Life Links 11-3-11
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- At the Prospect, E.J. Graff displays a typical rant from a pro-choicer completely uninformed about fetal development. This is embarrassing:
[At 10 weeks] I see an embryo, the size of a pinkie, that couldn’t survive even in the most intensive NICU. It doesn’t have a working brain, internal organs, or lungs that could function under any circumstances. It’s a mush of rapidly dividing cells with enormous potential to be a human, if nothing intervenes, like a miscarriage or a D&C. But to me, that uninhabited scrunch of cells is no more human than an acorn is an oak tree. And so I don’t agree that “it’s barbaric to kill 1 million babies a year,” since I do not see a baby in that one ounce of tissue. I don’t think women who choose abortion have committed murder, or anything even close. I think they scraped out some extra tissue that could have become babies but were not yet.
This is what an unborn child looks like when he or she weighs about an ounce and is slightly longer than my pinkie. Not quite a “mush” or “uninhabited scrunch” of cells without a working brain or internal organs.
- Steven Massof (pictured left), another former employee of Kermit Gosnell, will plead guilty today for his role in the deaths of children who survived abortions:
A person with knowledge of the plea agreement says medical school graduate Steven Massof will plead guilty to two counts of third-degree murder and other charges.
Two murder counts typically bring a mandatory life term in Pennsylvania. But a judge could give the suburban Pittsburgh man a reduced sentence for his plea or potential cooperation.
Massof is charged in the deaths of two babies prosecutors say were born alive.
- A group in Kansas raising money to start an abortion clinic in Wichita claims they have half the money they need to open up a clinic. They say they’re on track to open sometime in 2012. The article also notes that wannabe abortionist Mila Means’ efforts to start a clinic haven’t gone anywhere.
- Survivor winner Ethan Zohn’s Hodgkin’s lymphoma has returned. He’ll undergo chemotherapy and hopes to receive a stem cell transplant from his brother.
[Photo via Kermit Gosnell Crimes]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Lol, if that photo of a 10-week-old embryo is a “mush of cells”, I suppose I am just a really huge mush of cells. That “journalist” couldn’t have even bothered to take 15 seconds to google fetal development?
It would be hilarious, but since his stupidity is helping to promote mass murder, I cannot bring myself to laugh.
The proaborts will tell themselves whatever it takes.
I guess pregnant women will now proudly announce that they are “with mush!”
On the same site Jill linked to, the headline for a ten-week fetus is “Basic Brain Structure In Place.” The stupidity burns, it really does.
Hm, here’s the ultrasound of my oldest daughter at 9 weeks 6 days. I clearly see a head, a rump, arms and legs, and a beating heart. She doesn’t look like a “mush of cells” to me.
EJ Graff,
You carry on with your idiocy.
We know better. We know the truth.
Wow. Read the full E.J. Graff article. The author seriously thinks that an embryo is not human.
“I do think, Rachael, that you honestly believe that these cells are human.”
“If a woman does not believe that that pinkie is a human, should the government force her to hold it inside her until it is? “
Arguing that the embryo is not human? That’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. E.J. Graff apparently rejects all of human embryology. How anti-science.
“And yet I do believe life is sacred—so much so that I believe that actual life vastly outweighs potential life. If someone considers those multiplying and dividing cells, and concludes that her life’s circumstances outweigh that potential life’s possibilities, who are you to decide that for her?”
More stupidity.
It isn’t stupidity – it’s a difference of ideas. Many people don’t believe that life begins at conception.
So, let me get this straight: since pro-lifers believe that, as human beings, the unborn deserve the same legal protections as the rest of us, we are generally deemed to be backwards, archaic, possibly medieval in our opinion of women, repressive, delusional, and so on and so forth.
… then why does simple biology support our arguments and refute those of many pro-aborts, the supposedly more progressive, clear-thinking portion of our society?
The illogical nature of that situation serves only to highlight the lack of reason (and verily, the lack of humanity) inherent in the pro-abort position. Is it any wonder then that they’re losing more and more ground as people become increasingly well-informed?
Elizabeth,
When do you think life begins? Please offer any sources to back up your claims.
Please offer sources that aren’t pro-life to say it begins at conception.
