Because of Christ’s incarnation, “every life is deemed special”
Mary was surely a remarkable young woman. When the angel Gabriel came to her and announced she would bear the Messiah as a virgin, Mary embraced the will of God knowing the sacrifices it would likely bring (Luke 1:26-38). The plans for her marriage would be scuttled. For when the news of her pregnancy reached her espoused husband, Joseph, he would seek to put her away privately. It was only after Joseph was confronted by an angel himself that he decided to follow through on the marriage (Matthew 1:18-20).
Her pregnancy would also cast a shadow of scandal over her and her family. This was seen in a skirmish Jesus had with the religious leaders of his day, when he referred to them as children of the devil. They in turn viciously shot-back at Him with the intimation that He was a bastard child, born of fornication (John 8:41).
By today’s standards in a culture of death, this teenage mother would have been urged to abort her child. But what if it had been possible for Mary to abort Jesus?…
Indeed, if Jesus had never been born it would have created a huge black hole bankrupting the world of the sweetest of treasures.
Of course, the birth of Jesus was unique in that God was taking upon Himself the form of a man. That is much of the beauty of the incarnation of Christ. In that act God dignified and imbued every human life with an inherent value. When God robed himself with human flesh, he was communicating to every age this dramatic declaration, “Everybody is somebody special.”…
Unfortunately, we often don’t see the real costs abortion precipitates…. Abortion in America is not just statistics, its 55 million tragedies – 55 million “awful holes” in society.
~ Rev. Mark Creetch, Christian Post, December 17
[Photo from The Nativity Story]
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.
“But what if it had been possible for Mary to abort Jesus?…”
um, it was. But…..
“Mary embraced the will of God”
sounds like she made her choice.
Speaking of black holes, here is a report on the difficulties of getting abortion data in Canada:
http://files.efc-canada.net/si/Abortion/BlackHolesEFCAbortionDataReport.pdf
“Mary embraced the will of God”
sounds like she made her choice.
Does this mean all choices are equally valid?
When did your children become people, Reality? What hour, minute, second since birth? Were they not people a minute before birth? Why don’t abortion advocates agree on when a small human being becomes a person? Why do abortion advocates insist on being subjective, vague and can’t agree on when a human being is or isn’t a person?
We know that a cat is never a person, always a cat. A tree is never a person. But a human being is. Pro-lifers and biologists concur: the new and unique human being begins their life cycle when concieved. Why is that? Why do pro-lifers (holders of a philosophy that life begins at conception) agree with biologists (pure scientists, unemcumbered by philosophical bias).
Why can’t abortion advocates get it together? Why can’t you agree on personhood? Is it your disorganization about personhood the reason that Nancy Keenan is so frightened by the movement?? Is it the weakest link?
Abortion advocates: tell us, would you have any opinion if Kate Middleton decides to abort her royal fetus? Do you think the ‘uterine contents’ isn’t in line for the throne yet? When does Kate’s ‘product of conception’ become a member of the royal family? Should the Queen intercede if Kate announces she’s going to abort?
oh em gee,
I wrote the above comment before I saw this today on Life News:
http://www.lifenews.com/2012/12/18/gushing-over-the-royal-baby-shows-abortion-advocates-inconsistent/
Great minds thinking alike!
“Does this mean all choices are equally valid?” – I have stated on numerous occasions that all women should have the choice to either gestate, deliver and become a parent – gestate, deliver and adopt out – or terminate.
Now on other topics no, not all choices are equally valid ;-)
“Why do abortion advocates insist on being subjective, vague and can’t agree on when a human being is or isn’t a person?” – because it is subjective. You claim ‘personhood’ at conception, which is a farcical proposition. Some claim it is achieved about eighteen months after birth. Most people consider it achieved at birth.
“A tree is never a person” – no, and just like an acorn is not an oak tree, a fetus is not a person.
“Why can’t abortion advocates get it together?” – yet here you are switching between ‘human being’ or ‘life begins at conception’ and ‘person’ as if they mean exactly the same thing, they don’t.
How’d that vote go again?
“Abortion advocates: tell us…..” – can’t say I’ve seen any around here to answer your question for you :-)
How’d that vote go again?
You mean that vote on when your personhood fairy taps her wand? You tell me.
Maybe you think you were an acorn at 17 months, but I was a person at conception.
*ps acorns are plants not mammals. They have a different life cycle and never become persons, no matter how much we hug them. ;>)
“Abortion advocates: tell us, would you have any opinion if Kate Middleton decides to abort her royal fetus?”
