Fetal Life and Abortion:
Human Personhood at Conception
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Displayed Responses 2008
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October 10th: Pulling the
plug on the world?
September 25th:
Human Conception (fertilization) is special - two articles
September4th: Changing
the basis for allowing abortions?
August 21st: Does Roe
say that before birth and after birth is like apples to oranges?
July 31st: "Potential Human
Being"
July 17th: Environment,
Abortion, Nature
July 8th: The Body + The Soul
+ The Spirit = each one of us
June 24th: Human Nature
June 15th: Does Roe v.
Wade legislate from the bench?
June 6th: Common Good and
Common Decency
May 23rd: Right and Wrong? --
Absolutely!
May 7th: The European Council
of Europe's resolution is going too far!
April 25th: Some
international organizations are counter-productive with respect to abortion
April 15th: Government of
Finland Pressures Nicaragua to Legalize Abortion
April 2nd: Malta protests
European Council of the E.U.
March 17th: Thoughts on
Abortion
February 27th: Stop the
abortion epidemic!
February 13th: The U.N.,
E.U. and World Bank's unethical influence in the affairs of small countries
January 28th: What remains of Roe v. Wade
after 35 years?
October 10, 2008
Reprinted from displayed responses:
September 12, 2001.
Question: Do you think that our human society
could destroy itself by disregarding the limits of beneficial research?
Reply: I am presuming that you refer to
biological experimentation on human individuals. Your question prompts a wide
range of thoughts. The world is becoming smaller, because of facilitated
communication and transportation. It is also becoming more unified, in the
sense of abandoning traditional criteria of human culture. If one country
legalizes abortion, others will strain to follow. And experimentation in human
reproduction has become universal.
Already, in this early stage of mass media, a
large part of a nation (world population?) can be "hypnotized" simultaneously.
Orson Wells' hoax about the invasion from Mars, is an early example in our own
country. The volume of electronic stock-trading, in our day, shows
instantaneous response to the merest hint of almost any rumor.
It is not necessary to mention the declining
condition of our physical environment and the poised nuclear missiles, since
these are conditions subject to change, even change for the better. The moral
environment, however, should be mentioned. It's effects are more lasting, and
more influential on the totality of mankind.
"Do your own thing!" and "Me, first!" are
anti-social directives. They lead to senseless killing, sometimes mass-murders,
not only on the streets, but within the home. Individuals who had never been
trained in social responsibility are not likely to see the preservation of the
human race as their objective.
Fatal modifications of the concept of what it
is to be human are already underway, often with public approval. Attempts at
cloning humans is only one expression. Family has degenerated to include
same-sex association. Gender, and its social significance, has recapitulated to
sexual-preference, with emphasis on self, rather than on society.
Among examples in history, Hitler's ruthless
campaign to change the society by world conquest is evidence that the
maintenance of what we are, and have been, is a fragile thing. How he could
have accomplished it with all the world looking on is best illustrated by the
Holocaust, a destruction of society, piece by piece, behind the blinding
rhetoric of euphemisms.
It should not be thought that something like
Hitler's program of eugenics will never happen again, simply because we are
aware of such possibilities. What about legalized abortion, a world-wide
holocaust in our time! Add to that the further "elimination" of embryonic human
beings through the groundless expectations of embryonic stem-cell research!
I will not attempt to say whether genetic and
other cellular modifications are capable of destroying the human race.
Isolated genetic modifications resulting from mutations occurring without man's
intervention tend to be eliminated by nature over a course of time, as are
recessive inheritable characteristics. Large-scale, man-made modifications
might well be beyond the ability of nature to handle. The English legalization
of cloning humans for research stipulates that the human clones must be killed
before 14 days of life. Does this not indicate a very real fear that meddling
with the structure of human beings could irreversibly "contaminate" the entire
human race, or destroy it altogether?
In response to your question, may I suggest
that unless there is reasoned restraint in the current "feeding-frenzy" over
embryonic stem-cells, and if genetic engineering can destroy the human race, it
probably will. E.R.
reply@unbornperson.org
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September 25, 2008
Reprinted from displayed responses: September 24, 2001.
Question: I was just wondering what your stance is on the
idea of the soul. Do you believe that at conception a fetus and a soul are
created at the same time, or does a soul follow conception, or a fetus follow a
soul?
Reply: The reality of the human soul, in reference to the
human being, is the principal focus of our entire web site. We carefully
examine the beginning of the human person in the very terms which you are using:
When does the human soul begin to vitalize the human body? For a definition of
"soul" and its function, may I suggest that you read a portion of
Section 2
on this site. You will find special, historical interest in the discussion of
Aristotle's opinion on "ensoulment," in
Section 3. For a
more complete answer to your question you may wish to study all of Sections: #2,
3and 4, along with the Additional Readings which follow them. For now, I will
attempt only a simplified reply.
Your question, in part: "Do you believe that at conception a
fetus and a soul are created at the same time?" People often use the term
"fetus" in reference to the unborn at any stage of development, as you are doing
here. So, you are asking about that moment when the human being's soul begins
to vitalize the material furnished by his or her parents, and which, then,
becomes the body of their offspring.
A human being comes into existence when the two reproductive
cells, sperm and ovum of the parents, combine to produce the single-cell stage
of their offspring. That which causes the parental cells to combine into one,
functioning human being is the soul of that offspring. This happening is called
conception.
This does not mean that the soul was created before the human
began to exist. It does mean, though, that the soul was existing and
functioning at that time. There would be no reason for it to have existed prior
to that time. The Creator would have no problem in creating that particular
soul for that individual at the moment when it was first needed, that is, at
conception.
It goes without saying that there could not be a human
individual without a human soul, and that would be true at any stage of his or
her development. E.R.
reply@unbornperson.org
Reprinted from displayed responses:
October 17, 2001.
Question: In the course of 20 years I
desperately tried to become pregnant. I was told, over and over that, indeed, I
was producing viable eggs and my husband was producing viable sperm. Therefore,
fertilization was occurring - but somewhere after fertilization, my body
failed. In other words, when zygotes entered into my uterus, either they did
not implant properly, or if they did implant, they could not hold on (for lack
of better words). In my understanding, these zygotes, fully coded with all the
genetic material needed to become full grown, possessing of a soul, simply were
not implanted. This does not mean that they were not humans, they simply never
passed this stage.
Given that leap of faith, then these zygotes,
possessing a soul. returned to their Creator, unborn, unimplanted. but equally
loved by God as if they had been born. So it is my belief that when and if I do
meet God in Glory, I will have many (who knows how many?) children, whom I will
meet for the first time. Life on earth is but a moment; in heaven it is
forever. I may never have had the big family on earth that I yearned for, but I
pray that I will in heaven.
Is this totally wacky? Or do I have a partly
true thesis? This is a very comforting theory.
Reply: I see no problem in your conclusions.
Your case is clearly presented, and your conclusions are logical. Each new
human being comes into existence at conception. Regardless of his or her
circumstances after that moment, he or she will continue to live forever. This
is not only a matter of belief, but demonstrable to reason. Aristotle says,
simply, that the human soul, being a non-material substance, cannot cease to
exist. Only material things, because they are made of parts, can cease to
exist, by coming apart. Non-material substances have no parts.
That some human beings die before birth, even
in their earliest days of gestation, is conformable to the ordinary workings of
nature, as presented in the biology of organisms In some instances there is a
deficiency in the parentage, sometimes in the offspring, and sometimes the cause
is environmental. This cannot be construed as being outside of the Creator's
plan for the individual destiny of all human beings, since God works through the
nature which He created. Because nature is highly purposive, I would be
inclined to think that the number of those who die before implantation is small
in comparison with those who accomplish it successfully. Your individual
experience would be an exception to that of the majority.
