Posted on 03/09/2003 4:26:55 PM PST by MadIvan
Foetuses may develop consciousness long before the legal age limit for abortions, one of Britain's leading brain scientists has said.
Baroness Greenfield, a professor of neurology at Oxford University and the director of the Royal Institution, said there was evidence to suggest the conscious mind could develop before 24 weeks, the upper age where terminations are permitted.
Although she fell short of calling for changes in the abortion laws, she urged doctors and society to be cautious when assuming unborn babies lacked consciousness. "Is the foetus conscious? The answer is yes, but up to a point," she said.
"Given that we can't prove consciousness or not, we should be very cautious about being too gung ho and assuming something is not conscious. We should err on the side of caution."
Last year, a Daily Telegraph straw poll found many neurologists were concerned that foetuses could feel pain in the womb before 24 weeks after conception.
Many believed foetuses should be given anaesthetics during a late abortion, after 20 weeks. Some also believe pain relief should be given for keyhole surgery in the womb.
Abortions are allowed up to 24 weeks in Britain, but are rarely given so late. Around 90 per cent of the 175,000 planned terminations that take place each year in England and Wales are in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Around 1.5 per cent - or 2,600 - take place after the 20th week.
Terminations after 24 weeks are only allowed in exceptional circumstances if, for instance, the mother's life is threatened.
Lady Greenfield is sceptical of philosophers and doctors who argue that consciousness is "switched on" at some point during the brain's development.
She believes instead that there is a sliding scale of consciousness and that it develops gradually as neurons, or brain cells, make more and more connections with each other.
She told the British Fertility Society in London last week that she had serious concerns about foetal consciousness.
"The Home Office has legislation that applies to a mammal and they have now extended it to the octopus, a mollusc, because it can learn," she said. "If a mollusc can be attributed with being sentient, and now has Home Office protection, then my own view is that we should be very cautious after making assumptions."
In 2001 a Medical Research Council expert group said unborn babies might feel pain as early as 20 weeks and almost certainly by 24. They called for more sensitive treatment of very premature babies, who often had to undergo painful procedures like heel pricks and injections.
The 'discussion' so far is bordering on the ghoulish, as different posters try to haggle over the worthiness of these individual human beings, seeking some definitive age of the individual before which the society will count these individual human lives worthy of protection.
Before this gets much further, let it be said that if American society does not get this right, now, at this juncture in our national life, we will be embracing cannibalism soon as if it is enlightened medical application for 'cures' for the older in our society by harvesting the body parts of the younger (stem cells are the body parts of the individual human being at their embryonic age along their individual continuum of life in their body). Does our society value individual human life?
Individual human life begins at conception. There is no point following fecundation where an individual life may be halted that doesn't terminate a human being's existence. Let me reiterate that one. Halting the continuum of individual life begun at conception ends an individual human life already in existence. Will we 'bottom out' at cannibalizing the earliest age of the individual? No, that will still not be the ultimate denegration of humanity, but it will signal our end collectively. The slippery slope has one last abomination : the harvesting of identical twin individuals supported for a few weeks or months until their tissues develop to the stage 'most desired for harvesting to treat the older twin'.
It must stop now, or we will have no recourse to cease the abomination.
I believe the "quickening" was the ancient English Common Law standard for when a fetus could be treated as a person for the sake of determining injury for civil and criminal purposes. Before the quickening, any injury that resulted in the death of the fetus was treated as injury to the mother only for these purposes. I think it predates Christianity and Judaism as a standard; while we sometimes forget, much of the English Common Law tradition is extremely old in its origins, predating the spread of Christianity to that corner of the world.
I'm definitely against IUDs. I have a friend who managed to be born because his mother didn't have hers pulled (thus aborting him) when she became pregnant. That's abortion. The Pill is a little more ambiguous (because there are a few ways it could work) but, yes, it makes me uncomfortable. There are more than enough blocking forms of contraceptives out there (including condoms, sponges, diaphrams, and sterilization) that I would rather err on the side of safety and have neither the Pill or the IUD. Note that my opinion is not based on how "convenient" it is or what it does or doesn't include.
As for implantation or viability, neither is really a criteria for "personhood", although they can be raised with respect to the woman's responsibility. If you apply either implantation or viability criteria to an animal or alien, you aren't going to be able to use it to determine who is a person and who isn't.
Bear in mind that no human infant is truly "viable" without care. Exposure was a common form of infanticide for a reason. Exposing an infant to the elements, whether you do it before birth through abortion or after birth by leaving it on a rock illustrates how artificial this difference is. Yes, before birth, the mother is the only person that can care for the child but that doesn't change anything. If you and an infant were the only survivors of a plane crash on a remote island, I think it would be your responsibility to take care of the infant even though you didn't want it, you don't have to take care of it, and it may be a pain in the neck. As for implantation, purposely not catching a baby dropped from a burning building, if you are the only person who could catch and save it, is a problem, wouldn't you agree? If you tried to catch it and failed, I wouldn't hold you responsible. But if you purposely opened up your arms and said, "I'm not catching it, that's something else entirely."
By the way, "When does life begin?" is a trick question. Life began billions (or thousands -- pick one) years ago and has continued sense. Inanimate material does not suddenly become alive, as people believed it could a few hundred years ago (see "spontaneous generation"). If a child is dead at any point between fertilization and birth, that child will be stillborn.
