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Originally posted by Bobber

Hi Folks

Might I ask this question once again, that is lets just say if we actually did spend 100 % of our time getting people saved, and when im talking about salvation im not referring to just the faith of our sins being forgiven by the blood of Christ, but also this that now you are born again you have received the divine nature of God which is life and love can't we agree this would get rid of abortion? Instead of going through the front door on the issue to deal with it you've went through the back door....no correction....believe it or not you've really gone through the front door on the issue and not the back door. Maybe some might disagree with me on this but by dealing by natural protest well....I think we're maybe trying to deal with a spiritual problem by a fleshly or natural means, and yes I believe and think im just as much against abortion as anyone else.

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I think we're maybe trying to deal with a spiritual problem by a fleshly or natural means, and yes I believe and think im just as much against abortion as anyone else.

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Originally posted by BemaBound

Sahid,
Yes. If just prayer or just preaching the Gospel would reverse Roe v. Wade, then all I'd be doing was praying more, preaching the Gospel more and encouraging others to pray and preach the Gospel more. This involves that plus voting and helping people to recognize that the defenseless unborn babies who can't lift up their cries, look to those of us who can speak up for those who can't yet speak.

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Originally posted by BemaBound
John Earp,
I appreciate the way you so clearly see and address the real issues here. Thank you for your good input.

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DLW: This and the before-mentioned ambiguity as to when the human zygote/embryo/fetus becomes a human being makes it unlikely that all elective abortions after conception will ever be permanently made illegal again in the US.

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...Abortion groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood, with the backing of Hollywood celebrities, are pouring cash in to New Hampshire to smear Bob Smith because they know he is their most outspoken critic in the Senate. The abortionists are especially bitter toward Senator Smith, since he is the author of Life at Conception legislation which would effectively end legalized abortion. When he introduced his version of a Life at Conception Act, Bob Smith declared the bill would “Keep the Declaration of Independence’s promise by reversing Roe v. Wade and assuring that unborn children have their God-given right to life protected.

”By using the Roe v. Wade decision’s own wording giving Congress the duty to define when life begins, the Life at Conception Act would wipe that horrible decision off the books. The 1973 Court said: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. . . the judiciary at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. . .” The Court went on to admit that if Congress adopted guidelines saying life begins at conception, Roe v. Wade would fall: “If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the (Fourteenth Constitutional) Amendment.” Recognizing the personhood of unborn infants is precisely what a Life at Conception Act would do.
www.prolifealliance.com/LifeLine_Summer2002.pdf.
scroll down to page 6.

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THE BIOLOGICAL NATURE OF UNBORN CHILDREN

The conflict over what rights and legal protections the law should provide unborn children often revolves around the legal definitions and classifications of unborn children. Is an unborn child a person? A child? A life? A potential life? An organ of the mother? A thing? Such labels play important roles in deciding whether unborn children have rights and how far those rights reach. Justice Blackmun’s statement in Roe that “the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology [have been] unable to arrive at any consensus” on this issue 1 has unnecessarily confused the matter 2. There is, in fact, no doubt from a scientific standpoint that an unborn child is a life from the moment of conception 3. Not only is it a life, but, “by its intrinsic biological nature,” it is a human life from the moment of conception, for “it can be nothing else.” 4. This is because “‘to be a human being is decided for an organism at the moment of fertilization of the ovum.’” 5 By the end of the eighth week of its existence, an unborn child “has features that are distinctly human,” 6 confirming the child’s humanness. French geneticist Dr. Jerome L. LeJeune 7 testified before a United States Senate subcommittee in 1981: “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence.” 8

That the “offspring of human parents cannot reasonably be considered to be [something] other than a human being” was also recognized by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Commonwealth v. Cass. 9