May I hasten to say that I admire your outlook
in the face of present disappointment. Although you are reinforced by faith in
the supernatural, it is not beyond reason for you to plan a reunion with your
children. Our social nature prompts all of us to desire that such familial
relationships would last forever. And our nature does not deceive us, since the
Author of our nature cannot lie. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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September 4, 2008
http://www.lifenews.com/nat4252.html
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Change Basis for Allowing Abortions to Slavery
Amendment
by
Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 3, 2008
Washington,
DC (LifeNews.com) -- In an amazing admission, pro-abortion Supreme Court
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told a feminist group that the basis for legalized
abortion should be changed from the so-called right to privacy to the
anti-slavery provisions found in the Constitution.
Ginsburg made the comments in a speech to the Veteran Feminists of America
which saluted her along with other pro-abortion attorneys who were involved in
the women’s rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
During the June event, according to a story on the pro-abortion RH Reality web
site, she responded to a questioner who asked if Roe should be recast based on
the thirteenth amendment against slavery.
“I think the notion of a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course, that
has come more and more into the ... more recent cases,” she said agreeing with
the questioner.
“I think the notion (is) that it isn't just some private act; it is a woman's
right to control ... her own life,” Ginsburg added, according to the web site.
"I think
lawyers have argued that -- in the Casey case, for example. It's not privacy,
in the sense that ‘This something I want to do and hide from everybody, and,
seal myself in a cocoon.' It's autonomy (which) is the idea; it's a woman's
right to choose,” Ginsburg said.
RH Reality indicated Ginsburg also talked about the future of the case.
"People tend to think that Roe v Wade has to be preserved at all costs. What
has to be preserved is the right of a woman to have access to the means to
control her own reproductive capacity,” she said.
The
pro-abortion judge, who is thought to be one of the likely members of the high
court to step down in the next few years because of health issues, also
admitted that she wants to overturn the 1977 case that allowed the federal
government to protect taxpayers from paying for abortions.
Instead, she wants poor women to have a constitutional right to use public
funds to pay for abortions, the RH Reality web site indicated.
“Our
government has a policy that there is no Medicaid reimbursement for abortion,
that there is for childbirth. I think that the concentration really should be
at the legislative level, in the states, and in Congress, assuming the
composition of Congress will continue to change, as it has recently,” she
said.
“It has to be much more than the bare right of a woman of means to obtain an
abortion,” she concluded.
The above quotations of Justice Ginsburg should be
considered as informal, “off the record” statements, and I will consider them in
that light. The concept of pregnancy as a form of slavery, especially as
“slavery” is used in the 13th Amendment, would require a quantum leap
of imagination. However, such a mental gymnastic already has been accomplished
through Roe v. Wade’s “right to privacy,” a leap from
Griswold to Roe.
Looking at the entire quotation cited above, I see the
underlying structure of the pro-choice position: Because you are a woman, you
have a right to “reproductive freedom,” that is, the disposal of your unborn
child. The “right to privacy,” “slavery” or whatever other claims that might
arise periodically in the future, are mere window dressing. All that is
required is that the person in control of the procedure be a woman, the mother
of an unborn child.
My conclusion here is not facetious, nor is it a
calloused statement. As in other instances wherein “truth hurts,” it could be a
deterrent for women against experiencing a non-reversible deception that could
bring deeper and longer lasting hurt as its consequence.
It is not unreasonable to ask Justice Ginsburg what it
is in the nature of a woman to justify her disposal of her and her partner’s
offspring. Or, since justification is not legally required, may I ask whether it
makes sense to her that one human being is free to dispose of another. What
about fair play? Isn’t that something we, and the U.S. Supreme Court, are not
free to disregard? E.R.
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August 21, 2008
Reprinted from displayed responses July 5, 2002:
Question: Did the
Roe v. Wade Court want us to think that what we were before birth and what
we are after birth is like apples and oranges? Two different things, I mean, so
that the mother may kill one but not the other?
Reply: If the Court said that we are non-human before birth
and human only after birth, your apples and oranges would explain why one may be
killed but not the other. If the Court did make such a statement, they provided
no proof to back up their position. In fact, there is no proof for such a
statement. What the Court said, in my opinion, is that we are purple-humans
(unborn) before birth and green-humans (born) after birth. On this basis the
Court should have had no claim to legitimize our killing before birth, anymore
than after birth, since humans are not to be killed in either instance. It is
pertinent here to note, clearly, that the Court did not prove that we are not
human beings before our birth.
Recently I commented on the caption of the Reuters' news
story: "French court rules foeus not living human." A court does not take it
upon itself to affirm or deny whether a fetus is or is not a living human
being. Such a declaration could be made only by a biologist in conjunction with
a philosopher or, perhaps, by the majority of the people from the beginning of
human history until now. Neither the Roe court nor the French court offered
evidence of having undertaken any serious consultation with these two
specialists in science, nor had they fairly considered the estimation of the
entire society in its time-honored respect for its unborn members.
The news story itself says: "An unborn foetus does not have
the legal status of a living person." By "living person" do they infer that a
fetus in not a living person, or do they merely mean a person already born?
What the courts said is that the human being, before birth,
being purple (unborn) is not protected by the law of the land. Only green-human
beings (born) are protected. And who made the rule upon which the declaration
is founded? The courts, themselves, fabricated the rule!
This is the point of my recent writing: The Roe court and the
French court have arbitrarily consigned the unborn segment of our society to
their deaths, relinquishing the prime responsibility of a government, that of
protecting the lives of all persons living within its boundaries.
In an attempt to explain my harsh judgment of the Roe v. Wade
court, let me add this comment: Although it is in the nature of a court to
build upon precedent, this court failed to find in our Constitution an explicit
reference to the humanity-status of the unborn. As a consequence it should have
been their responsibility either to locate an implicit precedent in the
Constitution or to ask the federal legislature to formulate an explicit one.
Lacking these, the Court should have employed the ethical principle of
"non-action in the face of uncertainty" and recognized, in practice, the
unborn's right to life.
Whether the Court fulfilled this responsibility with regard
to the second option, (ask the legislature) the answer is in the negative. In
fact they obstructed the federal and state legislatures' right to decide on such
issues, even to the present day. As for the first option (locate a legitimate,
implicit reading of the Constitution) many competent Constitutional experts
agree that the Court's "fringes of the shadows of the Constitution" do not
fulfill the requirements of a valid, implied interpretation of the Founding
Fathers' intention. As to the third alternative (do not act in doubt) there is
no evidence that the Court gave it any consideration.
Instead of facing their designated responsibility, the Court
took upon themselves the role of "legislating" the Constitution, rather than the
role of interpreting it. Justice White, a member of the Court, in his
dissenting opinion, spoke of the Court's action as "an exercise in raw, judicial
power." In denying Constitutional protection for the unborn, the Court
misrepresented the U.S. Constitution.
The absence of reference to the unborn in the Constitution is
not a "green-light" for their extermination. When the Founding Fathers wrote
that document, it was a time when every human being was treasured as a valuable
resource for a pioneering nation. Those men, many of them fathers with
children, could never have foreseen a need to put into writing the obvious fact
that parents should not kill their unborn children.
For more on Roe v. Wade see Section 9.
E.R.
reply@unbornperson.org
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July 31, 2008
Reprinted from displayed responses, May 8,
2000:
Question: You speak strongly against the
Court's use of the expression: "potential human being." Is it because you see
this as a ploy for denying, or at least questioning, human existence at
conception?
Reply: Our first objection to the expression
"potential human being" is that it has no corresponding reality in the concrete
universe. For a more detailed explanation, may I refer you to
Section 3.
For this moment, keep in mind that a
potentiality (capability) has to exist in, and be possessed by, a subject. This
subject must be capable of possessing it. A doorknob, for example, could not
have the capability of reproducing itself, because it is not a living thing.)
To say that something has the capability of doing something, we would have to
demonstrate compatibility between that something and the supposed capability.
There are two different situations in which
potentialities can be considered. In the first, the subject having the
potentiality continues to exist in its own nature after the potentiality has
been actualized. An embryonic rabbit, for example, has the capability for
reproduction. Time and further physical development will be required for that
potentiality to become actualized. It is the same rabbit, individually and
specifically, which in its embryonic condition had only the potentiality to
reproduce, that is now actually a parent.
