You then rail against the government who has the power to force a woman to carry out a pregnancy against her will. It still comes down to the question, what is the unborn? If the unborn is simply a mass of tissue, then just like any surgery that removes damaged tissue from the body, we don’t need justification for that procedure. However, if the unborn is human, no justification for abortion is warranted (outside of life for life situations). If the mother is having her baby killed the government should step in. You also try to make the baby some sort of enemy of the woman; as if the innocent baby is forcing herself on the mother. The womb is the natural environment for babies and that little child is not like an unwanted invader. She has done nothing wrong to the mother.

You then wrote abortion should be:
- Legal: Since I have provided the only evidence in this discussion showing how science says the unborn is fully human (see part 7 of Defending the Life of the Unborn), then you think government should support the murder of a precious unborn human baby.
- Widely available: To allow for the rampant killing of unborn humans.
- Restricted: Here you pick an arbitrary number of weeks, 24 when a baby shouldn’t be killed. My daughter-in-law just had a 4D sonogram of her baby at 19 weeks. He/she looks fully formed resting peacefully in her womb. And you are okay with ripping this cute little unborn baby from the peaceful natural environment and killing him/her. Since I have provided the only scientific evidence that the unborn is fully human at conception, then the killing of the unborn at all stages is murder. Please read parts 9 and 10 of my series “Defending the Life of the Unborn” (see site map). I provide a powerful argument against your setting of an arbitrary 24 week cutoff line for either life or death. It is called the SLED test and it exposes your discrimination arguments against the unborn. It calls into question your point of viability.
- Strongly discouraged: Here we have some points of agreement. First asking abortion clinics to provide accurate information about the mother’s baby is a positive step. I am against abortion clinics but if they are to exist they need to do this. Planned Parenthood if famous for hiding information from pregnant women. They have been caught and documented on the instances they have hidden accurate information from mothers. There are many pro-life clinics that provide all the information you have mentioned. Planned Parenthood has tried to sue many of these clinics out of business, because accurate information discourages abortion which takes away money from the abortion providers.
- Sex education: Schools have not done a good job here. It all comes down to the philosophy of the school district as to what gets taught and what gets encouraged. It is the job of the parent to educate their children. If sex outside of marriage disappeared, we would not be having this discussion. However, that seems to be impossible to ever achieve. I agree with you, I think we need to help parents to educate their kids.

Some of your closing points I agree with. You seem to have a conservation opinion, while still maintaining a woman’s right to an abortion. That’s where we part company. I have provided in my 3 replies to your 3 letters:
1) Scientific evidence for the unborn being fully human (part 7 and my first comment reply to you).
2) The SLED test (parts 9 & 10 of Defending the Life of the Unborn: use site map) to dismantle your arbitrary 24 weeks viability line between life or death.

You on the other hand have no scientific evidence to support your view and your 24 week cutoff line discriminates against precious unborn human babies without proper justification (SLED test).

Cynthia thanks for writing. If you haven’t already, please read my entire series Defending the Life of the Unborn. I think I have provided the arguments and rationale to help you make a reasoned decision in favor the life of the unborn.

Your example of the morning after pill again does nothing to answer the question, what is it? I agree the more a baby develops, the more attachment the mother feels. That is normal. However, you still haven’t answered the question, what is it?

Finally, you discounted the experiences of women testimonies because they might be biased. Everyone who writes comes from a certain perspective. Does that mean a holocaust victim cannot write the truth when recalling his experiences? Does that mean these women cannot be telling the truth because they might be pro-life? Don’t you think many women struggle after aborting their child?

Why isn’t using an abortion for a solution for being raped two tragedies? The rape is a brutal offense against the woman and killing the baby is also terrible solution. You still haven’t given any evidence for the unborn not being human. I have a Christian pastor friend, who is an ex student of mine, and who was the baby of a rape. Maybe you’d like to get his view…oh but he might be biased because he survived death in the womb and he is pro-life.

Do you see the problem? The baby in the womb is innocent and shouldn’t be sacrificed. How is killing the baby going to make things right?