Though this section is dedicated to demonstrating that unborn children are human beings, the object of this Note is not to prove that fact. The object of this Note is, instead, to assert that Iowa should afford full legal protection to the entire human race, regardless of an individual’s stage of development. The support for the proposition that human life begins at conception contained in this section is instead intended to display that there is no dispute on that point, for it is undisputable. As Dr. Gordon stated in his 1981 congressional testimony:

[This] is the first time I have found myself having to argue the unarguable. I have never encountered in my reading of the scientific literature—long before I became concerned with abortion, euthanasia, and so on—anyone who has argued that life did not begin at the moment of conception or that it was not a human conception if it resulted from the fertilization of a human egg by a human sperm. As far as I know, there has been no argument about these matters. 10

The dispute instead lies elsewhere 11 —how much legal protection do we afford human beings residing in a mother’s womb?

But when does a person begin? I will try to give the most precise answer to that question actually available to science. Modern biology teaches us that ancestors are united to their progeny by a continuous material link, for it is from the fertilization of the female cell—the ovum—by the male cell—the spermatozoa—that a new member of the species will emerge.

Life has a very, very long history, but each individual has a very neat beginning—the moment of its conception.

The material link I was speaking about is the molecular thread of DNA. In each reproductive cell, this ribbon, roughly one meter long, is cut into pieces—23 in our species—and each segment is so carefully coiled and packaged—like a magnetic tape in a minicassette—that under the microscope it appears like a little rod, a chromosome. . . .
. . . .

What is bewildering is the minuteness of the scripture. It is hard to believe, although beyond any possible doubt, that the whole genetic information necessary and sufficient to build our body and even our brain, the most powerful problem–solving device, even able to analyze the laws of the universe, could be epitomized so that its material substratum could fit neatly on the point of a needle.

Even more impressive, during the maturation of the reproductive cells, the genetic information is reshuffled in so many ways that each conceptus receives an entirely original combination which has never occurred before and will never again. Each conceptus is unique and thus irreplaceable.

Identical twins and true hermaphrodites are exceptions to that general rule: One man, one genetic makeup. But, interestingly enough, these exceptions have to take place at the time of conception. . . .

In his life capsule, the amniotic bag, the early being is just as viable as an astronaut on the Moon in his space suit. Refueling with vital fluids is required from the mother ship. This nurture is indispensable for survival, but it does not make the baby, no more than the most sophisticated space shuttle could produce an astronaut. Such a comparison becomes even more cogent when the fetus moves. . . .
. . . .

At two months of age, the human being is less than one thumb’s length from the head to the rump. He would fit at ease in a nutshell, but everything is there—hands, feet, head, organs, brain—all are in place. His heart has been beating for a month already. Looking closely, you would see the palm creases, and a fortune teller would read the good adventure of that tiny person. With a good magnifier, the finger prints could be detected. Every document is available for a national identity card.

Id. at 7–10 (statement of Dr. Jerome L. LeJeune,
University Rene Descartes).

The hearings on the Human Life Bill in 1981 also contained similar statements from other notable medical professionals. Professor of medical genetics Hymie Gordon of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN testified:
By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception. . . .
. . . .

Now we can say, unequivocally, that the question of when life begins—is no longer a question for theological or philosophical dispute. It is an established scientific fact. Theologians and philosophers may go on to debate the meaning of life or the purpose of life, but it is an established fact that all life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception.

Id. at 13 (statement of Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic). Dr. Micheline Mathews–Roth of Harvard University Medical School stated:
In biology and in medicine, it is an accepted fact that the life of any individual organism reproducing by sexual reproduction begins at conception, or fertilization—the time when the egg cell from the female and the sperm cell from the male join to form a single new cell, the zygote. . . .
. . . .

In summary, it is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive. In biology, as in any other branch of science, experiments repeated and confirmed by many different workers using many different species of organisms do, indeed, prove that a particular biological finding is true.

And so it is with the biological finding that an organism reproducing by sexual reproduction starts its life as one cell—the zygote—and throughout its existence belongs to the species of its parents. No experiments have disproved this finding.

So, therefore, it is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.

