Abortion due to gender.

[Persuader]

Maybe the main thing I would like to do is start education early, so my daughter would be learning advanced subjects at a young age. I suspect that part of the reason why this appeals to me is that throughout my life I had interest in and did well in traditionally male fields despite the social message that I wasn’t supposed do better than boys.

Maybe this is why I want specifically a female child, or at least it’s the only thing I could think of.

You want your daughter to do things you don’t feel you had the opportunity to do. That sounds a bit like you want to relive your past through your daughter. I think that is a bit of a cliché, and I don’t know how wise that is. Also, I don’t really understand how this seemingly small thing could give you that strong a preference. I appreciate that you are not sure why you feel the way you feel, and it does seem like there might be some other unacknowledged stuff behind your feelings. I am not a psychologist, but I would suggest you talk to one about this before planning pregnancy (obvious advice).

I actually thought about it, and to be honest I am confused about what is meant by pain. Can something without a mind feel, or is it more of a mindless response to a stimulus (like say my computer is mindlessly responding to my pressing on the keyboard).

When it’s said that the fetus can feel pain at x weeks, does it mean it actually feels or is it more of a movement when poked kind of thing?

Yes, there is a difference between feeling pain and reacting to stimulus. The fetus can react to physical stimulus before 26 weeks, but consensus in the relevant neurological community is that the fetus probably doesn’t have the necessary machinery to perceive pain before the thalamocortical connections are formed. The general consensus has been that the fetus might feel pain in the third trimester.

You asked if something without a mind can feel pain. The paper I linked to earlier gave some basic information of what kind of mind a fetus has.

 

[JReducation]

Thank you for sharing your story.

Let me ask you something though, what if things had worked out differently and both your wife and your son had died during pregnancy? There are likely cases where this has happened. Do you think it would have changed your mind about whether abortion to save the life of the mother should be allowed?

Absolutely not. As I said then, “let the doctors do what they have to do.” If one or both lives had died, it is God’s will. We come into existence to fulfill a plan that exists in the mind of God. When we have fulfilled our part of the plan, God calls us home. He can call us home from the womb or later. “God is good in all his works.”

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[LittleSoldier]

What I always wonder is to what extent beliefs translate into action. In a poll I made about abortion in the case of a threat to the mother’s life, the vast majority of responders said they would not have an abortion to save their life/their wife’s life.

I wonder if these beliefs would turn into action if the responders were actually in danger of losing their life or the life of their spouse. It’s a lot easier to talk about sacrificing rather than doing it.

That is a good thought. It’s very easy to “talk the talk” but is much harder to “walk the walk.” Or, as Jesus said: “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” [Matthew 26:41, Douay-Rheims Bible]

So we don’t know.

 

[LittleSoldier]

I’m not going to do research for you, if you’re interested look into getting a book on the subject, searching scholar.google.com, or accessing a database of academic journals (which should be available to you for free if you’re a college student).

My goal here is not to convert you to my way of thinking, I’m just describing my views, so I am not going to spend time trying to prove to you that I’m right.

Um, when you make a statement as you did in the post I responded to (when you described the dolphin research you had access to, it is your responsibility to provide references to that research. The burden of proof falls on you, not me.

What you have made is an unfounded assertion, an unsubstantiated statement. If you can’t back it up with a reference then nobody should accept what you said.

Why do you agree about sleep but not passing out? The stream of consciousness is broken during sleep as well.

Normally the stream of consciousness is not broken during sleep. In the case of people with certain sleep disorders (like me), there may be a break, but that is extremely rare. If you shake a person who is asleep she will open her eyes and converse with you. If you shake a person who is unconscious, she will not open her eyes and converse with you.

Also note I am not talking about consciousness alone, but a brain capable of generating consciousness. I identify the mind with the brain.

This is entirely different with a fetus, who doesn’t have a brain capable of generating consciousness, and has never had such a brain.

But this lack of a brain is temporary and if the fetus is allowed to continue in her development this brain will grow and continue growing until consciousness (your definition of consciousness as self-awareness) will occur. Just like lack of consciousness is temporary when a person loses consciousness (and this may last for years and years), so the lack of consciousness in a fetus is temporary. In fact, it is a necessity for there is no skull large enough to hold a brain capable of self-awareness.

