Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed thee in the WOMB of thy mother, I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations. How many religious have we killed? How many more have to die?

Hi Jimmy,

Just fyi, there are two places where you typed “religious” when I think you intended to type “religion”.  Otherwise, very good piece.  You might also direct people to this website that has a great compilation of quotes from biology texts and renowned scientists that firmly establish that human life begins at conception:

http://web.archive.org/web/20110716074456/http://clinicquotes.com/site/story.php?id=28

This National Geographic video of a baby developing in the womb is also fascinating.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/national-geographic-channel/all-videos/ngc-in-the-womb-1/

Four statements seem particularly interesting, but the entire video is worth watching:

“Once within the egg wall, the sperm’s nucleus is drawn toward the egg’s. The two cells gradually and gracefully become one. This is the moment of conception – when an individual’s unique set of DNA is created – a human signature that never existed before and will never be repeated.”

“The mother provides the shelter and the basics - food, water and oxygen. But the real star of the show is the fetus herself – building, dividing, growing according to an intricate set of plans created at the moment of conception.”

“The genes she’s [the girl shown in the womb] inherited already predetermine her looks and much of her character. Whether she’s stubborn or intelligent, a thrill-seeker or good at music and even her vulnerabilities to certain diseases like cancer, schizophrenia and diabetes. The exact course of her life will depend on such things as her friends, family and environment. But at the instant of fertilization, much of her future is predetermined.”

“Where it once seemed that the mental development of a baby began at birth, now it appears that birth could be a relatively insignificant event in developmental terms. She may have to support herself after birth, but as for the process of thinking, learning and remembering, she’s already been hard at it for three months [before birth]. And her brain will continue to grow at the same rate for the next year.”

We are programmed by our bodies to reproduce by our organs and hormones. Once a baby is conceived the hormones get to work to protect the child and the mother.It is a human being created for love, it needs love and gives love. Th kill it in the womb destroys that love and leads to feelings of guilt as part of that person has been destroyed

Apart from the religious point of view our bodies are made to reproduceand hormonal responds to this. To kill off unwanted embryos can lead to permanent damage and feelings of guilt. Babies unwanted or not invoke maternal gratification and love. To concentrate only on sexual fulfilment reduces a woman to being an object of sexual gratification. The cult today emphasizes those features which appeal to this object, e.g. revealing breasts. Children are sometimes dressed in adult clothes which can lead to the abuse of children ..Babies give joy and pleasure to all who see them

    The piece ignores the fact that while the human genetic code is present, the cells in the cell mass are totipotential for roughly 14 days and this means the cell mass may produce identical tripulets, twins etc. at around the 14 day mark.  Therefore the cell mass never was an individual but yes it was a human cell mass with the potential to be maybe be three or five people.  Unforetunately in the lab, all such early cell masses can be teased by scientists into twinning which means that in all cases, a person is not present until the cells are no longer totipotential.  Any slanting of the facts in this area will tell intelligent non Catholics that we are manipulating the description of what actually happens.  This area was hotly debated by Catholic theologians in ” Theological Studies” periodical, a theology journal very known to the Vatican which last year intervened in a debate on marriage by taking the side of Germain Grisez there.  Below are links to both sides of the debate:

Mark Johnson…against delayed personhood…
http://www.ts.mu.edu/content/56/56.4/56.4.7.pdf

Thomas Shannon…for delayed personhood
http://www.ts.mu.edu/content/57/57.4/57.4.8.pdf

For well over a decade I’ve had letters to the editor published in my local paper (in a metro area of nearly a million people) claiming that abortion takes the life of a “complete, distinct, living, unconditionally viable and fully human being.”  No rebuttal contesting that fact has ever been published in response.
 
I started writing that in response to crazy assertions like the unborn “aren’t complete” (in which case you must answer the question of where the additional material is going to come from that makes it complete), “aren’t fully human” (in which case they must be partially something else), are just a “blob of tissue,” or “aren’t alive.”  It even holds up for embryos that might yet split into multiple individuals (in which case the unsplit embryo is still distinct from all other distinguishable human beings.)

