Pro-Life Bill......

[Bullypulpit]

Originally posted by jon_forward
you can view woman anyway you choose...I have the highest respect for woman....you do realize it takes 2 to make babys..killing an unborn child is wrong..period. I dont care if the fetus is one week old or 6 months, the taking of a life is wrong. save for reasons stated earlier. as for the old days...they didnt have the ability to enjoy sex as we do...condoms, ect...


avator4321...post was ment to mean safe sex as in no baby...sorry

I'm sorry jon but one week after conception ain't a human being. It's just a bunch of cells stuck to the wall of a womans uterus.

 

[jimnyc]

Originally posted by Bullypulpit
I'm sorry jon but one week after conception ain't a human being. It's just a bunch of cells stuck to the wall of a womans uterus.

It's called life.

I hope you don't know anyone that has an early term miscarriage. I'd hate to see their face when you ask them "What's wrong, you really haven't lost anything"

 

[jon_forward]

damn it...I am not going to debate over a science book.....seems our senate has decided that the book is not right. when an acorn spouts...what is it? or for that matter any seed? When is a tomatoe plant a tomatoe plant? when it sprouts are when it bears fruit? do you understand where i am coming from?Does this make a point to you?

 

[LoneVoice]

Originally posted by jon_forward
damn it...I am not going to debate over a science book.....seems our senate has decided that the book is not right. when an acorn spouts...what is it? or for that matter any seed? When is a tomatoe plant a tomatoe plant? when it sprouts are when it bears fruit? do you understand where i am coming from?Does this make a point to you?

To continue your analogy: What about the seeds that don't land on fertile ground? Or how about the squirrels that eats the nuts, should we prosecute them for tree abortion?

 

[jimnyc]

Originally posted by LoneVoice
To continue your analogy: What about the seeds that don't land on fertile ground? Or how about the squirrels that eats the nuts, should we prosecute them for tree abortion?

Yes, let's continue to compare the behavior of animals to that of humans.

I find it funny that those who run out of arguments are relegated to penguins and squirrels.

 

[Moi]

Originally posted by LoneVoice
To continue your analogy: What about the seeds that don't land on fertile ground? Or how about the squirrels that eats the nuts, should we prosecute them for tree abortion?

I'll make you a deal, I won't advocate for prosecuting squirrels for eating if you don't prosecute people for eating aborted fetus.

How's that for equal protection?

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Originally posted by Bullypulpit
...Human life does not "begin" at conception. From a purely practical standpoint, it doesn't really begin until the fetus is viable outside the womb.

Until the blastocyst (an undifferentiated mass of cells) implants itself in the uterine wall, it isn't even considered a fetus. And until well into the first trimester, it doesn't even resemble anything human.

The so called "right-to-life" movement confuses the potential with the actual. The life that already exists (the mother) trumps the potential life (the blastocyst or the fetus).

And, face it, the "right-to-life" movement isn't about life, it's about power...political power...the power to dictate how a woman will lead her life. Is she an entity with free-will? Or merely chattel, to do as she's told. That view coincides nicely with the Taliban and Wahabi view of the world...doncha think? Just goes to show ya...religious extremists are all dangerous loonies, doesn't matter what religious flavor they like.

You know what bully, you really make me sick. You're a completely arrogant and self centered jackhole. You lefties criticize us all night and all day for "seeing things as black and white" then, you have the gall to chime in on a topic like this and tell everyone for a fact "when life begins". We're wrong if we think life begins at conception, and you're right that it doesn't for some reason, apparently because you know big words like "blastocyte".

You know what's funny? I'm actually pro-choice. You still disgust me.

 

[Bullypulpit]

Originally posted by rtwngAvngr
You know what bully, you really make me sick. You're a completely arrogant and self centered jackhole. You lefties criticize us all night and all day for "seeing things as black and white" then, you have the gall to chime in on a topic like this and tell everyone for a fact "when life begins". We're wrong if we think life begins at conception, and you're right that it doesn't for some reason, apparently because you know big words like "blastocyte".

You know what's funny? I'm actually pro-choice. You still disgust me.

Sorry, just stating the medical, biological and political facts.

 

[jimnyc]

Originally posted by Bullypulpit
Sorry, just stating the medical, biological and political facts.

Your delusional opinions don't even come close to being factual. You live in your own little pathetic world and sit back and rant like a child who is demanding attention. Basically, you are a mental midget.

 

[Bullypulpit]

Originally posted by jon_forward
damn it...I am not going to debate over a science book.....seems our senate has decided that the book is not right. when an acorn spouts...what is it? or for that matter any seed? When is a tomatoe plant a tomatoe plant? when it sprouts are when it bears fruit? do you understand where i am coming from?Does this make a point to you?

So, empirical science is irrelevant. Valid scientific fact can be overridden be ideologically driven agendas in Congress. I'm sure Galileo and Copernicus would have appreciated the irony here.

 

[jimnyc]

Originally posted by Bullypulpit
So, empirical science is irrelevant. Valid scientific fact can be overridden be ideologically driven agendas in Congress. I'm sure Galileo and Copernicus would have appreciated the irony here.

Legislation wins every time!

 

[Moi]

Originally posted by Bullypulpit
Sorry, just stating the medical, biological and political facts.