Id. at 14, 17 (statement of Dr. Micheline Mathews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School). Dr. Mathews-Roth’s testimony also included quotations from respected medical textbooks supporting her statements. See id. at 14–16 (statement of Dr. Micheline Mathews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School).

1. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 159 (1973).

2. See Hunter Baker, Storming the Gates of Massive Cultural Investment: Reconsidering Roe in Light of Its Flawed Foundation and Undesirable Consequences, 14 REGENT U. L. REV. 35, 44–46 (2002) (noting that “n reality, the question has long been answered” and “[a]ll metaphysical higgledy-piggledy simply creates a comforting sense of plausible deniability about when life begins”).

3. See CECIE STARR & RALPH TAGGART, BIOLOGY: THE UNITY AND DIVERSITY OF LIFE 783 fig.45.9 (7th ed. 1995) (noting that a “zygote” has formed after fertilization of an ovum is completed); STEDMAN’S CONCISE MEDICAL DICTIONARY FOR THE HEALTH PROFESSIONS 143, 963 (John H. Dirckx, M.D., ed., 3rd ed. 1997) (defining “zygote” as “[t]he diploid cell resulting from union of a sperm and an ovum” and defining “cell” as “[t]he smallest unit of living structure capable of independent existence”) (emphasis added).

4. Murphy S. Klasing, The Death of an Unborn Child: Jurisprudential Inconsistencies in Wrongful Death, Criminal Homicide, and Abortion Cases, 22 PEPP. L. REV. 933, 974 (1995) (quoting Clarke D. Forsythe, Homicide of the Unborn Child: The Born Alive Rule and Other Legal Anachronisms, 21 VAL. U. L. REV. 563, 608–09 (1987)); see also Nealis v. Baird, 996 P.2d 438, 453 (Okla. 1999) (“Contemporary scientific precepts accept as a given that human life begins at conception.” (citing KEITH L. MOORE & T.V.N. PERSAUD, THE DEVELOPING HUMAN 14 (5th ed. 1993); SUSAN TUCKER BLACKBURN & DONNA LEE LOPER, MATERNAL, FETAL AND NEONATAL PHYSIOLOGY: A CLINICAL PERSPECTIVE 49 (1992); MICHAEL R. HARRISON ET AL., THE UNBORN PATIENT: PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT 14 (1984); DALE RUSSELL DUNNIHOO, M.D., PH.D., FUNDAMENTALS OF GYNECOLOGY AND OBSTETRICS 286–99 (1990); LOUIS HELLMAN ET AL., WILLIAMS OBSTETRICS 199 (14th ed. 1971)); Baker, supra note 37, at 46 (noting that the proposition that an unborn child is a human being from conception is “supported by standard textbooks on embryology or human biology” (citing T.W. SADLER, LANGMAN’S MEDICAL EMBRYOLOGY (John N. Gardner ed., 6th ed. 1990)); Kelly J. Hollowell, Defining a Person Under the Fourteenth Amendment: A Constitutionally and Scientifically Based Analysis, 14 REGENT U. L. REV. 67, 86–92 (2001–2002) (examining the biological nature of unborn children and concluding that “human life begins at conception”); Aaron Wagner, Comment, Texas Two-Step: Serving Up Fetal Rights by Side-Stepping Roe v. Wade Has Set the Table for Another Showdown on Fetal Personhood in Texas and Beyond, 32 TEX. TECH L. REV. 1085, 1141 (2001) (“[T]he scientific community is in agreement that a fetus is a human from the moment of conception.”).

5. Klasing, supra note 39, at 974 (quoting E. BLECHSCHMIDT, THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE 16–17 (1977)).

6. STARR & TAGGART, supra note 38, at 788 fig.45.13(c) (emphasis added).

7. At the time of the hearings on the Human Life Bill in 1981, Dr. LeJeune was a professor of fundamental genetics at the University Rene Descartes in Paris, France. The Human Life Bill: Hearings on S. 158 Before the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Cong. 7 (1982) [hereinafter The Human Life Bill] (statement of Dr. Jerome L. LeJeune, University Rene Descartes).