You begin by disqualifying the unborn as human by an illustration and then you simply assert the unborn is not a human person. Your illustration at best shows we are inconsistent is valuing human life. The illustration is not an argument against whether or not the unborn is human. Following the illustration you simply asserted your view of the unborn and provided no evidence for why the unborn is not human.

In part 7 of my series “Defending the Life of the Unborn” I provided evidence the unborn at all stages of development is human. One way I did this by quoting science textbooks. I will reproduce the information from that post:

I begin with citing leading embryology books that confirm this. For example, Keith L. Moore & T.V.N. Persaud write, “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being. Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm … unites with a female gamete or oocyte … to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” [Keith L. Moore and T.V.N. Persaud, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998) p.2.] Here the text clearly states that upon conception the unborn is a unique human being.

Moving to the textbook Human Embryology and Teratology we read: “Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed….The embryo now exists as a genetic unity.” Again additional evidence the unborn is a distinct, living, whole human being.

Prior to his abortion advocacy, former Planned Parenthood President Dr. Alan Guttmacher was perplexed that anyone, much less a medical doctor, would question the humanity of the unborn. “This all seems so simple and evident that it is difficult to picture a time when it wasn’t part of the common knowledge,” he wrote in his book Life in the Making.

Many more embryonic books could be cited as evidence. I found a web site that quotes and displays many books that serve as medical testimony for identifying the unborn is fully human. The site is called ABORT73 and the key page can be found at Medical Testimony.

[Steve] Your comparison of human skin cells is a confusion of parts and wholes. The skins cells are comprised of unique DNA but are only a part of the human organism. However, the Zygote is a whole human organism. The Zygote is a 100% human being as the medical textbooks verify.

The fact is the zygote is a developing human, similar to a newborn who is growing and developing. You assert this diminishes the role of the mother. Why would you think that? Isn’t the mother even more important at this point since the little baby is physically connected to her in a way that is incredibly special? Why would this diminish the role of the mother? It looks to me like it increases her role.

You finish by saying, “…my position is ‘Pro-choice Until Viability,’ ‘Pro-Life after Viability.’ What do you mean by viability? Who gives you the power to come up with an arbitrary line between life and death? What is your justification for taking the life of a precious unborn human person?

Abortion should be:
~Legal
~Widely available
~Restricted. Woman should be able to have abortions until the fetus is viable (24 weeks), and then abortion should be limited to those instances when the fetus is severely malformed or genetically diseased; or, when a woman’s life is in danger. These exceptions should be determined by an authorized medical panel.
~Strongly discouraged. Abortion clinics should be required and funded to offer (not force upon!) women information about the developmental stages of the zygote, embryo, and fetus, and how that relates to her pregnancy; homes for pregnant women and girls with nowhere to go should be funded and widely promoted; and adoption (especially adoption of unwanted children) should be rewarded by steep tax cuts.
~Sex education should be encouraged. Parents should be encouraged to tell their children about the dangers of irresponsible sex (pregnancy, sexual diseases, emotional trauma, the risk of lifelong poverty for single moms and their children). There should be free online training that parents can use, training that permits religiously conservative parents to focus on abstinence before marriage, and the rhythm method as the only reasonable means of birth control; and permits less conservative parents to condemn irresponsible sex (NO sex during teenage years, NO casual or hook-up sex, only sex between emotionally committed partners, and information highlighting the pros and cons of various types of birth control).

Again, abortion should be legal, widely available, as early in pregnancy as possible, severely restricted after fetus viability, and strongly discouraged socially through information and counseling offered voluntarily to pregnant women at abortion clinics; group homes and cheap medical care for pregnant women and girls with few resources or nowhere to go; adoption (and especially adoption of unwanted children) should be rewarded through serious tax breaks; and free online tools for parents to teach their children about sex, and encourage abstinence before marriage, or responsible sex (NO sex during teenage years, NO casual sex, ONLY sex within emotionally-committed relationships, and information about various birth control methods).

Well, when you attempt to frame the conversation as “abortion is killing babies,” then you’re severely messing with a woman’s head. Abortion kills or makes possible the death of human zygotes, embryos, and fetuses. It does not kill “babies,” which are tiny human beings unattached to and able to survive outside of another human being’s womb.