No there isn't. The "quickening" as it refers to unborn children is a concept developed by the Greeks before they had a sound understanding of reproductive science. The idea that this concept can be found in the bible is a myth.
I do not disagree; I was merely pointing out possible divisions. My point is that the question must be when does human life begin; fetal conscious – or lack thereof – is not (in my opinion), a argument for or in opposition, to abortion. Originally, this thread dealt with the consciousness of fetuses as an argument against abortion.
My point is that there are better reasons to oppose abortions. Whether or not a fetus feels pain, or thinks, or is self-aware is not the point. The point is, is a fetus a person; I think the answer is yes.
I'm not being contentious, but not all members are Christian; not all Christians dismiss evolution.
In addition, Ireland has the lowest maternal mortality rate in the world, but you never hear the NOW hags mention it.
source:Christian Teachings Against abortion
"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. ... Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death" Catechism of the Catholic Church (2273).
"Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being" Catechism of the Catholic Church (2274).
Pope John Paul II "An embryo is an individual, no matter how small. While the embryo receives cells from the mother and the father, it is neither the mother nor the father." - Evangelium Vitae, (The Gospel of Life) 1995
BARNABAS (early second century) "Never do away with an unborn child, or destroy it after its birth." (Epistle of Barnabas, chap. 19)
The DIDACHE (first century) "You shall not slay the child by abortions." (Didache 2:2)
The Didache - Alternate title: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles c. 60-100 A.D.
The Didache is, in all probability, the oldest surviving extant piece of non-canonical literature. It is not so much a letter as a handbook for new Christian converts, consisting of instructions derived directly from the teachings of Jesus. The Didache claims to have been authored by the twelve apostles. While this is unlikely, the work could be a direct result of the first Apostolic Council, c.50 C.E. (Acts 15:28). Similarities to the Apostolic Decree are apparent, and the given structure of the church is quite primitive. Most scholars agree that the work, in its earliest form, may have circulated as early as the 60's C.E., though additions and modifications may have taken place well into the third century. 2:2 {Thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery,} thou shalt not corrupt boys, thou shalt not commit fornication, {thou shalt not steal,} thou shalt not deal in magic, thou shalt do no sorcery, thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill them when born, {thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods, thou shalt not perjure thyself, thou shalt not bear false witness,} thou shalt not speak evil, thou shalt not cherish a grudge, thou shalt not be double-minded nor double-tongued;
SAINT CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (223 AD) "Those who use abortifacients commit homicide." “. . . if we would not kill off the human race born and developing according to God’s plan, then our whole lives would be lived according to nature. Women who make use of some sort of deadly abortion drug kill not only the embryo but, together with it, all human kindness.” ~ Clement of Alexandria, priest and the “Father of Theologians” (c. 150-220), Christ the Educator, Volume II, page 10.
Athenagoras of Athens, letter to Marcus Aurelius, 177, Legatio pro Christianis (“Supplication for the Christians”), page 35. “Those women who use drugs to bring about an abortion commit murder and will have to give an account to God for their abortion.”
Minucius Felix, theologian (c. 200-225), Octavius, page 30. “. . . there are women who, by the use of medicinal potions, destroy the unborn life in their wombs, and murder the child before they bring it forth. These practices undoubtedly are derived from a custom established by your gods; Saturn, though he did not expose his sons, certainly devoured them.”
Council of Eivira ca 305 "If a woman becomes pregnant by committing adultery, While her husband is absent, and after the act she destroys the child, it is proper to keep her from communion until death, because she has doubled her crime." -Canon 63
SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM (345-407 AD) "Where there is murder before birth, you do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make of her a murderess as well."
St. Ambrose of Milan ca 339-397 The wealthy, in order that their inheritance may not be divided among several, deny in the very womb their own progeny. By use of' parricidal mixtures they snuff out the fruit of their wombs in the genital organs themselves. In this way life is taken away before it is born .... Who except man himself has taught us ways of repudiating children?" -Hexameron
SAINT AUGUSTINE of HIPPO (354-430 AD) "Sometimes their sadistic licentiousness goes so far...they find one means or another to destroy the unborn and flush it from the mother's womb." (The City of God, Book One, Chapter 16)
St. Jerome (c. 340-420), Letter to Eustochium, 22.13. “Some virgins [unmarried women], when they learn they are with child through sin, practice abortion by the use of drugs. Frequently they die themselves and are brought before the ruler of the lower world guilty of three crimes; suicide, adultery against Christ and murder of an unborn child.”
St. BASIL THE GREAT (379) "The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. The hair-splitting difference between formed and unformed makes no difference to us." This term "formed and unformed" was later translated to quickening
"Moreover, those, too, who give drugs causing abortion are deliberate murderers themselves, as well as those receiving the poison which kills the- fetus." -Letter 188:2
The Apostolic Constitutions ca 380 "Thou shalt not slay the child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. For everything that is shaped, and his received a soul from God, if slain, it shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed." -7:3
THE PROTESTANT REFORMERS AGREED:
Martin Luther, Luther's Works: How great, therefore, the wickedness of human nature is! How many girls there are who prevent conception and kill and expel tender fetuses, although procreation is the work of God. --, American Ed., (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing), v. 4, 304.
JOHN CALVIN: "The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being and it is a 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."
I wonder how many will take the time to read all of this?
What fetuses/babies do have is life that will (usually) develop into fully-formed and sentient people.
Some say the fetus/baby is unconscious.
Isn't killing an unconscious person murder?
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