“To paraphrase Roe, the justices declared that science, law, philosophy and theology had not been able to answer this question and neither could the Supreme Court. If you read various Catholic documents, the same opinion emerges. Over the centuries theologians and popes have suggested when they think God might confer personhood on the fetus, and they have come up with different answers. When the fetus first moves, when it is 40 days old if it is a boy or 80 days old if it is a girl, when it is viable, when it can no longer split in two and become twins. But in the end the church says what the court says “We don’t know.” Of course the similarity stops there. The court says we do know that women are persons and therefore we will leave it to each of them to decide what they think about the fetus and what they think about giving their body over to its development. The church says, even if we don’t know, women are required to treat the fetus from the moment of conception as if it were a person and make whatever sacrifices, including their life, to enable it to become a person.”
Scratch that – I’m sure we can both find sources supporting both sides of the coin. That’s the point though, I guess. There is no 100% certain answer for when life begins according to science, law, philosophy, etc. It’s up to each individual person to decide that for themselves. If you believe that life begins at conception then that doesn’t make you stupid. If someone else believes that life begins at another point that doesn’t make them stupid either. The point is that it’s a difference of ideas – there is no right answer.
Elizabeth–why can’t we agree that life begins, simply, at the beginning…? When the unique person with unique DNA is created? It begins….at the beginning.
And if you can’t be sure of that like my prolife friends are, why would you NOT err on the side of life?
Because really, when it come down to the proabort view, life begins with wantedness….and the child in question has no control over that whatsoever. That doesn’t seem true or right, does it…that a human life should be allowed or disallowed simply by which circumstance brought him/her here?
My youngest child, Payton. If Payton’s father had raped me, Payton would still be Payton, right? His worth and intrinsic value wouldn’t change because something his daddy did?
And, yes there IS a right answer. This is one of those black and white issues. You either protect the innocent life or you don’t. But you have to choose one or the other.
When do you think life begins Elizabeth?
By saying they do not know when life begins the Supreme Court declared in no uncertain terms that we could kill. Roe v Wade made it legal to kill a child in the womb. Doe V Bolton made it legal to kill a child in the womb through all 9 months of pregnancy, for any reason at all.
By NOT deciding they certainly made a decision didn’t they???
If one does not KNOW when life begins then it stands to reason that we err on the side of life and not the destruction of preborn human beings.
We do know when life begins though!!!! At conception.
I am curious as to what sources that you might have that show life begins at the 18th week, the 25th week, the 38th week of pregnancy?
It’s up to me to decide? Really?
I don’t know when life begins, to be honest. I believe that human development “begins at the beginning” but I’m sticking with I don’t know for the idea of “life”.
I understand that your child is precious because he is your child and I don’t think any truly pro-choice person would deny that. I just think that when life begins is subjective until I hear otherwise, I guess.
I’m looking at a shelf full of textbooks that say life begins at conception. Elizabeth, don’t take my pro-life word for it. Go to a college bookstore, crack open some of the books and see for yourself.
Your position is not based on science or logic. All you have is an emotional plea that life begins when you want it to so that you can justify snuffing it out at your own convenience.
Again, please stop assuming you know what I believe, ninek. Science believes that “human development” begins at conception but will not weigh in on the idea of “life.” I’m trying to patiently hear both sides.
Let’s try to narrow things down a bit shall we?
Some say that life begins at birth. When a child takes her first breath.
Is that what you believe, Elizabeth or can we back up a bit?
Elizabeth, so instead of trying to wrap your head around when human development begins, try defining “life” first. You seem to be stuck on what to think of the word “life”. Is it when someone is intrinsically considered worthy of the word? Is it when they’re capable of sustaining their own life (then in that case, my own 5 current children aren’t quite living because they sure can’t survive on their own yet).
While life might have many different, but parallel, subtopics, human development *is* a part of “life” and therefore does have a quantifiable beginning (and end). Every person has a distinct beginning and that was at conception, otherwise they wouldn’t be in existence. Everything else is just a stage of human development.
You seem like a very nice person, Carla, but I’m sorry… my answer is still I don’t know.
Not that being nice has anything to do with when life begins……I am!! I am a nice person.
Google fetal development.
Ignorance is no excuse. “I don’t know” means you would be willing to start learning, yes?
Carla, I think you’re a nice person too! :0
Elizabeth, if you’re truly searching, please search fetal development. Please keep searching.
Because I am pretty sure you will find that not only is the pro-life view true, but it is also righteous. That count for something.
You missed the point of why I brought up my son Payton. He is not precious MERELY because I want him (and believe me, there have been times I would have glad ly given him away to any willing stranger!). Wanting him has NOTHING to do with his worth. He is precious because he is part of the HUMAN FAMILY. He is good because he is alive and here and human.