There is no medical or biological fact stating that life doesn't begin at conception. The fact is that without conception, a human wouldn't exist. Therefore, in the definition of begin, humans "begin" at conception. See how stupid an argument over medical and biological "facts" sounds? There is no such thing as a fact which determines that life begins once a viable fetus is borne from the mother. That's a legal argument.

The act of euphamistically applying the word choice and chattel to the argument doesn't make it any less so.

As far as this thread is concerned, it's about a topic that DOES NOT include abortion. The bill that passed in no way affects the abortion laws in this country. If you've nothing to say about the bill than put up another entitled abortion to debate with.

Making it illegal to cause the destruction of a fetus (ONCE AGAIN, NOT FROM ABORTION OR MEDICAL INTERVENTION - HOW MANY TIMES MUST I REPEAT THIS??????) in no way causes a woman to be chattel (a word and legal concept about which I doubt you know anything). In fact, it has nothing to do with the woman at all.

 

[Bullypulpit]

Originally posted by Moi
There is no medical or biological fact stating that life doesn't begin at conception. The fact is that without conception, a human wouldn't exist. Therefore, in the definition of begin, humans "begin" at conception. See how stupid an argument over medical and biological "facts" sounds? There is no such thing as a fact which determines that life begins once a viable fetus is borne from the mother. That's a legal argument.

The act of euphamistically applying the word choice and chattel to the argument doesn't make it any less so.

As far as this thread is concerned, it's about a topic that DOES NOT include abortion. The bill that passed in no way affects the abortion laws in this country. If you've nothing to say about the bill than put up another entitled abortion to debate with.

Making it illegal to cause the destruction of a fetus (ONCE AGAIN, NOT FROM ABORTION OR MEDICAL INTERVENTION - HOW MANY TIMES MUST I REPEAT THIS??????) in no way causes a woman to be chattel (a word and legal concept about which I doubt you know anything). In fact, it has nothing to do with the woman at all.

I know you aren't, but the sub rosa political agenda is, ultimately, about retricting a woman's right to choice.

 

[Avatar4321]

Actually biological and Medical science dicates that if cells are dividing its alive. Only living things have cells that divide.

Might be able to argue about whether its human or not, but whether its alive? come on.

 

[Avatar4321]

"I know you aren't, but the sub rosa political agenda is, ultimately, about retricting a woman's right to choice."

I was against Southerners rights to choose slavery too. Abortion is far worse than slavery. Atleast in slavery the slave had hope, they could escape and they werent always treated badly. The aborted child, get no choice. They have no hope to survive. Besides, most women have made their choice already. They chose to put themselves in a position where life could be created. To give them a choice to commit infanticide for their irresponsibility is wrong period.

Stop trying to protect abortion in the mantel of choice. You arent pro choice, your pro abortion. You arent for choice in school vouchers. You arent for letting people to choose what to do with their own money. You are for taking the money of people to use for your pet social projects. You arent for peoples choice in telivision or radio, you are for against Fox News and Limbaugh, despite the people choosing to listen to them. You arent for choice in gay marriage, you are for enforcing it on people who dont want it. The people make their choice but that doesnt satisfy you. So dont give me this BS that you are pro choice. you arent. Your pro abortion. Pro death.

 

[USA90210]

I recently came a across a good site that explains abortion. This man really gets into it, but he does a fairly good job. I can't say that I agree with every point he makes, but it's good in general.(http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-abortion.htm)

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Argument:

Is abortion murder?

Not all killing is murder, of course. Murder is actually a small subset of all killing, which includes accidental homicide, killing in self-defense, suicide, euthanasia, etc. When pro-life activists call abortion "murder," they are suggesting that abortion fits the definition of murder, namely, "illegal killing with malice aforethought." However, abortion fails this definition for two reasons. First, abortion is not illegal, and second, mothers hardly feel malice towards their own unborn children.

Some might object the first point is overly legalistic. Just because killing is legal doesn't make it right. Exterminating Jews in Nazi Germany was certainly legal, but few doubt that it was murder.

But why do we still consider the Holocaust murder? The answer is that we hold the Nazis to a higher law. When the Nazis were tried in Nuremberg for their war crimes, they were not accused of "crimes against Germans" or even "crimes against Jews." Instead, they were charged with "crimes against humanity." The reason is because there was no legal basis to charge them otherwise. The massacre of Jews was legal under German law. So in order to punish the German leaders for clearly wrong behavior, the Allies had to evoke a higher law, a law of humanity. (1) The Holocaust was condemned as illegal, and therefore murder, because it violated this law.

Many pro-life advocates claim that the same reasoning applies to abortion. Although abortion is legal under current U.S. law, it is not legal when it is held up to a higher law, namely, the law of God.

Let's assume, for argument's sake, that the Bible is indeed the law of God. Unfortunately, this doesn't help the pro-life movement, because there is no Biblical law against abortion. (Abortion is as old as childbirth.) The Hebrew word for "kill" in the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is rasach, which is more accurately interpreted as "murder," or illegal killing judged harmful by the community. It is itself a relative, legalistic term!

