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I'm on record already as having had to undergo a life-saving abortion because of ectopic pregnancy.

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I would say that the Psalms are far more likely to be referring to a later stage of the nine months gestation in the womb. Those poetic phrases conjure up for me the description of Mary meeting Elizabeth when she was carrying John - and felt John leap for joy, which certainly suggests after the 19 weeks when quickening is usually felt. The Psalms don't say that a zygote or foetus is known from conception, and what they are expressing that you were known before you were born. That doesn't go against anything I've said about personhood varying as gestation continues.

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Originally posted by brightmorningstar:
the scriptures don’t mention zygote or foetus because it’s a human invention probably for deception purposes.

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the child under 5 doesnt have cognitive thought

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Do you not know what cognitive means, or haven't you met any 4 year olds?

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Ooo, I had no cognitive thought before age 10, and a colleague of mine only managed hers at age 20. Thank goodness we're still here, eh? I don't see how cognitive thought can be a measure of the value of life, personally-speaking. Nor how one would measure it.

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Originally posted by brightmorningstar:
Well there is your problem, the scriptures don’t mention zygote or foetus because it’s a human invention probably for deception purposes. If the scripture says God knows us in the womb then its in the womb, zygote and foetus are in the womb.

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So let us just be clear what we're saying here.

A frog produces millions of sperm, of which tens of thousands become zygotes, but a small proportion become viable tadpoles (most get eaten or die or whatever).

Assuming this is 'natural', presumably this is the Way God Intended - ie the vast destruction of frog zygotes.

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However, mankind is something entirely unique in that God Intends every viable zygote to become a human.

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Originally posted by brightmorningstar:
The issue is that no same sex couple can produce any zygotes.

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Originally posted by brightmorningstar:
The issue is that no same sex couple can produce any zygotes.

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Originally posted by brightmorningstar:
To aggg,

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So let us just be clear what we're saying here.

A frog produces millions of sperm, of which tens of thousands become zygotes, but a small proportion become viable tadpoles (most get eaten or die or whatever).

Assuming this is 'natural', presumably this is the Way God Intended - ie the vast destruction of frog zygotes.

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The frog doesn’t produce any zygotes. A zygote is the cell resulting from the union of gamates. A frog needs another frog of the opposite sex to produce a zygote.

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However, mankind is something entirely unique in that God Intends every viable zygote to become a human.

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The issue is that no same sex couple can produce any zygotes.

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Originally posted by brightmorningstar:
The issue is that no same sex couple can produce any zygotes.

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Originally posted by brightmorningstar:
To amber,

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I'm on record already as having had to undergo a life-saving abortion because of ectopic pregnancy.

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So that’s not choice and not what I ma addressing; why have you addressed that to me?

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Originally posted by leo:

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Originally posted by brightmorningstar:
To amber,

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I'm on record already as having had to undergo a life-saving abortion because of ectopic pregnancy.

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So that’s not choice and not what I ma addressing; why have you addressed that to me?

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How very insensitive, even by BMS's own standards.

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Kind of you to say so, Leo

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Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
I'm glad you had the option to have the operation, Amber. Because there are those (though admitedly, a small minority) who think that not even the potential death of the mother is a legitimate reason to have an abortion.

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A policy that criminalizes all abortions has a flip side. It appears to mandate that the full force of the medical team must tend toward saving the fetus under any circumstances. This notion can lead to some dangerous practices. Consider an ectopic pregnancy, a condition that occurs when a microscopic fertilized egg moves down the fallopian tube — which is no bigger around than a pencil — and gets stuck there (or sometimes in the abdomen). Unattended, the stuck fetus grows until the organ containing it ruptures. A simple operation can remove the fetus before the organ bursts. After a rupture, though, the situation can turn into a medical emergency.

According to Sara Valdés, the director of the Hospital de Maternidad, women coming to her hospital with ectopic pregnancies cannot be operated on until fetal death or a rupture of the fallopian tube. "That is our policy," Valdés told me. She was plainly in torment about the subject. "That is the law," she said. "The D.A.'s office told us that this was the law." Valdés estimated that her hospital treated more than a hundred ectopic pregnancies each year. She described the hospital's practice. "Once we determine that they have an ectopic pregnancy, we make sure they stay in the hospital," she said. The women are sent to the dispensary, where they receive a daily ultrasound to check the fetus. "If it's dead, we can operate," she said. "Before that, we can't." If there is a persistent fetal heartbeat, then they have to wait for the fallopian tube to rupture. If they are able to persuade the patient to stay, though, doctors can operate the minute any signs of early rupturing are detected. Even a few drops of blood seeping from a fallopian tube will "irritate the abdominal wall and cause pain," Valdés explained. By operating at the earliest signs of a potential rupture, she said, her doctors are able to minimize the risk to the woman.

One doctor, who asked to remain anonymous because of the risk of prosecution, explained that there are creative solutions to the problem of ectopic pregnancies: "Sometimes when an ectopic pregnancy comes in, the attendant will say, 'Send this patient to the best ultrasound doctor.' And I'll say, 'No, send her to the least-experienced ultrasound doctor.' He'll say, 'I can't find a heartbeat here.' Then we can operate."

