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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 11/4/2003 7:48 AM (GMT -6) |   | From my debates on TheoWeb, the issue has wound down to a couple of things.
1. The need for us to conceptually separate our beliefs about personal conduct wrt abortion and our political goals/strategy wrt abortion.
2. The need for the development of facts that can guide how we interact with our political opponents concerning abortion.
Some facts I would suggest.
1. When human life begins is not given in the Bible, though it suggests it is before birth, it is a matter of tradition. Hence, Christians may disagree some on this issue and the interpretation of the commandment thou shall not kill in this regard.
2. Although, a newly-conceived fetus has human dna and fits with the scientific criterion for being a life, having dna and being living does not make one a human life/being. From a Christian perspective, this is a matter of ensoulment. From a Secular perspective, this a matter of philosophical debate.
3. Accepting the fact that there is ambiguity as to when human life begins has no immediate normative implications. I.e., the severity of ending a human life and the importance of its sanctity may, and should in this author's view, require a kingdom-ethic where most abortions are proscribed.
4. The issue at stake politically-speaking is when we legally define when human life begins, or at what point does the human fetus have legal rights analogous to those given to a new-born infant and which impose some restrictions on their mother's right to choose? Also of importance is a redetermination of what health-reasons a woman can have an abortion. By Doe-V-Bolton, health is very vaguely defined and may serve as a loop-hole, permitting an abortion under any circumstances irregardless of the legal redefinition of when human life begins.
Note:Consistent with earlier points and some of the writings of Peter Singer, human life is an arbitrary point to legally define when human life begins and so the choice is between arbitrary points, since, even if it is presumed we all have a commitment to the sacredness of life, it is not evident to all when human life begins(I have also argued with some that have held up the value of human autonomy as trumping our responsibility to save the life of another and so my presumption may not hold for all...).
Another way to put the debate would be that it stems from the conflict between modernism and fundamentalism. With the one expressing a faith in the individuals to decide and the other expressing the need for rules to curtail our natural desires to abuse our freedoms at the expense of others. The political issue is what combination of rules and freedoms should we have, given our differences. Most pro-choicers do not advocate legalizing infanticide since that interferes with a family's rights to make expost judgements of how large it can be or who it can support. They accept this rule and presumably they could also support other rules that apply pre-birth.
However, for restrictions to be made, pro-lifers may need to accept the political limits made by their political opposition and the generally conservative structure of the US gov't and not go after making all abortions illegal again.
It is for this reason I suggested the use of referendums to permit change but also to provide checks against radical changes advocated only by a minority. The safeguards of this approch should qualm political opposition move pro-life into the mainstream and permit them to find bipartisan support for the changes. Then, pro-lifer political capital could be redirected to reforming the adoption industry and other measures that would serve to save lifes before and after birth.
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 11/28/2003 11:32 AM (GMT -6) | | A Time to Choose
How Democrats started losing the abortion debate.
By Amy Sullivan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Oct. 21 of this year, the Senate passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and sent it to President Bush for his signature, thus enacting the first ever federal prohibition of a specific abortion procedure. Anti-abortion activists rejoiced that the legislation, first introduced in Congress eight years ago and vetoed twice by President Bill Clinton, was now law. Abortion rights groups were dispirited, but not surprised by their defeat and took solace in the belief that the legislation would be declared unconstitutional (and, in fact, three federal judges have since issued separate decisions blocking the ban). Most Americans were no doubt simply relieved that the gruesome and controversial debate was going away.
Democrats were left asking themselves--or should have been asking themselves--what went wrong. After all, Democrats (and pro-choice Republicans) are generally where the public is on abortion. Fully 77 percent of Americans, according to a January 2003 Gallup poll, support the right to choose in some or all circumstances. And yet, Republicans (and pro-life Democrats) successfully passed a "partial-birth" abortion ban that won 80 percent public support. There's a simple explanation for this apparent contradiction. Most Americans support a woman's right to choose. But they also have a general moral discomfort with "late-term" abortions, performed during the last few months of pregnancy. Anti-abortion activists and legislators played on that moral unease and achieved broad support for the bill largely by focusing their public campaigns on the vivid pictures and descriptions of "partial-birth" abortions performed late-term.
Of course, their public campaign was misleading. If doctors can't use this particular procedure, they will substitute another--so the "partial-birth" prohibition will not reduce the number of abortions at all. Anti-abortion groups know this perfectly well, but the bill is still more than a symbolic victory. Having won this fight, they will go on to legislate bans against other abortion procedures, eventually making abortions almost impossible to obtain. "That procedure isn't what we care most about," admits John Jakubczyk, the general counsel for Arizona Right to Life. "Our goal is to stop the killing of unborn children at any stage of development."
Those who support a woman's right to choose need to find a way to expose this dishonesty while affirming their alignment with the public's general pro-choice outlook. To do that, they must grapple with the average voters' real discomfort with late-term abortions--a discomfort that only increases as advances in science make it possible for younger and younger fetuses to survive outside the womb. The obvious solution is a law that would preserve the right to early-term abortions while prohibiting late-term ones except in cases where a mother's health is threatened.
Such a law would largely put an end to the decades-old trench warfare over abortion, marginalizing conservatives who favor a total ban. It would be consistent with the underlying concept, fetal viability, that the Supreme Court used to determine the stages of pregnancy during which government regulation or prohibition of abortion would or would not be constitutional. It would reduce the number of abortions performed--itself a goal most voters agree is important, so long as it doesn't come at the expense of women's health and safety. And it would have the support of the overwhelming majority of the American public.
With luck, such a bill may some day pass. But it won't be easy. I know, because six years ago, I tried. As a Senate staffer, I worked with a group of senators from both parties for such a compromise. We failed, and the story of that failure illustrates the power of organized extremists on both sides to thwart a great idea.
Stabbing baby dolls
In the spring of 1995, during a lull in the abortion war, Rep. Charles Canady (R-Fla.), a conservative anti-abortion politician, came across a disturbing but fascinating paper written a few years earlier by an Ohio doctor named Martin Haskell. The paper outlined an abortion procedure that sounded horrific. As Haskell described it, the procedure involved moving a fetus to the birth canal, depressing its skull, and then removing the entire body from the patient. The aspect that struck Canady--and other anti-abortion advocates--was this: The fetus was still alive until only its head still remained inside the patient.
Haskell called the procedure "dilation and extraction" (also known as D&X) and advocated it as faster, cleaner, and safer than removing the fetus by pieces--the other common method for second-trimester abortions. The "why" of the procedure did not matter to Canady--he recognized that the "how" was immensely important. He now had a weapon with which to restart the abortion wars, which had lost steam in previous years following several abortion rights victories. The clunky medical term "dilation and extraction" wouldn't do, however. So a staffer suggested "partial-birth" abortion. A new phrase entered the political lexicon. Canady, then chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution (he is a Jeb Bush-appointed district court judge in Florida), now introduced the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1995, and held a hearing on the bill in his subcommittee the very next day. Using very few words, the bill made it a crime for any doctor to perform the procedure he called "partial-birth" abortion.
