Posted on 01/25/2003 5:12:08 PM PST by MHGinTN
Aren’t most Americans moderate in their views, falling somewhere in the middle on the issue of abortion?
It is true that the acceptance quotient for the vast majority of Americans falls somewhere between the notions of ‘legal protection for all conceived individual human life’ and ‘legal protection for partial birth abortion’. I was once somewhere between the two ‘extremes’, but the truth offered from persons who had dug deeper into the science and issues regarding nascent human life awakened me from my comfortable slumber. The realization that awakened my sleeping brain was that ‘with tacit acceptance of in vitro fertilization and then the apparent necessity for some abortion, our society too quickly arrived at acceptance of --no, DEFENSE OF, by powerful political forces-- infanticide.’ Apparently, the retired Democrat Senator from New York has had a similar epiphany, since he has characterized partial birth abortion as infanticide.
After thirty years of 'somewhere in the middle', abortion has lead directly to the maximum cheapening of individual human life, now defending infanticide for convenience and profit. But is that really the maximum corruption of our founding principles regarding the unalienable right to life? Perhaps we can and will degenerate further. Let’s explore such a probability.
The straight-line course ahead, from our current inhumane reality, will embrace actors in Hollywood insinuating that ‘exploitation of embryonic life is needed to bolster unencumbered lives of worthy pursuit’ … a notion made palpable by deranged feminists and their political champions who have insisted that in order to be 'fully empowered' a woman must have a legal right to commit violence upon her conceived children. Through tacit acceptance for the extreme treatment of individual natal life --forceful withdrawal of life support; abortion-- it is assumed by the societal engineers that we will accept ‘conception of individual human lives and then killing those individuals for their body parts.’ That’s cannibalism.
Stricken Hollywood actors and power-crazed politicians, in order to convince you that exploitation of individual embryonic life is right, must arrange your tacit agreement that ‘killing and harvesting embryos is not the same as killing an individual.’ But the scientists they would employ and fund with your taxes to carry out this medical marvel already know the truth. Here's the key to clarifying their duplicitous reasoning: those seeking your tacit acceptance of embryonic exploitation must have you first agree to a blatant lie ... or worse, have you agree that these are individual human lives being exploited in their earliest stage of a less worthy lifetime, defining a higher purpose for these embryonic individuals, sustaining others who were not stripped of life support to harvest their body parts. The first level of agreement --that embryos are not individual humans-- is based on a calculated lie; the second descending level of agreement is acceptance of cannibalism based on the specious axiom that embryos are not human individuals existing in the normal stage of a human lifetime.
Regarding the specious arguments of nihilist, I've given up addressing directly the bloviations of leftist dead-souls. Instead, allow me to elucidate the slippery slope many faithful people warned of way back when the outrage over in vitro fertilization was squelched ... a downward slope upon which we are now accelerating.
Having lost our hold on the goodness of supporting life (the humane necessity of life support), exploitation of nascent life is already a reality. The fetal tissue harvesting industry, with more than a billion dollars in business receipts each year, already influences ‘when a woman ought to have the abortion she seeks’ since the later differentiation of tissues makes ‘later rather than earlier’ killing and harvesting of the fetus more desirable to those who will profit from the killing. But that's just the beginning of the horror: 1) embryonic stem cell exploitation now demands the conception and killing of untold numbers of embryos; 2) therapeutic cloning is based on the in vitro fertilization/conception of human life, with killing and harvesting as the goal when the embryo has differentiated sufficiently to make specific target-cell identification reliable. Both of these 'scientific advances' require our nation to accept the specious notion that an individual human life doesn't begin with at least first cell division (onset of mitosis). The second methodology requires that you accept the wholesale exploitation of human life by conceiving it then killing it, harvesting the body parts.
Having read this far, some will insist, “But an embryo in a petri dish is not the same as an implanted embryo, not the same as a fetus, not the same as a born child, not the same as … “, yet the very science now hurrying to exploit embryonic life is convinced an embryo IS an individual human lifetime begun. “Outrageous assertion”, some will say. Let the goals of these scientific pursuits prove the case.
First, let us examine the goal of in vitro fertilization. With this procedure, a female gamete is fertilized by a male gamete (gametes are the ‘sex cells’ of the adult male or female). Once cell division is evidenced and the embryo reaches a desired number of body parts (the embryonic stem cells), the individual embryo is placed into the uterus of the target woman (and in most cases, several individual embryos are implanted at the same time, ‘running the odds’ so to speak; if ‘too many’ achieve life support, the attending medical personnel will advise on aborting one or more, to improve the odds for the escaping survivor).
