According to one pro-choice site; "Most studies agree that fetuses do not develop pain responses until the third trimester of pregnancy, when abortion almost never happens. They may react reflexively to certain stimuli, but this is not a pain response or a response of self-preservation, simply a natural development of the nervous system.
The Silent Scream is a piece of pro-life propaganda that is widely considered to be a hoax. The fetus in question is not of the stated gestational age of 12 weeks, and the details of the procedure are embellished. It is not proof of anything except the gullibility of people."
Illustration of a twelve week fetus taken from babycenter.com.
A video of an ultrasound of a twelve week old fetus.
The Silent Scream is available on youtube. It is very graphic.
People sharing pictures of babies that are miscarried in the first trimester. Not for the faint of heart.
Quote; "Free nerve endings, the “alarm buttons,” begin to develop at about seven weeks' gestation; projections from the spinal cord, the major “cable” to the brain, can reach the thalamus (the lower alarm) at seven weeks' gestation. An intact spinothalamic projection might be viewed as the minimal necessary anatomical architecture to support pain processing, putting the lower limit for the experience of pain at seven weeks' gestation."
What about in cases of rape, incest or bestiality?
There is no chance of any offspring with bestiality.
Excerpt;
Despite its forceful appeal to our sympathies, there are several problems with this argument. First, it is not relevant to the case for abortion on demand, the position defended by the popular pro-choice movement. This position states that a woman has a right to have an abortion for any reason she prefers during the entire nine months of pregnancy, whether it be for gender-selection, convenience, or rape.3 To argue for abortion on demand from the hard cases of rape and incest is like trying to argue for the elimination of traffic laws from the fact that one might have to violate some of them in rare circumstances, such as when one’s spouse or child needs to be rushed to the hospital. Proving an exception does not establish a general rule. Second, since conception does not occur immediately following intercourse, pregnancy can be eliminated in all rape cases if the rape victim receives immediate medical treatment by having all the male semen removed from her uterus.4Third, the unborn entity is not an aggressor when its presence does not endanger its mother’s life (as in the case of a tubal pregnancy). It is the rapist who is the aggressor. The unborn entity is just as much an innocent victim as its mother. Hence, abortion cannot be justified on the basis that the unborn is an aggressor. Fourth, this argument begs the question by assuming that the unborn is not fully human. For if the unborn is fully human, then we must weigh the relieving of the woman’s mental suffering against the right-to-life of an innocent human being. And homicide of another is never justified to relieve one of emotional distress. Although such a judgment is indeed anguishing, we must not forget that the same innocent unborn entity that the career-oriented woman will abort in order to avoid interference with a job promotion is biologically and morally indistinguishable from the unborn entity that results from an act of rape or incest. And since abortion for career advancement cannot be justified if the unborn entity is fully human, abortion cannot be justified in the cases of rape and incest. In both cases abortion results in the death of an innocent human life. As Dr. Bernard Nathanson has written, “The unwanted pregnancy flows biologically from the sexual act, but not morally from it.”5 Hence, this argument, like the ones we have already covered in this series, is successful only if the unborn are not fully human. Some pro-choice advocates claim that the pro-lifer lacks compassion, since the pro-lifer’s position on rape and incest forces a woman to carry her baby against her will. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the rapist who has already forced this woman to carry a child, not the pro-lifer. The pro-life advocate merely wants to prevent another innocent human being (the unborn entity) from being the victim of a violent and morally reprehensible act (abortion), for two wrongs do not make a right. As theologian and ethicist Dr. Michael Bauman has observed: “A child does not lose its right to life simply because its father or its mother was a sexual criminal or a deviant.”6Furthermore, the anguish and psychic suffering caused by rape and incest has been treated quite effectively. Professor Stephen Krason points out that “psychological studies have shown that, when given the proper support, most pregnant rape victims progressively change their attitudes about their unborn child from something repulsive to someone who is innocent and uniquely worthwhile.”7 The pro-life advocate believes that help should be given to the rape victim “to make it as easy as possible for her to give up her baby for adoption, if she desires. Dealing with the woman pregnant from rape, then, can be an opportunity for us — both as individuals and society — to develop true understanding and charity. Is it not better to try to develop these virtues than to countenance an ethic of destruction as the solution?”8
edited again 10/21/2016 to clarify wording about the jealousy offering & consequences if guilty + capitalize the references to Scripture / the Bible
Garland-Green
Total Moon
What about in cases of rape, incest or bestiality?