A summary of the twinning debate within Catholic theological writers is here:

http://www.ts.mu.edu/readers/content/pdf/54/54.1/54.1.6.pdf

The case of the chimeric person is a similar problem.  Two fraternal twin fertilized ova lay too close to each other after fertilization.  They touch and fuse into one cell mass which eventually becomes one person.  How did two persons become one person if the original fertilized ova were two persons at day one?  This syndrome was only discovered in the 20th century when in Britain, a woman proved to have two sets of dna identities.

I really don’t see how the chimera, twinning and similar problems hurt the pro-life case.  I guess we could say, then, that very early abortions are taking the life of AT LEAST one person.  That makes it even worse.

Regarding twinning, the justification for abortion is that the unborn are somehow less than full persons.  It would be silly to suggest that while we can’t take the life of a single person we can take the life of a group of people just because we don’t know how many there are.  No, the justification must be that we can take the life of an embryo because it’s not going to be a complete human being in itself.  But accepting that we can’t know what we can’t know, is there any point in time at which we know that an embryo will become only part of a person, when we could destroy that embryo without affecting a whole person?  While I’m not versed enough in biology to answer this question definitively, my gut feeling says no.  I haven’t had time to read your source yet, but it would be interesting if and how they address that question.

By the way, while it’s fine to debate this matter on theological terms, civil law, as I’ve asserted time and again, must always be expressed in secular terms, regardless of the source of the moral principles that underpin them.  That way we ensure that they can be understood and found reasonable by anyone, regardless of their faith or moral background (or lack thereof).

Dave,
    A person cannot divide into two or more persons at day 14…. a cell mass that is open to being either one person or more than one person can divide into multiples.
    A person has a primitive streak which only appears after the cells close off toward tototentiality….after implantation and roughly after day 14.  Twinning becomes impossible once there is a primitive streak…setting the stage for symetrical arms, legs, breasts etc.

  Simple….ask yourself why the embryo cannot divide into twins at week four.  It can’t because it’s an individual at week four…individuals cannot divide into two individuals….just like you cannot divide into two individuals.  But at day 14 a cell mass that is totipotential ( potential to all things) can divide.

I’m still not seeing where an embryo from the moment of fertilization could be considered less than a complete, distinct, living, unconditionally viable and fully human being.  If anything you’re making the argument that it could be more than that.

Kevin,
    Find me a Pope who clearly states that the early embryo is A…A… human being.  They will say that “human life” is present but they will not say that the early embryo is clearly one human being.  The Popes know that if they goof on this in clear language, the reputation of the Church will sink in intellectual scientific areas.
    The pro life movement has often gone further than the Popes will go.  Popes are more cautious because the historical reputation of the Church rests on them…not on people like those in pro life.

We constantly use the word “unborn”, and to a degree that is fine because everyone understands that this term refers to the child still in his or her mother’s womb. Being “born” simply means we are leaving our mother’s womb and begin to breathe air rather than fluid. It is the moment the world gets a clear picture that we are. But for each of us personally, it is just a passing moment. We have been living for some nine months now.
The point is that the term “unborn” may be accurate with regard to our definition of “birth”, it is a cold and unfeeling term. If we desire to change the way people think about the “unborn” then we need to refer to the “unborn” in an entirely new way and NEVER use this term again. The children in their mothers’ wombs are just that, children and they deserve every respect that every human “born” deserves. Our new term, though requiring more of a conscious effort to say, should be - THE CHILDREN IN THEIR MOTHERS’ WOMBS.
Only when we change our terminology will we see a greater awareness of the reality of the truth - not “unborn” like the living-dead or something, but “children” pro-created by the wondrous gift of God.

Bill, as I noted earlier, while I think you may have an interesting theological argument, I think it is irrelevant regarding whether and by what justification we can outlaw abortion.
 
I think you could find a Pope who would state clearly that an embryo, at any given point in time, is not less than a human being.  But even if you couldn’t I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

bill bannon ,
Is there a particular point you’re trying to make??

Jimmy,  I think the information in this video is very good, but I want to give you my frank reaction to the way it is presented.  I believe that your appearance in this video makes it less likely to be taken seriously.  Your tshirt and the beard make you look silly and a bit like that character in the Simpsons who runs a comic book store.  While your appearance should be irrelevant, the reality is that people do make judgments about the credibility of speakers from their appearance.  The fact that you are staring directly at the camera and that there is little change in your expression throughout the video makes it look more odd.  I believe that this video would be more persuasive if you simply used slides, images, and videos of other things and narrated over them rather than appearing in it yourself.  I hope this doesn’t hurt your feelings, as I mean no disrespect.  I think it is very important to get this information out to as many people as possible, and I think a change in format would facilitate that.

