Abortion-arguments

“I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.
And if we can accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
By abortion the Mother does not learn to love, but kills her own child to solve her problems.

Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”

(Mother Teresa)

If found a website that claims “This site provides the most well articulated arguments for the use of abortion. If you have any ideas for this site then please send your comments.”

This is, once again, a ridiculous pro-abortion site that denies the scientific truth about human life – more exactly, using terms like non-living or potentially human.

A collection of quotes –

“What Ayn Rand talks about is non-living embryos – not babies.”

“You also say that “the case has never been made that a fetus is not a person, or where life begins”. Well then let me say it now : the fetus is not a person. And let the case for it be presented on this site.”

Saying that embryo is “nonliving” and “not human/person” is the most direct denial of scientific truth. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founding members of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, has said:

“A favourite pro-abortion tactic is to insist that the definition of when life begins is impossible; that the question is a theological or moral or philosophical one, anything but a scientific one. Foetology makes it undeniably evident that life begins at conception and requires all the protection and safeguards that any of us enjoy. It is clear that permissive abortion is purposeful destruction of what is undeniably human life. It is an impermissible act of deadly violence.”

Nathanson worked with Betty Friedan and others for the legalization of abortion in the United States. Their efforts essentially succeeded with the Roe v Wade decision. He was also for a time the director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health (CRASH), New York’s largest abortion clinic. The development of ultrasound led him reconsider his views on abortion.

Concerning when life begins, a particular aggregate of hereditary tendencies (genes and chromosomes) is first assembled at the moment of fertilization when an ovum (egg) is invaded by a sperm cell. This restores the normal number of required chromosomes, 46, for survival, growth, and reproduction of a new composite individual. By this definition a new composite individual is started at the moment of fertilization. However, to survive, this individual needs a very specialized environment for nine months, just as it requires sustained care for an indefinite period after birth. But from the moment of union of the germ cells, there is under normal development a living, definite, going concern. To interrupt a pregnancy at any stage is like cutting the link of a chain; the chain is broken no matter where the link is cut. Naturally, the earlier a pregnancy is interrupted, the easier it is technically, the less the physical, objective encounter.

Most easiest thing in the universe is to prove that pro-choice people who claim that embryos are not alive and not human, are wrong. Why, one may well ask, do medical textbooks and scientific reference works consistently agree that human life begins at conception?

Encyclopedia Britannica 1998, v 26, p 611: “Although organisms are often thought of only as adults, and reproduction is considered to be the formation of a new adult resembling the adult of the previous generation, a living organism, in reality, is an organism for its entire life cycle, from fertilized egg to adult, not for just one short part of that cycle.”

Encyclopedia Britannica 1998, v 26, p 664: ”A new individual is created when the elements of a potent sperm merge with those of a fertile ovum, or egg.”

The Gale Encyclopedia of Science 1996, v 3, p 1327: ”For the first eight weeks following egg fertilization, the developing human being is called an embryo.”

The Hutchinson Dictionary of Science 1994, p 340: ” – in biology, the sequence of developmental stages through which members of a given species pass. Most vertebrates have a simple life cycle consisting of fertilization of sex cells or gametes, a period of development as an embryo, a period of juvenile growth after hatching or birth, and adulthood including sexual reproduction, and finally death.”

Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia 2002, v 1, p 1290: ”Embryo. The developing individual between the time of the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism. […] At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.”

Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia 2002, v 1, p 1291: ”The period of pregnancy begins with the union of the sperm and egg. At the moment of fertilization of the egg (conception), a new life begins.”

Collier’s Encyclopedia 1987, v 9, p 121: ”The new individual is established at the time of fertilization, and embryonic development simply prepares this individual for the vicissitudes of adult life, and the development of future embryos.”

Collier’s Encyclopedia 1987, v 9, p 117: ”The fused sperm and egg, called zygote, is a new individual with full capacities for development in a normal environment.”