It doesn’t matter to me that it might eventually develop a brain capable of producing consciousness, it hasn’t yet, and so there is no person there yet. You can say the “will eventually become conscious” about the molecules in air, water, plants, animals and so on who will eventually form a new baby.

No, because the molecules in air, water, plants, animals (other than human) and so on can’t combine to form a new human being. Molecules in air, water, and plants will never form anything that even closely resembles consciousness or a brain. Air and water can’t reproduce at all. Plants and animals can, but plants never exhibit anything like a brain and/or consciousness. Some types of animals may, especially mammals, and humans are animals, too. Human beings do form a brain as part of their development. There is no doubt about that. Maybe I am not reading what you wrote correctly; if what I have written here doesn’t address your point, would you please re-state what you said?

 

[LittleSoldier]

I think I understand what you’re saying, but it just doesn’t address the situation where there is no “double effect” way to save the woman. In some cases you might be able to remove a cancerous uterus, or a fallopian tube with the embryo inside it. But in other cases you might not.

Situations where an abortion is the only way to save the woman’s life are certainly not impossible.

It is true that when a fallopian tube containing an embryo is removed it is technically and medically an abortion; however the Church teaches that it is not an abortion because it is a tragic consequence of saving the life of the mother. The act of removing the fallopian tube (to save the mother’s life) results in the death of the embryo, but that is not the intent. In the case of ectopic pregnancy the embryo is going to die no matter what physicians do. And if the pregnancy is allowed to continue, the mother will also die.

It’s not being done to kill or abort an embryo - it’s being done to save the mother and the death of the embryo is a horrible consequence of this action.

I’ve run across this before and, frankly, I wish the Church had another term for what actually occurs because I don’t know what to call it.

 

[kimmielittle]

What I always wonder is to what extent beliefs translate into action. In a poll I made about abortion in the case of a threat to the mother’s life, the vast majority of responders said they would not have an abortion to save their life/their wife’s life.

I wonder if these beliefs would turn into action if the responders were actually in danger of losing their life or the life of their spouse. It’s a lot easier to talk about sacrificing rather than doing it.

Hiyas

This has nothing to do with my use of the word 'convenience" . This thread is directed toward 'Abortion on demand".issues.

I hope this helps

 

[simple_soul]

I said the mind doesn’t have to be sophisticated, it just has to be there…

*Dear flyingfish,

It is my belief and understanding that the baby does have enough sophistication to generate a mind at the moment of conception. It may not be present and it may not funtion as you understand it or as you would like to see it but it is there. Whatever the mind needs to start functioning and how it will function is written into the DNA and will develop as the baby develops. I do not know how else to explain this so I will have to leave it in other more capable hands.

 

[kimmielittle]

But this lack of a brain is temporary and if the fetus is allowed to continue in her development this brain will grow and continue growing until consciousness (your definition of consciousness as self-awareness) will occur. Just like lack of consciousness is temporary when a person loses consciousness (and this may last for years and years), so the lack of consciousness in a fetus is temporary. In fact, it is a necessity for there is no skull large enough to hold a brain capable of self-awareness.

Hiyas
And the brain and skull keep expanding after birth…isn’t that what babys have soft spots?

 

[LittleSoldier]

*Dear flyingfish,

It is my belief and understanding that the baby does have enough sophistication to generate a mind at the moment of conception. It may not be present and it may not funtion as you understand it or as you would like to see it but it is there. Whatever the mind needs to start functioning and how it will function is written into the DNA and will develop as the baby develops. I do not know how else to explain this so I will have to leave it in other more capable hands.

You are absolutely correct and I think you stated it very well. It is at conception that the unique DNA combination is first present and this DNA guides the development of the baby all the way through her life. The DNA that determines the development of the brain, consciousness, and self-awareness is there at conception.

 

[flyingfish]

You asked if something without a mind can feel pain. The paper I linked to earlier gave some basic information of what kind of mind a fetus has.

I read it, but I just don’t see the answer there. It seems that prior to that time the hardware for feeling pain (namely thalamocortical connections) hasn’t developed yet. But does the simple presence of hardware at 26 weeks imply that there is a feeling of pain?

(Some additional reading: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2352206/?page=1
)

I just don’t see how you can feel anything without a mind, without a mind you’re not a you, you might as well be an inanimate object. There is no thinking being there to be aware of/feel pain.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Hiyas
And the brain and skull keep expanding after birth…isn’t that what babys have soft spots?