In one swift, brilliant move, Canady had taken the abortion debate away from the question of timing, where it had stalemated, and focused it instead on the gruesome description of a procedure. Although the American public was generally in favor of keeping abortion legal, people didn't want to think about the actual procedures involved, especially when performed on a late-term fetus. This new strategy put those details front and center.
One week after the introduction of Canady's bill, Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.) joined the cause with his own version of the legislation and a show-stopping performance on the Senate floor during which he "demonstrated" the abortion procedure by stabbing a baby doll in the neck with a pair of scissors. In quick succession, both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees held hearings on the issue and approved the legislation. The full House and Senate each passed the bill by late 1995, but, the following spring, Clinton vetoed the legislation, arguing that it failed to provide an exception for threats to the health of the mother.
By the time the Republican leadership scheduled a vote to override Clinton's veto--waiting until less than a month and a half before the 1996 election--it was clear that "partial-birth" had become a losing topic for Democrats. During the August recess, senators had gotten an earful about it from constituents, most of whom reacted viscerally to the description of D&X. Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) was one of those who began to hear about "partial-birth" everywhere he went. Returning to the Senate in September, senators prevailed upon the Democratic Leader to head off a protracted fight over the issue, and Clinton talked to him about it during a fall trip to South Dakota to stump for Senate candidate Tim Johnson. One week later, the vote to override Clinton's veto fell nine votes short in the Senate. But the larger battle was just warming up.
When not how
The prospect of debating in circles for years over an abortion procedure whose description gave even staunch abortion rights senators the willies was not a welcome one for Democrats. Many viewed the example of Tom Harkin --who saw a 15-point lead in his 1996 reelection campaign evaporate within the space of two weeks after his opponents raised the "partial-birth" issue--as a cautionary tale. Others were genuinely tired of opposing abortion restrictions that fell just short of being reasonable. Some of these senators were politically liberal, but came from religious backgrounds that had firm, clear teachings on abortion, and they often found it difficult to reconcile their political and religious beliefs.
Although they had not sought this battle, some Democrats found that the debate over "partial-birth" abortion gave them an opportunity to do what they felt was the right thing for the right reasons. Under normal circumstances, abortion rights organizations would never let them get away with writing a bill intended to restrict abortion. But the emotional nature of the "partial-birth" debate had swayed public opinion away from a hard "pro-choice" stance and abortion rights organizations worried that the issue might marginalize them.
So just weeks after the veto override vote, Daschle led a group of like-minded senators--(including Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.)--in an effort to develop legislation that would restrict abortion while protecting women. I was one of the staff members who participated in the effort that would be known as the Alternative, as many of the senators considered it a better way to address the problem of abortion than the "partial-birth" ban. Our unique approach was to focus not on how an abortion was performed, but on when.
The answer that provided the defining framework for the legislation was that before viability, the point at which a fetus can live outside the womb, abortion should be legal and doctors should be able to use the safest procedure available. After viability, however, abortion--regardless of the procedure used--should be restricted to those instances in which it is absolutely necessary to protect a woman's life or health. These were the key points on which Daschle and his colleagues agreed, and they formed the basis of the Alternative.
In theory, this made brilliant political sense. It would leave in place a woman's right to choose in the first few months of pregnancy. It would reduce the overall number of abortions--something a partial-birth ban would not accomplish--thus appealing to moderate conservatives. Pro-life advocates might still push for a partial-birth abortion ban, but without the ability to use images of fully-formed, Gerber-like babies, the issue would have far less emotional traction. The Alternative, in short, would fulfill Clinton's popular and oft-repeated goal of making abortions "safe, legal and rare."
Mental case
But first we would have to assuage the fears of abortion rights leaders. Though rattled by the partial-birth juggernaut, and modestly open to new ideas, they were not exactly keen to discuss any legislation that would severely limit the number of abortions, even late-term ones, and unwilling to sign on to the Alternative. That in itself wasn't such a bad thing--in fact, an endorsement by organizations like NARAL would make it virtually impossible for us to attract conservative support. But liberal senators wanted some assurance that the groups did not oppose the Alternative. The abortion-rights groups refused to offer such a pledge, but they wanted to remain part of the discussion to develop the legislative language, meaning--we believed--that if we could address their concerns, we could still keep them from opposing the bill.
On Feb. 25, 1997, an article appeared in The New York Times that moved momentum in our direction. In the article, Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, admitted that D&X is actually used tens of thousands of times each year for any number of reasons, including on healthy, pre-viability fetuses. This infuriated pro-choice senators who, in voting against the partial-birth ban, cited arguments provided by pro-choice groups, that the D&X procedure was used "less than one hundred times each year." Pro-choice groups were forced to admit that this figure referred only to third-trimester D&X abortions.
Another move by pro-choice groups also strengthened the resolve of senators backing the Alternative. Some pro-choice activists told reporters that they could not support the compromise bill because it failed to provide an exception that would allow a woman to have an abortion to protect her mental health. But in private, these same leaders could not provide one hypothetical case in which a woman would require a post-viability abortion because of threats to her mental--but not physical--health. In truth, "mental health" was a code for allowing women to abort severely deformed fetuses on the grounds that carrying such a fetus was a great psychological burden.
Next, we worked on winning the support of moderate anti-abortion GOP senators. Devout anti-abortion senators refused to consider the Alternative if it included a health exception, claiming that any allowance for health was simply a loophole. This belief is based on a willful misinterpretation of abortion law by anti-abortion leaders, who have promoted the idea that doctors are obligated to consider "emotional, psychological, familial, and physical" factors when they consider a woman's health. In fact, Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe that is generally understood to have provided the foundation for determining what health is in the context of abortion, says that doctors may consider those factors as pertinent to a woman's health, not that they must.
But a few senators indicated they would be willing to consider voting for an exception that was specifically limited to threats to a woman's "physical" health, and they debated the relative merits of various modifiers to "physical" to make the exception as strict as possible. At one point, trying to allay the concerns of senators on both ends of the spectrum, some of my colleagues and I turned to the thesaurus in a desperate attempt to find language that would be acceptable to all. Was "serious bodily injury" strict enough? What about "substantial risk of grave impairment to the health"? "Serious risk of substantial impairment?" In the end, the senators settled on "grievous." That won over Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and drew pro-life senators such as Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) closer to our camp.
