not exceed its limited powers. The First Amendment itself says "Congress shall make no law…". How could a limitation on Congress’s power be applied to the states? Moreover, the Courts have had to resort to the ridiculous doctrine of "substantive due process," as distinct from "procedural due process." How can due process not be merely procedural? Third, the Fourteenth Amendment and the Incorporation Doctrine that it spawned have eroded the vertical balance of powers between the states and the central government that was put originally in place so that the states would serve as checks on central tyranny.
[35] Michael Stokes Paulsen, The Worst Constitutional Decision of All Time, 78 Notre Dame L. Rev. 995 (2003) AND http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.,pubID.18112/pub_detail.asp
Constitutional law, in the sense of judicial decisions that are guided--at least in aspiration—by the text, structure, and logic of the written Constitution, is dead. It has been replaced, often as a matter of explicit doctrine, with subjective judicial impressions of popular sentiment or political utility.
[36] “We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But [five] babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow.” --Puddleglum, in C.S. Lewis's Narnia book The Silver Chair.
[37] http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=1464 Five Judicial Myths. Talking Points About the Judiciary. Despite what we hear today . . .
[38]http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2042168/posts the Sanctity of Life Act (H.R. 2597) and the “We the People Act” (H.R. 300)
A picture is worth a thousand words, champ.
Biblically, willful abortion is nothing more than repackaged human child sacrifices like those to the Son of Hinnom (the sun god). Israel did this in the valley of Tophet. Because of these abominations Israel was judged and Tophet became the place of corruption (the garbage dump of Jerusalem) and a perpetual burning. It is therefore also called Gehenna and is a biblical picture of hell.
As God judged Old Testament Israel for these abominations He is and will judge this nation also.
55 million American children dead by abortion,their fate decided by their mothers. And we have the most liberal candidate on abortion there ever was looking to be president. If this country elects this guy,we will reap what we sow. As much as God is mercy and love he is righteous and justice. The constant killing of innocent blood can’t keep going on without harsh judgment coming back to us. And we deserve it.
I also got this when reading God’s wrath against those who offered to Molech.
The following sequence illustrates this: "..became vain in their imagination (original has "made vain" - transitive) ...Wherefore God also gave them up ...For this cause God gave them up...God gave them over... Romans 1:21,24,26,28.
This is happening now. The end of it is also a final judgment.
According to the US Center for Disease Control the leading causes of death in the US in 2002 were:
Abortion 1,290,000
Heart disease 710,760
Cancer 553,091
Stroke 167,661
Chronic lower respiratory tract disease 122,009
Accidents 97,900.
AIDS was not even in the top 10 causes with 17,544 reported deaths.
If induced abortions were reduced by 50% the savings of lives would be greater than finding a cure for all
cancer.
Approximately 1 of every 4 pregnancies in the US is ended by surgical abortion.
Abortion stops a baby’s beating heart.
Pro-Life PING
Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
When will this slaughter end?
We must pray and pray again!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.