8. Id. at 10 (statement of Dr. Jerome L. LeJeune, University Rene Descartes). Dr. LeJeune further testified:

9. Commonwealth v. Cass, 467 N.E.2d 1324, 1325 (Mass. 1984).

10. The Human Life Bill, supra note 42, at 21 (statement of Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic).

11. Cf. Baker, supra note 37, at 46 (noting that even some notable pro–abortion advocates recognize that abortion kills children (citing Naomi Wolfe, Our Bodies, Our Souls, NEW REPUBLIC, Oct. 16, 1995, at 26)).

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Originally posted by BemaBound

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DLW: This and the before-mentioned ambiguity as to when the human zygote/embryo/fetus becomes a human being makes it unlikely that all elective abortions after conception will ever be permanently made illegal again in the US.

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Actually, when the Supreme Court decided on Roe v. Wade, I don't know if you were aware that the Supreme Court also decided that this issue of when life begins should be determined by Congress. Yes, it will take an act of congress, and that’s exactly what Sen. Smith has done. He has written legislation called the “Life At Conception Act,” taking the Supreme Court’s words and “running with them.” And when it's in Congress' hands, and people don't realize that it's now in OUR hands, this is sad. This is an article that addresses this:

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...Abortion groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood, with the backing of Hollywood celebrities, are pouring cash in to New Hampshire to smear Bob Smith because they know he is their most outspoken critic in the Senate. The abortionists are especially bitter toward Senator Smith, since he is the author of Life at Conception legislation which would effectively end legalized abortion. When he introduced his version of a Life at Conception Act, Bob Smith declared the bill would “Keep the Declaration of Independence’s promise by reversing Roe v. Wade and assuring that unborn children have their God-given right to life protected.

”By using the Roe v. Wade decision’s own wording giving Congress the duty to define when life begins, the Life at Conception Act would wipe that horrible decision off the books. The 1973 Court said: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. . . the judiciary at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. . .” The Court went on to admit that if Congress adopted guidelines saying life begins at conception, Roe v. Wade would fall:
“If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the (Fourteenth Constitutional) Amendment.” Recognizing the personhood of unborn infants is precisely what a Life at Conception Act would do.

www.prolifealliance.com/LifeLine_Summer2002.pdf.
scroll down to page 6.

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the full citation of the article is:
Jason M. Steffens, Note, The "Peculiar" Being: The Rights of an Unborn Child in Iowa, 88 IOWA L. REV. 217 (1988).

_________________________________________________________________

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THE BIOLOGICAL NATURE OF UNBORN CHILDREN

The conflict over what rights and legal protections the law should provide unborn children often revolves around the legal definitions and classifications of unborn children. Is an unborn child a person? A child? A life? A potential life? An organ of the mother? A thing? Such labels play important roles in deciding whether unborn children have rights and how far those rights reach. Justice Blackmun’s statement in Roe that “the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology [have been] unable to arrive at any consensus” on this issue 1 has unnecessarily confused the matter 2. There is, in fact, no doubt from a scientific standpoint that an unborn child is a life from the moment of conception 3. Not only is it a life, but, “by its intrinsic biological nature,” it is a human life from the moment of conception, for “it can be nothing else.” 4. This is because “‘to be a human being is decided for an organism at the moment of fertilization of the ovum.’” 5 By the end of the eighth week of its existence, an unborn child “has features that are distinctly human,” 6 confirming the child’s humanness. French geneticist Dr. Jerome L. LeJeune 7 testified before a United States Senate subcommittee in 1981: “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence.” 8

That the “offspring of human parents cannot reasonably be considered to be [something] other than a human being” was also recognized by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Commonwealth v. Cass. 9