We also went to work trying to line up support from the medical community. One of the objections lodged by anti-abortion groups was that they didn't trust doctors to use their best medical judgment to determine either when viability took place or when a woman's health was in danger. The implicit suggestion was that many doctors were all too eager to perform late-term abortions and would abuse their power to make any situation fit into the exceptions written into the bill. We made the case to the American Medical Association (AMA) that the partial-birth ban was an infringement on their professional independence. We also worked with a subgroup of the AMA, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), to develop legislative language that was understandable to doctors--giving them a clear idea of when abortions could and could not be performed--and they ultimately lent their professional endorsement to the Alternative. ACOG's parent organization, however, the AMA played hard to get.
Surprisingly, Nancy Roman, a reporter for The Washington Times, the conservative daily in Washington, D.C., then began writing front-page stories documenting bipartisan support for the Alternative and indicating that it represented a good-faith effort to find middle ground. "I can't believe Tom has gone this far," one Senate Republican told her, adding, "I'm not sure what I'm going to do. It definitely puts pressure of those of us who are pro-life." The subhed for one article proclaimed, "Proposal stricter than GOP measure," with the text describing the Alternative as "go[ing] further in restricting abortion than the GOP's partial-birth ban."
Republicans in the Senate were enraged by the positive press coming from "their" newspaper and Republican Whip Don Nickles contacted editors at The Washington Times to express his dissatisfaction. Within a few days, Roman was first pulled off the assignment and then put back on. The damage had already been done, though. The positive quotes given to Roman by Republican senators revealed that at least some of Daschle's conservative colleagues viewed his Alternative as something other than a crass attempt to gain political cover.
Doctoring the law
Both pro-life and pro-choice groups went on the offensive. In the absence of a mental health exception, NARAL threatened to count a vote in favor of the Alternative as an "anti-choice" vote – a ridiculous threat, since it would put them in the position of assigning "pro-choice" marks to such "partial-birth" ban proponents as Sens. Bob Smith (R-N.H.) and Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). "Here's the deal," an anonymous abortion rights activist told a reporter, "We don't like the Daschle bill. It would be a gigantic step toward rolling back abortion rights."
Anti-abortion groups, meanwhile, went on the offensive before they had even seen legislative language for the Alternative, running notices decrying the "loopholes" in newspapers around the country. The Southern Baptist Convention called the Alternative a "transparent political sham." And the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned full-page ads that suggested women sought late-term abortions because they "can't fit into a prom dress," a line they later admitted was invented by an ad agency
Meanwhile the AMA was lobbying furiously to see the exact language of the health exception – a provision that we had kept under wraps in an attempt to keep the focus on drawing a legal line at viability and to forestall attacks based on the specific wording of the bill. Finally, under pressure, we relented, faxing to the AMA's chief lobbyist on the issue a copy of language prohibiting post-viability abortions except in cases where a doctor concludes that continuation of the pregnancy would risk "grievous injury" to a woman's "physical health." Within 24 hours, that health definition found its way to the office of Republican Whip Don Nickles and appeared in the pages of The Washington Times.
In a final blow, the AMA ultimately refused to support the bill, claiming a history of neutrality regarding abortion legislation. Opponents were thrilled, noting at every opportunity that, "Even the American Medical Association does not endorse…" Just weeks later, however, the AMA changed this longstanding position of neutrality and professional objectivity in order to endorse the "partial-birth" abortion ban after obtaining higher Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors. An internal AMA audit later concluded that the organization "blundered" and that the endorsement was politically, and not medically, motivated. But that would come much later. As the bill made its way to the floor, those advocacy groups we had hoped would stay neutral were joining the fight against the bill.
The Alternative ultimately came to the floor of the Senate for consideration and debate on May 14, 1997--which happened to also be my birthday. I celebrated by spending 10 hours sitting next to Daschle behind the floor leader's desk, watching him lead off debate with a 45-minute presentation that impressed even hardened political opponents with his command of the complex constitutional and medical issues involved. He outlined the framework of the Alternative and explained how it was a constitutional approach to restricting the abortions that Americans want to see eliminated while allowing those that Americans want to see protected.
Rick Santorum led the floor fight against the Alternative from the conservative side, proclaiming with wide-eyed fury that the bill would "allow them to stab… [blink, blink]…babies…[blink, blink]…in the neck," and slashing at the air with his pen. Barbara Boxer, who had told Daschle she would not lobby against the bill, attacked on the Alternative's opposite flank, passing around a letter from Harvard law professor Lawrence Tribe in which he warned that the Alternative could be unconstitutional, and she urged her colleagues to oppose the Alternative on those grounds. Throughout the day, lobbyists from all sides lurked just outside the Senate chamber to catch senators as they made their way in and out.
As the day wore on, an unexpected number of senators were still undecided. Freshman Sens. Mary Landrieu and Susan Collins spent the day working the phones as unofficial whips for the Alternative, since Democratic Whip Harry Reid, a firm pro-lifer, had already committed to voting against the measure. The energetic Landrieu talked to senators, chiefs of staff, and to even the most junior legislative aides, trying to get a sense of where the votes lay. Meanwhile, discussion on the Senate floor continued under the watchful eye of Senate Chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie who, in a very unusual move, sat in the chamber observing debate.
Ultimately, both anti-abortion and abortion rights senators found excuses to oppose the Alternative based on its very nature of trying to achieve consensus on a difficult issue. Because the language wasn't written to appeal exclusively to one side in the debate, extremists on both ends nit-picked provisions in the bill that weren't "pure" enough. One by one, senators fell away from the final tally of supporters--this one because the health exception was too broad, that one because it was too narrow; this one thought doctors were given too much discretion, that one thought doctors' hands were tied. Senators who wanted to oppose the measure took cover in the tightly-written definitions that had been intended to insure that the bill's impact was not vague or confusing, twisting the language to suit their purposes.
When the clerk called the roll for a final vote on the Alternative, Sens. Snowe and Collins were the only Republicans to vote in favor. Eleven Democrats (an assortment of strong pro-lifers such as Fritz Hollings and Bryon Dorgan, and strong pro-choicers including John Glenn, Frank Lautenberg, and Dianne Feinstein) voted against the bill. In the end, the Alternative, considered both too permissive and too restrictive, was defeated by a vote of 64 to 36.
Even so, The Washington Times wasn't through with the Alternative. Roman's story on the eventual defeat of the Alternative led with the intriguing news that Senator Daschle "said he is willing to reintroduce a version of the bill that might appeal to Republicans," a move that Daschle had previously refused to take. The lede no doubt came as a surprise to Daschle because it was simply not true. Neither was the quote that followed it: "'I'd be willing to talk to them,' Mr. Daschle said yesterday, upon learning that Republicans might reconsider his proposal. 'I'd be willing to compromise.'" Simply put, the quote was fabricated and the lede was a lie. Roman sent Daschle a personal apology several weeks later, explaining that the story was submitted as a clean piece and that the suspect lede and quote were inserted by editors.