If he had come under any other circumstances, the problem of perception would be mine a lone, not his.
Have you ever carried a child?
No, it means that I’m not ready to make a decision yet, Carla. I’m trying to listen to both sides.
Dirtdartwife, how did you manage to read my mind and type my comment for me? :-)
Elizabeth, you keep confusing “life” and “personhood” without any good idea what either might mean. Personhood is completely arbitrary; everyone defines it differently. Not very useful for argument. But when a human being’s life begins is something everyone who understands what words mean can agree on.
You say that according to scientists, “human development” begins at conception, but aren’t sure whether “life” is there? Are you under the delusion that dead or inanimate things can develop? If there is development, there is life, in this case, human life. The life of a human being.
If there is mush here, it’s in your brain.
Your comments on the history of the Catholic Church’s ideas on abortion are so riddled with errors it would take a year to fully answer. (I see they are in quotes, but no indication of the source).
A couple of important points.
The Church has never talked about God conferring “personhood” on us; used in this sense “personhood is a modern term. What theologians talk about is the creation of the soul. Whoever wrote this doesn’t know much about Church history at all.
The Church, always and everywhere from the very beginning has condemned abortion as a very grave sin at every stage of development. Most of the earliest sources describe it as murder without distinction.
When some theologians, such as St. Augustine, spoke about the 40 or 80 day distinction, they were speaking specifically about whether it could be proven that someone who committed an abortion was liable for the crime of homicide. The situation was rather like the situation: “hey he shot behind that hedge — he may have killed someone! Let’s execute him for murder.” What Augustine was doing was trying to make a distinction of when we can be SURE a human being was killed by determining where we could observe outward human appearance. He nevertheless thought the evidence strong that the fetus was completely human at earlier stages as well. He supported the Church’s teaching that abortion was wrong at all stages. A good attitude to hold, since it is wrong take the chance with even probable human life. (Think of the other hedge analogy usually used).
As far as I know, this distinction never appeared in any magisterial or binding Church teaching. The one papal encyclical that people quote on it was one that talked about criminal penalties rather than moral and spiritual doctrine.
At any rate, remember the discussions of theologians in the early centuries (which are not infallible teaching anyway) are useless today, since this was a time when practically nothing was known about pre-natal development.
Today we know better. I dare you to click on the link provide and deny the evidence of your eyes.
Elizabeth I hadn’t quite realized that you will still trying to decide what you think. I hope you are getting information here that will help you.
Elizabeth says:
“It isn’t stupidity – it’s a difference of ideas. Many people don’t believe that life begins at conception.”
I think your comment is heartfelt but based upon an incomplete examination of the matter. Truth be known most people have a steadily developing assessment of the matter. Would you not say that our knowledge of fetal development is much better now than 30 years ago? Advances in technology have given us the miracle of “seeing” the unborn baby and determining sex and detecting present and/or potential adnormalities and other medical conditions that often can be treated successfully in eutero.
We have at the same time attained the ability to sucessfully manage earlier and earlier premature births–to the point where we can now treat a tiny child weighing less than a can of coke. Now if that tiny baby is human by almost any standard, what makes it so? Where does one “draw the line” so to speak?
Part of the problem re determining viability, personhood and the such is that people who normally demand scientific proof in everything else suddenly revert to notions of feelings and subjective assessments when presented with science that says human life exists when conception occurs. It is either human life or it is not–there is no in-between state once the egg has been fertilized.
One more thing: If many people believed that the negro slave was somehow inferior would that make it so? Unfortunately that was the case with all too many people not all that long ago in our country. The point is we have to do better than merely relegating such an important matter to a ”difference of ideas”. It is a matter far more consequential and deserves more than an opinion.
“… then why does simple biology support our arguments and refute those of many pro-aborts, the supposedly more progressive, clear-thinking portion of our society?”
Really? What does biology have to say about a philosophical matter like the value of human life in its most primitive state in the context of the physical, mental, and emotional obligations placed on the carrier of that human life? At best, biology is only half the equation. It’s not the final word.
“Elizabeth, you keep confusing “life” and “personhood” without any good idea what either might mean.”
A confusion that any number of people here are more than happy to take advantage of and use to shoehorn a perfectly subjective, debatable moral position (i.e. “all human life, no matter how primitive or dissimilar to what is commonly thought of when discussing ‘personhood’, is equally valuable and must be treated accordingly”) into one supposedly based on “science” in order to preemptively cut off valid philosophical objections to that position. See above quoted paragraph and response.