Many forms of killing were considered legal in ancient Israel, and levitical law listed many of the exceptions. Generally, levitical law permitted killing in times of war, the commission of justice and in self-defense. Sometimes, God even gave Israel permission to kill infant children. In I Samuel 15:3, God ordered Saul to massacre the Amalekites: "Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants…"

Unfortunately, the levitical law we find in the Bible today is incomplete, and comes to us in large gaps. That is because the ancient Jews passed down their laws orally, and only wrote down the more complicated laws to jog their memory. As a result, levitical law is filled with tremendous omissions; for example, we know little of their laws on libel, business, lending, alimony, lease, rental agreements and civil rights. But perhaps the most unfortunate gap in ancient Jewish law is abortion. If a law did exist on abortion, then we simply do not know what it was. Fortunately, we have an excellent idea of what the law might have been. The Jews are legendary for their fanatical preservation of the law, and they have never considered abortion to be a sin. That alone should make many pro-life advocates stop and reconsider the legal basis, holy or otherwise, for their opposition to abortion.

Some pro-life Christians claim that just because there is no commandment prohibiting abortion does not give us the right to perform it. Since human life is so precious, we should err on the side of caution, they argue. But according to this logic, we should not drive cars! Each year in America, there are about 40,000 deaths due to automobile accidents. These deaths are accidental, to be sure, but our decision to participate in a mode of transportation that we already know will kill 40,000 people is not accidental. We also know there were virtually no deaths in horse-and-buggy days. We have decided to accept those 40,000 deaths a year simply because we value the convenience -- a notion surely not found anywhere in the Bible. But should we stop all automobile travel just because of Biblical silence on the issue?

One could equally argue that if God thought the issue were important, he would have made sure to include such a law in the Bible. The omission of such a law suggests that God allows humans to exercise their best judgment in the matter.

The second part of the definition of murder involves malice. Is it really reasonable to assume that mothers feel malice towards their own unborn children? Why would they even feel that? What has the fetus done to inspire the mother's hatred, anger, hostility and revenge? This is not the way women react to news of their pregnancy, even an unwanted one, as any woman who has gone through an abortion will tell you. It is a reaction that only men in the pro-life movement find plausible.

Some abortion opponents may then try to claim that the murder is cold-blooded, that the malice involved is really a callous, unfeeling disregard for human life. But again, any woman who has gone through an abortion will tell you that it just isn't so. They are fully aware of what they are doing and the moral implications of it. All would prefer not to go through the abortion, and feel sorrow and regret for having to do so. But they ultimately decide that the abortion is for the best, that they are not ready for the even greater moral responsibility of bringing a child into the world. Christian conservatives may question the wisdom of such a choice, but they can hardly question the emotions behind it.

The accusation that abortion is murder, in fact, places the burden of proof on the accuser. If women do indeed feel malice towards their own flesh and blood, then the accuser needs to supply the requisite proof, studies, or surveys to make his case. But such evidence will probably never be forthcoming.

------

 

[USA90210]

(cont.)

Many Christians believe that their opposition to abortion is firmly supported by the Bible. This is untrue. The Bible is remarkably silent about abortion, and all arguments about the subject are indirect and highly questionable. Not even the world's most respected theologians have been able to draw a firm conclusion one way or the other, despite continuing debate.

Most Christians know only one Biblical reason to oppose abortion, and that is the obvious one, "Thou shalt not kill." This is one of the most critical laws a society can obey, and every pro-choice advocate agrees with it. However, it is impossible to break this commandment if there is no person on the receiving end of this action. The challenge to Christians is to find a text that declares at what point a fetus becomes ensouled, and hence a person.

Before we look at these texts, we should consider a quick attempt by Christians to sidestep this entire question. Personhood is irrelevant, they argue; even if the zygote were not yet a person, it is nonetheless human life, and killing it is wrong. But this argument falls easily. The Hebrew word for "kill" in the 6th Commandment is rasach, which more accurately means "murder," or illegal killing judged harmful by the community. It is itself a relative term! Many forms of killing were considered legal; indeed, God often gave Israel permission to kill. (In I Samuel 15:3, God ordered Saul to massacre the Amalekites: "Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants…") Generally, levitical law permits killing in times of war, the commission of justice and in self-defense. But recall that the levitical law we have in the Bible is incomplete, and comes to us in large gaps. If a law did exist on abortion, then we simply do not know what it was. Fortunately, we have an excellent idea on what the law on abortion might have been. As Rabbi Balfour Brickner, National Director of the Commission on Interfaith Activities, says:
"Jewish law is quite clear in its statement that an embryo is not reckoned a viable living thing (in Hebrew, bar kayama) until thirty days after its birth. One is not allowed to observe the Laws of Mourning for an expelled fetus. As a matter of fact, these Laws are not applicable for a child who does not survive until his thirtieth day."
Since the fetus is not considered a person under Jewish law, it would be impossible to consider its abortion a murder. Indeed, most Jewish scholars have agreed that abortion was legal under Jewish law. This fact alone should give serious pause to the pro-life movement.

The legality of abortion in Jewish law fits into a larger and perfectly coherent philosophy on personhood according to the Bible. The philosophy I am about to demonstrate is this: that physical creation of the body comes first, and ensoulment only comes much later.

Pro-choice Christians note that the creation of Adam was a two-step process: God first formed Adam from the dust of the ground, and only then did he give him the breath of life, turning man into a living soul. This closely resembles the scientific description of pregnancy, which notes that the first seven months are devoted to constructing the organs and body, and only by the 8th month does the fetus display a waking consciousness.

There is also a long Christian tradition of the body/soul dichotomy. The flesh has long been condemned as temporary, imperfect, sinful and weak, whereas the soul has long been revered as eternal, pure, holy and God-like. It would be perfectly consistent for Christians to believe that personhood resides in the soul, and that there is no sin in disposing of a physical entity before it is given the soul of a new person.