Though this section is dedicated to demonstrating that unborn children are human beings, the object of this Note is not to prove that fact. The object of this Note is, instead, to assert that Iowa should afford full legal protection to the entire human race, regardless of an individual’s stage of development. The support for the proposition that human life begins at conception contained in this section is instead intended to display that there is no dispute on that point, for it is undisputable. As Dr. Gordon stated in his 1981 congressional testimony:

[This] is the first time I have found myself having to argue the unarguable. I have never encountered in my reading of the scientific literature—long before I became concerned with abortion, euthanasia, and so on—anyone who has argued that life did not begin at the moment of conception or that it was not a human conception if it resulted from the fertilization of a human egg by a human sperm. As far as I know, there has been no argument about these matters. 10

The dispute instead lies elsewhere 11 —how much legal protection do we afford human beings residing in a mother’s womb?

But when does a person begin? I will try to give the most precise answer to that question actually available to science. Modern biology teaches us that ancestors are united to their progeny by a continuous material link, for it is from the fertilization of the female cell—the ovum—by the male cell—the spermatozoa—that a new member of the species will emerge.

Life has a very, very long history, but each individual has a very neat beginning—the moment of its conception.

The material link I was speaking about is the molecular thread of DNA. In each reproductive cell, this ribbon, roughly one meter long, is cut into pieces—23 in our species—and each segment is so carefully coiled and packaged—like a magnetic tape in a minicassette—that under the microscope it appears like a little rod, a chromosome. . . .
. . . .

What is bewildering is the minuteness of the scripture. It is hard to believe, although beyond any possible doubt, that the whole genetic information necessary and sufficient to build our body and even our brain, the most powerful problem–solving device, even able to analyze the laws of the universe, could be epitomized so that its material substratum could fit neatly on the point of a needle.

Even more impressive, during the maturation of the reproductive cells, the genetic information is reshuffled in so many ways that each conceptus receives an entirely original combination which has never occurred before and will never again. Each conceptus is unique and thus irreplaceable.

Identical twins and true hermaphrodites are exceptions to that general rule: One man, one genetic makeup. But, interestingly enough, these exceptions have to take place at the time of conception. . . .

In his life capsule, the amniotic bag, the early being is just as viable as an astronaut on the Moon in his space suit. Refueling with vital fluids is required from the mother ship. This nurture is indispensable for survival, but it does not make the baby, no more than the most sophisticated space shuttle could produce an astronaut. Such a comparison becomes even more cogent when the fetus moves. . . .
. . . .

At two months of age, the human being is less than one thumb’s length from the head to the rump. He would fit at ease in a nutshell, but everything is there—hands, feet, head, organs, brain—all are in place. His heart has been beating for a month already. Looking closely, you would see the palm creases, and a fortune teller would read the good adventure of that tiny person. With a good magnifier, the finger prints could be detected. Every document is available for a national identity card.

Id. at 7–10 (statement of Dr. Jerome L. LeJeune,
University Rene Descartes).

The hearings on the Human Life Bill in 1981 also contained similar statements from other notable medical professionals. Professor of medical genetics Hymie Gordon of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN testified:
By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception. . . .
. . . .

Now we can say, unequivocally, that the question of when life begins—is no longer a question for theological or philosophical dispute. It is an established scientific fact. Theologians and philosophers may go on to debate the meaning of life or the purpose of life, but it is an established fact that all life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception.

Id. at 13 (statement of Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic). Dr. Micheline Mathews–Roth of Harvard University Medical School stated:
In biology and in medicine, it is an accepted fact that the life of any individual organism reproducing by sexual reproduction begins at conception, or fertilization—the time when the egg cell from the female and the sperm cell from the male join to form a single new cell, the zygote. . . .
. . . .

In summary, it is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive. In biology, as in any other branch of science, experiments repeated and confirmed by many different workers using many different species of organisms do, indeed, prove that a particular biological finding is true.