“The question as to when the physical material dimension of a human being begins via sexual reproduction is strictly a scientific question, and fundamentally should be answered by human embryologists–not by philosophers, bioethicists, theologians, politicians, x-ray technicians, movie stars, or obstetricians and gynecologists.”

– Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D.

“Virtually every human embryologist and every major textbook of human embryology states that fertilization marks the beginning of the life of the new individual human being.”

– Dr. C. Ward Kischer ,Professor Emeritus of Human Embryology of the University of Arizona School of Medicine, American College of Pediatricians

What do human embryologists say?

Keith L. Moore:  ”This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning of a human being” (1988. Essentials of Human Embryology. p. 2. B.C. Decker Co., Toronto.)

William J. Larsen: ”… gametes, which will unite at fertilization to initiate the embryonic development of a new individual.” (1993. Human Embryology. p. 1. Churchill-Livingston, New York.)

Bradley M. Patten: ”Fertilized ovum gives rise to new individual“. P. 43: “…. the process of fertilization …. marks the initiation of the life of a new individual.” (1968. Human Embryology, 3rd Ed. p. 13. McGraw-Hill, New York.) Quoting F.R. Lillie: P. 41: “…. in the act of fertilization …. two lives are gathered in one knot …. and are rewoven in a new individual life-history.” (1919. Problems of Fertilization. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.)

Keith L. Moore and T.V.N. Persaud.: ”Human development is a continuous process that begins when an oocyte (ovum) from a female is fertilized by a sperm (spermatozoan) from a male.” (1993. The Developing Human, 5th Ed. p. 1. W.B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia.)

Ronan R. O’Rahilly and Fabiola Müller.: ”Fertilization is an important landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct individual is thereby formed.” (1992. Human Embryology and Teratology. p. 5. Wiley-Liss, New York.)

Scott Gilbert in his book Developmental Biology:

”Traditional ways of classifying catalog animals according to their adult structure. But, as J. T. Bonner (1965) pointed out, this is a very artificial method, because what we consider an individual is usually just a brief slice of its life cycle. When we consider a dog, for instance, we usually picture an adult. But the dog is a “dog” from the moment of fertilization of a dog egg by a dog sperm. It remains a dog even as a senescent dying hound. Therefore, the dog is actually the entire life cycle of the animal, from fertilization through death. […] The life of a new individual is initiated by the fusion of genetic material from the two gametes-the sperm and the egg.”

Potentially human?!

Only through mind-numbing stupidity could someone suggest that when human sperm and human eggs unite they produce something that is only “potential human life.”
If the word “potential” is suggesting that the unborn is only potentially alive, that is easily disproved.  Obviously, embryo consist of living cells and is itself an individual organism. And even in the earliest stages of pregnancy, sonograms show movements and heartbeats that do not belong to the woman.  Whatever else the fetus is, it is impossible to logically argue that it is not, at least, alive.

On the other hand, for “potential” to be referring to the word human, a fetus would have to have the potential of becoming either a human being or some other form of life.  Perhaps a parrot or a spider.  Of course, the problem is that there is no record of such a thing having ever occurred.

So while it may be reasonable to say that a fetus is a potential major league baseball star or a potential school teacher, it is idiotic to say that a fetus is a potential human being.  If for no other reason, the fetus is a living human being because that is the only thing it can be.

Also, if the issue is “development,” let’s not forget that human beings develop for their entire lives.  A fetus is less developed than a newborn just as a child is less developed than an adult.  But being less developed than an adult does not mean that a child is any less a human being.  That’s also true of the unborn.

Pro-lifers aren’t the only ones who know that it is a baby who is killed in an abortion.  At a National Abortion Federation conference in Philadelphia during September of 1994, Texas abortion clinic director, Charlotte Taft, said, “When [a pro-choice activist in the Dallas community] came into our clinic – we were inviting her to learn more about abortions – this is a quote from this woman – she said, ‘If I believed that abortion was the deliberate ending of a potential human life, I could not be pro-choice.’  I said, ‘It would be best for you not to see a sonogram.’”