  Kevin,
    Pro lifers over several decades by going beyond papal language and exaggerating in this area produce abortions by no longer impressing people as truthful.  An undecided girl talks to her two friends about the pill and one friend is pro life and another is pro abortion.  The pro abortion girl says to her, ” the pill is not the same as abortion”.  The pro life girl says,
” Yes it is….it causes non implantation of a tiny person.”
      The girl gets away from both friends and goes to a library and reads embryology and the twinning and chimeric problems.  Which of the two friends looks like the fibber after she reads the embryology book?  The pro life girl went way beyond papal language.  No Pope will say with certitude what the pro life girl advised…” it causes non implantation of a tiny person”.  Popes say contraception is a mortal sin but none say with the certitude of pro lifers that failed implantation kills a tiny person.  Benedict is probably aware of the twinning problem.
      The girl avoids both friends and calls her nurse cousin and asks her opinion…”.is failed implantation the killing of a tiny person?”. The nurse answers, ” If it is then all pro life obese women better lose weight because obesity militates against endometrial receptivity according to studies coming out of the UK.”
      Now the pro life girl is looking less reliable.  If failed implantation and the pill are murder, then pro life women who stay obese are just as murderous or more as pill users.
      Kevin, stay close to papal wording and you will maintain credibility and sanity.  The Popes are being cautious because science is very appropo this subject and credibility is hard to recapture after you’ve exaggerated.  Get more
papal than the Pope, and girls out there will feel you are exaggerating….and therefore are not to be trusted in anything related to the topic.

Regarding the Embryonic Ensoulment Debate, maybe the National Catholic Register should reprint its article by Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk (August 10-16, 2003) where (among other points) Pope John Paul II is quoted as saying to the Pontifical Academy of Life (March 2002):

“The Church affirms the right to life of every innocent human being at every moment of his existence.  The distinction sometimes implied in international documents between ‘human being’ and ‘human person,’ so as to limit the right to life and to physical integrity to persons already born, is an artificial distinction, without any scientific or philosophical foundation: Every human being, from the moment of conception until the moment of his natural death, possesses an inviolable right to life and deserves all the respect owed to the human person.” 

Pacholczyk stresses that “what the Holy Father does not do here is to make a pronouncement that human beings and human persons are always absolutely coterminous”, but that (now quoting the Holy Father)every human being “deserves all the respect owed to the human person.”  (Whenever in doubt, don’t shoot.)

Peter,
    i think the priest is overstating the Pope’s circumspection in the address.  I think in an address a Pope can be more careless than he is in an encyclical…that is why addresses do not have the authority level of an encyclical. 
Here is the same Pope using more circumspection in Evangelium Viate:

    ” Furthermore, what is at stake is so important that, from the standpoint of moral obligation, the mere probability that a human person is involved would suffice to justify an absolutely clear prohibition of any intervention aimed at killing a human embryo. Precisely for this reason, over and above all scientific debates and those philosophical affirmations to which the Magisterium has not expressly committed itself, the Church has always taught and continues to teach that the RESULT OF HUMAN PROCREATION, from the first moment of its existence, must be guaranteed that unconditional respect which is morally due to the human being in his or her totality and unity as body and spirit: “The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to
life”.

    That capitalized phrasing is light years away from the “tiny person” appellation of some pro lifers.

Vitae not Viate

Here in section 60 of Evangelium Vitae, he gets circumspect again:

    ” This has always been clear, and ... modern genetic science offers clear confirmation. It has demonstrated that from the first instant there is established the PROGRAMME of what this living being WILL BE: a person, this individual person with his characteristic aspects already well determined.”

Norma I agree with you on Jeremiah 1:5!

The issue, imho, is sight.  Worldly versus heavenly.  If one views life with eyes from above then you see all life at EVERY stage as viable, worthy, respected and living beings of God.  On the other hand if all you see is what the world sees then you are looking not at an unborn life, but an object and whether that object can be of use, cause inconvience, or be self sustaining.

In the end it always comes down to one choice.  That of free will.  God’s will or man’s will.  The choice is free the consequences are another matter.