The technician watching the product of fertilization (the conceptus) in the ‘petri dish’ is looking for cell division, to assure that an individual life has begun to express, to grow … the technician implants only the embryo proven to be building her/his individual body!
Additionally, the technician must achieve this transfer from ‘petri dish’ to human uterus at a specific stage in cell division, a specific stage in the lifetime already begun in a dish; if they try implanting too early, the embryo will not have the sticky coating it creates which allows for attachment to the uterine wall. Timing is crucial, timing that is based on proven growth processes of an individual human life. [If you’re wondering, this continuum concept of individual human existence is the exact same reasoning regarding the onset of puberty --for example, as a normal stage in individual human development. The scientist views individual human life as a continuum, having a beginning at conception and first cell division, and continuing through a myriad of differentiations and organ expressions.]
Let us turn now to cloning, for the methodology of a technician seeking to clone life has much in common with the in vitro fertilization process.
The clone is a genetic duplicate of a parent DNA donor. The in vitro fertilization technician conceives by bringing male and female gametes together, thus achieving the contribution of 23 chromosomes from female and 23 chromosomes from male, resulting in a conceptus having the normal 46 chromosomes. The clone technician seeks to use a mature female gamete from which the chromosomal nuclear ball has been removed and the 46 chromosome nuclear material of the ‘adult donor’ is inserted. [‘Adult donor’ refers to an organism with the normal compliment of 46 chromosomes, not to the age of the donor. In some procedures, the product of male/female conception is stripped of the 46 resulting chromosomes prior to first cell division, and the 46 chromosomes of the donor are inserted.]
If the cloning technician seeks to fully reproduce the genetic donor, the conceptus is observed for evidence of cell division, then, just as with in vitro fertilization/reproduction, the embryo is inserted into a woman’s uterus for continued life support … life support for a proven individual human that is a genetic duplicate of the donor, with none of the ovum donor’s chromosomes. [There is ‘from-the-female’ DNA material in the de-nucleated ovum, associated with the mitochondria units of the ovum, but developmental characteristics of the newly conceived individual will follow the parent chromosomal route through growth and development. This is the complicated ‘stuff’ too rigorous for discussion in a short essay.]
If, instead of reproduction for a fully expressed parent donor, the technician desires ‘therapeutic cloning’, the embryo is not implanted in a woman’s life supporting body; life support in the ‘petri dish’ is provided until a desired stage of cell differentiation is achieved and then the embryo is harvested for the desired tissue, killing the individual human life conceived for a tissue specific cloning purpose.
With first cell division, the newly conceived human life is constructing its own ‘space capsule’ (the placental bubble and the fluid that inflates it) and its own individual body and blood. The woman in whom an embryo resides does not construct the placenta or the body of the newly conceived individual human life. In fact, it is the newly conceived individual who commandeers life support from the woman’s body. It is the embryonic individual who initiates its own growth and development AND the life support from the woman’s body.
Cell division proves to the scientist that an individual human life is present.
The production of a sticky coating by the embryonic individual proves the desire for survival. Is that desire the same as the adult desire for shelter and sustenance? No, it is more akin to the hunger response, but it is unimpeachable evidence that an individual life exists. Is that life human? … If the parents are human, that’s always the case. If the embryonic individual did not construct the placental sac for its residence, the presence of a genetically foreign individual life in the woman’s body would cause her body to attack the ‘other’. This is yet another substantial proof of the individuality of the newly conceived human life and its miraculous effort to survive for a lifetime.
If our nation does not accomplish a paradigm shift, to hold individual human life as something not to be exploited for 'medical' purposes, the cannibalism of embryonic stem cell harvesting and therapeutic cloning will be our reality.
One further note: the ‘enlightened’ expect you to accept the notion that an embryo IS NOT an individual human life. That the scientist seeks to conceive 'designer' human life --with therapeutic cloning-- only strengthens the truth that they are conceiving an individual human life for exploitation and death. Giving tacit acceptance to a proven lie is bad enough, but to embrace cannibalism founded on such a lie is far beyond moral and ethical dilemmas. If we do not, at this critical juncture in our national life, accomplish a paradigm shift in the nation's perception regarding individual human life, two very unpleasant leviathans will devour the remains of our national goodness. Only God’s mercy will continue our life support as a nation should we slip further down the slippery slope without ascending back to the goodness of life support for all individual human life, repudiating the cannibalistic exploitation now looming in our future.