From here we turn to specific Biblical evidence for ensoulment and personhood. Pro-choice activists have a near-argument stopper in Exodus 21:22-23:
"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury [i.e., to the mother], the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury [i.e., to the mother], you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot…"
The traditional interpretation of this text, which even rabbinical scholars accepted for thousands of years, is this: if a man hurts a woman enough to cause a miscarriage, he reciprocates according to how much injury he caused her, i.e., an eye for an eye, etc. However, if the miscarriage resulted in no injury to the woman, then all the assailant had to pay was a monetary fine. The fact that the Bible does not equate the assailant's life with the stillborn's life is proof that the Bible does not count the fetus as a person.

This was the traditional interpretation -- until recently, that is, when pro-life Christians became alarmed by the pro-choice side's successful use of it in the debate on abortion. They took a close second look at the passage, and discovered a second possible interpretation. The text actually turns out to be ambiguous. It does not say who exactly suffers the "mischief" or harm; it could be the fetus as well as the mother. In that case, a miscarriage resulting in a live birth was punishable by a monetary fine, but a miscarriage resulting in fetal injury or death would call for the same from the assailant.

This new interpretation suffers from three drawbacks. First, the Jews, who know their own tradition best, have always accepted the first interpretation. Second, the laws of surrounding cultures (Assyrians, Hittites, Sumerians, Babylonians, Hammurapi and Eshnunna) were similar to Israel's, due to widespread copying of laws. There is no ambiguity in their laws; any harm caused clearly refers to the mother. Finally, miscarriages in ancient times almost always resulted in stillbirths; saving premature babies is an achievement of modern science.

An even more astonishing pro-choice passage is Numbers 5, where the Lord appears to give a curse that causes abortions in unfaithful wives. According to this passage, the Lord instructed Moses that a husband who suspected his wife of sleeping with another man could take her to the priest for a test that would either confirm or deny his suspicions. The test involved his wife drinking a cup of "bitter water," which consisted of holy water mixed with the dust of the tabernacle floor. If the woman were innocent, then no harm would come to her by drinking it. But if she were guilty, then she would be cursed with "bitter suffering;" namely, "she will have barrenness and a miscarrying womb." In this text, God himself appears to be endorsing the practice of abortion.

This text produces angry reactions in pro-life advocates; here are some of the defenses that this writer has encountered. First, there is a translation problem. In the King James Version, verse 27 is translated as "her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot." What this means, unfortunately, is open to interpretation. However, newer translations of the Bible, which are based on improved scholarship, give less ambiguous translations. The New International Version gives "her abdomen will swell and her thigh waste away," but adds in the footnotes that an alternate translation is "she will have barrenness and a miscarrying womb." The New Revised Standard Version, one of the most respected translations by scholars, gives "her womb shall discharge, her uterus drop…," which more clearly indicates an abortion procedure.

A second objection is that water mixed with dust from the tabernacle floor does not sound severe enough to be an abortive agent. This observation, however, is irrelevant, in that God curses the water in verse 21 to cause a miscarrying womb if she is guilty. It is the curse, and not the water, which is relevant to the abortion procedure.

Another objection is that God alone has the power and the right to give life or death, and in this passage, it is clearly God's curse that causes the miscarriage. It follows that humans would still not have permission to conduct abortions at will. Put another way, we know that a third of all fetuses less than 10 weeks old are spontaneously aborted; this could be viewed as an act of God, but it does not give humans the same right.

This argument nonetheless fails to a few observations. First, it was the suspicious husband's choice to subject his wife to this procedure, and it was the priest who carried it out, which gives humans both a choice and a role in carrying out abortions. True, God may have made the final determination whether or not to cause the miscarriage, but if he had intended for humans to have no role in the process, he would have spontaneously aborted the fetus without their knowledge, choice or participation.

Second, humans are forced to "play God" whenever they make any decision about their reproduction. Bringing a life into a world of needless and acute suffering is just as terrible as not -- who are humans to make that decision? The Bible certainly doesn't speak to that issue, either -- hence humans are placed in a God-like position no matter what they choose, with no Biblical direction on either option. Not many pro-life Christians have considered this flip-side to their arguments.

Finally, this passage establishes a precedent: God does not desire children to be raised in sinful environments. In the absence of explicit Biblical instruction on whether or not to bring life into a world of needless suffering, these precedents are the best we have.

A third pro-choice passage is Genesis 38. In this story, Judah mistakes Tamar as a prostitute, and orders her to be burned to death, despite the fact she is three months pregnant. If her twin fetuses had been considered persons, the law would have delayed her execution at least until her twins were born. (The execution order was later lifted, not because of this consideration, but because Judah learned Tamar's true identity.)

When Jehovah gave monetary equivalents to the value of people of certain age groups in Leviticus 27:1-7, the lowest values were given to children between the ages of one month and five years. Boy babies were worth five shekels, and girls were worth three. Below the age of one month, they did not even merit a price.

For census purposes in Numbers 3:15, only male babies older than one month were to be counted. Below this age, they were not considered persons to be counted.

These texts, combined with the traditional Jewish acceptance of abortion, form a consistent philosophy on personhood. Of course, the religious right has its own favorite Biblical texts in this debate. As we go over them, however, notice how they do not at all contradict the above philosophy.

