Abortion and the splitting of identical twins?

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Catherine_W

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My fiancé and I are learning the Creighton method of NFP and are planning on using this when we get married. Because of this we have told our families and friends a little about NFP and how contraception is wrong. We pointed out how the birth control pill can even result in abortions… but we were met with an argument that the pill doesn’t cause abortions because embryos are not people until after the age that the identical twins would have split.

So how do you address someone who thinks this way? I believe a person is a person from the moment they are conceived… but how do you refute people who are confused about the time before identical twins split/divide??
 
Catherine_W said:
My fiancé and I are learning the Creighton method of NFP and are planning on using this when we get married. Because of this we have told our families and friends a little about NFP and how contraception is wrong. We pointed out how the birth control pill can even result in abortions… but we were met with an argument that the pill doesn’t cause abortions because embryos are not people until after the age that the identical twins would have split.

So how do you address someone who thinks this way? I believe a person is a person from the moment they are conceived… but how do you refute people who are confused about the time before identical twins split/divide??
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There is still no “scientific” explanation as to why a fertilized egg divides to become twins or triplets (and more). Could it be that God chooses and gives 2 souls to the fertilized egg?
 
Forgive the questions, but they are important to the answer I believe. Congratulations by the way.

Where did they get this idea?

Are they Catholic?
 
I don’t know where he got this idea… ?? 🤷

And no, he is not Catholic, he is Anglican but he mostly follows his own personal beliefs, I think he is a bit confused about some issues.
 
Well the founding fathers of our country had a different opinion. Alan Keys pointed out to me what the declaration of independence said…

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Doesn’t say they are born equal but that they are created equal. Created…That would be when the egg meets the sperm and the child is first created. At that moment it now has equal rights. Not when the child might become a twin…What nonense…

Seems our government when founded had already made the decision on how society should view people. So sad that our cultural of Death has destoryed the principals that this country was founded on.
 
Catherine_W said:
My fiancé and I are learning the Creighton method of NFP and are planning on using this when we get married. Because of this we have told our families and friends a little about NFP and how contraception is wrong. We pointed out how the birth control pill can even result in abortions… but we were met with an argument that the pill doesn’t cause abortions because embryos are not people until after the age that the identical twins would have split.
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This person has a misconception of ensoulment.

Some people erronously believe that because twins are two seperate people, that is proof that ensoulment does not happen until after the potential of twinning is absent.

This is clearly wrong. Genesis, for example, show God using Adam’s rib to create Eve. Does it follow then, that Adam was not ensouled until after Eve was created? Of course not.

Rather, it shows that God may take matter from the body of one existing person to create another person.

And that is what happens in twinning.

While we all know that cloning is a moral evil, let’s use that as part of a thought experiment.

If you took a cell from this person and used it to create a genetic clone (twin) of that person. That twin would be given it’s own, unique, soul. Does it mean that the person you took the cell from had two souls for all of their life? Nope?

What it means is that God created a new soul for this new twin.

Does that make sense?
 
From the moment of conception the embro and the sperm were ment to be twins or triplets. It dosn’t matter that in doctor’s eyes they are not split yet. Its about what God intents. What about the two girls who share a body (simeese twins) they have two souls, two minds, but one body.
 
Catherine_W said:
I don’t know where he got this idea… ?? 🤷

And no, he is not Catholic, he is Anglican but he mostly follows his own personal beliefs, I think he is a bit confused about some issues.
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Dear Catherine,

I would ask. The challenge itself will be a surprise as we Catholics don’t do much challenging except, unfortuanetely to each other. It may also cause him to do a little research. Regardless, it will keep the topic on his mind. While this is happening, pray that the Holy Spirit will work on his conscience.
 
Catherine W, Congratulations on your engagement.

Yes, it can blindside one to hear the arguments people give to defend their contraceptive mentality. Instinctively, every decent person is repulsed with the idea that they may have unwittingly been party to destroying their own progeny so they hide behind scientific myths.To acknowledge this unpleasant reality would necessarily entail a dramatic change in lifestyle. There is probable cause to believe when breakthrough ovulation happens a chemical abortion may result. The young embryo entering a hostile environment once he enters his mother’s womb is simply sloughed off. The woman may think her period is simply delayed when in point of fact she is already with child. Priests for Life has online testimonies of women who realized this after the fact and regret that they may have experienced chemical abortions during the years they were on contraceptives. “May” is important to underline here as only God knows for certain how many young lives met this unhappy fate.