If abortion in the first trimester is murder, you must punish the people involved as murderers.
If an 18 year old college freshman gets pregnant, by her 17 years old boyfriend, she borrows money from her college roommate to have the abortion. Within a week of learning she is pregnant, her parents give her 21 year old brother the car keys to take her and the boyfriend to the underground clinic, he drives them, a doctor and nurse perform the abortion, right there let's see what can be done. The girl and the doctor and nurse are charged with murder in the first degree. The girl is charged with statutory rape of her boyfriend, the parents, the brother, the roomate, the boyfriend are charged as accessories, and under manditory minimum sentencing laws, everybody goes away for a long time. All 8 of them in the poke for years and years.
The american people aren't as a rule willing to do that. That is why there is the mushy middle.
I am not willing to send 16 year old girls to prison for life for abortion. I want laws to ban PBA, laws that require parental consent, that in both cases punish abortionists severely for not following these guidelines, but I am not willing to put the family in jail for a decade, and that is why abortion still rips this country apart.
That is the rub and you either face it or don't. If a 16 year old shoots somebody with a gun on impulse, they should get a stiffer sentence than somebody who after weeks of contemplation decides to abort their fetus, the impulse shooter should get more jail time?
I am not totally out of your camp btw. I hate abortion. I want such restrictions placed upon it, that it truly is the last and only resort.
I have a friend right now trying to adopt, and the home visits, paperwork, costs are just a mess. He has to wear a saint on his head, (which he nearly does anyways), just to be able to have half the rights that two teen-agers rutting in a car have and that is one factor as to why their are too many abortions.
I would be more than happy to ban abortion except in cases of rape or incest, with a streamlined adoption process that makes potential adoptive parents treated like criminals.
Until that point, we have the mess we are in. I curse the 60's for ever happening. I find it highly offensive that people think that they can just snuff out their progeny as easy as getting a wart removed.
Yet, I still don't think abortion is murder in the same regard as taking a gun, knife, or fists and killing somebody who was already born.
I am a bit sick of the crappy rhetoric from both sides. The Orwellian double speak such as "choice".(Does that mean the choice to procreate like a dog in heat, fail to use birth control, and dump your fetus in the trash like yesterday's refuse? Unborn baby is the equivalent of calling the living Undead corpses if you follow that logic.
We are in a mess in this country and there are no easy answers. Most people realize it. There is a crisis in morality, and you can try to legislate it, but good luck.
end of rant.
I think you want to have it both ways. I am just stating that you should follow the logical conclusion of your position. If you believe abortion is murder, punish it accordingly. If you believe it is more of a gray area than that, admit it, and say hello to those of us in the mushy middle.
Tacit acceptance leading from in vitro fertilization to partial birth infanticide proves the bankruptcy of continuing to lend moderate acceptance. We are now staring at cannibalism in the name of whatever you care to call it. I want to shift the perspective to life support for ALL individual human life. Above, you have a clear argument for why the embryo is a human being, from the perspective of science.
Laws set the parameters of what is taboo in a society. The Roe decision was not a new law written, it was a judicial fiat that unconstitutionally permitted wholesale assault on a class of individual human beings by protected serial killers. And that fiat was based on a series of outright lies!
We must awaken to the reason for setting taboos, because even an embryo no bigger than a grain of sugar is an individual human life. Is it acceptable to kill that individual for their body parts? If it is, that's cannibalism. I'm searching for a way to stop such cannibalism and the method I've settle with is to focus the debates on life support. I'll not address further the specious arguments of left-leaning dead-souls.
Where do the original 46 chromosomes end up? Do they end up in part of the baby, or in part of the "scaffolding", or is it random?
This is a completely specious line of reasoning, MHGinTN. CR is in absolutely no position to know whether the embryonic individual attains a "higher purpose" in its death than it would ever have in its life, had it been simply allowed to live. Unless one is to believe that the repair of a Hollywood actor's damaged body is a "higher purpose" than the live birth of, say, an Einstein, or a Mozart, or a Shakespeare....
A friend of mine has noted that we've lost this battle with our acceptance (however immoderate) of the very word "clone".
They are not clones. If they were clones, indeed they would be genetic equivalents. But the sorry performance of the animals (and humans) cloned to date only evidences that they are nowhere near genetic equivalents.
I think he's got a point.
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