None can truly say other.
Posted on 12/19/2001 12:19:27 PM PST by Starmaker
"Feminists don't like me and I don't like them...I don't know why feminists have it out for me, but that's their problem, not mine." – Mel Gibson (star of Braveheart, The Patriot, Lethal Weapon; 100% pro-life)
"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." – Mother Teresa
"I am dedicated to spending the rest of my life undoing the law that bears my name. I would like nothing more than to have this law overturned." – Norma L. McCorvey ("Jane Roe" of Roe v. Wade)
"Thou shalt not kill" – The Holy Bible
"The decision nullifies a law, expressing the will of the people of Nebraska, that medical procedures must be governed by moral principles having their foundation in the intrinsic value of human life, including life of the unborn." – Justice Anthony Kennedy (dissent from Carhart vs. Stenberg, the 2000 case in which five other justices overturned a Nebraska law against partial-birth abortion, the procedure Justice Kennedy references)
"The inalienable right to life is found not only in the Declaration of Independence but also in the Constitution that every President is sworn to preserve, protect and defend.ÿ Both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law." – Ronald Reagan
"Each of us has a unique beginning, the moment of conception..." – Jerome Lejeune (Nobel Prize, Genetics)
"A Person is a Person, no matter how Small." – Dr. Seuss
As a pro-lifer, I have to acknowledge that not only does a prenatal baby's life begin at conception, but that there begins fatherhood also. It is at conception that the father and mother are conjoined to produce new life. It is at conception that the most beautiful thing on the planet, the G-d-blessed spark of innocent human life, begins it's journey through existence.
From that moment, every good father loves his baby, and is moved by a need to protect, defend, and care for her from that moment, through all the days of her life. This empathy, this compassion and emotional investment, is a society builder. It is what gives fathers the motivation to work, to build homes, and to make the world a safer place.
It must be sanctioned and endorsed by every legal vehicle possible.
And it is time to define, for once and for all, what "pro-life" is.
Pro-Life is Pro-Baby. It is the understanding that babies have rights, rights worth protecting.
Every baby has a right to grow old enough to...
...gurgle, and smile, and laugh, and do all the silly, adorable things that babies do...
...take those first, halting steps as toddlers do, more waddling than walking, offering heart-melting toothless grins in celebration of their own efforts...
...see a bird, or a tree, or a cloud for the first time, and in wide-eyed wonder, point chubby fingers at each new wonder of Creation, as they discover them...
...know the joy of being protected from all the dangers of the outside world, by someone who loves them more than anything in the world...
This and more, babies deserve.
And the very human life of every innocent, vulnerable, defenseless little pre-natal baby begins with the moment of conception.
Prior to conception, each of the parent's respective haploid gametes contains twenty-three chromosomes, only half of what is required to create new human life. Conception results in a single cell which contains forty-six chromosomes.
These forty-six chromosomes are not only human, but are in a combination distinctly, undeniably different from either parent.
This combination is the blueprint for every biological aspect of the new human's life, and will determine infinite characteristics of the new individual. We all began our unique and valuable lives exactly this way. It is at this point that the processes of life are set in motion. Were they not, there would be nothing to terminate...
Dependency is a quality that extends well into toddlerhood. At conception, the new human life is at once dependent, and defenseless, and utterly vulnerable.
This is science.
This is reality.
It is indisputable.
The anti-baby ice-cold euphemism of "choice" defies science and nature no less than it controverts human decency and morals.
In the name of nature and science, we must recognize the reality that each of our unique human lives begins at conception.
In the name of human decency and morals, the very human life of every defenseless, innocent, vulnerable little prenatal baby must be fully protected.
Legally.
Roe vs. Wade will be overturned during this presidency, given two more United States Supreme Court appointments by very pro-life President George W. Bush.
When that occurs over the next three years, the road will be paved to the enactment of a protective law, reading as follows:
"Where the mother's life is not in danger, the father of every baby consensually conceived shall have the legal right to prevent the abortion of his baby, from the point of conception through birth, provided that he is willing to support and raise the baby."
It is the right thing to do.
Since this essay began with quotes I agree with, I will close it with a quote I do not agree with, but which eerily echoes the position of those on the other side of this issue:
"It had nothing to do with humanity, it couldn't have; it was a mass..." – a reference to the Holocaust by Franz Stangl, Nazi commandant of extermination camps in Sobibor (March, 1942 -September, 1942) and Treblinka (September, 1942 - August, 1943).