That which is possessed potentially must be
rooted in the kind of thing which is capable of possessing its actuality. If
something had the potential for acting, even in the distant future, as a human,
it would already have to have been a human to possess that potentiality.
In the second situation, if it were possible
for something to have the "potential for being a human," it would cease to exist
as soon as the potential is actualized. (The something would have been replaced
by a human being.)
But nothing in the natural world has the
capability of becoming something of another kind, that is, having a different
nature. Its only capability, in the realm of being, is to continue being what
it already is. The biologist notes that there is no transition from one species
to another. Even Darwin's observed changes were always from one variety to
another, within the species. (When he spoke in "Origin of Species," despite
its title, he was speaking of the origin of varieties within the species.)
A special problem enters into this second
situation, wherein something of one specific identity (nature) is said to become
something which has a different nature. Examined carefully, it can be seen that
there are no examples of such a transition ever having taken place in our
natural world. We must be careful not to assume that we have an example of a
transition from the potential to the actual, by saying that "the first
something" had a potential for becoming "the other something" (that the
potential is in one subject and its actualization is in another.)
If it were said that sodium has the capability
of becoming table salt (sodium chloride) we would see no basis for the claim.
Left to itself, sodium never becomes table salt. It is only when sodium
interacts chemically with chlorine that table salt is produced. In the process,
both the sodium and chlorine lose their individual and specific identities in
favor of the compound.
It has been suggested that the sperm and the
ovum are "potential human beings." In the same sense as in the chemistry
example, neither becomes a human being. At conception both lose their
identities in favor of the new, single individual product, the "conceptus,"
which has a nature quite different for either of theirs.
Another problem: Those who assume that the
product resulting from the natural fusion of the sperm and the ovum is "only a
potential human being," must embrace the problem of how that potentiality is
ever to be actualized. See how
Aristotle--------
attempted to handle this problem.
It is our position that there is nothing in
the world of nature which could possess the capability of becoming a human
being. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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July 17, 2008
Reprinted from displayed responses October 21, 2002:
We've muddied the waters; we've soiled the skies.
What else to destroy before the planet dies?
We've tattered the fringes; now for the heart!
We'll kill off the people; we've made the start.
We've sold our future to sustain abortion;
Cannibalized our unborn beyond distortion.
We'll replace the blueprint with one of our own!
Then await the harvest of the seeds we have sown.
Editor's Note: It is encouraging to note that most people
who have thought about it, agree with our position, as presented in our last
week's posting: IT IS UNREASONABLE FOR PARENTS TO KILL THEIR UNBORN OFFSPRING,
SINCE ABORTION IS CONTRARY TO NATURE'S DESIGN FOR REPRODUCTION. Some persons,
however, object to our position by claiming that certain circumstances present a
reasonable choice of over-riding the nurturing inclination of nature, by
abortion. We invite the viewers to examine this objection with us:
Comment: The objection presupposes that there are "goods"
greater in value than the life of the unborn offspring. This supposition can
take two forms, by under-valuing the life of the offspring, or by over-valuing
the apparent "good." Both of these approaches are faulty, because they
attribute only a relative value to the offspring's life. The human being has an
absolute value, as indicated in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, that all
men are created equal and have an inalienable right to life.
As for under-valuing the offspring, it should not be
necessary to examine the claim of those who do not admit to the humanity of the
offspring. Frozen embryos are protected by law, not only because they represent
someone's "property," but because, when implanted, they continue to mature as do
all other human beings and, so, should not have their humanity questioned. How
much, more so, should embryos brought about by normal conception be recognized
as human beings.
As for over-valuing the "goods" that are offered as
justification for abortion, it should be noted that those "goods" usually
"benefit" one, or both, of the parents, at the cost of the unborn offspring's
life. In no instance can such "benefits" be equated with the right to life
which is inherent in the human offspring. Even the mother's right to life does
not exceed that of her offspring's. If anyone is confused on this point, I
would suggest an examination of the phrase: "except to save the life of the
mother." This exception is found in the laws of the individual states of the
U.S. which were in force prior to 1973.
It should be observed carefully that this exception does not
say that the offspring may be killed in order to save the mother's life. No
innocent human being may be killed, even to save many lives. The exception
covers difficult situations in which saving the mother's life will be the
occasion of her offspring's death, as when a ruptured Fallopian tube containing
an ectopic pregnancy must be removed from her body. There is no direct attack
on the innocent life, even though the death can be foreseen. The surgical
procedure is initiated as the only means of saving her life. At the moment of
initiation, her offspring's life had not been in the process of being lost. The
mother needed immediate help; her offspring did not. SEE the ethical principle
"double-effect."
With these added elements of discussion in place, I invite
students to continue thinking about legalized abortion as an example of a civil
law in opposition to Ethics, which is sometimes called the science of reasonable
behavior." I ask the students to keep in mind that this discussion is not
merely academic; it pertains to the way things are. It is my feeling that the
young people of the world deserve something better than the injustice and
falsehood found at work in the society which they are about to inherit. I also
feel that there will be no major ethical improvement in their generation, unless
they, the students, are willing to bring it about. Fortunately there is a trend
in that direction and, in that, there is hope. E.R.
reply@unbornperson.org
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July 8, 2008
Reprinted from displayed responses October 25,
2001:
Question: Considering the entire person, what
do you feel is the relationship between the body and the soul, and the soul and
the spirit? How does this relate to us and to the unborn?
Reply: The human being is an individual
having a material body vitalized by a non-material principle of life called
his/her soul. He/she is a person, an individual having a rational nature. You
may refer to Section 2
for a detailed explanation of this definition.
As to your question concerning the
relationship between soul and spirit, I have usually found that these terms
refer to the same reality, and are used interchangeably. In a few instances I
have seen "spirit" identified with "human nature." Also, "spirit" (from the
Latin word for "breath") is sometimes identified with "life." As you ponder
these usages you will see that they are inter-related, emphasizing different
aspects of the same reality, the human person. While engaging in that thought
process, you will help yourself by remembering that the terms "spiritual" and
non-material are synonymous.
These concepts refer to us and to the unborn
in exactly the same way. The unborn are human beings; we are human beings. The
unborn are persons, just as we are. They are our brothers and sisters. E.R.
reply@unbornperson.org
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June 24, 2008
Reprinted from displayed responses July 8, 2001:
Question: In your posting of June 29th, you suggested that
our present culture is not very well tuned to the promptings of our human
nature. I'm wondering whether that might be due to the artificialities which
have replaced much of our original human nature?
Reply: Many thanks for your perceptive question! I would
help me if you had included some examples of the artificial modification of our
humanity. If I were to guess at what you have in mind, I might generalize one
area of mischief: the confusion of good and evil. Legalized abortion would
provide us with an example.
My Reply to which you refer is linked to a small verse called
"The Now Generation." I was suggesting that our full human nature might not
be at work in us because we are not giving it an opportunity to function
totally. Because of our preoccupation with our five external senses, whose
objects rivet us to their material presence, we limit our time-awareness to the
present moment. There is insufficient awareness of the past and, as a result,
no practical awareness of the future. To whatever extent this appraisal is
correct, we neglect the inner-senses of memory and imagination and, more
seriously, the process of thought.
For this discussion, permit me to add a corresponding
problem, with respect to the use of free-will and the consequent reality of
responsibility. I would suggest here the questions: Are we always free to "do
our own thing?" and are we not our "brother's keeper?"
Your question prompts an additional consideration, one which
goes beyond human speculation. It is a faith-based insight to explain the
lessened beneficial influence of our human nature. For those who believe that
the first humans were gifted at creation with a level of life above their human
nature, but subsequently forfeited that gift, a reasonable explanation can be
offered: Without the help of the supernatural, our nature, however perfect in
itself, is not sufficient to accomplish our original destiny of always being at
our best, within ourselves and in our relationships with others. E.R.
reply@unbornperson.org
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June 13, 2008
Reprinted from displayed responses November 28, 2005
Question: In the case of Roe v. Wade, do you think that the
courts were constrained to make significant public policy or not? Were the
courts constrained doctrinally, institutionally, or culturally?