This issue will never be resolved until you define when a fetus becomes a human being.  Till that time, under this auspicious “science” or pseudoscience, the mere acts of primping will be considered murder.

Bill, I do not oppose abortion primarily because of what the Pope is able to say, just like practically no one supports abortion primarily because of what the Pope is unable to say.
 
Abortion, as well as pills that prevent the implantation of a fertilized embryo, takes the life of a complete, distinct, living, unconditionally viable and fully human being.  I’m happy to debate that statement, but nothing I’ve seen from science suggests I need to take it back.

Seems to me that, based on a non-scientist’s reading of scientific observations, and proceeding just from a common-sense standpoint, the instant of my conception should be BY DEFINITION the instant when I began to exist. Was that instant in the moment of fertilization? Maybe, but that moment was an evanescent moment in which, apparently without any cessation of movement, the single-celled zygote immediately proceeded to replicate into two smaller cells which in turn immediately went on to divide into four cells, and so on for several days, as a cell mass not observably other than a colony of many one-celled organisms. But by about the fourth day after fertilization, when those cells have begun multiplying not by replication, but rather in ever more intricate and orderly DIFFERENTIATION of some cells from others, in one single unified developing organism — by that time, the specifically human DNA is already guiding the development straight toward the neo-cortical brain impulses characteristic of human personhood — a personhood already evidently present, therefore, by about the fourth day after fertilization.
But what about twinning, which is sometimes not observed till a couple of weeks after fertilization? Well, although it may be not *observed* till then, the two embryos, the two organisms, were probably already *formed* before then, since small beginnings often happen before they’re observed.

Kevin,
  Then you are closed to what the embrylogy is saying.  And you have an obligation by the logic of your position to tell pro life women that must must optimize implantation which seems to be adversely affected by obesity.  If the pill user is committing literal murder than so is the heavy pro life woman.  Before starting on this fraternal correction, I would suggest a course in Aikido.  Peace.

Which part of my position do you think embryology contradicts?
 
I will be happy to warn women who become overweight specifically to avoid pregnancy that their actions are tantamount to using artificial contraceptives that can block implantation.

Kevin,
    If you don’t see it by now, your position will remain the same after another hour of interchange.  I’m going to save myself an hour of labor.  I believe well intentioned stubborness enables pro choice people to write you and many others off.  Read off net the people who have published in this area in my links….both sides.  Adios.  This has been enough combox imput.  Peace.

I don’t think I’m stubborn.  I think I’m merely defending the truth.  I believe that because while I keep going on making the same claims, those who don’t agree with me come at me from 50 different directions, a new one every few months, with many of their own positions contradicting each other.  The truth lies at the center of things, not on the fringes.  It is obvious, not obscure.

Simple….ask yourself why the embryo cannot divide into twins at week four.  It can’t because it’s an individual at week four…individuals cannot divide into two individuals….just like you cannot divide into two individuals.  But at day 14 a cell mass that is totipotential ( potential to all things) can divide.

Are you then saying cloning is scientifically impossible?  Your argument seems to say as much.  Perhaps the natural ability to “clone” - what we would call twinning, ceases at week four.  But that does not necesarily mean no human was present beforehand, just as because I can be cloned through medical intervention means I therefore do not exist beforehand.  Why does totipotentiality logically negate existence - how could I be totipotential if I don’t even exist??  All it seems to mean is that, up to 14 weeks, I, like every other human being before and after me, was totipotential.  But it was I, me, myself that was totipotential, not some other gamete pair fusion.  The multiplication (or division) of a thing does not negate the thing.  In fact, it presupposes it.

Is there something different in kind for twinned embryoes?  Take Embryo A, conceived, totipotent until day 14, an goes on to be born as Baby A.  There was never a time along the continuum from conception to birth when he was not A.  Now, take that same Embryo A, but in this universe, he twins at day 13 and we now have A1 and A2.  A1 and A2 become Baby A1 and Baby A2.  Again, looking back along the continuum, there is no time when A1 was not either A (indistinguishable from the A in the non-twinning universe) or A1 (a born human being).  Same for A2.  So, at no point were either of them “not human beings” - that is, humans who are not in existence.