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Originally posted by mousethief:
When I lived in Chicago with my first wife, the man who ran our apartment building on behalf of its owner was a member of a very conservative Evangelical church. He and his wife had had an acephalic (is that the right term? no brain at all?) child, which was discovered in utero. They decided to have an abortion. They were devastated by this, deeply mourning the loss of their child, but there was nobody they could tell because if they had mentioned it at church they would have been drummed out. (They had seen others drummed out for similar reasons.)

They could have carried the child to term, with relatively little risk to the mother's life (unless the child "died" and turned septic), only to watch it die within seconds of being delivered. But they didn't think they could endure that additional heartbreak. (And myself since having had two children who died within seconds of being delivered, I now know how horribly painful that can be.)

They were seriously hurting, as was evidenced by even mentioning this to mere tenants in a building they supered. We had them over for dinner and they poured out their hearts to us. And we at the time were evangelicals ourselves.

I've heard it said that Christianity is the only religion which kills its own wounded. These people needed comfort and peace, and (with good reason) could only expect enmity and rejection.

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'King Hell!

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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Because (a) I think that that is a more accurate description of the pro-life position (at least for me) and (b) I consider abortion to be the deliberate ending of a human life, which I believe most of those in the pro-choice position do not.

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Because (a) I think that that is a more accurate description of the pro-life position (at least for me) and (b) I consider abortion to be the deliberate ending of a human life, which I believe most of those in the pro-choice position do not.

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
1. I have no problem with abortion here as non-viable at term

2. No problem here either - non-viable again plus of course mother's life in danger

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Let me pose you a question by way of reply: do we apply the same penalties to a mother who kills her three-month-old baby whilst suffering from post-natal depression as we do to a gunman who kills many children at a school in Connecticut? If not, why not? Your answer will give you a clue as to how I might answer your question.

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1. Multiple counts of a crime usually carry multiple sentences.
2. In the former case the woman can argue diminished capacity.

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Are you suggesting, therefore, that a woman, say, who has been raped who kills the resulting child (let's say post-birth to avoid confusion with the whole 'is the foetus a person' debate) carries the same moral culpability as, say, a random stranger who kills a child (again, let's keep child in the singular to avoid confusion)?

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Are you suggesting, therefore, that a woman, say, who has been raped who kills the resulting child (let's say post-birth to avoid confusion with the whole 'is the foetus a person' debate) carries the same moral culpability as, say, a random stranger who kills a child (again, let's keep child in the singular to avoid confusion)?

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Originally posted by Invictus_88:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Are you suggesting, therefore, that a woman, say, who has been raped who kills the resulting child (let's say post-birth to avoid confusion with the whole 'is the foetus a person' debate) carries the same moral culpability as, say, a random stranger who kills a child (again, let's keep child in the singular to avoid confusion)?

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Children of rapists still deserve to not be killed by their mothers, pre or post birth.

I think all this hair-splitting over relative culpabilities and relative degrees of wrong distracts somewhat from the main point; ending the life of your unborn child because of the wrongdoing of its father is not a just act. Some may find it understandable, but it is not just.

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Originally posted by art dunce:

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Originally posted by Invictus_88:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Are you suggesting, therefore, that a woman, say, who has been raped who kills the resulting child (let's say post-birth to avoid confusion with the whole 'is the foetus a person' debate) carries the same moral culpability as, say, a random stranger who kills a child (again, let's keep child in the singular to avoid confusion)?

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Children of rapists still deserve to not be killed by their mothers, pre or post birth.

I think all this hair-splitting over relative culpabilities and relative degrees of wrong distracts somewhat from the main point; ending the life of your unborn child because of the wrongdoing of its father is not a just act. Some may find it understandable, but it is not just.

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It's not about punishing the wrongdoing of the father but protecting the innocent girl or woman from involuntary servitude. Slavery is unjust and immoral.

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Slavery is unjust and immoral, but motherhood is not slavery.

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Originally posted by Jane R:

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Slavery is unjust and immoral, but motherhood is not slavery.

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You are obviously not a mother.

Now, if you will excuse me, my offspring requires the presence of her personal slave to read her a bedtime story.

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Originally posted by Invictus_88:
Slavery is unjust and immoral, but motherhood is not slavery.

And if the mother hates the idea so much, and still feels the same way once the child has been born, then that child could be put up for adoption.

Rather than dismembered in the womb and thrown away.

(...just sayin'.)

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1. being forced to carry an unwanted foetus through pregnancy is a form of slavery - the mother is being forced into work that she does not want to do and has her body and life taken over by that foetus for at least a year, even if the baby is given up at birth;
2. a vanishingly small number of abortions require the dismemberment of a foetus in utero. The vast majority - over 90% in the UK - are carried out in the first semester when the aborted foetal sac is smaller than an inch across and does not require dismemberment. That particular bit of propaganda is just that - propaganda.

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Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

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Originally posted by Invictus_88:
Slavery is unjust and immoral, but motherhood is not slavery.

And if the mother hates the idea so much, and still feels the same way once the child has been born, then that child could be put up for adoption.

Rather than dismembered in the womb and thrown away.

(...just sayin'.)

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1. being forced to carry an unwanted foetus through pregnancy is a form of slavery - the mother is being forced into work that she does not want to do and has her body and life taken over by that foetus for at least a year, even if the baby is given up at birth;
2. a vanishingly small number of abortions require the dismemberment of a foetus in utero. The vast majority - over 90% in the UK - are carried out in the first semester when the aborted foetal sac is smaller than an inch across and does not require dismemberment. That particular bit of propaganda is just that - propaganda.

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