There is no chance of any offspring with bestiality.
Excerpt;
Despite its forceful appeal to our sympathies, there are several problems with this argument. First, it is not relevant to the case for abortion on demand, the position defended by the popular pro-choice movement. This position states that a woman has a right to have an abortion for any reason she prefers during the entire nine months of pregnancy, whether it be for gender-selection, convenience, or rape.3 To argue for abortion on demand from the hard cases of rape and incest is like trying to argue for the elimination of traffic laws from the fact that one might have to violate some of them in rare circumstances, such as when one’s spouse or child needs to be rushed to the hospital. Proving an exception does not establish a general rule. Second, since conception does not occur immediately following intercourse, pregnancy can be eliminated in all rape cases if the rape victim receives immediate medical treatment by having all the male semen removed from her uterus.4Third, the unborn entity is not an aggressor when its presence does not endanger its mother’s life (as in the case of a tubal pregnancy). It is the rapist who is the aggressor. The unborn entity is just as much an innocent victim as its mother. Hence, abortion cannot be justified on the basis that the unborn is an aggressor. Fourth, this argument begs the question by assuming that the unborn is not fully human. For if the unborn is fully human, then we must weigh the relieving of the woman’s mental suffering against the right-to-life of an innocent human being. And homicide of another is never justified to relieve one of emotional distress. Although such a judgment is indeed anguishing, we must not forget that the same innocent unborn entity that the career-oriented woman will abort in order to avoid interference with a job promotion is biologically and morally indistinguishable from the unborn entity that results from an act of rape or incest. And since abortion for career advancement cannot be justified if the unborn entity is fully human, abortion cannot be justified in the cases of rape and incest. In both cases abortion results in the death of an innocent human life. As Dr. Bernard Nathanson has written, “The unwanted pregnancy flows biologically from the sexual act, but not morally from it.”5 Hence, this argument, like the ones we have already covered in this series, is successful only if the unborn are not fully human. Some pro-choice advocates claim that the pro-lifer lacks compassion, since the pro-lifer’s position on rape and incest forces a woman to carry her baby against her will. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the rapist who has already forced this woman to carry a child, not the pro-lifer. The pro-life advocate merely wants to prevent another innocent human being (the unborn entity) from being the victim of a violent and morally reprehensible act (abortion), for two wrongs do not make a right. As theologian and ethicist Dr. Michael Bauman has observed: “A child does not lose its right to life simply because its father or its mother was a sexual criminal or a deviant.” 6Furthermore, the anguish and psychic suffering caused by rape and incest has been treated quite effectively. Professor Stephen Krason points out that “psychological studies have shown that, when given the proper support, most pregnant rape victims progressively change their attitudes about their unborn child from something repulsive to someone who is innocent and uniquely worthwhile.”7 The pro-life advocate believes that help should be given to the rape victim “to make it as easy as possible for her to give up her baby for adoption, if she desires. Dealing with the woman pregnant from rape, then, can be an opportunity for us — both as individuals and society — to develop true understanding and charity. Is it not better to try to develop these virtues than to countenance an ethic of destruction as the solution?”8
I want to offer some food for thought because, from a Lawful standpoint (Lawful according to God's Law), the above does not apply across the board, nor is it complete reasoning. And what I bolded above is just outright nullifying what God said.