The most commonly quoted texts occur in poetry, an unfortunate fact for Christian conservatives, because they are already clearly on record for denouncing the idea that Biblical poetry can be taken as scientific fact. For those unfamiliar with this controversy, a brief digression is in order. The issue in question is the flat earth debate. The ancient Egyptians believed that the earth is flat, and the sky is a dome or tent-covering that God pulled over it. The sun, stars and planets were said to have hung from the ceiling. The Israelites were heavily influenced by many Egyptian beliefs, and this was one of them. For this reason, all the Bible's descriptions of the earth sound like a house: the four corners of the earth, the pillars of heaven, the firmament (literally translated, a firm dome or ceiling), the windows of heaven (which, once opened, allowed the oceans above the firmament to pour through, causing rain), and the sun entering the sky through a door in the east and exiting through a door in the west. Isaiah wrote: "It is He that... stretcheth out the Heavens like a curtain, and spreadeth them out like a tent to dwell in." Jews and Christians both interpreted these texts as literal fact for thousands of years. When Columbus sought to sail around the world, Catholic bishops used these texts against him, warning him that his lack of faith would cause him to fall off the edge of the earth.

Of course, Columbus and Magellan proved otherwise, and Christian apologists have ever since defended their error by claiming that these texts were metaphors, mere poetic flights of fancy, ones that described appearances only. It follows that poetry is not meant as literal science.

Let's give pro-life Christians the benefit of the doubt, however, and treat the following poetic texts as literal descriptions. Even a literal interpretation does not detract from the philosophy of personhood outlined above.

The first texts are Job 10:8 and 11, describing the experience of Job in the womb:
"Your hands shaped me and made me… Did you not… clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews?"
This text describes only God's physical construction of the fetus, and brings pro-lifers no closer to proving when ensoulment occurs. Besides not resolving the central question, however, this text raises one of the thorniest issues in all theology. And that is: if God is responsible for the physical creation of the fetus (indeed, the entire universe), then is God responsible for physical deformity, imperfection, even the Devil and sin? Fortunately, we need not resolve this 3,000 year-old controversy to prove the following point: despite the belief that God made everything, which is reflected in this text, some of these things nonetheless turn out evil, and even God permits humans to correct evil.

The second passage is Psalms 139:13-16:
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."
This is a favorite passage among pro-life Christians, but they probably be much less enthusiastic about it if they knew more about the third verse. The philosophers of many cultures around Israel -- including Plato of Greece -- believed that the unborn were formed and designed in the soil of the earth, and then were supernaturally lifted into the womb of the mother. The third verse of this passage betrays this ancient superstition.

Pro-life Christians try to get around this damaging observation by claiming it is only poetry. Which, of course, ruins their attempt to use this passage as literal science.

Even disregarding the third verse, this passage says nothing about personhood. The first verse, like the passage from Job, notes that God is involved in the creation of physical entities -- no controversy there. The second verse states an obvious truth about the wonder of the human body, but mentions nothing about ensoulment or when it occurs. The fourth verse shows that God has foreknowledge of the unborn, and a purpose for their lives. Yet foreknowledge does not equal personhood. Thomas Edison, for example, had both foreknowledge of the light bulb and a purpose for it before he created the first one. That God knows the future is no theological secret. God would have known about David even before he was conceived, even before the earth was created. Our earlier philosophy on personhood remains uncontradicted: God may simply have kept David's soul ready until the right fetal body came along. Which fetal body may have been unimportant -- it was the soul that mattered.

Jeremiah 1:5 repeats this theme:
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
This text comes right out and says it: before I formed you - that is, before conception -- God had foreknowledge of Jeremiah. Again, foreknowledge does not equal personhood.

Another pro-life text is Genesis 9:6:
"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man."
One rebuttal to this interpretation is that the zygote bears no resemblance whatsoever to a finished person; a 12-week fetus resembles perhaps only 70% of a person, and only by the 8th month does a fetus possess the completed organs of a full-fledged person. Besides, this law is relative; God permitted many legal forms of killing.

Finally, pro-life Christians use the birth of Christ to prove that fetuses are ensouled immediately upon conception. Luke 1:15 says that Jesus would be "filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth." Some translations say "from his mother's womb." The text does not clarify the exact moment of ensoulment: was it childbirth, or an indeterminate amount of time before childbirth (say, during the last few months of viability)?

Others argue that the because the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, it must have been present from the very beginning; therefore, ensoulment occurs upon conception. The conception of Jesus, however, was a unique and supernatural event, and it is not at all certain that the birth of Christ compares to that of ordinary mortals. We do not know, for example, whether the Holy Spirit completed the genetic code upon fertilization, only to ensoul the fetus later. And being half-God, the fetus may have possessed the omniscient Holy Spirit in a way that a fully human fetus might not. The answers to these questions can never be known, and the extraordinary event of Jesus' conception cannot be used to describe normal childbirth.

 

[USA90210]

(cont.)

One of the most common pro-life claims is that "life begins at conception." Beyond the obvious controversy of this statement, there is actually a second and more subtle error here. And that is that human life began only once: at the dawn of humanity, with the rise of the first human beings. Since then, there has been a continuum of human life: every sperm, every egg and every zygote have been full-fledged signs of human life, complete with all the characteristics of normal cellular activity, and all 46 human chromosomes. (Half of these chromosomes go unused in the case of sperm and eggs, but all 46 are there nonetheless.) The correct question is not "When does human life begin?" but "When does personhood begin?"