Reply: It is my opinion that the "Roe" court aimed at
establishing a change in public policy, in response to what they perceived to be
a change in the nation's culture.
In reading what follows, you should keep in mind that the
Supreme Court prides itself on being the living Constitution, not merely a
Constitution frozen in time.
"We, the people," during the past century had given
protection to the unborn by having criminalized abortion. Now, "We, the
people," in the eyes of the Court, were clamoring to remove that protection.
The Court, seeing the Constitution as the will of the people, seems to have
disregarded the original Constitution, in favor of the articulated will of the
current generation. In their haste to up-date the Constitution, the Court
failed to see that the clamor arose, not from the majority of the people, but
from a mere handful of opportunistic revolutionaries.
In the years immediately prior to Roe v. Wade, we had become
a permissive society. "Do your own thing!" had been the rebellious norm of
individual behavior, progressing into institutional behavior and, possibly,
influencing the behavior of the Court.
I cite here, from among many, peculiarities of the Court, a
few examples: In ample time before the 1973 decision was handed down by the
Court, the plaintiff, Jane Roe was no longer seeking an abortion. She had
carried her child to term and entrusted her to others, by adoption. Under
normal circumstances, the Court would have terminated the case, as moot, since
there was no longer a cause for complaint. But the "Roe" court did not desist
in pursuing their action. Did the Court have a mission to fulfill? They
continued the case, it would seem, to favor all women in the country who might,
forever, be seeking abortions. They accomplished this by prohibiting the states
from interfering with the mother's choice to abort her baby.
Equally revealing is the Court's disregard of a fundamental
principle of ethics: After admitting their ignorance about the beginning of a
human being's life, they proceeded to sanction the killing of what they knew
could be human beings. They covered this breach of ethics by speaking of
"potential human beings," an expression which has no correspondence to anything
in the real world of nature.
By an inexcusable error in reasoning, the "marital privacy"
of a previous case, called "Griswold," was illogically tailored by the Court
into a "right to privacy." It is this fabrication in "Roe" which protects the
maternal parent's choice of killing her unborn baby. The two cases have nothing
substantial in common. Nor is there any Constitutional basis for the newly
contrived "right to privacy." The Court themselves admit that. The closest
they could approach the Constitution to locate such a "right" was in the
"fringes of the shadows" of that otherwise revered document.
And something must be said about the Court's total disregard
of the paternal parent's right to fulfill his natural obligation to defend his
baby's life, in the face of the mother's "right" to dispose of their baby. Does
this not indicate the single-mindedness of the Court? The unborn "potential
human," as they termed the baby, and the father were given no serious
consideration by the Court.
Did the Court's preoccupation with the mother leave women,
and the rest of the nation, better off because of Roe v. Wade? Has it improved
our culture? Does it even reflect our culture? I suggest giving the full
membership of "We, the people" an opportunity to answer those and similar
questions, without interference from the Court.
You may read
Roe v. Wade, verbatim, here. If you wish to consider our commentary, read
Section 9, from our text material. E.R
Top
____________________
June 6, 2008
Reprinted from displayed responses March 28, 2007:
Editorial Note: This posting may be added to the
preceeding postings,
about the common good and about common decency, with reference to legalized
abortion.
To legalize abortion is to strike a fatal blow at the
common good. That is because the common good encompasses every member of the
human race, whereas abortion excludes those waiting to be born. Agencies that
are, supposedly, custodians of the common good, who promote, or even tolerate,
abortion are doubly guilty of destroying the common bond of decency that relates
the members of human society.
Among such agencies, at the international level, are the
United Nations and the European Union, who pressure member, and perspective
member, nations to “update reproductive rights” by legalizing abortion. At a
more local level, individual nations that legalize abortion, such as Portugal,
which succumbed as recently as last month, and Mexico, now toying with the means
of their own extinction, are destroyers of the common good. In the United
States, the fatal blow was dealt by “judicial fiat,” in 1973, by its Supreme
Court.
There is a faulty understanding that is breaking down
the common good, the assumption that the common good is attained by seeking the
“good of the many,” rather than the good of all. In the case of legalized
abortion, the good of “already-born women” is made to outweigh the good of human
females who are waiting to be born.
What is involved here is the failure to see that every
individual human being is valued at the same level of goodness as every other
human being. In this very real sense, even a multitude of human beings’ good
does not outweigh the goodness of any one of them. This reality is celebrated
in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, where it is proclaimed: “All men are
created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,
among which are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”
The good of the human individual is non-negotiable, not
only for “others,” but also for the individual possessor of that good. The
prohibition against suicide is an example. This goodness, sometimes called
human dignity, is the basis of human rights, such as the right to life.
Legalized abortion is an infringement of the right to life and, therefore an
attack upon the common good.
In this simplified form of the argument, the viewer
might feel that too much of “the real stuff” is being left out of the
statement. Don’t pregnant women also have rights? What about rape and incest?
Or, a deformed child, in the womb! Practical solutions can be worked out to
handle these problems, but never at the cost of forfeiting an innocent human
being’s life for the sake of another.
The destruction and restoration of social order can
occur gradually and by way of reaction, as expressed in “the swing of the
pendulum.” Degradation of social order can be promoted also by forces that are
outside of the normal, human propensity for change. Often the pursuit of ones
own advantage must be paid for by another’s disadvantage, sometimes by the
negation of the other’s non-negotiable good. Such practices,
in the course of time,
might become legalized, and the culture changed, away from the common good.
Legalizing definitions of marriage and family that are contradictory to the
time-honored, natural concepts of these institutions, could serve as an example.
At this point of this discussion, one might ask whether
the common good is ever under direct attack, as when someone denies any
obligation to respect the common good. Since the common good is an essential
characteristic of our human nature, that denial is also a denial of nature.
Without nature, there would be no guidance, and no standard of evaluation, for
the behavior of individuals or of their social groupings.
Indirect attacks against the common good are in ample evidence, as in the case
of unreasonably legalized protection for the dissemination of pornography.
Legalized abortion, with its focus on the woman, disregarding the rights of the
child and of the child’s father and the rights of human society, is the prime
example. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
Top
____________________
May 23, 2008
Reprinted from displayed responses December 6,
2000:
Question: How do you respond to someone who
says there are no absolutes, especially in the moral realm? The presumption is
that everything is relative. This is a philosophical question, not a medical
question. Can you demonstrate that moral absolutes exist?
Reply: We appreciate your question and its
significance in a society confused and short-changed by the assumption that
there are no absolutes. If someone proclaims that there are no absolutes, he or
she proclaims a contradiction, because the proclamation is itself an absolute.
It says, without equivocation or exception, that there are no absolutes. What
could be more absolute than that!
It is strange that the proclaimer would insist
on putting gasoline into the gas-tank of his automobile, whereas water might be
what others would prefer. Would it be idle conversation to ask what the engine
requires, according to the design of its builder?
G. K. Chesterton, in his thoughtful book,
Orthodoxy, speaks to an art student who had assumed that the drawing of a
giraffe with a short neck would constitute a denial of the absolute. Chesterton
replied, simply: "If, in your bold creative way, you hold yourself free to draw
a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw
a giraffe. The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into a world
of limits. You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the
laws of their own nature. You may, if you like, free a tiger from his bars; but
do not free him from his stripes. Do not free a camel of the burden of his
hump; you may free him from being a camel." (Chap. 3 - The Suicide of Thought)
The denial of moral absolutes is equally
ridiculous. If "right" and "wrong" are to have any meaning, they would have to
mean two different things. They could not be used interchangeably. Each, then,
must be something unique, something "in itself" and "of itself," in other words,
something absolute.