The difficulty in any discussion of abortion is that there are a lot of concepts being tossed around and somewhat interchangeably, which confuses things.  There is human being (a scientific concept) and person (not a scientific concept, but rather a theological/philosophical and to complicate things more, legal one).  That being the case, science can tell us who is a human being, but not who is a person - that is beyond science’s pay grade.  The Church, wisely, regards all human beings as persons - it makes the categorical philosophical determination.

I guess where my difficulty is with Mr. Bannon is that he seems to treat the state of being totipotent as equivalent to “not human.”  But I do not see where the state of totipotentiality destroys or negates humanity.  Or even where it negates individuality, because it is an individual in the totipotent state, and then becomes two individuals afterword.  But at all times, it is either one, or two - never zero.

It is, of course, from the Hebrew Scriptures that modern-day Jews and Christians obtain their spiritual insight. In Judaism, a fetus is regarded as a pre-human. A fetus becomes fully human only after it has half-emerged from the birth canal.
Genesis 2:7 God made Adam’s body out of the dust of the earth. Later, the “man became a living soul” only after God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”

Some suggest that this passage seems to state clearly that Adam’s person hood started when he took his first breath. Following this reasoning, a newborn would become human after it starts breathing. If a fetus is only potentially human, then an abortion would not terminate the life of a human person. The most important word in the Hebrew Scriptures that was used to describe a person was “nephesh;” it appears 755 times in the Old Testament. It is translated as “living soul” in the above passage. One scholar, H.W. Wolff, 1 believes that the word’s root means “to breath.” He argues that during Old Testament times, “Living creatures are in this way exactly defined in Hebrew as creatures that breathe.”

An alternate interpretation is that Adam and Eve were unique creations. They did not start as a fetus, and were not born. They were fully formed as adults. It is not valid to compare a newborn who has not yet breathed to a fully formed adult who has not yet breathed.

I submit that no philosophic definition of “person” is necessary in order to conclude that anyone who admits, from a common-sense standpoint, that a newborn baby is a person, must also admit, based on modern scientific embryology, that the newborn has been that person since (at the latest) about the fourth day after fertilization, for the reason I gave on this thread in my earlier comment.

Argument from Size

When we step on an ant,
An ant smaller than a fetus,
We acknowledge killing an ant.
We may not fret about it,
After-all, it’s an ant!
We have the right
To kill an ant.

When a mother, a doctor,
A nurse, a bio-scientist,
Or technician trained in the art,
When a society and a nation,
Curtails the life of a fetus,
All deny killing a human person.
“It’s too small to matter.”

Do we really believe,
We are doing good?
Do we care beyond
Convenience and profit,
Are we in the right?
Do we have the right?
How big does Truth have to be?

©2012 Joann Nelander

would like to colaborate with institutions in Mexico working in favor of the human life…

NORMA, we know now what ancient Jews couldn’t have known, which is that babies in the womb do indeed breathe in the broad sense of the word, which means “to take in oxygen and give out carbon dioxide through natural processes”  ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/breathe )
 
Your position does parallel that of the SCOTUS in Roe v. Wade, however, which also appealed to ancient ignorance to generate a lack of “consensus” about settled science, which it then used as an excuse to find as it did.

I’ve said a human being is one that has the complete DNA of a unique individual human to one who was pro-abortion.  They reversed my belief and in self-contradiction said they “believed” a person was not a person until they developed beyond just being “pre-human”.  I think this fiat was a simple strategy to say “well you believe one thing and I believe another so whose to say whose right”.  Unbeleivably, he resorted to his faith in what he beleived and objected to my “faith” which he thinks was really behind my scientific argument.  Thus he errs on the side of choice, which is obviously inferior to erroring on the side of life.

I think if you aren’t sure, you should obviously err on the side of caution and not kill.  And if an embryo is not fully a person or human being, at the very least, its wrong to remove an organ which is functioning perfectly well. 

So what’s the answer Jimmy?

Bill Bannon,
Why are you trolling over here? Who cares about your lame little argument.
We get it, you’re pro-choice.  It is the soul that animates the body.  At the movement of conception when egg & sperm unite, the embryo is ANIMATED (it is growing, changing and developing). The soul is presence (because the body is animated), therefore, you can not kill the vessel(the body)of the soul.  Bill your mouth does the work for the Devil!