Pro-life advocates claim that personhood begins when the sperm and egg join to form a zygote. The zygote is genetically unique and complete and will be the grandparent of every other cell this person will ever have. The fact that the zygote is the first entity to have all 46 chromosomes of a future person seems -- at first -- to be good evidence of personhood. But consider the counter-examples.

There are many entities which are genetically complete, which contain all 46 human chromosomes, which we nonetheless do not recognize as persons: ancient fossils, blood samples, hair cuttings, fingernail clippings, even skin cultures grown in burn centers. This is proof that genetic completeness, in and of itself, does not constitute personhood.

The pro-lifer would then object -- entirely correctly -- that none of the above examples have the potential to grow into a person. Left alone, the zygote will naturally become a person. Please note that this is a switch of argument: the pro-life advocate is no longer claiming that genetic completeness is a sign of personhood, but that the potential to become a person is a sign of personhood.

The zygote, of course, has a long way to go before becoming a functional person; it has none of the limbs, none of the organs, none of the central nervous system, none of the circulatory or respiratory systems; it is a single cell that contains the genetic blueprint of a future person.

The pro-choice argument continues that a potential person is not an actual person. In other words, if A has the potential to become B, then it follows that A is not B. An acorn is not an oak tree. You cannot climb the limbs of an acorn, build a tree-house in an acorn, or rest in the shade of an acorn. And you certainly are not chopping down a mighty oak tree by removing an acorn from the ground.

Pro-life advocates attack this argument in three ways. The first is to publicize how quickly the embryo reaches its potential of a recognizably human form. Photographs of 8 to 12-week fetuses are crucial to their demonstrations. They emphasize -- with great exaggeration -- that the central nervous system begins working at 20 days, the heart at 24 days, and brainwaves at 43 days. What they don't tell you is that these are simply the first cells to maneuver themselves into place, and it will take months to construct these organs. Normally it takes until the 5th month of pregnancy before all the organs (except the brain and central nervous system) are completed, and by this time 99% of all abortions have already been performed. The brain and central nervous system are the fetus' most complex and longest running construction job, and will not be completed until the 7th or 8th month of pregnancy. Interestingly, it is not until the 7th or 8th month of pregnancy that construction is complete enough for a fetus to survive premature birth. Although pro-life literature leaves the impression that the 8-week old fetus is marvelously complete, the fact is that it would die immediately upon premature birth, precisely due to its lack of completeness.

Pro-life advocates also exaggerate the point at which a fetus becomes conscious, sentient and aware of pain. Films showing fetuses reacting to abortion instruments are important to this pro-life argument. Pro-choice advocates have countered, however, that the reactions are automatic neurological reflexes, and that fetuses cannot feel pain because their brain construction is incomplete. Eventually, two pro-life scientists, K.J. Anand and P.R. Hickey, undertook extensive research to prove once and for all that aborted fetuses feel pain. But their results pointed to the opposite conclusion: that it was unlikely that fetuses could feel pain until the beginning of the 7th month, when the lobes of their growing brains had drawn together and established synaptic contact. (1) From all the scientific evidence gathered so far, the pro-life effort to turn the 8-week old fetus into a functional person is a failure.

The second attack on the pro-choice argument that potential people are not actual people is through the harm principle. For example, suppose a couple planning to have an abortion decides at the last moment to have the baby instead. They raise their daughter Susan, and she has a relatively happy, normal life. Both parents agree, upon watching Susan get married, that aborting her would have been the ultimate violation of her human rights.

Pro-life advocates often use a more direct way of making this point. They ask: "What if this aborted baby had been you?"

This is indeed a sensational point, but, truth be told, it's actually a non sequitur. The fact is, if you had never been born, you would not be around to mourn your potential non-existence. In other words, once Susan had reached an adult age, taking all her experiences from her would be an obvious crime, because there would be a tangible victim involved: the 30-year old Susan. But robbing a future person of these experiences, a person who will never exist, is impossible: it's like trying to loot a store that will never be built. (Here we should make a clarification: it is indeed possible to harm future people who will exist, such as those future generations who must clean up our pollution and pay our deficits. But it is impossible to harm a person who will never exist. Try to imagine doing this.)

Pro-life advocates accept this argument more than they realize. This can be seen in their response to a rare but sometimes seen pro-choice argument. This argument claims that because a man's ejaculate contains nearly 300 million sperm, natural abortion must occur, because all but one of them will die upon failing to fertilize the egg. Pro-life advocates correctly point out that the sperm is not a person, so no harm is done. Killing the potential of that sperm to become a 30-year old adult with a full-fledged life is not a tragedy, because that potential was never actualized; you can't harm a potential person. The same logic drives the pro-choice argument about the fetus and abortion. If the fetus is not yet a person, abortion cannot harm the future person it will never become. The fact that the fetus has the natural inevitability of becoming a person, whereas a sperm does not, is a separate issue that we shall explore in a moment. But the basic point remains: potentiality is not personhood.

It also follows that we cannot assign the rights of personhood to an entity that has not yet become a person. Sperm does not have the right to personhood (or what pro-life advocates misdescribe as the "right to life"), because it is only a potential person. If the fetus can be proven to be a potential person, then it, too, cannot possess the right to personhood.