Roe model
And yet, the Alternative was never so popular as in defeat. Leading conservatives immediately scolded Republicans for missing their last best chance to cooperate with Democrats on abortion legislation, recognizing that the Alternative would have been a big step toward reducing abortion rates. The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed urging Republicans to reconsider. "You can't be so used to drubbing your enemy that you don't recognize it when they make some sense," William Bennett told The Washington Times. "If I didn't know who sponsored this, I would have thought it was a pro-life Republican." And, after the "partial-birth" ban passed the Senate still short of the votes necessary to override a veto, Bill Kristol asked, "Do you want the best to be the enemy of the good even if there is a little bit of a loophole? Isn't it better to have a ban of abortion on viable fetuses than no ban?"
It's a question that should be taken seriously. If the sponsors of the Partial-Birth Ban Act are to be believed, their bill will not stop one single abortion. They have always claimed that a health exception wasn't necessary because "another procedure can always be used." This is an arguable assertion. But if they believe their own rhetoric, anti-abortion politicians must recognize that the ban would simply require doctors to use another procedure to perform the same abortion, resulting a zero net effect on abortion rates. Of course, most ban proponents understand that the "partial-birth" ban is just phase one in a strategy that aims to outlaw all abortion procedures. After all, once politicians have voted to prohibit D&X, they can't very well allow a procedure that dismembers fetuses.
At the same time, abortion rights activists missed an opportunity to reassure a public made wary by the "partial birth" issue. Some liberal commentators took them to task for being stubbornly near-sighted. Clarence Page, noting that Clinton, at least, understood the politics of the situation, wrote: "By supporting a measure that would protect women from 'grievous injury'--and watching his foes shoot it down--Clinton robs Republicans of a chance to embarrass him. Instead, he helps widen the 'gender gap.'" In the end, abortion rights supporters fell back on the argument that the Alternative would have been unconstitutional--an assertion that is unknowable, although there is no question that the measure was far more constitutional than the "partial-birth" ban. When pressed, however, some abortion rights leaders admitted that they would rather see a truly bad bill become law because it would be much easier to fight in the courts. This is the classic abortion rights strategy William Saletan writes about in Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War, and one which has painted pro-choice Democrats into a corner. It is a strategy that rests on a confident assumption that the U.S. Supreme Court would back them up, an outcome that is far from certain now that they stand just one Supreme Court retirement away from the possibility of losing the once-inviolate protection of abortion in Roe v. Wade.
It's time for defenders of a woman's right to choose, both Democrats and Republicans, to revisit the Alternative. Its moral, policy, and political logic are if anything more compelling than they were six years ago. Of course, there won't be an opportunity to raise the issue again if Republicans retain the White House and Congress in November. That's why a savvy and aggressive Democratic nominee for president ought to campaign on it now.
Amy Sullivan is a doctoral student in sociology at Princeton University and the author of Political Aims, www.politicalaims.com.
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/29/2003 9:26 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by PotOnWheel
quote:
In Colson's story, it becomes commonplace as a way of "harvesting" brain ... about what
the anti-abortionists refer to, erroneously, as a "partial birth abortion.". ...
www.refuseandresist.org/ab/colsonreview.html
- Colson's Breakpoint: Partial Birth Abortion Vote
http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/Miscellaneous/Partial+Birth+Abortion+Vote.htm
- Lutherans For Life
http://www.lutheransforlife.org/abortion/
- Partial-Birth Abortion Myths
http://www.lutheransforlife.org/lifedate/1996/pba_myths.htm
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 12/2/2003 12:56 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 12/2/2003 3:14 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by PotOnWheel
That seems like a nice post, DLW.
Thankyou Pow.
dlw | | Back to Top | | |
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kerygma
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2002
Total Posts : 45
| Posted 5/4/2004 6:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Interesting reaction when I told a "pro-choicer" that I wished they'd been aborted. They were offended. When I asked why, I swear, if their head could have exploded, it would have. I think they're still spiraling downward.....
Here's a straightforward outline of a more detailed set of articles available as shown below:
Overview:
The abortion issue is not morally complex. It comes down to just one question: What is the unborn? The answer to that question trumps all other considerations including choice, illegal abortions, and privacy to name a few. Furthermore, pro-life advocates believe that their message can compete in the marketplace of ideas if properly understood and properly articulated.
I. Introduction: I concede. There should be no restrictions on abortion IF. If what? If the “choice” they are offering does not result in the death of an innocent human being. All they must do is prove that the unborn are not human and I will surrender my prolife view. It’s that simple.
II. Topic: Abortion and Intellectual Honesty. Why the abortion issue is about one question, not many, and why public confusion is unwarranted. We will also look at five bad ways people argue about abortion.
III. Significance: Many people think that because people disagree on abortion, there are no right answers.
However, the absence of consensus does not mean an absence of truth.
People once disagreed on whether the earth was flat or round. They also disagreed on slavery. Did that mean there were no right answers? We can clarify confusion by asking just one question:
A. Example: “Daddy, can I kill this?”--That depends. What is it? With abortion, the answer to that question trumps all other considerations:
1. “We should trust women to make their own responsible choices.” (Should we trust Andrea Yates to make her own “responsible choices” about her dead kids?”)
2. “Women have a right to privacy.” (Does the right to privacy include the right of parents to abuse toddlers in private?)
3. “Many women cannot afford another child.” (When human beings get
expensive, may we kill them?)
4. “No woman should be forced to bring an unwanted child into the world.” (The homeless are unwanted. May we kill them?)
Objection: “Those are unfair comparisons—abortion is not like killing toddlers.”
Reply: That’s the issue, isn’t it? Are they the same?
IV. Thesis: Pro-life advocates believe that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human being. That position is both scientifically and philosophically sound.
A. Scientifically sound: The Law of Biogenesis--Every living thing reproduces after it’s own kind. Human parents can only produce human offspring. They cannot produce something that's not human.
B. Philosophically sound: The SLED test-- The unborn differs from a newborn in only four ways, none of which are morally relevant:
1. Size: Large people are not more human than small ones. Is Shaquille O’Neal more of a person than Hillary Clinton simply because he is larger?
2. Level of Development: Is a four-year old girl who has yet to develop her reproductive system less human than a 17 year-old?
3. Environment: Where you are has no bearing on who you are. Did you stop being you when you rolled over in bed last night?