And so it is with the biological finding that an organism reproducing by sexual reproduction starts its life as one cell—the zygote—and throughout its existence belongs to the species of its parents. No experiments have disproved this finding.

So, therefore, it is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.

Id. at 14, 17 (statement of Dr. Micheline Mathews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School). Dr. Mathews-Roth’s testimony also included quotations from respected medical textbooks supporting her statements. See id. at 14–16 (statement of Dr. Micheline Mathews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School).

1. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 159 (1973).

2. See Hunter Baker, Storming the Gates of Massive Cultural Investment: Reconsidering Roe in Light of Its Flawed Foundation and Undesirable Consequences, 14 REGENT U. L. REV. 35, 44–46 (2002) (noting that “n reality, the question has long been answered” and “[a]ll metaphysical higgledy-piggledy simply creates a comforting sense of plausible deniability about when life begins”).

3. See CECIE STARR & RALPH TAGGART, BIOLOGY: THE UNITY AND DIVERSITY OF LIFE 783 fig.45.9 (7th ed. 1995) (noting that a “zygote” has formed after fertilization of an ovum is completed); STEDMAN’S CONCISE MEDICAL DICTIONARY FOR THE HEALTH PROFESSIONS 143, 963 (John H. Dirckx, M.D., ed., 3rd ed. 1997) (defining “zygote” as “[t]he diploid cell resulting from union of a sperm and an ovum” and defining “cell” as “[t]he smallest unit of living structure capable of independent existence”) (emphasis added).

4. Murphy S. Klasing, The Death of an Unborn Child: Jurisprudential Inconsistencies in Wrongful Death, Criminal Homicide, and Abortion Cases, 22 PEPP. L. REV. 933, 974 (1995) (quoting Clarke D. Forsythe, Homicide of the Unborn Child: The Born Alive Rule and Other Legal Anachronisms, 21 VAL. U. L. REV. 563, 608–09 (1987)); see also Nealis v. Baird, 996 P.2d 438, 453 (Okla. 1999) (“Contemporary scientific precepts accept as a given that human life begins at conception.” (citing KEITH L. MOORE & T.V.N. PERSAUD, THE DEVELOPING HUMAN 14 (5th ed. 1993); SUSAN TUCKER BLACKBURN & DONNA LEE LOPER, MATERNAL, FETAL AND NEONATAL PHYSIOLOGY: A CLINICAL PERSPECTIVE 49 (1992); MICHAEL R. HARRISON ET AL., THE UNBORN PATIENT: PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT 14 (1984); DALE RUSSELL DUNNIHOO, M.D., PH.D., FUNDAMENTALS OF GYNECOLOGY AND OBSTETRICS 286–99 (1990); LOUIS HELLMAN ET AL., WILLIAMS OBSTETRICS 199 (14th ed. 1971)); Baker, supra note 37, at 46 (noting that the proposition that an unborn child is a human being from conception is “supported by standard textbooks on embryology or human biology” (citing T.W. SADLER, LANGMAN’S MEDICAL EMBRYOLOGY (John N. Gardner ed., 6th ed. 1990)); Kelly J. Hollowell, Defining a Person Under the Fourteenth Amendment: A Constitutionally and Scientifically Based Analysis, 14 REGENT U. L. REV. 67, 86–92 (2001–2002) (examining the biological nature of unborn children and concluding that “human life begins at conception”); Aaron Wagner, Comment, Texas Two-Step: Serving Up Fetal Rights by Side-Stepping Roe v. Wade Has Set the Table for Another Showdown on Fetal Personhood in Texas and Beyond, 32 TEX. TECH L. REV. 1085, 1141 (2001) (“[T]he scientific community is in agreement that a fetus is a human from the moment of conception.”).

5. Klasing, supra note 39, at 974 (quoting E. BLECHSCHMIDT, THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE 16–17 (1977)).