An analogy might best conclude this point. In the marketplace, customers expect certain rights: quick and courteous service, product guarantees, a reasonable return policy, etc. We praise store managers who observe these rights, and condemn those who don't. Yet if a manager decides not to build a store in the first place, then we cannot condemn him or her for all the customers who are missing the good service that store would have provided. Whatever "harm" done is moot.

The third attack on the pro-choice argument that potential people are not actual people is to insist that natural inevitability go forward. In other words, it is naturally inevitable that a zygote become a person, so it is a sin to interfere with that process. Pro-life advocates give the example of a brick-layer building a house. Even if he has laid down only a few bricks, it would be wrong to demolish whatever he has constructed. Actually, this analogy is inaccurate. The brick-layer is a full-fledged person, who is fully conscious, fully sentient, and is endowed with inarguable human rights. Tearing down his wall is an obvious crime. But let's alter this example to make it more accurate for abortion. Suppose the brick-layer, at least initially, were a robot. For the first two-thirds of the project, it would do all the work, and then hang out a sign that said, "This house is free to any humans willing to finish the job." When the humans arrived (inevitably so, for the house is free), the robot would gradually phase itself out, showing the humans where the materials were, what paint was available, etc. But eventually it would phase itself out completely.

Now suppose that, during the first two-thirds of construction, the mayor of the city came along and discovered that the robot was building a house in the middle of the road. The mayor, of course, has only the highest praise for free housing. Nonetheless, he stops the robot and directs it to a better location.

Has the mayor violated the rights of the robot? Of course not.

Has the mayor violated the rights of the future tenants? Of course not. They do not even know who they were.

And it would certainly be strange if a protest group argued to the mayor that free housing is such a sacred right that houses should be allowed to go up wherever they start, even in the middle of roads. If anything, it is the mayor who is more caring and concerned, and not this bizarre protest group.

This third attack -- that natural inevitability should be allowed to go forward -- is one that not even pro-life advocates believe. Let's look at a naturally inevitable process that even pro-lifers consider negative: cancer. Cancer has the natural inevitability of spreading through and killing its victim. Yet no one defends cancer's right to proceed inevitably. This brings yet another refinement to the pro-lifer's definition of personhood: that the zygote is a person not only because it will naturally and inevitably become one, but also because the result of this process is evaluated as a positive thing.

Is all human life positive? Consider the Christian's own beliefs: all humans are born sinners, and the majority of them will be lost in hell at the end of time. Jesus himself said:
"For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matthew 7:13,14)
By insisting that all human life is precious and should be allowed to go forward, pro-lifers are inadvertently filling the rosters of hell. Certainly, a much kinder philosophy would be to increase the percentage of those who find salvation, rather than increase the sheer number of those who find both heaven and hell. This writer has never heard a pro-life explanation of this discrepancy.

We might anticipate the following defense: that all life should be allowed to go forward not because the result is always good, but because the potential for good is there. But this is a poor argument. It would be like arguing that an accidentally-started forest fire should be allowed to burn out of control, because it might enter someone's backyard and light his barbecue.

Another defense may be that humans are not God, and they cannot predict the positive or negative potential of an embryo. And, lacking the knowledge of God, they should not play God, aborting a fetus who may very well lead a positive life.

The presumption that humans shouldn't play God rests on three errors. First, it is not true that humans cannot predict the future. We know for a virtual fact that mothers with AIDS will pass the disease on to their unborn children. We know for a fact that severely alcoholic mothers give birth to babies with fetal alcohol syndrome. We know for a fact that children who grow up in alcoholic homes will struggle with dysfunctionality the rest of their lives. We know for a fact that a woman hooked on crack will give birth to a crack baby. We know for a fact that most teen-age mothers come from teen-age mothers themselves, and that teen-age mothers suffer from much higher rates of divorce, crime, suicide, illness, child abuse and substance abuse. We know for a fact that poverty also increases these problems. And we know for a fact which children will suffer deformities or excruciating diseases, through prenatal genetic testing.

A baby born under these conditions is given bleak odds even by the Bible, which states, "For evil cannot produce good fruit." (Matthew 7:18)

Although it is true that we sometimes cannot predict specific cases with absolute certainty, we can indeed predict them generally. Because positive human life is such a cherished ideal, pro-choice advocates believe they hold a responsibility to maximize the odds for positive human life whenever possible. And the way to achieve this is to avoid generating human life in negative circumstances, and generate it only in positive ones. This seems something that God would approve of, not condemn. God commands us to "love thy neighbor," to heal others' sickness and alleviate their sufferings. It would certainly be consistent to prevent the unnecessary suffering of children born at the wrong time and the wrong place, and instead raise children who enjoyed even greater prospects for happiness.

Second, it is impossible not to play God when it comes to decisions of childbearing. Even sexual abstinence is a God-like decision, since it deprives a potential person of future life. An even more terrible God-like decision is deciding to have a baby whom you know is going to be deformed, addicted to crack, or infected with the AIDS virus. Every potential parent is called upon to play God in the lives of their children; their judgments affect their children for the rest of their lives. The best humans can do, if they seek to avoid responsibility for such a life-and-death matters, is seek divine guidance. But the Bible is silent on the specific issue of abortion's legality.