In the case of incest—of the incest scenarios condemned in [Leviticus 18]—the punishment is for all the parties involved to be "cut off" (which is declared near the end of the chapter in verse 29). I suspect getting "cut off" means they all get stoned to death: and the reason I say that: I noted that the identical sins in Leviticus 18 that get repeated in Leviticus 20, have the punishment described as getting stoned to death.
I'll offer two sins as examples, comparing Leviticus 18 to Leviticus 20:
Leviticus 18:7-8 (NIV)
7 “‘Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.
8 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonor your father.
Leviticus 20:11 (NIV)
11 “‘If a man has sexual relations with his father’s wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Leviticus 18:21 (NIV)
21 “‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.
Leviticus 20:2 (NIV)
2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death. The members of the community are to stone him.
Leviticus 18:29 (NIV)
29 “‘Everyone who does any of these detestable things—such persons must be cut off from their people.
Leviticus 18 gives a whole list of capital crimes, most of them sexual, then declares the punishment near the end of the chapter, and uses the euphemistic phrase "cut off", unlike Leviticus 20, which lists the punishment right after the sin each time, and explicitly says the punishment is stoning to death.
So, if the punishment, for everything described in Leviticus 18, is getting stoned to death, then, considering that various scenarios of incest are listed in Leviticus 18, then the punishment for incest is also "to be cut off" / "to be stoned to death". If that is the case, then, even if the woman conceived (from the incestuous act or got pregnant some other time prior to that, or after that), those who willingly engaged in incest would have been stoned to death. Thus everyone involved gets killed, even if she had conceived (thus even if she was carrying a baby in her womb). There is no, "wait in the case that she conceived, either by this act of incest or by her own husband. And if her belly grows during those 9 months and she brings forth a child, then allow the baby to be born and offered for adoption, and then kill those who engaged in incest". No, had she conceived or not, everyone gets stoned—fetus/"little one" a.k.a. " 'innocent' human" included.
However, this doesn't help pro-choicers because if the woman and the father are being allowed to live—thus spared of death—for whatever reason (out of mercy, out of forgiveness, or what have you), then so would the baby be allowed to live—if we're being fair. We can't cherry-pick. That's what the Pharisees tried to do in John 8; they brought the adulterous woman to be stoned to death, but not the adulterer. If they wanted the adulteress to die, then the adulterer must die too. If ONE guilty party is condemned, then so must the other guilty accomplice of the capital crime). Likewise, if the people want the baby—that resulted out of incest—to die, then the mother and the father must die too for committing the act of incest in the first place, if we're going to be just / fair.
So, just because something is human, it does not necessarily make it "too sacred to kill"—fetal or adult. It's not sacred when the baby's/fetus'/embryo's carrier commits a capital crime during pregnancy, according to God's Law. But if the mother did not commit a sin worthy of death, then it would be a sin/crime/unLawful to kill her and the baby in her womb.
Exodus 21:22-25 (NIV)
22 “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely[a] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Footnotes:
a. Exodus 21:22 Or she has a miscarriage
But if the mother is guilty, then she dies and her baby—who is in her womb—dies along with her. For instance, the case of the jealousy offering: if on suspicion that the wife had cheated (thus committed adultery, but there are no witnesses), and her husband brings his wife to the priest to do the jealousy offering ritual, she would miscarry if she was actually guilty of sleeping around. The bitter water prepared by the priest would make her abort / miscarry and this was commanded by YHWH Himself.
Numbers 5:11-22 (NIV)
11 Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah[a] of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder-offering to draw attention to wrongdoing.
16 “‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse[b] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”
Footnotes:
a. Numbers 5:15 That is, probably about 3 1/2 pounds or about 1.6 kilograms b. Numbers 5:21 That is, may he cause your name to be used in cursing (see Jer. 29:22); or, may others see that you are cursed; similarly in verse 27.
Numbers 5:29-31 (NIV)
29 “‘This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and makes herself impure while married to her husband, 30 or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the Lord and is to apply this entire law to her. 31 The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin.’”