6. STARR & TAGGART, supra note 38, at 788 fig.45.13(c) (emphasis added).

7. At the time of the hearings on the Human Life Bill in 1981, Dr. LeJeune was a professor of fundamental genetics at the University Rene Descartes in Paris, France. The Human Life Bill: Hearings on S. 158 Before the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Cong. 7 (1982) [hereinafter The Human Life Bill] (statement of Dr. Jerome L. LeJeune, University Rene Descartes).

8. Id. at 10 (statement of Dr. Jerome L. LeJeune, University Rene Descartes). Dr. LeJeune further testified:

9. Commonwealth v. Cass, 467 N.E.2d 1324, 1325 (Mass. 1984).

10. The Human Life Bill, supra note 42, at 21 (statement of Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic).
11. Cf. Baker, supra note 37, at 46 (noting that even some notable pro–abortion advocates recognize that abortion kills children (citing Naomi Wolfe, Our Bodies, Our Souls, NEW REPUBLIC, Oct. 16, 1995, at 26)).

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216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:-ziLKifxDD8J:www.june24.net/antioch-road/posts/2004_02.html+sen+musgrave+personhood&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men, is the restatement of the obvious."

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1 Chr 12:32 "...men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do..."

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I'm tired of debating. God’s little precious children are legally being killed daily – about 4,000 a day. Some people care and will do something about it. Some people don't really give a rip. That's really what it boils down to.

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Here. I'm going to make a statement and assert it as truth. And nobody will have any evidence to prove what I say is wrong.

"THE UNBORN BABY IS A HUMAN BEING AT CONCEPTION AND IS ENDOWDED BY HIS OR HER CREATOR WITH THE RIGHT TO LIVE - THE RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS."

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Originally posted by BemaBound

Here. I'm going to make a statement and assert it as truth. And nobody will have any evidence to prove what I say is wrong.

"THE UNBORN BABY IS A HUMAN BEING AT CONCEPTION AND IS ENDOWDED BY HIS OR HER CREATOR WITH THE RIGHT TO LIVE - THE RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS."

There. And not one person has the evidence (scientific, theological or philosophical) to prove this assertation is wrong, or to prove without a doubt that the living being in the womb IS NOT a human being.

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Had this been stated in our Constitution - that the unborn baby is also endowed by his/her Creator with the right to live, people would have to get conclusive evidence to the contrary to make it legal to kill one of these precious souls (and they wouldn't be able to get that evidence simply because it's not there).

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George Orwell said,

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men, is the restatement of the obvious."

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When society becomes so twisted and perverted, that it starts redefining and changing what God originally set in motion - for babies to not be killed in the womb, for marriage to be one man and one woman, then our task is to restate the obvious.

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This is EXACTLY what must be restated by Congress in an Act. You say that we can afford to make abortion illegal. That's coming from the voice of economic reason. If we take a moment and listen to God's voice, He is saying, "People - you can't afford NOT TO stop the killing of My precious lambs."

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The problem is here because people of perverse minds stated the unobvious as FACT and we accepted it. They asserted:

"THE BEING IN THE WOMB IS NOT A HUMAN BEING. THEREFORE YOU CAN KILL IT IF YOU WANT. IF YOU PROVE THAT IT IS A HUMAN BEING, THEN WE'LL ADMIT WE'VE LEGALIZED THE KILLING OF THESE HUMAN BEINGS, AND WE WILL STOP LEGALIZING THE KILLING."

The enemy put the Church on the defensive and now we must go on the offensive. But the Church leaders today won't restate the obvious if they're seeing these "uncurcumsized Philistinic vain imaginations" as unbeatable, and if they're seeing "the great giants in the land" as unconquerable, and if they're seeing themselves as "grasshoppers in the world's eyes." Leaders are putting their tails between their legs and hiding behind a form of agnosticism, while pontificating their wonderful thoughts with cold hearts as babies are dying in their midst.

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Someone has stolen the Pastor's voice to our culture. Someone has stolen the Church's voice to our culture. The leaders who are not passionately affected by the holocaust of abortion basically have the same message as the world: "Let's not make a big deal over tissue being destroyed. Let's all just get along."