A woman who has just been raped and who has taken the Morning After Pill to avoid pregnancy is going to feel far differently than a raped woman wanting an abortion whose pregnancy has progressed beyond 24 weeks. In the latter case, for 24 weeks her life’s blood, the oxygen in her lungs, her very essence has gone into creating that human being. For many women, I would imagine that there’s a world of difference between those two situations.

To put it simply, abortion is not the same experience for all women. One key factor is how far along in the pregnancy does abortion occur. Another is a woman’s relgious beliefs: does she believe that personhood starts at conception, or that a divinely-inspired soul enters the zygote at conception? If so, abortion may be far more traumatic for her, even if it does occur very early in pregnancy.

“I am going to post this week two articles on studies demonstrating the negative psychological effects of abortion on women.”

If those studies were not performed by reputable, disinterested organizations, they mean nothing. For one thing, too many organizations, whether they be “pro-Life” or “pro-choice,” have too much “skin in the game” to produce honest results. For another, the majority of women who’ve had abortions will continue to remain quiet about their experience. Most likely, only those women who’ve had abortions and are passionately pro-life or who are passionately pro-choice will be willing to speak out. And what they say may be highly influenced by their stance on abortion.

Why? Because a human zygote is not a human being, it is not a person. It carries unique human DNA, true, but so do human skin cells. Human DNA does not equal a human being: we know this. Intuitively, we understand that something “more” is required to turn a zygote into a human person. And that “more” is the contribution of an actual human being, a woman: the blood pumping from her heart, the oxygen pumping from her lungs, her very life’s essence enriching the environment in which the zygote develops and then turns into embryo and then finally into fetus, a human being with the inalienable right to exist.

To say that a zygote is a human person, worthy of the same rights as a newborn infant, is to say that a woman’s contribution to the process of creating a human being is not important, it’s negligible. The equation, human zygote equals human being, profoundly diminishes women.

Zygotes become human beings within the womb. It’s a process. Many die along the way: at least 50% never even reach the uterus. Those that survive and implant themselves in a woman’s womb slowly, but surely take on more and more of the characteristics that make us uniquely human beings.

We need an abortion policy that reflects this reality. People will argue at what point the zygote turns into a human being with the inalienable right to exist: some will say at conception (a position that is deeply insulting to women); others will say at the time that a beating heart is manifested; others will say at the time when higher brain functions appear; and, yet others will say when the fetus is viable, when it is able to live outside the womb independently of its mother (around 24 weeks).

I’m of the latter opinion, and my position is “Pro-choice Until Viability,” “Pro-Life after Viability.”

According to my own definition of Christianity (belief that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior; A personal relationship with Jesus as God’s only begotten son is required for salvation in Heaven; Rejection of him results in an eternity in Hell), Mormons aren’t Christians. Their cosmology is far too kind for that. In Mormonism, nobody good or kind winds up in a lake of fire…forever. Anne Frank and Ghandi are not perpetually tortured in Hell while God (presumably) looks on impassively. I, who has never murdered, raped, or tortured anyone, and, who rarely lies, don’t end up sharing a cell in Hell with Hitler or Stalin or Ghenghis Khan. True, only sealed Mormons make it to the top “Celestial” heaven, but others, including this agnostic, get to spend eternity in the Telestial Sphere, kind of like a downscale Holiday Inn version of Heaven. Theologically, Mormonism is far kinder to non-believers than evangelical Christianity (although the relatives of Jews who’ve died and then been baptized into the Mormon faith may differ on that point).

But, the point in living in these United States is that individual religious groups don’t get to hold a monopoly on their faith’s name (unless they’ve they’ve taken the time to trademark it???). That’s why evangelical Christians have been able to start messianic “Jewish” congregations who worship Jesus (and, boy, oh boy, are traditional Jews upset with evangelicals’ use of the term “Judiasm”); and congregations in which women lead prayer sessions from the Koran in mosques in Brooklyn can call themselves “Muslim.”

Mormons are free to call themselves Christians: they just have a different definition of what Christianity is. They’re able to do that because, by law, we Americans have no religious authority in this country with the legal authority to force them to do otherwise.

Ironically, Mormons have the same problem with polygymous fundamentalist groups calling themselves “Mormon.” “They’re not Mormons!” they say.