For full details of the jealousy offering, read Numbers 5:11-31.
I think "bearing the consequence of her sin" in contrast to her husband's innocence, suggests that she gets stoned to death once it becomes obvious that she was guilty of committing adultery (if not merely to staying infertile? not sure). But whatever the case, we cannot argue, "but let us spare the baby because he or she had nothing to do with the mother's act of adultery"; no, the baby in her womb even dies first as the sign that she cheated, and [edit: assuming that stoning to death is the punishment, not just infertility, then] the mother gets stoned to death afterwards because of her adultery. Just like in a case of adultery, where two to three witnesses can testify of the act, even if she was pregnant / had conceived, she would be stoned to death; thus, the baby inside her would've been lost too.
What we need to realize in all this: on the one hand, like everything else God commanded, there is biological benefit/protection for obeying the command as it is written. So, whatever YHWH was protecting us from, on a biological level, by mandating death against immoral sexual relations (both Israelite and foreigner living amongst us alike), and thus not sparing the fetus inside the guilty mother, then we're no longer protected and benefitting from the command when we're not obeying those commands (thus, not killing off the incestuous, the adulterers, etc.—and the babies inside of those women).
On the other hand, I know: we are sparing them because we want to save their soul, and reconcile them to God, which we can't do if we stone them to death. But the nation that submits to His commands completely would be blessed and better off than the rest. I'm just throwing that out there, because it's not that the commands of God cease being useful and protective of His creation. Those commands are what keep the genetic decay from happening at a faster rate. Obviously, genetically-perfect Adam and Eve didn't have to worry about that, but yes the decay by Moses' generation merited the restriction and they are still valid today.
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Some more food for thought:
In the case of bestiality: even though the male animal can't directly impregnate the human woman, nor can the human male directly impregnate the female animal, wouldn't this be a case of not mixing diverse seeds together in the same field (Lev19:19?), in this case, the field being the womb, and the two different kinds of seed being animal and man's? because a hybrid seed could result / genetic integrity compromised when the two seeds mix side by side? Ergo, the mixing of genetic information. It's what scientists are doing today: [Scientists create animals that are part-human].
If not that, genetic mixing of seed happening, then just an impediment for disease. A human organ that gets filled by an animal's genetic information / animal's bodily fluid could pass on disease to the human who later penetrates that person's organ. And likewise, the male animal that later penetrates the female animal that was penetrated by human genetic information / bodily fluid could disease the "innocent" animal in some way (or a person could get diseased if someone tries to eat the animal?). Thus why YHWH, in His Law, commanded for the death of both the animal and the human. They have both been biologically compromised:
Leviticus 18:23 (NIV)
23 “‘Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.
Leviticus 20:15-16 (NIV)
15 “‘If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he is to be put to death, and you must kill the animal. 16 “‘If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Whenever YHWH calls for the death of the animal it is for a reason: to protect creation. And in this case, something is wrong with the animal. (Just like when He calls for the death of a human; something is wrong with the human and what's inside of it [be it the baby and/or the unrepentant heart that is beyond repair]).
In this case too, whether the person had sex and conceived prior to the act of bestiality (or after the act of bestiality, but not because of the act of bestiality), having a baby in her womb would not serve as an excuse to spare them from being stoned death in order to spare the baby, nor the woman.
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If it was rape though, and she screamed / resisted the rape / did not want to cheat, then she wouldn't die. So, I could see the above apologetic provided by Garland applying to the baby that resulted out of an act of rape when the mother is innocent. Otherwise, had she conceived because of the act of rape, and been guilty of going along with the rape, her pregnate state would not spare her, nor her baby.
Deuteronomy 22:23-27 (NIV)
23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
25 But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26 Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, 27 for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her.