We’ve seen the result of the crazy thinking that Kate Middleton’s medical affairs are somehow public property. Women deserve the dignity of making decisions about their pregnancies away from the prying eyes of the public.
“You mean that vote on when your personhood fairy taps her wand?” – no, the one where the majority said ‘no, you’re wrong to claim that a fetus is a person.’
“but I was a person at conception” – really? So you had definable character traits did you? Did you like spicy food or sweet? Were you a visual, auditory or tactile learner? Apart from the genetic markers, were there many epigenetic influences? What about environmental impacts during gestation?
“ps acorns are plants not mammals” – no, but cats are.
Reality, had the vote gone the other way would you be pro-life now? What about this referendum? Does its success imply that the pro-life position on fetal personhood is correct (or at least was at that time)? Or if a referendum rejecting the personhood of Jews went through, would that mean that I am also wrong to think that Jews are persons?
Besides that, I don’t think the defeat of the Mississippi personhood amendment was a widescale rejection of the claim that a fetus is a person. There are other plausible reasons why it failed. The most important, I think, was the Yes side’s schizophrenia on hormonal contraceptives. But even if it was, it would at best prove that the claim is unpopular (not that it’s false). Other than the fact that you enjoy gloating about political victories, I don’t see what I’m supposed to glean from the vote you refer to.
Don’t one’s tastes, learning styles, and other attributes develop over time (due to genetic and epigenetic factors) after birth as well? I don’t like all of the same foods that I did ten or twenty years ago. But I was essentially the same entity all my life. So it would seem as though these “definable character traits” can’t be prerequisites for being a person if you can remain the same person even after all of them change. It’s far more reasonable that you stay ontologically identical to yourself over time even though your various characteristics change. Thus it makes sense to say that I was once an embryo. And the differences between the adult I am now and the embryo I once was (size, level of development, environment, degree of dependency) would not be sufficient to justify killing me at an earlier state.
This is called deflection: “We’ve seen the result of the crazy thinking that Kate Middleton’s medical affairs are somehow public property.” You immediately refer to a cruel hoax with tragic results that has nothing to do with abortion.
If the child survives, he or she is 3rd in line for the throne of England. Does that have any bearing on the child’s value as a human being?
Would you have any opinion if Kate Middleton decides to abort her royal fetus? The answers would be “I think that …” and will not involve deflection. Try it, I dare ya. I triple dog dare ya to tell us what you think about what or who is growing in Kate’s womb. Is the child more valuable because of his/her genetic background? Or are all children equally disposable?
Why was it a cruel hoax, Ninek? If Kate Middleton’s pregnancy really isn’t her own, then why can’t members of the public call up the hospital to see what’s going on? Why shouldn’t everybody feel entitled to a public broadcasting of everything royal pregnancy-related?
I do not care what Kate Middleton chooses to do with her pregnancy as long as she makes the choice freely. She is a full human being, not Britain’s royal uterus.
So, all human children are EQUALLY DISPOSABLE. How unbiased of you to feel so.
I read a great line today: “Abortion is discrimination based on size.” But I just call it “bullying a little human to death.”
I look at an embryo and marvel, wow, what a work is humankind, how amazing that the code of our DNA contains everything we are in so small a creature, even when we’re as tiny as four cells. Human development is inspiring!
PS I think ALL children equally precious. Readers, if you are pregnant, verily I say to you: your child is no less a prince or princess than Kate’s!
Since Kate Middleton’s pregnancy is the property of the Commonwealth and not her own, should members of the public be able to access her private medical information? What if she IS considering an abortion–should you be able to intervene?
Kate’s CHILD is nobody’s property. In fact, you are unaware of the child’s role in the Anglican church. Kate and her family may want privacy (which must be why they announced the pregnancy on their own terms; it wasn’t leaked), which is why the hoax was the hoax it was. Gosh, it’s tedious having to spell out the obvious for you.
How big does a child have to be before you would intervene to save his or her life? Are you willing to answer what Reality cannot: when does your personhood fairy tap the baby on the head?
“Are you willing to answer what Reality cannot: when does your personhood fairy tap the baby on the head” – but you did not ask that question, did you.
I had said “How’d that vote go again?”
to which you responded
“You mean that vote on when your personhood fairy taps her wand?”
Do you still claim that you were a person at conception?
I was but I may be speaking for myself ;>)
Why all the angst about the definition of a word that is readily available? Of course ninek was a person at conception. So were you reality.
Oxford dictionary:
person
Definition of person
noun (plural people or persons)
1a human being regarded as an individual
Merriam-Webster dictionary:
per·son
noun \?p?r-s?n\
Definition of PERSON
1: human, individual
So just to be clear ninek. You claim that from the moment one of your father’s sperm penetrated one of your mother’s eggs and fertilized it, you were a ‘person’?