4. Degree of dependency: If viability makes us human, what about all those who depend on insulin?
C. In short, we used to discriminate on the basis of skin color and gender. Now, with elective abortion, we discriminate on the basis of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency. We’ve simply swapped one form of discrimination for another. In sharp contrast, pro-life advocates believe that no human being, regardless of size, level of development, race, gender, or place of
residence should be excluded from the moral community of human persons. In other words, our view of humanity is inclusive, indeed wide open to all, especially to those that are small, vulnerable, and defenseless.
www.str.org/free/bioethics/index.htm
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 5/6/2004 5:55 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by kerygma
Interesting reaction when I told a "pro-choicer" that I wished they'd been aborted. They were offended. When I asked why, I swear, if their head could have exploded, it would have. I think they're still spiraling downward.....
Why would anyone wish someone else would've been aborted? According to the OVTheism, even Hitler had the potential to become a good person and the same could've been the case for Saddam Hussein.
What does grand-standing like that do to help prevent abortions?
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Here's a straightforward outline of a more detailed set of articles available as shown below:
Overview:
The abortion issue is not morally complex. It comes down to just one question: What is the unborn? The answer to that question trumps all other considerations including choice, illegal abortions, and privacy to name a few. Furthermore, pro-life advocates believe that their message can compete in the marketplace of ideas if properly understood and properly articulated.
Your getting your info from STR? Here is an article they posted at TWeb.
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Lynching of Blacks by the KKK. Jewish genocide under the Third Reich. Abortion in America. Do these three have anything in common?
The American Holocaust
by Greg Koukl
Early this fall, the campus of the University of Kansas was rocked by a controversy that made headlines in the national press. Two pro-life groups--the Center for Bioethical Reform and Heartland Life Network--had posted a "pictorial essay" at a prominent crossroads on campus.
Three panels of a seven-by-fourteen foot billboard made the point. The first panel, a photo of a lynched African American, was captioned "Racial Choice." The second, a concentration camp photo of human bodies stacked like cordwood, read "Ethnic Choice." The photo on the third panel was the most controversial. Clearly visible next to the American dime included for perspective were well-defined forms of a severed arm and foot, the remnants of a first-trimester abortion. Underneath were the words "Reproductive Choice."
The comparison between abortion and other forms of genocide--the lynching of African Americans and the systematic ethnic cleansing of Jews by Nazis in Europe--was more than many could take.
Though neither sponsoring group is activist in the classic sense--their principle goal is
public education--their presence on campus stimulated a fury resulting in two unprovoked assaults recorded in the press. One Catholic seminary student was punched in the mouth by an African American student. In another incident, the 17-year-old daughter of the President of Heartland Life Network was nearly run down while she carried one of the panels through the parking lot. She was pulled to safety at the last moment, the sign slipping from her grasp. The sign was run over as the car sped by.
An American Holocaust?
The deepest offense was felt by Jews and was a topic of conversation on mainstream talk shows even on the West Coast. Calling the 1.4 million abortions per year--most done during the first trimester--a holocaust is an offense to the memory of six million Jews that perished at the hands of the Third Reich.
Such "extremism" has alienated even some moderates who, though not strictly pro-life, are deeply concerned with the morality of abortion.
In a general appeal to moral intuition, KABC radio talk show host Dennis Prager in Los Angeles argued it was self-evident that the destruction of first-trimester fetuses was not equivalent to the murder of Jews. Mothers don't grieve over the death of a miscarried fetus the same way they'd grieve over the death of a child, Prager argued. Ergo an abortion, especially one done early, is not the equivalent of homicide.
Further, would Jews consider it a holocaust if six million Jewish fetuses were aborted? Many recoil at such a thought. The comparison of abortion with the Holocaust insults the memory of those who suffered under the Third Reich.
Two Thoughts
I want to pass two thoughts on to you. The first is my own, and the second was volunteered by a caller to my radio program.
First, the illustration posed appeals to an intuition, that the Jewish Holocaust under the Nazis is obviously more heinous--especially to the Jews--than the same number of abortions would be.
But the appeal begs the question. The fact that abortion doesn't seem as bad as concentration camps and gas chambers is misleading because it depends for its force on a tacit denial that the unborn are bona fide human beings. If they are, then who would say that taking the life of the same number of youngsters (in this case very young) is not the moral equivalent of taking the lives of the same number of adolescents and adults? In fact, generally we're more shocked by the taking of young life than old, though we would hold that both are equally valuable in their humanity.
There does seem to be a sense, though, in which we could decry the tragedy of the abortion holocaust, yet say that the Nazi Holocaust was a greater evil. This was the contribution of my caller.
Both are holocausts and unspeakably evil, purely on the merit of the number of human lives sacrificed. However, in the case of the Jewish Holocaust, the evil is compounded by the circumstances under which it was done.
Aborted human beings die relatively quickly and, by comparison, with little or no mental anguish. (This is certainly not always true, but that's another issue.) Jews, on the other hand, were treated like animals--terrorized, persecuted, raped, beaten, and then eventually murdered. The second crime is truly worse than the first, not because the unborn were not human, but because of the barbaric conditions under which Nazis exterminated undesirables.
An illustration may be helpful here. What if one million day-old children were vaporized in an instant through some high-tech weapon of mass destruction? Would that qualify as a holocaust?
I choose the details carefully to eliminate the possibility of suffering for those killed. Further, the collateral moral damage is minimized. There are no orphans left behind, no important posts in society left vacant, no long-term relationships destroyed.
Clearly, not all holocausts are equal. The numerous examples of ethnic cleansing in this century are made more egregious by the additional suffering, loss, and assault on human dignity they entail. Still, I suspect most would consider the destruction of one million day-old infants a moral catastrophe, a holocaust of significant magnitude simply because valuable human beings were wantonly destroyed.
Two Types of Value
Appealing to the grief one feels at the loss of a fetus vs. the loss of a child, a spouse or a friend misses a very important distinction. There are two ways that a thing can be valuable.
To value something simply means to acknowledge its worth. Any particular thing can be valued--considered worthwhile--for one of two reasons. First, a thing can be valuable to me. The computer I now compose with, my particular friendships, the fishing rods in my boat locker, my choice of clothes, or my fondness for Puccini arias are examples. These and a host of other things and ideals reflect my personal, subjective values. Others may not share them, but instead have their own set. This is called instrumental value.
Sometimes, though, we don't value things we ought to value. What some have called the crisis of values in this country reflects not the absence of any values at all. Instead, Americans don't value the right things. They don't value things that have genuine worth in themselves--honesty, personal responsibility, or other human beings, for example.
This is the second sense of value. Some things are merely valuable to us. Other things have worth in themselves. We call this intrinsic value.
Often things share both kinds of value. I may weep over the drive-by shooting of a friend because I have lost a dear companion, but also because of the wanton sacrifice of a human life valuable in itself.