The correct application of the concepts,
"right" and "wrong," to human behavior is the subject matter of Ethics. Ethics
is the product of intellectual intuition and human reasoning, both of which must
be assumed to be reliable sources of truth. To possess truth, said simply, is
to know things as they are. So, those who deny absolutes also deny truth or, at
least, the ability to possess it.
If I may suggest something for your further
thinking, you might ask yourself why do some persons discard the absolutes.
They seem to be content with saying that the circumstances surrounding the human
act are what totally determine its morality, the proponents of "Situation
Ethics, for example. They are partly right in their in their assumption, since
circumstances must be weighed during process of making moral judgments. However
circumstances can never make "right" something which is intrinsically (by its
very nature) "wrong." It is here that the absolute must be reckoned with.
What if someone were to say that telling a
lie, under some urgent circumstances, is not "wrong?" You might ask that person
whether telling a lie is ever "wrong" and, if so, why. Eventually it will be
seen that a lie is driven by the intention of one person to deceive another,
which by its nature is contrary to justice and, therefore, "wrong." A lie
deprives another person of what is due to him, an honest statement. Without the
expectation of honesty in one another, a society could not function, and would
soon collapse. The legal "taking an oath" (calling on God to witness to the
truth of a statement) is a solemn "back-up" to implement the necessity of honest
communication. So important is the need for truth, the lie-detector, despite
its debatable reliability, is sometimes thought necessary for the maintenance of
justice.
Pertinent to this web site, abortion is never
"right" under any circumstances, because it is a deliberate, direct attack
against the life of an innocent human person, which is always "wrong" by its
very nature. Circumstances often influence one's judgment, by way of one's
emotions, but morality does not rest on circumstances alone. If you note
carefully you will observe that the double-effect principle, which is applied
only under specified circumstances, does not, itself, resort to circumstances
for its ethical justification. E.R.
reply@unbornperson.org
Top
____________________
May 7, 2008
Editor's Note: Again, is the European Union "playing fair?"
Following are two articles from recent press releases:
New Paper Warns Against European Union “Moral
Regulation” of Abortion
by Samantha Singson of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute
New York, NY -- In a recently released research paper on the European Union (EU)
social agenda, scholar Maciej Golubiewski argues that the EU has overstepped
its mandate by pursing a regime of “moral regulation” by funding controversial
social policy initiatives on the family and the beginning and end-of-life
issues. The European Institutions are doing this despite the frequent
objections of individual EU member states. In “Europe’s Social Agenda: Why is
the European Union Regulating Morality?,” Golubiewski uses the term “moral
regulation” to encompass all EU social and human rights policies and
initiatives that intrude or potentially intrude on democratic national
jurisdiction over moral matters. The paper catalogues controversial programs
and policies that are sponsored by the EU such as: competitions and publicity
campaigns aimed at ... bureaucratic promotion of reproductive rights
encompassing abortion, criticism of pro-life views, anti-religious educational
programs aimed at youth, and funding of NGOs that explicitly advocate the
legalization of abortion. The author concludes that “Only timely and effective
action by national capitals to assert their rights can protect and preserve
national traditions of marriage, family, and human life – arguably the most
important issues of our time.” Golubiewski is a Polish national working on a
doctorate in international relations at Johns Hopkins University and serves as
C-FAM's analyst of European affairs.
|
The Council of Europe Presses Member States
to Lift All Restrictions on Abortion
by Carlos Beltramo
|
A
resolution approved by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe is demanding that its 47 member states "legalize
abortion if they have not done so." Although legally non-binding,
the resolution not only effectively endorses the "right" to kill
the unborn, it puts pressure on nations to lift any and all
restrictions on abortion throughout the whole continent.
The
resolution, named "Access to Safe and Legal Abortion in Europe,"
was approved by a vote of 102-69, with 69 abstentions. (See
http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/Votes/DBVotesResults_EN.asp?VoteID=793&DocRef=11537&SessionID=317).
The full text of the resolution is available at the official
website of the Council of Europe. (See
http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta08/ERES1607.htm
)
The first section of the resolution states: "The Parliamentary
Assembly reaffirms that abortion can in no circumstances be
regarded as a family planning method." (Resolution, n. 1). While
this statement sounds pro-life, in fact it has the opposite
intent. What the Council of Europe is actually demanding is that
the countries in which abortion is permitted, but carefully
restricted, make the procedure readily available to all women who
ask for it. Abortion on demand, in other words.
Although the Parliamentary Assembly's decision is non-binding on
member states, it puts pressure on the Council of Europe to make
abortion an unconditional "right." Even without a formal and
binding decision from the Council of Europe, the resolution has a
certain moral force, and can be used to intimidate countries such
as Poland into establishing a "right to abortion."
Gisela Wurm, an Austrian Socialist parliamentarian, was the chief
promoter of the resolution. She was at pains to explain that the
resolution is intended to ensure that "society can protect women
who don't want to continue with their pregnancies." She made no
mention of particular countries. In fact, however, the resolution
is clearly targeted at three countries which forbid all abortions:
Ireland, Poland, and Malta.
Much of the resolution simply details the current European status
quo. It reads: "In most of the Council of Europe member states the
law permits abortion in order to save the woman's life for a
number of reasons including to preserve physical and mental
health, rape and incest, fetal impairment, economic and social
reasons and in some countries on request.". The only three
European countries that do not conform to this standard are, once
again, Ireland, Poland, and Malta.
The seventh paragraph of the resolution--although it doesn't name
names--is clearly directed at these holdouts. It states, "The
Assembly invites the member states of the Council of Europe to ...
decriminalize abortion within reasonable gestational limits, if
they have not already done so." |
|
|
|
Abortion in Ireland has been illegal since the founding of the
Republic. The operant law, the "Offences Against the Person
Act," was inherited from the United Kingdom. Under this Act,
procuring or performing an abortion is an "unlawful" act, with
both the person performing the abortion and the pregnant woman
subject to imprisonment. While Great Britain later changed its
laws to allow abortion up to 20 weeks gestation, Ireland moved
in the opposite direction. The 1983 abortion referendum added
even stronger anti-abortion language to the Irish
Constitution. A 1992 decision by the Supreme Court of Ireland
weakened the Offences Against the Person Act by ruling that an
abortion could be lawfully performed if the continuation of
the pregnancy would cause substantial risk to the woman's
life. This decision aside, Ireland today has one of the most
restrictive abortion laws in Europe.
The legal situation in Malta is even more straightforward, and
thus poses even more of an irritant to the pro-abortion lobby.
The Criminal Code of Malta simply prohibits abortion under all
circumstances. Moreover, when Malta joined the Council of
Europe, it insisted on the following condition: It would not
change its laws concerning human life. |
|
|
|
|
The resolution passed by the
Parliamentary Assembly essentially targets three pro-life
nations: Ireland, Malta, and Poland. |
|
|
| |
|
Abortion resolution or no, Malta is not about to back down. In the
words of Maltese lawmaker Leo Brincat: "It is impossible to
legalize abortion" in Malta. Even the country's socialists oppose
the practice.
In
Poland, abortion is illegal except for certain narrow exceptions.
Moreover, it is as a practical matter, almost impossible to
obtain. The Population Policy Data Bank of the U.N. Population
Division notes that "the pregnant [Polish] woman would be required
to undergo counseling, give written consent to the operation, and
wait three days after the counseling until the abortion took
place. . . At the same time, growing numbers of physicians and
hospitals refused to perform abortions, as they were allowed to do
under a conscience clause contained in the law. In some cities,
there were no public institutions willing to perform abortions,
leaving private clinics with much higher fees as the only resort
for women seeking abortions. Some estimates were that almost half
of all public hospitals in Poland had adopted this approach to the
issue."