If you are looking for scientific literature LifeIssues.net provides extensive documentation. Dianne Irving Ph.D. has this to say on the matter of personhood and twinning.
**Myth 12: **“Maybe a human *being *begins at fertilization, but a human *person *does not begin until after 14-days, when twinning cannot take place.”
**Fact 12: **The particular argument in Myth 12 is also made by McCormick and Grobstein (and their numerous followers). It is based on their biological claim that the “pre-embryo” is not a developmental individual, and therefore not a person, until after 14 days when twinning can no longer take place. However, it has already been scientifically demonstrated here that there is no such thing as a “pre-embryo,” and that in fact the embryo begins as a “developmental individual” at fertilization. Furthermore, twinning can take place after 14 days. Thus simply on the level of science, the philosophical claim of “personhood” advanced by these bioethicists is invalid and indefensible
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From"When Do Human Beings (normally) Begin? scientific myths and scientific facts"

One really needs to read all the myths before you can appreciate the importance of the aforementioned quote. Once you have make the effort however, you should have fresh insight into the development of these popular misconceptions.
lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_01lifebegin2.html
 
[sign]So how do you prove that the pill acts as an abortifacient?[/sign]

Dr.John Wilks suggests this in The Pill: How it Works and Fails:
The answer to this question can be found by comparing the rate of break-through ovulation and the detected pregnancy rate. The ovulation rate has been reported to be about 27 ovulations in 100 women using the pill for one year. But the detected pregnancy rate is much lower at around 4 pregnancies per 100 women using the pill for one year.
As you can see, there is a big difference between the number of women who ovulate (27) and the number of detected pregnancies (4). What has happened within the woman’s body to reduce the high ovulation rate to such a low number of detected pregnancies? I suggest that one answer to this important question is that pregnancies have begun, because ovulation and fertilization have occurred, but some of these pregnancies are terminated because implantation cannot take place. The pill has damaged the lining of the womb, stopping implanation.
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lifeissues.net/writers/wilks/wilks_04pillworks1.html
 
because embryos are not people until after the age that the identical twins would have split.
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So… Does he think that conjoined twins are not people? Or does he think they are people without souls? Or, sense they are only partially conjoined - are they only partially people with partial souls?
Surely not!?
 
Let’s take the argument back to science…

As soon as a sperm and egg unite a new and unique set of DNA is formed. Human DNA… so unique that it has never existed before.

Science cannot determine why (identical-split) twinning happens, it just observes that it does happen, randomly.
(“Randomly” can be religiously disputed because we know God intended for each unique soul to exist)

So even before the spilt happens… a NEW an UNIQUE set of HUMAN DNA is formed (immediately at conception)… sounds like a human being to me!

HTH!
 
Catherine_W said:
So how do you address someone who thinks this way? I believe a person is a person from the moment they are conceived… but how do you refute people who are confused about the time before identical twins split/divide??
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A quick observation of of the genetics of identical twins gives the answer you are seeking. The DNA of the twin is a mirror image of the original - not an identical copy. (You can usually even see this when standing identical twins side by side.). The time line of existence of the original’s unique human DNA pattern goes back to conception, that of the twin starts literally as the twin divides off - and before that point there is no way to know if a particular embryo is going to twin off or when… One might try to quibble about the spiritual status of the twin up until the point of the split, but that does not impact the status of the original as a genetically distinct living human entity.
 
Ray_Scheel said:
A quick observation of of the genetics of identical twins gives the answer you are seeking. **The DNA of the twin is a mirror image of the original - not an identical copy. **(You can usually even see this when standing identical twins side by side.). The time line of existence of the original’s unique human DNA pattern goes back to conception, that of the twin starts literally as the twin divides off - and before that point there is no way to know if a particular embryo is going to twin off or when… One might try to quibble about the spiritual status of the twin up until the point of the split, but that does not impact the status of the original as a genetically distinct living human entity.
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Not true… some twins are mirror… some are perfectly identical…
 
Catherine_W said:
My fiancé and I are learning the Creighton method of NFP and are planning on using this when we get married. Because of this we have told our families and friends a little about NFP and how contraception is wrong. We pointed out how the birth control pill can even result in abortions… but we were met with an argument that the pill doesn’t cause abortions because embryos are not people until after the age that the identical twins would have split.

So how do you address someone who thinks this way? I believe a person is a person from the moment they are conceived… but how do you refute people who are confused about the time before identical twins split/divide??
Click to expand...
Me, I look at them closely and say, “I don’t believe that stock brokers (or carpenters, or whatever my audience consists of) are people at all.”

In other words, what we believe is irrelevant – the child is human from conception on.
 
Twins are cool!! How they happen - I don’t know. I’m very blessed with mine!

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