“Of course ninek was a person at conception. So were you reality.” – I disagree Lrning.
“1a human being regarded as an individual
1: human, individual”
yes indeed. This is not achieved at conception however.
“Are you willing to answer what Reality cannot: when does your personhood fairy tap the baby on the head?”
When it’s no longer living inside a woman’s body.
“yes indeed. This is not achieved at conception however.”
You deny that a zygote is an individual human being? That’s a bit odd for someone with the moniker “reality”.
Don’t be disingenuous Lrning, you were defining ‘person’, not ‘human’.
“An individual is a person or a specific object. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs or goals.”
“Biology – a. a single organism capable of independant existence”
Every human being is a person.
Only people who want to murder them have decided that some humans aren’t people so it is open season on them. Like “Logan’s Run” our society is snuffing it’s members from both ends of the life spectrum, gestation and old age or infirmity. We wouldn’t have to even discuss ‘person’ except that you abortion advocates and euthanasia advocates want to be able to kill whomever you want whenever you want.
Every human being is already a person, from conception to death. If you abort your child, you killed a person.
“Every human being is already a person, from conception” – this statement is wrong.
So, Blue would disagree with Obama? Obama fought to prevent LIVE children who SURVIVED their abortions from receiving ANY care at all and wanted to legally insist that LIVING CHILDREN were NEGLECTED TO DEATH. Obama thinks that adoptive parents should have to wait longer because those children are marked for death. In Canada, it has been confirmed that more than 400 children per year who could have been adopted, were instead left to die. The ancient Romans practiced this; it was called “exposure.”
In summary, you disagree with Obama’s position on the Infant Born Alive Act. Good to know. See, lots of other abortion advocates think that if a client asks for a dead baby, they will get a dead baby, one way or the other.
American hospitals must already abide by EMTALA and the Baby Doe laws, ninek.
It doesn’t matter whether zygotes are considered people in the legal sense or not. No person has the right to live inside another individual’s body against that person’s consent.
Carrying an unwanted pregnancy is like a form of torture. Last I checked, people can’t torture other people to get what they want.
I find your monicker to be quite sensuous Blue Velvet Hmmm, in a platonic way of course.
When it’s no longer living inside a woman’s body.
That can’t be right. Recall that it’s possible to conceive embryonic humans outside the woman’s body and grow them in petri dishes for up to 20 days. On the other hand, babies as young as 22 weeks have been able to grow and survive in neonatal intensive care units. Both of these developments are fairly new, and it is not unreasonable to expect that they will continue to be improved over time. Eventually, the two timeframes could very well overlap (so an embryo could be conceived and live the entire 40 week prenatal period outside the woman’s body). If this came to be, you would be forced to accept the awkward conclusion that a zygote in a petri dish is a person but a 39-week fetus in the womb is not. It makes more sense to say that your personhood is not dependent on your location or the technology we have available (so it cannot begin at birth).
American hospitals must already abide by EMTALA and the Baby Doe laws, ninek.
Law enforcement is generally more effective at the state level. Furthermore, the existing state laws only initially applied to babies that were deemed “viable” by the guy hired to kill them (so many were born and left to die in the 22-23 week range). A 1993 court decision weakened them even further, making it impossible to use the definition of “born alive” from earlier state legislation.
A form of postnatal infanticide was regularly practiced in Obama’s state, and he repeatedly voted against stopping it.
http://www.nrlc.org/ObamaBAIPA/WhitePaperAugust282008.html
It should be noted that one of the bills Obama voted against was identical to the federal version, which passed the Senate unanimously. It was apparently good enough even for the likes of Barbara Boxer and the National Abortion Rights Action League.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/oct/09/national-right-life-committee/2003-legislation-had-neutrality-clause/
It doesn’t matter whether zygotes are considered people in the legal sense or not. No person has the right to live inside another individual’s body against that person’s consent.
They do if that’s the only way that their parents can provide the basic necessities of life, which is how all human beings are at that stage. Every minor person has the right to the basic necessities of life from their parents, unless there is a way of transferring parental responsibilities to someone else.
Carrying an unwanted pregnancy is like a form of torture. Last I checked, people can’t torture other people to get what they want.
How exactly is it a form of torture? It’s a change that the human body is meant to handle, and is in fact the raison d’etre of a bodily system. Puberty and aging also significantly change a person’s body (often without their consent), but they are not torture. Last I checked, people can’t kill their own children if they want to thwart their organ systems.