As I understand Bill Bannon’s posts in this thread, he is neither explicitly nor implicitly advocating a “pro-choice” position, he’s only arguing that there is no human being in the womb until about two weeks after fertilization. Although Bannon’s “about two weeks” disagrees with the “by about four days” that I have defended here, it doesn’t mean he’s “pro-choice”.

J.H.M. Ortiz,
I would agree with your assessment of Mr. Bannon if it weren’t for his admonition that I have “an obligation by the logic of your position to tell pro life women that must must optimize implantation which seems to be adversely affected by obesity.  If the pill user is committing literal murder than so is the heavy pro life woman.”
 
By conflating a deliberate act that has a specific ill intent with a condition that is usually unintentional and probably never exists for the same reasons as that act - even though it may have the same effect - he employs the same low-ball shut-down-the-discussion-any-way-possible tactic used by so many others on the pro-choice side.

from the Catechism of the Catholic Church
(http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm):

Abortion
2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.72

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.73
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.74

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.75
God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.76

2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,“77 “by the very commission of the offense,“78 and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law.79 The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:

“The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death.“80

“The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights.“81

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, “if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safe guarding or healing as an individual. . . . It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence.“82

2275 “One must hold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it, but are directed toward its healing the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival.“83

“It is immoral to produce human embryos intended for exploitation as disposable biological material.“84

“Certain attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities. Such manipulations are contrary to the personal dignity of the human being and his integrity and identity"85 which are unique and unrepeatable.

Lots of verbiage, some of it quite erudite. But hasn’t science itself shown that an embryo is a human being? Left to normal development it becomes the infant it was programmed to be by its DNA- part mom’s, part dad’s.  Abortions will continue, though, because people’s feelings aren’t trained to see it as human.
Another view of the matter is from a shepherd: “Your eyes did see my imperfect being, and in your book all shall be written: days shall be formed, and no one in them.” Ps 139:16, Douay.
That last clause is awkwardly translated; a more modern one effort is, “Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, And in your book all its parts were down in writing, As regards the days when they were formed And there was not yet one among them.” New World Translation
‘Days being formed’ can’t be correct; smacks of Calvin’s predestination. The ‘parts’ are formed, though, as the fertilized egg comes out of the blastula stage and develops the ‘not yet one’ body parts that were “in writing” in the DNA.

bill bannon,

Is there a reason for your omitting the following from your quote of EV #60? Since it appears immediately before the portion you quote, it’s hard to believe you didn’t know it was there.

Some people try to justify abortion by claiming that the result of conception, at least up to a certain number of days, cannot yet be considered a personal human life. But in fact, “from the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. This has always been clear, and ... modern genetic science offers clear confirmation.

Isn’t this just what you said you wouldn’t find a pope saying? And I can’t see any error in it. It is *a* human being ... as c matt pointed out, unless / until twinning occurs, at which point, it’s *two*.

Bill Bannon has been answered on all this previously - including the so-called “twinning problem”.  He comes off as an expert embryology, genetics and bioethics on various internet blogs and sites but he’s not.  He’s a combos warrior who has a personal axe to grind.
 

Information on the so-called “twinning problem”:

http://www.abort73.com/abortion/monozygotic_twinning_and_abortion/

See the comments here -  especially toward the end that I made to Bill this past February:

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/abortion-contraception-and-the-church-fathers

Quote to Bill Bannon:

So, in other words, we can safely conclude that you’re not an expert in embryology, genetics, bioethics or any other related field.  You’ve got a personal agenda that’s at odds with the teaching of the Catholic Church and you’re promoting that agenda to Catholics on various blogs and websites across the Internet.

Again there’s nothing in the arguments you’ve presented – even if you’re correct – that would render the killing of newly created human life morally acceptable.  It is still a distinct, human life with a set of DNA as complete as any adult’s.  It’s not a part of the mother’s body.  It’s a human life in its own right, possessing an independent life force of its own that will drive its development from the moment of conception until the moment of death.  Again, unlike you, science doesn’t seem confused at all about when human life begins:  it’s at conception: http://www.abort73.com/abortion/medical_testimony/


No one has a right to kill it.  Period.  And that’s the teaching of Christ’s Church.