Third, if God did not intend humans to "play God" in matters of procreation, he would not have given them the power to procreate at will. And the fact that abortion is not mentioned specifically in the Bible can only be viewed as tacit permission for humans to make their own judgments on abortion. If it were indeed a sin, the Bible would have specifically condemned it as such. But it doesn't, and humans have no choice but to "play God" on this issue.

Furthermore, we have plenty of Biblical evidence supporting the idea that God has always maximized the odds of positive life by producing it only in positive situations, and minimized negative life in negative ones. In the story of Noah's flood, for example, God destroyed the entire world, which had grown wicked beyond redemption. Presumably, a percentage of those lost included pregnant women and their unborn. In the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, God sent a plague that killed every firstborn Egyptian son -- including male infants, both born and unborn. God also destroyed the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, including women, children and the unborn. In preparing the destruction of the wicked Midianites, God ordered Israel to slaughter all Midianite males of all ages. The women were to be inspected for their virginity; the non-virgins [which would have included pregnant women] were killed, and the virgins were taken into sexual slavery. This atrocity has inspired such leading pro-lifers as Pat Robertson to offer the following defense:
God told the Israelites to kill them all, men, women and children, to destroy them, and that seems a terrible thing to do. Is it? Well, that would be 10,000 people [author's note: it was more like 200,000, given the plunder figures in Numbers 31:32-35] who probably would have gone to hell. But if they had stayed and reproduced... then there would be 1 million people who would have to spend an eternity in hell... so God in love, and that was a loving thing, took away a small number so that he might not have to take away a large number. [Emphasis added.]
Within this explanation, you can hear the pro-choice rationale for abortion. It is wrong, they believe, to bring children into a needlessly painful, sinful and dysfunctional life. It is heartening to see that even Pat Robertson agrees with this philosophy.

Viability as a test for personhood

If pro-choice advocates reject conception as the first moment of personhood, then the question becomes: when do pro-choice advocates believe that personhood begins? One of the best tests of personhood is viability, upon which the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade was based. Viability is defined as the ability to live outside the womb. It is based upon the broader logic that "a person is as a person does." In other words, people normally breathe on their own, circulate blood on their own, fight off most germs on their own and sustain normal cellular activity on their own. A fetus is able to achieve these functions once it reaches a weight of about 5 pounds. This usually occurs between the 7th and 8th month of pregnancy -- coincidentally, about the time that the baby has finished its brain and central nervous system. The extra womb time appears to be a biological courtesy.

Critics charge that a baby cannot survive outside the womb for long without a mother's feeding, care and protection. Certainly the child is a person by now, so how can viability be a test for personhood? This common objection is based upon a confusion of the terms viability and dependency. They are not at all the same thing, although both are needed for human survival. Viability is defined as an individual's ability to survive as a person. Dependency is defined as one's reliance upon society to survive as a person. Remember our broader definition that "a person is as a person does." The newborn baby breathes, circulates, perspires, digests, immunizes and sustains bodily and cellular functions just like a normal person. But it is also normal for people to depend on each other for food, shelter and survival, from the day they are conceived until the day they die.

An example might illustrate this point more clearly. When your car was on the factory assembly line, it was dependent upon the care and attention of the factory workers. But it was not yet a car, because it was only half-built and could not even go. Fresh from the assembly line, it could now be considered a full-fledged, fully operational automobile -- yet it would still require the care and attention of its owner, from filling the gas tank to conducting maintenance. Dependency and viability are both necessary for personal survival, yet in the end they are separate characteristics.

An element of gradualism must be accepted in determining viability, for there is no clear line over which a nonviable fetus suddenly becomes a viable baby. No premature fetus has survived delivery before the 7th month (at least without technology). The 8th month is a gray area, and bioethicists advocate erring well on the side of caution by defining these babies as persons. After the 8th month, they are clearly viable, and are full-fledged persons.

 

[USA90210]

(cont.)

Critics point out that our advancing technology is saving premature babies at ever earlier ages, and therefore the age of viability is being pushed back. Indeed, one day it may be able to fertilize an egg in the laboratory and raise it to term completely outside the womb of the mother. All this technology, however, simply amounts to a surrogate womb. Viability is still defined as the ability to live outside the womb, whether that womb be real or artificial.

Critics may then charge that a person hooked up to a breathing machine is nonviable, and could be allowed to die as a nonperson. But our gradualism principle prevents this. If people are viable in every aspect of life except one or two, then a moral society should grant them the full rights of personhood.

Another criticism is the example of the accident victim who needs massive life support just to survive. They may fully recover in six months, but at the moment none of their systems are working, and without massive intervention they would die. Like the fetus, they are guaranteed to wake up eventually, and letting them die seems certainly wrong. In the case of the accident victim, it is wrong, because there is a tangible victim involved: say, the 30-year old Susan, who had a lifetime of experiences and all the characteristics of personhood. But the fetus had none of these traits to begin with, and, absent a person, there can be no victim. It is the difference between repairing a vase of great sentimental value and deciding not to make one from scratch on the pottery wheel. No harm is done to a future vase by removing the clay from the wheel.

This is only the beginning of the debate on personhood, and, if history is a reliable guide, the debate should continue to evolve.

 

[jon_forward]

the law recognizes that an un-born child has rights and this legislation just re-enforces those rights...ie...when I woman is found to be pregnant and outside harm is done to said un-born..the law can prosecute to one that has caused harm...how can anyone be against supporting this??? its beyond me....