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1 Chr 12:32 "...men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do..."

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May some mighty men of Issachar who understand these times we live in rise up and restate the obvious.

May some intelligent men who can see the obvious rise up and restate the obvious.

May we, His Church, rise up be a little more human (when it comes feeling for people being killed before our eyes), and less judgmental, negative and critical toward those who actually believe they can make a difference. Because you know what? We can - and we will. Or at least we'll cleanse our own hands of bloodshed because we've done what we could.

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Who determined its measurements -- surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
[6] On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
[7] when the morning stars sang together,
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
"Or who shut in the sea with doors,
when it burst forth from the womb;
[9] when I made clouds its garment,
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
[10] and prescribed bounds for it,
and set bars and doors,
[11] and said, `Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stayed'?
[12] "Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place,
[13] that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
and the wicked be shaken out of it?
[14] It is changed like clay under the seal,
and it is dyed like a garment.
[15] From the wicked their light is withheld,
and their uplifted arm is broken.
[16] "Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
[17] Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
[18] Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
Declare, if you know all this.
[19] "Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
and where is the place of darkness,
[20] that you may take it to its territory
and that you may discern the paths to its home?
[21] You know, for you were born then,
and the number of your days is great!
[22] "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
[23] which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
for the day of battle and war?
[24] What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,
or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?
[25] "Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a way for the thunderbolt,
[26] to bring rain on a land where no man is,
on the desert in which there is no man;
[27] to satisfy the waste and desolate land,
and to make the ground put forth grass?
[28] "Has the rain a father,
or who has begotten the drops of dew?
[29] From whose womb did the ice come forth,
and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?
[30] The waters become hard like stone,
and the face of the deep is frozen.
[31] "Can you bind the chains of the Plei'ades,
or loose the cords of Orion?
[32] Can you lead forth the Maz'zaroth in their season,
or can you guide the Bear with its children?
[33] Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you establish their rule on the earth?
[34] "Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
that a flood of waters may cover you?
[35] Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go
and say to you, `Here we are'?
[36] Who has put wisdom in the clouds,
or given understanding to the mists?
[37] Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,
[38] when the dust runs into a mass
and the clods cleave fast together?
[39] "Can you hunt the prey for the lion,
or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
[40] when they crouch in their dens,
or lie in wait in their covert?
[41] Who provides for the raven its prey,
when its young ones cry to God,
and wander about for lack of food?

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Originally posted by DLW

If you frame the issue in such a manner that your position stems from your having heard God's voice settle the issue then yes that would bear on the answer.

dlw

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Originally posted by DLW

Pow, I honestly don't really understand the question.

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

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Originally posted by DLW

Pow, I honestly don't really understand the question.

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OK. But YOU have to give your own answer too.

My answer is that heaven is in the future, and that "bears back" on the meaning" of everything in this issue. (You seemed to assume that all those aygotes won't be in heaven; and you have no way of knowing that, short of prejudice for thinking humans and against unthinking ones -- you just can't know what God's up to.)

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Applying to another sort of example: The identity of a brain damages individual is illuminated by both the future, and in the present community of those who care for them.

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The theologian W. Pannenberg points out that you have to work backwards from the end to discover the meaning.

I'm NOT going to tell you what to think? You take up that yourself.

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Originally posted by DLW

[You mean brain-damaged indiviual, right? I'm not sure how the future illuminates their identity. A severely-brain-damaged individual's future is primarily a waiting for the next-life.

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Originally posted by DLW

...your description of my prejudice.

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

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Originally posted by DLW

[You mean brain-damaged indiviual, right? I'm not sure how the future illuminates their identity. A severely-brain-damaged individual's future is primarily a waiting for the next-life.

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DO YOU SEE HOW YOU ARE MAKING CONNECTIONS HERE?

The afterlife is the "end" that Pannenberg would way "gives meaning" to now.

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