Joan, it’s not all that suprising that it’s important for you to believe that the unborn aren’t worth protecting. After all, you aborted your child, and you are now on a mission to make sure everyone comes over to your side of death and destruction.
Science is on our side. Love is on our side. Life is on our side.
And yours? Blood and bodies in a bucket.
Elizabeth, what would it mean to our world if we lived in a society where we protected our most innocent, where babies weren’t in danger from their mothers?
And Joan? They used to call Black people “primitive” life forms.
4Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
5Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
Jeremiah 1:4-5 KJV
BEFORE. Before you were even FORMED God knew you. Meaning you had a SOUL at CONCEPTION.
How much plainer does it have to be said than straight from THE MOUTH OF GOD ???
Hi Elisabeth, the courts of the land once ruled that black people were not people worthy of protection. So saying the Supreme Court ruled something does not mean its right or moral.
That being said, many here have already pointed out that science is not confused that at conception there is LIFE. Because humans can only reproduce after their own kind we know that life is human life.
My son did not exist before February 2006. I can say that with certainty. He did not exist. His life began around February 12, 2006. I can trace his life from today as a 5 year old boy all the way back to February 2006. Before then he had no life.
The baby I currently carry is a 19 week old fetus but very much alive (i can feel him or her kicking even now) and as I am human and my husband is human I can say that this life I feel kicking in my womb is human. He or she did not exist before July 2011. I can trace the life of this child I carry from this moment all the way back to early July of this year.
We do know when life begins Elisabeth.
Ah Joan. Did you miss us all yesterday? What would we do without our resident eugenist?
Elisabeth, I think you’re confusing the definition of human being (as in the species of homo sapiens), with the legal and philosophical term “personhood”. The values of legal rights, personhood, and worth are philosophical and sociological values, which are still hotly debated, not to be confused with the scientific classification of a human being, which science does tell us when a new individual human life begins. One only needs to look towards embryology and medicine:
“Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoa development) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”
“A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).”
Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.
“Development begins with fertilization, the process by which the male gamete, the sperm, and the female gamete, the oocyte, unite to give rise to a zygote.”
T.W. Sadler, Langman’s Medical Embryology, 10th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006. p. 11.
“[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the beginning of a new human being.”
Keith L. Moore, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2.
“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization (which, incidentally, is not a ‘moment’) is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte.”
Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Müller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 2001. p. 8.
“Human embryos begin development following the fusion of definitive male and female gametes during fertilization… This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development.”
William J. Larsen, Essentials of Human Embryology. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1998. pp. 1, 14.
“It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual.”
If in doubt you can borrow the above textbooks from your local public or university library and verify the above information yourself. I can get further into details as to how and why at fertilization and amphimixis, there is a new human life, derived from the fusing of the gametes from the sperm and egg cells. But only if you’re interested in hearing the details, I’m not going to waste my time researching and writing it out other wise.
Elizabeth: “Please offer sources that aren’t pro-life to say it begins at conception.”
What does this mean? “Please find people who disagree with you who agree with you.”
Also Elisabeth, if you are not sure WHEN life begins, why are you not erring on the side of life? You should be saying “the fetus may or may not be a life so because it MAY be a life I will oppose abortion.” I will never understand the mentality “Well, the fetus may or may not be life so lets kill it and assume it isn’t.”
if you own a gun for protection and someone is walking into your bedroom late at night do you shoot first? The person walking into your bedroom may be your husband or may be an intruder. Do you you shoot first and risk killing your own husband or do you err on the side of life and make sure you KNOW who is walking into your bedroom before you pull the trigger?
Good comments Sydney, I was pretty much thinking the same thing but I like the way you said it. Even if someone honestly doesn’t know if the unborn is a person or not they will still have an opinion about how the unborn should be treated IF they are a person.
By the way, I wonder what the writer meant when they said it is just a mush of cells? How does that negate it from being human? Everyone is made of cells, so what does it mean to be just cells? She says the fetus has potential to be a human, but it already has the ability to grow to a different stage, it just needs time to grow, just like any other stage of a human being. it has potential to be more developed just like a kid has potential to be a teenager but he/she is already a person, a person isn’t something you can just grow into.
There is no 100% certain answer for when life begins according to science, law, philosophy, etc.
Well, for science there is because science is looking based on actual facts and criteria. Law and philosophy are just constructs from the human consciousness.