The resolution itself recounts in detail the various roadblocks
that the country of Pope John Paul II has placed in the way of
abortion: "The Assembly also notes that, in member states where
abortion is permitted for a number of reasons, conditions are not
always such as to guarantee women effective access to this right:
the lack of local health care facilities, the lack of doctors
willing to carry out abortions, the repeated medical consultations
required, the time allowed for changing one's mind and the waiting
time for the abortion all have the potential to make access to
safe, affordable, acceptable and appropriate abortion services
more difficult, or even impossible in practice."
Pope John Paul II would be proud of his nation, as well as of the
other two. They constitute three small holdouts of Christian
decency against a continent that has accepted the barbarism of
abortion.
The Council of Europe is not happy with this deviation from the
prevailing cultural line. It is attempting to use its diplomatic
clout to bludgeon these three countries into line. Let us hope
that it does not succeed. |
Carlos
Beltramo is a PRI correspondent, European Union.
|
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|
Top
____________________
April 25, 2008
Editor's Note: We appreciate this viewer's wider
ethical evaluation of the problem of permitting international organizations to
dictate their agenda upon member nations which, in their own right, are
sovereign nations.
Comment: Good. I'm glad you're presenting one
of the most interesting paradoxes of the so-called liberal mindset. Almost
nothing is more apparent to those who are familiar with a liberal mind than
their tyrannical character.
The reason for this is simple: they're not liberals
at all. A liberal is someone who believes that free choice operating in a
rational context is the best mode of self-control for economic systems (18th
c. Free enterprise), religion (Protestantism), and politics.
But the modern 'liberal' has no use for any of the above. Indeed, the above
might be a fairly good characterization of a conservative. The reason for all
this confusion is that the original use of the term 'liberal' had a definite
meaning. The modern Liberal is simply someone who is opposed to its
correlative, the conservative.
So, now a liberal is merely some form of a socialist, since socialism is the
post-liberal(in the original sense) system of thought. And socialists
are as doctrinaire as they come.
The old story that the nuns told us comes in pat here. They used to say that
whenever someone points an accusing finger at someone else, there are three
fingers pointing back at them.
Now the liberals I used to know would say that the anti-abortion laws were an
imposition on people, as if any command or allowance, whether law and/or right
or not, doesn't have some value at its foundation. Actually, a negative law
deposes a disvalue. The affirmative commands impose a value.
Take, for example, abortion. When legalized and made into a right, instead of
being called the legalization of murder, it is paraded as a progressive
addition to the already-existing list of human rights, and the previous laws
against it are characterized as barbaric, repressive, which merely imposed
outdated values, etc, etc. The reason they can play the 'freedom card' is due
to their having substituted a right for a negative law forbidding an evil. But
this 'right' gives the woman an opportunity to become a tyrannical murder,
acting on her own behalf with no regard for the other person. Every negative
law forbids some evil. But because a law is a command and more clearly imposes
a value or renounces a disvalue, it is easy for the anti-lifers to act as
though they are not imposing any value, when as a matter of fact, the erection
of a right which actually promotes murder doesn't impose a value, It promotes
a disvalue, and teaches people that human life is less important than mere
preference. To make a grave evil, which formerly was identified and forbidden,
into the subject of a 'right' is a catastrophic legal and political error, is
the wronging of righteousness, a destruction of that part of law which does
not command good to be done, but an evil to be avoided.
To put the matter in terms of an example, by what stretch of the
imagination would a alcoholic patient be liberated who was told not to get
drunk by his doctor, but who fired that doctor for one who told him he had a
perfect right to get drunk ? The first doctor has forbidden getting drunk for
moral and health reasons. The second is teaching the doctrine that choice,
based on pleasure, is more important than health or morality.
As everyone knows who has dealt with a drunk, a drunk is enslaved to their
passion. You don't liberate them by encouraging them to do evil.
And this, or something like it, is what the pro-murderers have done when they
made abortion a 'right'. They first substituted an allowance to do a serious
evil for a negative command to avoid a that serious evil. What it really
means is: The formerly 'serious' evil is not seriously evil.
I wonder if we 'put the shoe on the other foot' and removed the impositional
law forbidding rape, and substituted for that repressive command a 'liberated'
right for men or women to rape anyone they wanted if they so pleased; but, if
they didn't want to, they didn't have to. The only thing worse would be to
require rape.
So also with abortion. It would be worse to require abortions, but it is a
step backwards, not a step forward to remove safeguards against serious evils.
And that is what they have done in the name of choice, liberation, progress,
and , of course, rationality.
We have a law on the books stating that robbing a bank is forbidden. If
we use the same logic as was used in the case of abortion, we should allow
people to have the right to rob banks, if they so choose. But if they didn't
want to, well, that's ok, too.
But if its evil to throw away laws forbidding evil and substituting
encouragements to do those evils, then its evil for international agencies to
require nations to permit and encourage evils as a condition for economic
membership.
Please. Remember that the modern nation which began encouraging abortions was
the Soviet Union in the 1920's. What is one of Russia's greatest problems now?
Population decline.
Why were/are so many Arab foreigners allowed in Western Europe – in Germany
and France ? Because they don't have enough laborers from their own country.
Abortion, in the long run, is economically disastrous. So, why make it a
condition for economic membership?
If they are that stupid, then my own primitive suggestion is this:
Those nations that are not embracing and will not embrace the madness of
murdering their young - why don't you form your own economic union, since you
have a future and the others do not? Your populations will be growing. So will
your economies. Why hitch your star to these other nations whose murderous
policies are the death bell for those nations' futures? Their populations will
continue to decline. They will have to continue to encourage foreign invasion
with its predictable conflicts, and if the foreigners are fruitful and are
finally enfranchised, those nations will have to look forward to the day
when they are no longer in control of their own countries. Furthermore, if
they are so short-sighted in these present circumstances, they will in the
future want you to partake of all the costs and difficulties and
pseudo-solutions that result from their former imprudence that they have
forced upon you. You'll have the same problems they do. They'll want you to
follow them again, like lemmings, in the future when they come up with
equally absurd solutions. Please don't require me to enumerate them. I will
just say that like Macbeth, they will be chasing tomorrow after tomorrow's
petty solutions as their candle dwindles. What advantage is there to that?
Top
____________________
April 15, 2008
Editor's Note: We present this article to inform our viewers of what
appears to be an unwarranted infringement by one Nation on the sovereignty of
another.
http://www.lifesitenews.com:80/ldn/2008/apr/08040907.html
Government of
Finland Pressures Nicaragua to Legalize Abortion
By Matthew Cullinan
Hoffman
MANAGUA, April 9, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com)
- The Finnish government, following the practice of its Scandinavian
neighbors, is pressuring Nicaragua to legalize abortion during a visit that
will determine if Finland will continue its $16 million annual aid package to
the country.
During his recent visit to
Nicaragua to "evaluate" the state of the country, the Finnish minister of
Exterior Cooperation and Trade, Paavo Väyrynen, made his desire clear:
legalize abortion.
"We are aware of the
legislation that you have in Nicaragua to restrict abortion," he told the
Managuan daily El Nuevo Diario on April 2. "When your Minister of Exterior
Relations visited us, we talked to him about the laws that are typical of all
countries regarding therapeutic abortion, and how they are a basic human right
of the woman, and important for the health of pregnant women and children."
"We think that the
legislation in Nicaragua is very strict, and affects the human rights of the
woman and the quality of life of children, and for that reason we think that
we have a justification for discussing this topic with the government of
Nicaragua," he added.
Väyrynen did not address
the issue of the health of children who die as a result of the abortion
procedure, nor did he cite any international treaty establishing abortion as a
"right".
Väyrynen made it clear
that he was not at all sure if the aid package would continue. "It's a
controversial topic. It's positive for donating countries to hold a discussion
with respect to it, to influence basic progress, but on the other side, there
are some negative aspects that we need to discuss. And we are now deciding the
levels of direct support in the budget for each country. The future is
something that we are going to discuss. I still don't know if we will
continue."