What I'm getting at: the apologetics we have today are incomplete because they start out from a heart of disobedience to God's Law. So, they arrive at the wrong conclusion. The life of the baby is not sacred when the mother is guilty of a sin meriting death. But when the mother is guilty of a sin meriting death, but is being spared / not prosecuted / not condemned, then so should the baby be spared. We shouldn't purposefully try to save only one. That is cherry-picking and injustice.
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On that note, one last thing:
I think it is unstable to reason that tubal pregnancy is reason to abort "because the baby becomes an agressor" at that point. What if the baby becomes an agressor at birth, do you kill the baby? or hold that kid accountable for the murder of his or her mother when he or she grows up? No.
Genesis 35:17-19 (NIV)
17 And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, “Don’t despair, for you have another son.” 18 As she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named her son Ben-Oni.[a] But his father named him Benjamin.[b]
19 So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).
Footnotes:
a. Genesis 35:18 Ben-Oni means son of my trouble. b. Genesis 35:18 Benjamin means son of my right hand.
So, in essence, the Biblical, Lawful truth is: the mother who commits a sin that merits death—if prosecuted and condemned—will be killed along with the child in her womb. But just because the baby poses a risk to mother, that is not Lawful reason / excuse to kill him or her. Whether the child is in the fallopian tube, in the womb, or the child is coming out during birth, the baby is not viewed as an aggressor / murderer or ever held accountable for murder in scripture. Otherwise, Benjamin should have been stoned to death, like other murderers, as a baby OR when he got older. So that is not a lawful reason for aborting the child (He's not really an aggressor if you wouldn't stone him to death for the death of his mother).
We would have to let the mother die in any case. Why would our modern technology change the baby's Biblical status of non-aggressor to aggressor? In their day, the mother would have died. No one would have said, "let's go in and kill the baby". So, why should we, today, become murderers "because man's technology"? Let the kid die with his or her mom, like any other case in reality when she is not able to deliver the baby prior to her death. They both would die together. Otherwise, we become murderers in our attempts to save one (why not kill Benjamin to spare Benjamin's mother?). We become murderers thanks to technology telling us it's okay to do it now, though God's word is not telling us it's okay.
We cannot have it both ways: either the fertilized egg is a living human life or it is not. And we cannot label the fertilized egg as an aggressor just because it is in the fallopian tube and won't come out. The baby itself is not choosing to stay in the fallopian tube. God is. Do people really think God is not in control of what is going on in our fallopian tubes? We do not base our decisions on prayers alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God, every example. Including the examples where babies posed a risk to their mothers and they weren't killed.
These theologians are not more compassionate than our Heavenly Father. They're excusing murder. They're being just as wicked for not holding to all of the Father's definitions of righteousness, just as much as the uncovenanted gentiles are wicked for not holding to ANY of it. YHWH's Law is perfect. If we take away from it or add to it, then by definition we are pursuing injustice, wickedness, sin.
Psalm 19:7 (NIV)
7 The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
Deuteronomy 4:2 (NIV)
2 Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.
1 John 3:4 (NIV)
4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.
Both "pro-life" (the apparently righteous stance) and "pro-choice" (the apparently wicked stance) are wrong, obviously the latter more than the former, but both err. We're suppose to be pro-YHWH: ergo, be pro-life when He is pro-life and pro-death when He is pro-death.
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Garland-Green
Friendly Gaian
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Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 9:32 pm
I have been thinking lately about the power of words, and how in the abortion debate words such as 'fetus' and 'embryo' impact how people attribute value to the human being that is developing in the mother's womb. Whether it is intentionally used or not it allows us to distance ourselves from this person, and allows us to attribute him/her less value because they are clinical and foreign words that have no intrinsic value attached. Recognizing someone as human gives them immediate value. Wikipedia describes embryo as an multicellular diploid eukaryote in an early stage of embryogenesis, or development. An embryo is not given status as a fetus until it has reached about eight weeks after fertilization. What would happen to people's thinking if it was called a baby, instead of a fetus? It is after all a human being that is developing, not any other creature. Why not recognize it as such with our definitions? Recognizing the developing human as actually a human being and an individual gives it value and rights that can not be taken away so easily. Perhaps medical terminology (language) has attributed to a human in a different developmental stage being viewed as less than human, or worth less... Maybe we can attribute some of the language and terms to how abortion is now viewed by the mainstream. Language shapes thoughts. Thoughts leads to actions.