Interviewed by Gitta Sereny in 1970, Stangl's comments later appeared in the book Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience (1983).
Like this? It works. I checked. Thanks.
Huh? I agreed with your earlier post, infering you meant "tactics matter more than pureness of heart" as a pragmatic approach - that dr_good_will_hunting may be tilting at windmills with his father's rights thing. So I suggested a possible winning strategy might be to have the courts declare that human life begins at conception. I then added some commentary about having the necessary political muscle in place to back up such a finding by a federal court.
Now you're lecturing about people not voting being the problem? I doubt that's the case with FReepers, for one thing. Also, you present it in the form of a non sequitur, which doesn't help. Plus, if you don't live in Vermont, there isn't much you can do directly about Pat Leahy. Indirectly, however, we could remove much of his power by creating a Republican majority in the Senate, which I certainly want to see happen (in both houses) and which I think will be necessary (along with having a pro-life President) in order to have any hope of overturning Roe vs Wade.
Further, consider it on a personal level. If legally endorsing a father's right to protect saves lives...
Also, consider were it your own baby soon to be subject to the death-by-dismemberment of abortion...
Would you not feel in every fibre of your being the right, need, and obligation to protect your own baby?
None can truly say other.
If it's not a baby, your not pregnant !
Unfortunately, its already too late for this. Mainstream medicine has already redefined "conception."
Medical dictionaries redefine "CONCEPTION" to obscure the TRUTH regarding contraceptive technologies
Culture/Society
Source: Online Medical Dictionaries
Published: 12/12/01 Author: Dr. Brian Kopp
Posted on 12/12/01 12:57 AM Eastern by proud2bRC
There are several major print medical dictionaries, and several online versions. Apparently, under pressure from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), many of them have changed the defintion of "conception" in the last few years, proving once again that verbal engineering always preceeds social (and medical) engineering.
Here is Tabor's Medical Dictionary's entry:
conception (kSn-s&p´shTn)
1. The mental process of forming an idea. 2. The onset of pregnancy marked by implantation of a fertilized ovum in the uterine wall. SEE: contraception; fertilization; implantation.
Copyright 2001 by F. A. Davis Company
Here is the entry from "On-line Medical Dictionary":
conception
The onset of pregnancy, marked by implantation of the blastocyst, the formation of a viable zygote. Origin: L. Conceptio
However, Merriam Webster's Medical Dictionary sits on the fence:
Main Entry: con·cep·tion
Pronunciation: k&n-'sep-sh&n
Function: noun
1 a : the process of becoming pregnant involving fertilization or implantation or both b : EMBRYO, : FETUS 2 a : the capacity, function, or process of forming or understanding ideas or abstractions or their symbols b : a general idea
Yet the good old "The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition," Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company, is much more straightforward:
con·cep·tion (kn-spshn)
n.
Formation of a viable zygote by the union of the male sperm and female ovum; fertilization. The entity formed by the union of the male sperm and female ovum; an embryo or zygote. The ability to form or understand mental concepts and abstractions. Something conceived in the mind; a concept, plan, design, idea, or thought. See Synonyms at idea. Archaic. A beginning; a start. [Middle English concepcioun, from Old French conception, from Latin concepti, conceptin-, from conceptus. See concept.]
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc., does not mince words either:
conception \Con*cep"tion\, n. [F. conception, L. conceptio, fr. concipere to conceive. See Conceive.] 1. The act of conceiving in the womb; the initiation of an embryonic animal life.[remaider of definitions deleted]
WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University puts it succinctly:
conception n 1: an abstract or general idea inferred or derived from specific instances [syn: concept, construct] [ant: misconception] 2: the act of becoming pregnant; fertilization of an ovum by a spermatozoon 3: the event that occured at the beginning of something; "from its creation the plan was doomed to failure" [syn: creation] 4: the creation of something in the mind [syn: invention, innovation, excogitation, design]
I wonder how these medical dictionaries define a tubal pregnancy, if "conception" does not occur till after implantation of a fertilized ovum in the uterine wall?
I wonder why the "medical" definition of "conception" has been quietly changed?
No need to wonder, really. All the latest contraceptive technologies target the baby at its most vulnerable point, i.e., before implantation but after conception (as traditionally defined.)