The feeling of grief over something lost does not, by itself, capture these distinctions. Therefore, grief is not a useful guide to determine if something lost was innately and intrinsically worthwhile. I might grieve the passing of a family pet, but not shed a tear over hundreds murdered in Kosovo. My grief merely signals a thing's value to me, and not its intrinsic worth. Indeed, most don't feel grief over the Jewish holocaust, though they recognize its intrinsic moral tragedy.
It's true, a mother may not morn a miscarriage the way she morns a lost child. It also may be true that Jews do not feel the same sense of loss over six million abortions as they feel over the death of the same number of their kinsmen. But this by itself tells us nothing about the innate worth of either.
Our grief is a signal that something valuable has been lost. What grief does not show is whether the thing had worth merely to us, or whether it had value in itself. That must be determined a different way.
The Real Issue
This brings us to the most important question in the entire debate: What is the unborn? You must answer that question before you can answer the questions: How should we treat the fetus? What protections ought we give it? How far should we go to protect it?
Until we answer that question, we can't make any judgment about the morality of abortion or the moral consequences of any protest against it. If it's possible that an unborn child is as fully human in his or her essential nature as you and I, then he or she deserves the same legal protections--and legal sanctions against abuse--you and I enjoy.
That's the hard truth, and that's why the deep thinking ought to be addressed to this question. Unfortunately, this vital issue is almost never discussed in the public square at large.
California Homicide Statutes
Ironically, the California homicide statutes offer us some insight here. Some observers denounce the use of the word "murder" to describe the destruction of a fetus. Yet this "rhetoric" is completely consistent with California law.
Under the category "Crimes against the Person," § 187, murder is defined this way: "Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought." [emphasis mine] After the definition, we find among the exceptions: "This section shall not apply to any person who commits an act which results in the death of a fetus if any of the following apply: The act complied with the Therapeutic Abortion Act....The act was solicited, aided, abetted, or consented to by the mother of the fetus."
This exception in the California statute leads, of course, to a very troubling concern. The foundational moral concept underlying all homicide statues is that human beings have innate value. Destroying a human being is the most serious of crimes. We condone it only in extreme circumstances, e.g., self-defense in the face of lethal attack, capital punishment, and war. Even then there remains a sense that killing is deeply tragic because of the intrinsic worth of the human whose life is taken.
Here's the problem. The only difference between legal abortion and punishable homicide in the state of California is the consent of the mother. How does the mere consent of the mother change the innate value of the unborn human inside her?
However one answers this question, the fact is that abortion is legal in California. But this can't hide a second fact: Apart from the stipulated exceptions, killing the unborn is still homicide. It's murder. Those who do so are prosecuted.
On the fundamental issue, then--the innate value of unborn human beings--pro-lifers are not extreme, but in concert with the law's general assessment of the sanctity of the life of the unborn. Pro-lifers are not inconsistent; the law is.
Ethnic Cleansing in the Womb
There's another problem. Disqualifying the unborn's claim to life because of some physical characteristic--such as its primitive level of development or a congenital defect--is precisely what ethnic cleansing is about.
Ethnic cleansing is appalling for one simple reason: Valuable human beings are eradicated merely because of some physical "inadequacy." The person is condemned for his ethnicity. His features--skin, hair or eye color, shape of face, blood ancestry--are different from the accepted norm.
Most often abortion kills the unborn human for the same kind of reason. Though clearly a human being--a fact established by science--she does not have the physical characteristics or attributes that qualify her for protection. She's unwanted and in the way, and so she's eliminated.
If it's wrong in the first case, it's wrong in the second case. The rationales are identical. The motive is the same. And in both cases the result is the death of a valuable human being.
Picture This
Whether it's a wise tactic to compare the victims of racial or Nazi injustice with the injustice of abortion is a debatable matter. It may not be the best way to win people over, and tactical considerations are important.
However, we live in a culture that thinks and learns visually. This profoundly affects how people resolve moral issues. The word "abortion" has lost meaning in the prevailing atmosphere of choice and personal autonomy. Sometimes we must visually awaken moral sensibilities to move the debate from the abstract to the concrete: from choice to the death of the child.
Photographs can do that. The question is not, "Are the pictures emotional?" They are. The real question is, "Are the pictures accurate? Are the pictures true?"
The photos on the first two panels used on the billboard at the University of Kansas are not new. You can find them in history books where they serve to inspire the conscience of young students to oppose injustice. Those photos tell a true story. But so does the photo on the third panel. The tiny limbs are unmistakable. They belong to a very small human being.
Do these photos have anything in common? Yes, I think they do.
When others complain about the extremists with the signs, you point out that displaying the picture is not what's most offensive. What ought to offend us is what's captured on the photo.
Yours for the truth,
Pensees
Sowing the Seed Recklessly
I had no way of knowing that someone was reading over my shoulder. I'd quickly found my seat on the small, commuter jet and buried my nose in a Christian book.
"What are you reading?" A lady's voice floated timidly over the top of the seat. I chatted with her a few moments about the Lord, wrote out the title on the back of my card, wished her a pleasant trip and plunged back into my study.
Three weeks later she showed up at the church bookstore, titles in hand. Within a month she'd become a Christian.
In New Testament times, farmers didn't sow in neat rows. Instead, they pitched handfuls of seed among the furrows, scattering it recklessly in the breeze. Some seeds flourished, some failed; it was the ground that made the difference.
Many times I'd talk with folks about the Lord at church, in a restaurant or on the tennis court. They'd nod with appreciation, but depart unchanged. Months later I'd find out it was seed carried by the wind of the Spirit to an unnoticed bystander that bore the fruit.
The Parable of the Sower has taught me not to prejudge my audience. Instead, like the sower of old, I scatter my seed, letting it fall where it will. I never know who will be listening in or reading over my shoulder. I never know what small, seemingly insignificant seed will bear fruit to eternal life.
Stand to Reason - Training Christian ambassadors in the areas of knowledge, wisdom, and character - www.str.org
Now, here is my reply.
The point is that the unborn are presumed to be of the same value as born humans in making the comparison.
As STR acknowledges, most abortions take place quite early on in the pregnancy. And so the analogy only works if the 1st trimester fetus has the same innate value as a new-born child.
My point has been that what is at dispute often times is what makes one a human being. As I stated at in the post I linked to, there is ambiguity as to when the human fetus becomes a human being.
STR's article, when it frames the question as, "What is the unborn? You must answer that question before you can answer the questions: How should we treat the fetus? What protections ought we give it? How far should we go to protect it? " doesn't bring up the question of whether the answer should differ at different stages of fetal development. They are implicitly implying that it is all or nothing for how the unborn should be treated.
I regularly posit that the underlying political question at stake with abortion is the legal redefinition of when human personhood begins and how do we go about reconciling our different views in this regard. There may not be a basis for complete agreement, but there may be sufficient agreement for us to be able to change our laws to give the unborn fetus some of the legal protections currently given to a new-born, taking into account the higher level of inter-dependency that exists between an unborn fetus and its mother.