Additionally, I challenge your assumption that killing the newly created human life within her will necessarily ease the pain of a woman who has been raped.  Can you provide studies that support that assumption?  The only study I’ve seen on the subject supports the notion that woman who are raped abort no more frequently than any woman who has an unplanned pregnancy:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m6875/is_4_14/ai_n25025984/

http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Mar/29/abortion-right-when-pregnancy-due-rape-or-incest/

http://www.feministsforlife.org/FFL_topics/victory/2ndrape.htm

And what do you make of women like this?

http://www.rebeccakiessling.com/index.html

Now, you complain that my obedience and deference to the teaching of Christ’s Church is making me unable to view the evidence without bias in this case.  I would disagree that I’m unable to view the evidence fairly, but I readily acknowledge my bias.  It’s true that I trust and submit to the authority of Jesus Christ as given to His Church: “He who hears you, hears me” (Luke 10:16).

Conversely, you seem blind to your own bias, even though you’ve just recently disclosed the source of it.  You stated that you “know two religious Catholic girls who were raped.”  So, you’re viewing the evidence through that lens.  Your emotional response to the idea of a woman bearing a child conceived through rape seems to be driving your examination of the evidence.  So, much like the pro-abort, you’re straining to find a justification for your goal.  And in the process, unfortunately, you’re effectively establishing yourself as an alternate magisterium of one.

That’s problematic enough when it is solely you holding to that position.  But it becomes far worse when you attempt to spread your errors to Catholics across the Internet, rather brow-beating them as though you’re an authority or expert when you’re not.

I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt at first, Bill.  But if you’re a Catholic, what you’re doing is seriously wrong and I urge you to stop.

If you want to approach this as a faithful Catholic and a serious scientist, then you should study the issue thoroughly and make your case to the National Catholic Bioethics Center - perhaps contact Fr. Tad Pacholczyk.  He’s brilliant in this area:

http://www.ncbcenter.org/

Perhaps then make your case to the Pontifical Academy for Life:

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdlife/index.htm

Vet your views faithfully and responsibly.  But I highly doubt you’re going to get the response you want.

But it’s wrong for you to try to undermine the Magisterium among Catholics in com-boxes.  Your motivation may be good - sympathy for women who have been raped.  But your methods aren’t.

“combos” should have been “combox” - spell-check here automatically changes it for some reason.

Peace be with you.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast: it is mine.
usccb.org/bible/exodus/13

Scince proves that women are human beings.  Their lives must be protected.  Women are not he chattel of the unborn,  The “pro-life” folks alsways seem to be ready to let women die, to ignore that women are human beings, that a woman’s life is a a human life.

@ Lisa Kaiser - you’re passing on pro-abort talking points that are harmful nonsense.  There is nothing pro-woman about abortion.  Abortion hurts women - both born and unborn.  It’s so sad that we’ve gotten to the point where so many women are so confused that they see killing their own unborn children as “empowerment.”  A woman’s natural and noble instinct is to protect and nurture her children. 

If a woman has had an abortion, the answer is to seek out healing and forgiveness.  God can and will forgive anything!  The answer is not to justify the bad choice and lead others to make the same mistake.

The damaging effects of abortion on women:

http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/abortion/ab0102.html

http://www.frc.org/content/how-abortion-harms-womens-health

1) More than half the babies aborted are GIRLS (please read up about sex-selection abortion);

2) Only a fraction of 1% of all abortions have anything to do with the life of the mother actually being in danger: 

http://thepaperthinhymn.com/2012/08/20/how-many-abortions-are-for-the-health-of-the-mother-0-006/ 

3) After fertilization, a new human life is created.  This is a scientific fact.  Abortion kills a human being.

“Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote). ... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual.” (Carlson, Bruce M., Patten’s Foundations of Embryology, 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p.3.)

“From the moment a baby is conceived, it bears the indelible stamp of a separate distinct personality, an individual different from all other individuals.”  Ultrasound pioneer, Sir William Liley, MD 1967

“After fertilization has taken place, a new human being has come into existence.  This is no longer a matter of taste or opinion.  Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”  Dr. Jerome Lejeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes, Paris.  Discoverer of the Down’s Syndrome chromosome

“It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”  Professor M. Matthew-Roth, Harvard University Medical School

http://www.abort73.com/abortion/medical_testimony/

http://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20110716074456/http://clinicquotes.com/site/story.php?id=28

http://www.all.org/abac/dni003.htm

http://www.naapc.org/why-life-begins-at-conception