Finland's thinly veiled
threat against Nicaragua follows on the heels of a recent decision by Sweden
to cut off aid to the country, which followed months of tension over
Nicaragua's decision to apply criminal penalties to all abortions in 2006
(except for medical procedures to save a woman's life), a measure that was
overwhelmingly ratified in Nicaragua's new penal code in 2007. Although
Sweden did not cite Nicaragua's abortion law in its decision, it was widely
seen as a punishment for violating the pro-abortion standards of the European
country.
Representatives from
Scandinavia and other European countries have also expressed concern to
Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, who has consistently defended the law (see
LifeSiteNews coverage at
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jan/08010804.html).
Nicaragua's "Women's
Network Against Violence" (RMCV), a pro-abortion feminist group, applauded
Väyrynen's statements. "We feel that his declarations are a window of
opportunity so that we can again put the topic on the national agenda," said
Ruth Marina Matamoros, a Network spokesman, in a separate interview with El
Nuevo Diario. She added that the statement was an "open call" by
"international jurisdictions" to legalize abortion in the country.
Related LifeSiteNews.com
Coverage:
Excerpts from "Democracy
is Realized in a Parliamentary System": Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jan/08012401.html
Nicaraguan President
Denounces International Media for Campaign Against Country's Anti-Abortion
Laws
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jan/08010804.html
Sweden Cuts Aid to
Countries that Oppose its Pro-Abortion Stance
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/aug/07083106.html
EU Threatens to Withdraw
Aid to Nicaragua if Pro-Life Law Remains
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/feb/07020902.html
Top
____________________
April 2, 2008
Editor's Note: We have recently spoken of what we see
as an infringement of the sovereignty of nations by the United Nations and the
European Union. We see this in their demand that member nations legalize
abortion. We presume permission to present this article indicating that
demand, and the protest of Malta against that attempted, unjust
imposition.
The following article is from
maltaStar.com
Decriminalization of
abortion: "Council of Europe imposing values" - Pro-life activist
Tuesday
25 March 2008
|
Paul Vincenti, Gift of Life Malta
coordinator and pro-life activist, harshly criticised the Council of
Europe after its call for the decriminalization of abortion.
Vincenti told maltastar.com in an interview on Tuesday
that he believes that the CoE’s (Council of Europe’s) agenda “is not to
seek the truth here, but just to impose their values upon others. This
is most alarming.”
The pro-life
activist criticised the Council of Europe because it sought the opinion
of pro-abortion groups without inviting pro-life organisations to
contribute to the Council’s deliberation.
Mr Vincenti once again stresses the Gift
of Life’s stand to amend the Constitution of Malta because the “vast
majority at 93% of Maltese, is absolutely against abortion and believe
that the unborn child should have the clear right to life.”
When
challenged with the CoE argument that legal abortions would reduce the
chance of illegal and unsanitary abortions, Mr Vincenti said that as far
as is known, there have never been any recorded instances of illegal
back street abortions taking place in Malta.
He
argues that those Maltese who opt for an abortion go to Sicily or the UK
and have an abortion in private clinics there, “and not in someone’s
dirty garage as the pro-abortion side would try to have the uninformed
believe to solicit fear and support for abortion.”
Anja Schulze
bounces questions and ideas with Paul Vincenti about the recent
developments in the Council of Europe:
AS:
What is the Gift of Life's opinion about the Council of Europe's to
decriminalise abortion?
PV:
The Council of Europe is the guardian of human rights. Human life begins
at conception and it is simply incomprehensible how the CoE can call for
the legal destruction of human life in its most exposed and defenceless
stage of development. If the CoE were so interested in abortion, why did
they only take testimonies from pro-abortion groups? They did not invite
the pro-life organizations to give their expert advice. Why is this?
Clearly, their agenda is not to seek the truth here, but just to impose
their values upon others. This is most alarming.
AS:
Why do you want to fix the law which makes abortion illegal in the
constitution? Will you be sustaining your stance even under the new
legislature?
PV:
We do not want to touch the law as it stands. We want to amend the
Constitution of Malta. The unborn child does not have the clear right to
life in Malta, even if the vast majority at 93% of Maltese, is
absolutely against abortion and feel that the unborn child should have
the clear right to life. We have already made contact with the key
people to start a parliamentary debate on the matter. We will keep on
working at this as the people want this.
AS:
The Constitution of Malta guarantees the "freedom of choice" for
everybody. But women do not have the right to decide for themselves for
an abortion. Isn't it a contradiction? How do you justify this fact?
PV:
I am not aware of any part in the Constitution which allows for free
choice for murder, rape or theft. These are all free choices people may
make also. Some things however are clearly wrong and that includes all
the above and abortion to the Maltese. Laws are there to protect human
life, which starts at conception. To elevate the ideal of choice to a
state above that or moral rights and wrong and sensible reason is a very
dangerous slippery slope to travel on. Yet some are prepared to walk it
all the same.
AS:
The report from the "Community on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men"
that a ban doesn't cause fewer abortions and mainly leads to clandestine
abortions which are more dangerous for women. Do you (GoL) still believe
in a ban on abortion when mothers-to-be are taking such high risks to
find a way out their situation, because of the law?
PV:
Being pro-life means being in favour of the protection of all human life
from the beginning to a natural end. Whether abortions are more common,
legal or illegal does not make abortion any less fatal for the child
that dies within his mother’s womb and any less traumatic for the mother
either.
Abortion hurts the mother. Times are changing now with more and more
women mustering the courage to come forward in ever increasing numbers,
laden with harrowing stories of life long silent suffering following an
abortion. This is now a psychologically accepted syndrome called Post
Abortion Syndrom (PAS). Women have thoughts of suicide, some act on
this; many fall into deep depression, become addicted to alcohol and
drugs. They have flashbacks and cannot get over their grief.
Many
support groups of pro-life volunteers, now even in Malta are reaching
out to these victims of a male dominated society which tells women,
abortion is good for them and will make them equal to men. There is
nothing more anti-female than abortion and we must defend women from
this male dominated business. The pro-aborts have turned pregnancy into
a disease and abortion is the cure. They have robbed us of the wonder of
pregnancy and the unique wonder and beauty of motherhood. They have
indoctrinated people with the lie that for a women to be equal to men,
they have to shed their motherhood, the very thing that makes them so
much more special then us men.
As
far as is known, there have never been any recorded instances of illegal
back street abortions taking place in Malta. Those Maltese who opt for
an abortion go to Sicily or the UK and have an abortion that is
generally carried out by doctors in their private clinics and not in
someone’s dirty garage as the pro-abortion side would try to have the
uninformed believe to solicit fear and support for abortion.
Abortion whether
legal or not, carries the same risks to the mother and these real risks
are always conveniently ignored by the pro-abortion industry.
AS:
Point 5 in the CoE report states: "In no case should abortion be
promoted as a method of family planning. But in circumstances where
abortion is not against the law, such abortion should be safe and
accessible." When the pregnancy results from a rape, women should be
given the choice of having an abortion."
Why should a mother who gets pregnant out of rape carry the burden of
such a pregnancy?
PV:
What always amazes us is how the pro-abortion movement is so ready to
admit that abortion is a necessary wrong. They will still however excuse
it and refer to it as some kind of unavoidable evil.
Abortion is medically never safe. Abortion always carries a risk for the
mother because it is simply not natural. It is not natural to force open
a woman’s cervix before the time, it is not natural to insert all manner
of surgical instruments into her womb, it is simply not natural to cut
away a human life from her womb. To give people the false impression
that abortion is in any way safe is nothing less than absolute
dishonesty. There have been numerous recorded instances of women who
have died, been rushed into emergency treatment rooms with profuse
bleeding and countless others who have become sterile because of legal,
so called safe abortions.
Dr
David C Reardon, who wrote about the only known study on abortion and
rape victims available “Victims and Victors”, testified that the vast
majority of women who had an abortion following rape, said that the
experience of having an abortion after the rape was far worse than the
actual rape itself which they tended to get over much sooner. Rape is a
powerful word that evokes high emotions. The use of a pretence such as
abortion in cases of rape is an unfair tactic that seeks to enrol a
level of deep sympathy for abortion in restricted cases and to also
attempt to get those who are in favour of life to seem heartless in the
face of such a terrible ordeal. It is true that rape is a horrendous
crime against women, but if abortion makes post- rape victims even
worse, then we should all be helping that person keep her child and
avoid an even greater trauma.