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str:However one answers this question, the fact is that abortion is legal in California. But this can't hide a second fact: Apart from the stipulated exceptions, killing the unborn is still homicide. It's murder. Those who do so are prosecuted.
On the fundamental issue, then--the innate value of unborn human beings--pro-lifers are not extreme, but in concert with the law's general assessment of the sanctity of the life of the unborn. Pro-lifers are not inconsistent; the law is.
The 2nd "fact" is that the unborn has already been made a legal person by the fact that an act of violence against a pregnant woman that causes the unborn to die is considered a more serious crime. And so, since its been granted some legal value, STR seems to argue killing it should be homicide or it should have the same legal value as a new-born.
There is a legal ambiguity here that should be resolved, but by referring only to the sanctity of the life of the unborn, STR is enforcing the view that we should grant the same level of human personhood to the newly-formed zygote as we give to a new-born infant.
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str:Though clearly a human being--a fact established by science--she does not have the physical characteristics or attributes that qualify her for protection. She's unwanted and in the way, and so she's eliminated.
If it's wrong in the first case, it's wrong in the second case. The rationales are identical. The motive is the same. And in both cases the result is the death of a valuable human being.
First sentence is inaccurate. Science has established that the newly-conceived is alive, but science has not established that it is a human being, in part because there is no uniform agreement as to what constitutes a human being. This is why physical characteristics are often deliberated on, because the extent we recognize ourselves in the fetus is based on the development of its physical characteristics.
Then STR seems to make the point that our increased ability to observe the unborn should be relevant evidence in our deliberations as to what the status of the unborn should be. I agree with this, but don't think we can expect for us to all agree and personally believe that making 1st trimester abortions illegal again is unlikely to happen and if it were it would likely be overturned by counter-activism and a liberal press.
So I myself focus on pressing for setting up a super-majority in a nat'l referendum the basis for the legal redefinition of when human personhood begins and aiming to make abortions in the later two stages illegal and then use other ways to discourage first term abortions.
dlw
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I. Introduction: I concede. There should be no restrictions on abortion IF. If what? If the “choice” they are offering does not result in the death of an innocent human being. All they must do is prove that the unborn are not human and I will surrender my prolife view. It’s that simple.
dlw:This sets up the null-hypothesis as that the unborn is a human being. There may be good reasons to be conservative in how we view the unborn, but we can't dogmatically insist that the newly-formed zygote is a human being. This is not supported by scripture or science, since as stated above there is no widely accepted def'n of what makes us human beings.
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II. Topic: Abortion and Intellectual Honesty. Why the abortion issue is about one question, not many, and why public confusion is unwarranted. We will also look at five bad ways people argue about abortion.
Abortion politics is about the legal redefinition of when human life begins. It isn't about whether the unqualified unborn is a human being.
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III. Significance: Many people think that because people disagree on abortion, there are no right answers.
However, the absence of consensus does not mean an absence of truth.
This is true. And the fact that we don't agree about exactly when the fetus becomes a human being doesn't mean that there isn't sufficient moral agreement in the US to change the law so that the unborn will be given legal personhood.
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People once disagreed on whether the earth was flat or round. They also disagreed on slavery. Did that mean there were no right answers? We can clarify confusion by asking just one question:
A. Example: “Daddy, can I kill this?”--That depends. What is it? With abortion, the answer to that question trumps all other considerations:
1. “We should trust women to make their own responsible choices.” (Should we trust Andrea Yates to make her own “responsible choices” about her dead kids?”)
2. “Women have a right to privacy.” (Does the right to privacy include the right of parents to abuse toddlers in private?)
3. “Many women cannot afford another child.” (When human beings get
expensive, may we kill them?)
4. “No woman should be forced to bring an unwanted child into the world.” (The homeless are unwanted. May we kill them?)
Objection: “Those are unfair comparisons—abortion is not like killing toddlers.”
Reply: That’s the issue, isn’t it? Are they the same?
Agreed. The legal redef'n of when human personhood begins is about whether we provide protections to the unborn analogous to what is given to toddlers.
However, most abortions do take place in the first trimester at a point when the fetus is very undeveloped. It has yet to develop any synapses or connections among the nerve cells in the neocortex. These abortions must be murder for STR's holocaust statistics to not be sacrilegious.
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IV. Thesis: Pro-life advocates believe that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human being. That position is both scientifically and philosophically sound.
A. Scientifically sound: The Law of Biogenesis--Every living thing reproduces after it’s own kind. Human parents can only produce human offspring. They cannot produce something that's not human.
dlw:Can they produce something that only has the potential to become a human being? It's not like it's going to develop into a carrot.
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B. Philosophically sound: The SLED test-- The unborn differs from a newborn in only four ways, none of which are morally relevant:
1. Size: Large people are not more human than small ones. Is Shaquille O’Neal more of a person than Hillary Clinton simply because he is larger?
2. Level of Development: Is a four-year old girl who has yet to develop her reproductive system less human than a 17 year-old?
3. Environment: Where you are has no bearing on who you are. Did you stop being you when you rolled over in bed last night?
4. Degree of dependency: If viability makes us human, what about all those who depend on insulin?
Yes, size shouldn't be essential and the fact that the fetus exists within the womb shouldn't be essential and, yes, one can consider the transition from the womb to being a new-born as a change in the degree of dependency.
The problem is with the level of development. This presupposes an accepted def'n of what is a human being. One can view the differences between a newly-formed zygote and the third-trimester fetus as being of a different kind than a four-year-old versus a seventeen-year-old.
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C. In short, we used to discriminate on the basis of skin color and gender. Now, with elective abortion, we discriminate on the basis of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency. We’ve simply swapped one form of discrimination for another. In sharp contrast, pro-life advocates believe that no human being, regardless of size, level of development, race, gender, or place of residence should be excluded from the moral community of human persons. In other words, our view of humanity is inclusive, indeed wide open to all, especially to those that are small, vulnerable, and defenseless.
www.str.org/free/bioethics/index.htm
Once more, what it is that makes us human beings is something of a mystery and accounts for the ethical difficulties/complications in us arriving at agreed to definitions of when human life/being ends and begins.
It is disingenuous to treat the issue as settled and to obfuscate the political aspects such as the incredible waste of political capital by pro-lifers and pro-choicers on abortion over the past thirty-years that has not prevented many abortions and has built up much acrimony in the cultural wars and poisoned the US's democracy.
Reframing the issue as about the legal redefinition of when human life begins permits one to press for the extension of legal personhood without claiming extra-biblical/scientific access to Truth about when we become human beings. Such a claim tends to produce more heat than light in debates with one's legal/political opponents.