If "conception" is not redefined, medicine must admit that these new technologies are indeed abortifacient. Then comes the whole problem of informed consent, conscience clauses, and a refocus of pro-life activity exactly where medicine does NOT want it: At that distinct line between conception and implantation, a line already crossed by hormonal contraception, the morning after pill, Norplant, Depo-Provera, IUD's, cloning, stem cell research, and many other emerging technologies.
Here lies the future of the pro-life battle, or its failure, if none show up to do battle.
AMA VOTES AGAINST LETTING WOMEN KNOW "THE PILL" IS ABORTIFACIENT
Culture/Society
Source: CATHOLIC WORLD NEWS
Published: Dec 10, 01 Author: CATHOLIC WORLD NEWS
Posted on 12/11/01 12:17 AM Eastern by proud2bRC
| AMA Votes Against Letting Women Know "The Pill" Is Abortifacient |
| WASHINGTON, DC, Dec 10, 01 (LSN.ca/CWNews.com) - The American Medical Association last week voted overwhelmingly against a proposal to inform women about the potential for birth control pills to cause the abortion of an embryo by preventing implantation in the uterus.
|
| Cybercast News Service reports that Dr. John C. Nelson, a member of the AMA's executive committee and a self-described conservative, said the Alabama doctor who put forward the proposal before the AMA "believes that in the spirit of enhancing the patient/physician relationship, that information ought to be disclosed to patients to help them make choices." Nelson said, "I couldn't agree more. That's exactly what the AMA is about. It's a cornerstone of American medicine." However, according to Nelson, the proposal was voted down because "many people from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine... decided that they would testify, and their testimony was that there is not sufficient scientific evidence to suggest" that birth control substances can induce abortions. Walter Weber, senior litigation counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Virginia-based public interest law firm, reacted to the vote saying, "If [pro-life women] are using a method that can operate after fertilization as well as before fertilization, and they don't know it, they are basically being deceived by lack of information into violating their own consciences." The Family Research Council (FRC) condemned the attempt to conceal the truth from women. FRC Advisory Board Member John Diggs, MD, said Friday, "The AMA is doing a great disservice to women by refusing to fully inform them of their birth control options. Since informed consent is a basic medical ethic, it should be standard operating procedure to tell women that the birth control pill can cause an abortion. Each woman has the right to know what's good for her health and acceptable to her conscience. If the AMA has suppressed its conscience, it shouldn't draw American women into its own ethical lapses." FRC noted that the prescribing information for Ortho Tri-Cyclen, a popular oral contraceptive, enumerates three pathways by which the pill works: suppressing ovulation, preventing fertilization, and precluding the implantation of an already fertilized egg. The third one constitutes an abortion. The third function is conspicuously excluded from information made available to patients. "If manufacturers are telling doctors that oral contraceptives can keep a new member of the human family from being nourished, why isn't that information being passed on to patients?", asked Diggs. Nelson noted that lobbying by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine largely contributed to the AMA's decision. ==================================================== Catholic World News is available via email for personal use only. To subscribe or for further information, contact subs@cwnews.com or visit our Web page at http://www.cwnews.com. Catholic World News (c) Copyright Domus Enterprises 2001. |
ABSTRACT:
The primary mechanism of oral contraceptives is to inhibit ovulation, but this mechanism is not always operative. When breakthrough ovulation occurs, then secondary mechanisms operate to prevent clinically recognized pregnancy. These secondary mechanisms may occur either before or after fertilization. Postfertilization effects would be problematic for some patients, who may desire information about this possibility. This article evaluates the available evidence for the postfertilization effects of oral contraceptives and concludes that good evidence exists to support the hypothesis that the effectiveness of oral contraceptives depends to some degree on postfertilization effects. [in other words, early chemical abortions--proud2brc] However, there are insufficient data to quantitate the relative contribution of postfertilization effects. Despite the lack of quantitative data, the principles of informed consent suggest that patients who may object to any postfertilization loss should be made aware of this information so that they can give fully informed consent for the use of oral contraceptives.<
I hope she's got a good editor.
Indefeatable logic, welcome aboard.
This is a supposition you should be careful not to assert. Passion for a cause should not to be confused with a lack of reason. Emotion or loss of composure may occur, but it would be intellectually dishonest to assign this tendency to only one side of the argument.
There can be no rationalization for the killing of innocent life. Period.
The liberal pinnacle of ill-logic.
"If you don't like owning slaves, don't own slaves!"
"If you don't like murder, don't commit murder!"
This philosophy is called moral relativity.
It is practiced in the absolute Chaos which exists in lieu of a heart.
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