It
is the women themselves who are telling us that abortion is not a
solution in cases of rape and incest so why are the pro-abortion groups,
including the CoE systematically ignoring these documented facts? This
is a very important question that must be answered.
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March 17, 2008
Abortion (1973
- )
A red, red
rosebud was unfolding
Within its
bassinet of green,
In wonder,
there I stood beholding,
As though the
hand of God were seen.
The sunlight
sparkled on its beauty,
Through a drop
of dew upon its side,
But now it is
the sadness of my duty
To tell you how
the rosebud died.
A little boy
came swinging,
With hockey
stick in air,
And sent the
rosebud flinging
Broken
treasures everywhere!
The poor
rosebud was a living flower,
About to share
its blessings here,
Transplanted
fresh from Heaven’s bower,
With shiny
dewdrop! Perhaps a tear?
This sad, sad
story is not saying
That all
abortions show no care,
But I tell it
as my way of praying
To save God’s
creatures, anywhere.
__________
Abortion’s
Destination
We’ve muddied
the waters; we’ve soiled the skies.
What else to
destroy before the planet dies?
We’ve tattered
the fringes; now for the heart;
We’ll kill off
the people; we’ve made the start.
We’ve sold our
one future to sustain abortion;
We’ve
cannibalized our unborn beyond distortion.
We’ll replace
the blueprint with one of our own!
Then await the
harvest of the seeds we have sown.
__________
Abortion
The cruelest
part is not the pain.
Or that the
blood is shed,
But that the
measure of ones gain
Is that a man
is dead
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February 27, 2008
Editor’s Note: In the hectic, world-wide push to
legalize the abortion of unwanted, unborn babies, the morality of abortion has
been given no place in the evaluation of this senseless “Crusade.” Women now
have “rights” to destroy their young. Their male partners have no rights to
defend their offspring. That part of the abortionists’ conquest seems to be an
accomplished fact.
But there are consequences flowing from “choice.” Among
these, I would place national shame. Yes, shame, even if not a factor in our
present culture, shame will become an embarrassment for the centuries to come….
that is, if the society will not already have collapsed, because shame is the
guardian of both personal and social integrity.
The “hubris” of a people, turning lethal weapons against
defenseless members of their own constituency, will go down in history as the
vilest betrayal of human decency!
But, “everyone is doing it.” No, there is still a bit
of decency left in our society. Valiant countries, such as Nicaragua, Jamaica,
Ireland, Poland, Malta, Uruguay, Mexico (nation) and Brazil, are a few examples
of defiance against the pressures being placed on them by organizations such as
UN and EU, who demand legalized abortion in exchange for economic advantages.
The writer of this Editorial is not unaware of suffering
throughout the world, physical and emotional, individual and communal, curable
and incurable. But this writer can see no circumstances that warrant the
deliberate killing of unborn babies as a valid remedy for any of those
problems. Our society is “off the track” in supposing that legalized abortion
is a cure for anything. It only adds to the problems that it has already
imposed upon our human society.
The basic, human, right to life is being disregarded and
denied by the advocates of legalized abortion. And it is here that recovery to
social sanity and justice must begin. Every baby, even those waiting to be
born, from the time of his or her conception, has the right to continue living
the life given by the Creator in conjunction with the baby’s parents. Remember
that the co-relative of rights is obligation. Let us encourage one another to
fulfill our obligation to defend our brothers and sister waiting to be born. Do
not permit your nation to be consumed by the “social engineers,” who would
desecrate your birthright by depriving others of your human family the
birthright that is theirs! E.R.
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February 13, 2008
Editor’s Note: We reprint this previous posting to
reinforce our contention that much of the present conflict about legalizing
abortion is being forced upon smaller nations by international
organizations, such as the U.N., E.U. and the World Bank. We still ask why
there is no protection against their incursions into smaller, though sovereign
nations.
Response (August 23rd): The road we are headed down, at the very
least, is the well-beaten path that has characteristically destroyed republics
in the past: liberty gradually turning into license. The ridiculous idea that
by instituting changes into a common law legal system, operating by precedent,
which allow and encourage larger, more powerful, more experienced humans to
destroy smaller, weaker, and less experienced humans is a tyranny in the case
of the individual. Wide scale use of such a ‘right’ (I can’t think of a clearer
case of a ‘wrong’) can only encourage tyranny on a wider scale. Such changes
are not ‘enlightened and progressive refreshments and renewals of the
traditional American love of freedom’. They are cancerous implants in the body
politic which encourage lust, murder, and greed.
Reply:
Your observation expresses our concern about self-established, international
organizations that would dictate their social agenda to the world. Under the
enticement of economic aid, these organizations, such as the United Nations and
the European Union, demand that prospective member nations “modernize” their
laws pertinent to “reproductive rights, ” to include legalized abortion. The
enticement, of course, is subtly hidden under the claim that great numbers of
women are dying from the consequences of illegal abortion.
Even
assuming the claim to be correct, we question whether abortion is the proper
solution to this problem. Would it not be better for the underprivileged
country to save their man power and build up an economic sufficiency? The
international organization could provide a “jump-start” to that economy, such as
offering the poorer nation maternal health care and by discouraging abortion.
Educational and nutritional assistance should be added to build the small nation
into an economic partnership with the rest of the world. Then, the
international organization will be able to reap its profit, the well being of
our human society.
The
international organization cannot vote, directly, in any national election, but
it can, and does, prejudice the process, from within the country, by a
well-planned strategy of economic persuasion. Pressures on Third World
countries, in South and Central America and in Africa, are especially evident to
a reader of current events. In the European arena, one may well question the
“surprise attack” and consequent pro-life defeat in Portugal, and the current
pressure play against Ireland, Poland and Malta.
While
writing these lines, I ponder the events of six years ago today,
September 11th, when terrorists portrayed their social agenda in
bloody violence against innocent and defenseless human beings, in the United
States of America. Without doubt, the international organizations do not intend
to become partner to such violence but, in reality, their “stealth approach” to
eliminating the offspring of human parentage, has the same end effect, the
violation of human rights and the refusal to honor the dignity of human
individuals.
We ask the
obvious question: Where is the overview of the self-appointed, international
organization? And, a more telling question: Why does the rest of the world
stand by and allow the depredation of our smaller, less affluent nations, the
destruction of their moral culture and their rightful self respect? E.R.
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January 28, 2008
Editor’s Note: Thirty-five years have passed since
the shock of Roe v. Wade paralyzed our nation. This is longer than
one-third of an average lifetime! I use the term “paralyzed” because we, of
the United States, are still “in shock” with reference to a united response to
that deeply divisive decision. Paralysis of thought and action! How,
otherwise, could we go on killing our offspring during these thirty-five
years? Unreasonable and irresponsible conduct can be explained only by a lack
of clear thinking and an unwillingness to conform to ethical standards of
behavior.
What could arouse us from our current
culture-slumber? The logical answer to this logical question is: justice and
truth. As a first application of justice, we should ask whether legalized
abortion is fair treatment toward the unborn victim, toward the society of
which he or she is a member, and toward the Creator of all living things.
Truth is the knowledge of things as they are. Truth
would affirm that the offspring of human parents is a human being. As a basic
principle of Biology, the offspring inherits his or her species-status, at the
moment of conception (fertilization.) The truth of Ethics tells us that all
human beings have a right to life. Truth, rooted in nature, would tell us
that nurture is an obligation of parenting, and that abortion is a violation
of that responsibility.
Put in these simple terms, it should be evident that
Roe v. Wade is an unjust decision, and that its message is untruthful.
Will it take us another thirty-five years to discover that! E.R.
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