Personally, I think that if Mormons stopped calling themselves “Christians,” they would experience far less aminosity from evangelicals, who seem to be the most jealous of that term. Perhaps if Mormons used the expression “Followers of Jesus,” they would be deemed far more acceptable.

My own opinion is that Mormonism is the fourth major Abrahamic religion: Judiasm, Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism. Others may, of course, disagree.

Science tells us at conception the fetus is 100% human. Here you are excluding the baby just because he or she is the size of a dot at the end of a sentence. Size is simply your arbitrary standard to eliminate a baby. Do you think the larger you are the more rights you should have? Should Shaquille O’Neil have more rights than you? If your answer is no, then size should not be factor for determining the life or death of a baby.

I taught my daughter the value of all human life. Based on her upbringing and knowledge of the truth, she would not have wanted to kill her innocent baby. You say, “what about the poor unwanted baby?” So your solution for a possible unwanted baby is to kill him or her. And you say I have an “extreme position.” You are favor of killing the baby and I am for saving the life of an innocent unborn human. Who has the extreme position?

The reason you position is not easy is because you support the killing of an innocent human baby. This is an extreme position. There are easy answers; you are not willing to consider them. The easy answer is to not kill a precious unborn baby because he may remind the mother of a terrible tragedy.

Steve

First problem is Tom Head, the author of the article, simply says it is okay to kill the unborn because the baby is not a person. What human is not a person? 100% of all humans are persons; unless you are defined by Tom Head as a non-person. Who gives him that power? Do you? Second, he then comes up with his own arbitrary definition of a person as 22-24 weeks old, where the baby could survive outside the womb. Here he comes up with his own standard. Where in science did that come from? Where does science define persons? Again who gave him the power over life and death? He is disqualifying a human because he or she cannot survive outside the womb; the unborn needs the mother’s help. A toddler cannot survive without a mothers help; should we kill toddlers? As I wrote in my series, people disqualify the unborn for indefensible reasons. These arbitrary reasons are dismantled by the acrostic SLED (Defending unborn #10), which is a defense against killing a human baby because of Size, Level of development, Environment, and Degree of dependency. Tom Head says the baby at a certain point is not a person so we can kill him or her. Don’t you see how ridiculous this position is? Dr. Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton, sets his arbitrary standard for killing a baby at 30 days after birth. Quoting Scott Klusendorf in the Christian Research Institute: “In 1993, ethicist Peter Singer shocked many Americans by suggesting that no newborn should be considered a person until 30 days after birth and that the attending physician should kill some disabled babies on the spot. Five years later, his appointment as Decamp Professor of Bio-Ethics at Princeton University ignited a firestorm of controversy, though his ideas about abortion and infanticide were hardly new. In 1979 he wrote, ‘Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons’; therefore, ‘the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee.’” Singer says pro-abortion advocates have to be willing to kill toddlers to be consistent. Are you okay with Singer’s definition of person? Why or why not? How do you judge who is right?

Third, during the time of the civil war, whites in the south declared blacks to be non-persons and thus could be slaves. Are you comfortable with that standard? Fourth, Hitler declared Jews to be non-persons and thus they could be killed. Should groups that commit genocide get to declare who is a person or not? Why? You better watch out…some group is going to call rugby players non-persons and decide to kill you. Lastly Tom Head calling the fetus a non-person is a new strategy. The reason the pro-abortion came up with this defense is because science has shown the unborn is fully human and pro-abortion advocates needed a new way to eliminate the fetus. Do you see how bad this position is? Are you willing to admit killing the unborn because someone defines them expendable is bad thinking and dangerous? Where do you stop?

Are you serious in comparing prohibition and abortion? One is a law against drinking alcohol and the other allows for the killing of a precious unborn human baby. Do you really think killing and drinking are equal? A much better comparison is corporate theft and prohibition. Lots of people steal from the employers. According to your logic let’s just get rid of theft laws because they do not stop people from stealing from their companies. Do you really believe we are better off without laws? Why do keep advocating no laws? Are you in favor of anarchy? There is no comparison between killing a baby and drinking alcohol.

Steve