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 2:12 am
Personhood’s Fatal Flaw Article ID: JAV352 | By: Bob Perry
This article first appeared in the Viewpoint column of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL, volume 35, number 02 (2012).. For further information or to subscribe to the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL go to: http://www.equip.org/christian-research-journal/
This past November, the citizens of Mississippi voted down a statewide referendum that would have “defined the word ‘person’ or ‘persons’” under the law and on that basis banned abortion “from the moment of fertilization.”1 Similar personhood proposals went down to defeat in Colorado in 2008 and 2010. Though well-intentioned pro-life advocates propose these initiatives, and though the referenda may seem on the surface to make a principled stand in favor of the pro-life view, they continue to fail. The repeated defeat of these initiatives is emboldening abortion advocates and threatening the goal of eventually overturning Roe v. Wade, even at a time when pro-life sentiment is at its highest levels in recent history.2 For these reasons, pro-lifers should avoid engaging in the subjective view of ethics on which personhood arguments inevitably rest. We need to stop trying to debate the definition of “persons” and instead concentrate our efforts on simply identifying abortion as the objective moral wrong that it is.
Writing for the New York Times, Notre Dame philosophy professor Gary Gutting offers an accurate application of critical thinking to the logic of the personhood argument and thereby exposes its inherent flaws. As he points out, “[the Mississippi referendum] showed that many Americans— including many strong opponents of abortion—are reluctant to treat a fertilized egg as a human person” (emphasis added). But if they are unwilling to draw the personhood line at fertilization, their opposition to aborting “persons” utterly breaks down. “Once we give up the claim that a fertilized egg is a human person (has full moral standing), there is no plausible basis for claiming that all further stages of development are human persons.”3
Therein lies the Achilles heel of pursuing a specific definition of personhood as a criterion for opposing abortion. It is a moving target that bobs and weaves with the preferences of those who consider it. In fact, the amorphous nature of “personhood” is what brought us the travesty of Roe v. Wade in the first place.
“From a strictly scientific point of view, there is no doubt that the development of an individual human life begins at conception. Consequently, it is vital that the reader understand that she did not come from a zygote, she once was a zygote; she did not come from an embryo, she once was an embryo; she did not come from a fetus, she once was a fetus; she did not come from an adolescent, she once was an adolescent.” - Dr. Beckwith
Francis J. "Frank" Beckwith (born 1960) is an American philosopher, Christian apologist, scholar, and lecturer. He is currently an associate professor of church-state studies at Baylor University and associate director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies. Beckwith works in the areas of social ethics, applied ethics, legal philosophy, and the philosophy of religion.
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2016 4:27 pm
A thread related to what I talked about July 23rd this year in this topic:
My body, my choice? Why bodily autonomy doesn't justify abortion
December 20, 2016 By Paul Stark
Abortion is justified, many of its defenders argue, because women have a right to control their own bodies. "My body, my choice," signs and bumper stickers proclaim. The bodily autonomy argument takes a few different forms. None, however, are successful.
Some people think that the unborn (the human embryo or fetus) is a mere part of the woman's body. But science, of course, has established that the unborn—though physically dependent on and inside of the mother—is a distinct, self-developing individual with his or her own DNA, brain, arms and legs, etc. Abortion attacks and kills the body of someone else.
Other people believe that even though the unborn is a distinct human organism, a pregnant woman should be able to decide what happens in or to her body. Whereas many arguments for abortion contend that the human being in utero is not a "person" with intrinsic value and rights, this argument holds that abortion is permissible regardless of whether or not the child is a valuable person.
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