Less than two years later, at another National Abortion Federation conference in San Francisco, a New York abortion clinic director, Merle Hoffman, stated “…I mean, we are talking about an abortion here.  And uh, also that the staff is uncomfortable when a patient said, ‘I think I’m killing my baby.’  So I’m comfortable with saying, ‘Yes, you are, and how do you feel about that?’”

As we all have some opportunity to develop – to get smarter or stronger, we all have potential to become bigger and better, but this does not measure our humanity. The only difference between our potential and the potential of embryo, is that embryo’s potential is really huge, she grows billions of times bigger than he was at conception, but she already is human being.

Like toddler or adolescent, the terms embryo and fetus do not refer to nonhumans, but to humans at particular stages of development. Something nonhuman does not become human by getting older and bigger; whatever is human must be human from the beginning.

Why so many people find it difficult to see humanity in a developing foetus? I tihnk, most people who come out with such argument, see a fetus as an individual under construction. This widespread vision of the embryo and fetus as “under construction” is the key to understanding why good people may find pro-life arguments to be absurd or otherwise non-rational, eg, religious, particularly with regard to embryonic stem cell research.

Just think of something being constructed (fabricated, assembled, composed, sculpted – in short, made), such as a house, or a scholarly article – or take a car on an assembly line. When is a car first there? At what point in the assembly line would we first say, “There’s a car”? Some of us would no doubt go with appearance, saying that there is a car as soon as the body is fairly complete (in analogy to the fetus at 10 weeks or so). I suppose that most of us would look for something functional. We would say that there is a car only after a motor is in place (in analogy to quickening). Others might wait for the wheels (in analogy to viability) or even the windshield wipers (so that it’s viable even in the rain). And a few might say, “It’s not a car until it rolls out onto the street” (in analogy to birth). There would be many differing opinions.

However, one thing upon which we’ll probably all agree is this: Nobody is going to say that the car is there at the very beginning of the assembly line, when the first screw or rivet is put in or when two pieces of metal are first welded together. (You can see how little I know about car manufacturing.) Two pieces of metal fastened together don’t match up to anybody’s idea of a car.

It is in fact not true that the bodies of living creatures are constructed, by God or by anyone else. There is no outside builder or maker. Life is not made. Life develops.

In construction, the form defining the entity being built arrives only slowly, as it is added from the outside. In development, the form defining the growing life (that which a major Christian tradition calls its “soul”) is within it from the beginning. If Corvette production is cancelled, the initial two pieces of metal stuck together can become the starting point for something else, perhaps another kind of car, or maybe a washing machine. But even if you take a human embryo out of the womb, you can never get it to develop into a puppy or a guppy.

Living organisms are not formed or defined from the outside. They define and form themselves. The form or nature of a living being is already there from the beginning, in its activated genes, and that form begins to manifest itself from the very first moment of its existence, in self-directed epigenetic interaction with its environment. Embryos don’t need to be molded into a type of being. They already are a definite kind of being.

This idea of development – as the continual presence but gradual appearance of a being – lies deep within us. Here is a non-biological example of development. Suppose that we are back in the pre-digital photo days and you have a Polaroid camera and you have taken a picture that you think is unique and valuable – let’s say a picture of a jaguar darting out from a Mexican jungle. The jaguar has now disappeared, and so you are never going to get that picture again in your life, and you really care about it. (I am trying to make this example parallel to a human being, for we say that every human being is uniquely valuable.) You pull the tab out and as you are waiting for it to develop, I grab it away from you and rip it open, thus destroying it. When you get really angry at me, I just say blithely, “You’re crazy. That was just a brown smudge. I cannot fathom why anyone would care about brown smudges.” Wouldn’t you think that I were the insane one? Your photo was already there. We just couldn’t see it yet.