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 6/29/2004 8:38 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Sahid
In an imaginary world where there is no precedent, who has the burden of proof in the debate on whether abortion should be legal or not? Do you have to prove that the fetus is a human or that the fetus is not a human? It seems to me, when we are making decisions about human life (with or without a soul), we should play it save and assume that everything is deserving of the highest respect until proven otherwise. Though it sounds absurd, we should treat even inanimate objests with this respect if there is a question as to them having a soul. We can only use them the way we do because we know they are not deserving of that respect. Maybe I'm wrong.
At the personal level, I believe being conservative as to when we treat the human zygote/embryo/fetus as a human being. However, having said that, the earliest point I can accept is after one month when the fetus starts to show some brain activity and is safely implanted on the womb.
As such, I don't have problems with morning after pills that work a week after conception.
And, one still has to bear in mind the politics. I.e., is it realistic for us to be able to make elective abortions illegal in the first trimester? Given the conservative structure of the US gov't and the determination of our opposition, we should focus on more realistic goals and also consider the opportunity cost of how there are several other measures that could save both pre-born and born lives, particularly those in the under-developed world.
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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Truth Aficionado
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 6/29/2004 8:56 AM (GMT -6) | | | When does a zygote/embryo/fetus/baby experience its first heart beat? | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/29/2004 9:15 AM (GMT -6) | | Being more conservative than DWL I believe that conception is conception. And within the Community of humanity even they who do not implant have their role in glorifying their Creator. He is their's too.
And personally, my eldest son began gestating the day after my mother "went home." Talk about the power of un-hindered, un-distracted prayers!
"God is everywhere and fillest all things. Blessed be the Name of the Lord." | | Back to Top | | |
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Truth Aficionado
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Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 6/29/2004 9:30 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Truth Aficionado
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Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 6/29/2004 10:12 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by DLW
At the personal level, I believe being conservative as to when we treat the human zygote/embryo/fetus as a human being. However, having said that, the earliest point I can accept is after one month when the fetus starts to show some brain activity and is safely implanted on the womb.
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The Following is a quote from Monica Seeley
The debate over brain death
The "modest debate" over brain death actually extends beyond the realms occupied by moral theologians, to include physicians and bioethicists as well. Indeed opponents of the brain death diagnosis can be found on opposite ends of the ordinary spectrum of moral opinion.
The objection most frequently raised is that the current criteria for determining brain death do not and cannot adequately test for the presence or absence of an irreversible coma. In a book entitled Life, Life Support, and Death, co-authored by nine physicians, and published by American Life League, it is argued:
Brain-related criteria are flawed not only in scientific theory but also in application. In order to fulfill the current "brain death" criteria, the entire brainstem must not be functioning. In fact and in practice, however, often only some brainstem reflexes. . . are evaluated .... Although there are other functions of the brainstem, including maintaining a normal body temperature, producing hormones via the hypothalamic-pituitary axis, neurogenic control of heart rate and maintenance of normal blood pressure, either these brain functions are not considered at all or they are said to be inapplicable or insignificant for determining death.
The critique of the brain death diagnosis set forth in that paragraph is buttressed by the accounts of patients who have been diagnosed as brain dead, but who have later regained consciousness. Proponents of the brain death approach insist that such cases are so rare as to be practically irrelevant. David Blake says that the likelihood that a "brain-dead" patient could recover is "way beyond the pale"—going so far as to say that the likelihood of such cases is "equal to people rising from the dead." Christopher DeGiorgio agrees that any such case would be "extremely rare." However, a casual search of pro-life resources readily produces evidence of ten such cases, the most gruesome being one (described in the Journal of California Nurses for Ethical Standards) in which a "brain-dead" patient put his arm around the assisting nurse as he was about to have his heart removed for transplant.
Click Here for the full page on Brain Dead
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Truth Aficionado
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| Posted 6/29/2004 6:25 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by DLW
Hi Sparky,
As I understand it, the article critiques the use of imperfect measures to measure brain-activity.
My point was that there is no brain-activity whatsoever until after a month of gestation for a zygote and so that was the earliest I would consider it being a human-being.
dlw
Hello Dave,
I found it interesting that people are declared brain dead (no activity) and then come back to life. We hear other stories of people that flat lined, went to the other side and returned. I was hoping you would see some parallels between when life begins and ends. That maybe it is not as clear-cut as people sometimes believe.
Shalom,
Mark
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Truth Aficionado
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Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 6/29/2004 6:55 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Sahid
Didn't the article say that the brain dead do have brain stem activity? There is a stage after conception where there is no brain activity.
Were off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of oz...
Don't you need some brain development to have a heart beat?
DLW claims it takes one month before an embryo has any brain activity.
The human heart begins to beat and pump blood through the embryo around day 22 (528 hours) of gestation. | | Back to Top | | |
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Sisters of Cain
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Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 431
| Posted 6/30/2004 7:24 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by DLW
I don't think brain-activity is needed for the heart to function.
I think you're right.
http://www.meritcare.com/hwdb/showtopic.asp?module_abbrev=HWKB3&pd_hwid=hw159629-sec&topic_name=Electrical%20activity%20of%20the%20heart&sequence=1
"The heart is a pump made up of two upper chambers (atria) and two lower chambers (ventricles). The pump is powered by an electrical system that generates rhythmic impulses. These impulses cause the heart muscle to relax and contract in a specific sequence, pumping blood through the heart to the lungs and body.
Electrical pulses through the heart begin in or pass through small masses of muscle cells called nodes. The pulses travel from the nodes through the heart muscle fibers, causing the heart to contract or pump. Rhythmic pulses keep the heart pumping and keep blood flowing to the lungs and body.
The two nodes that create electrical impulses in the heart are called the sinoatrial (sinus or SA) node and the atrioventricular (AV) node.
The SA node is considered the pacemaker of the heart. It generates electrical signals that cause the upper heart chambers (atria) to contract. The SA node normally sends 60 to 100 impulses per minute in an adult and up to 140 beats per minute in a baby. This is called normal sinus rhythm.
Shortly after the SA node generates electrical signals in the atria, the AV node sends an impulse into the ventricles, causing them to contract or pump. A disturbance anywhere along this electrical pathway can cause an abnormal heartbeat (arrhythmia)."
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Truth Aficionado
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Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 6/30/2004 11:07 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by DLW
I don't think brain-activity is needed for the heart to function.
I'm not so sure about that. Click here for full article
Dr. Nathaniel Reichek, M.D., director of AGH's division of cardiology, called the findings very significant. In addition to suggesting that the heart damage prompted by the intracranial bleeding can lead to death, the findings demonstrate the complex interplay between the heart and brain resulting from the workings of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. These two systems are the "network" through which the brain regulates the heart.
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