I looked it up and this is what I found:

www.babycenter.com/404_what-are-these-soft-spots-on-my-babys-head_9961.bc

“They’re called fontanels.
Most babies have two of them, one on the top of the head and one a little further back. You can sometimes see or feel a pulse beneath them. These areas are where the bones of your child’s skull have not yet grown together. This flexible arrangement allows the skull to compress during labor and to continue to grow during the early years of life. The rear fontanel usually closes within four months, while the front one does not close until the child is at least a year old.”

 

[flyingfish]

Um, when you make a statement as you did in the post I responded to (when you described the dolphin research you had access to, it is your responsibility to provide references to that research. The burden of proof falls on you, not me.

I’m not trying to prove that dolphins are self aware though. If you don’t believe my recollections are accurate, or simply think I am making this up, I’m okay with that.

It doesn’t matter to me if others accept what I said, but it is fairly common knowledge for people who keep up with popular science. There were even recent articles in major news outlets about how some scientists are calling for dolphins to be classified as “non human persons.”

Call me lazy, but I just don’t feel like googling and linking.

Normally the stream of consciousness is not broken during sleep. In the case of people with certain sleep disorders (like me), there may be a break, but that is extremely rare. If you shake a person who is asleep she will open her eyes and converse with you. If you shake a person who is unconscious, she will not open her eyes and converse with you.

I guess it depends on how you define stream of consciousness, the person that I recognize as myself is definitely gone when I’m in deep sleep. One might wonder if the mind that the brain generates upon waking up is the same one that fell asleep.

The point however is that the complex brain that is capable of generating the mind is still there during sleep or if you should faint.

No, because the molecules in air, water, plants, animals (other than human) and so on can’t combine to form a new human being.

Of course they can and do. Where do you think the matter that makes you comes from? Originally it all came from the Big Bang, so you might have said that the Big Bang singularity temporarily lacks human persons, but if left to its own devices these persons will eventually arise.

My point is that I don’t agree with the idea of giving something rights and considering it a person because of what it will become, because you can make the same argument about the Big Bang, or about the stars that in the distant past cooked the heavier elements required to form us.

 

[kimmielittle]

I’ll give you an example. Before I became a Franciscan brother, I was married. My wife and I had three children, a girl and two boys. When my wife was carrying our third child we were told by three separate doctors that she would die if she did not terminate the pregnancy (a fancy word for abortion), because she had an aneurism in her heart.

As the father of the child, I said, “I will not kill my child, not even to save my wife. The doctors will have to do the best they can with what they have to save both. If one is lost in the process, then it’s God’s design.” Let’s not forget that as a father, we do have rights regarding our unborn children.

My wife agreed that she would not kill oiur son to save her life, even though we had two more at home ages 4 and 2.

To make a very long story shorter. My wife delivered our son and both survived. Our son was born with brain damage as the result of a very complicated pregnancy. When he was four years old, my wife, my father and the three kids were in an auto accident. My wife, father and older son were killed. My daughter survived and the boy that everyone wanted to abort.

My wife died of other causes, not related to her aneurism. The son that died was the healthy one and my father who was not involved in the pregnancy. Today, my son is 21-years old. He’s a senior in college, majoring in art. He had many difficulties going thruogh school. We lost our home because we didn’t have enough money to pay the bills for all the doctors, therapies and special services that he needed over and beyond what the State and insurance covered. Our family consists of him, his sister and I. There is no one else left. I can’t imagine life without him. He is the joy of our lives. His pregnancy almost killed his mother, but the fact is that it did not. The doctors were wrong. The pregnancy did leave him with irreperable brain damage. He does not speak and he cannot do calculations. He is an excellent artist and writer. He takes care of his father when I am sick. He takes himself to school, plays sports, has friends, works in Respect Life as a volunteer, gives talks (through an interpreter) about how he is an abortion survivor and thansk his mother and father for it. He also speaks out in defense of the unborn who have brain damage and are threatened by abortion.

With all of our scientific knowledge, human life remains the greatest mystery.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

:clapping::clapping:

 

[LittleSoldier]

I would like to say something here about the gender of babies.

Both my husband and I wanted a girl. I had two spontaneous abortions and was told that I couldn’t carry a child to term, so this particular baby was very important to us. Not only did we want a girl, we just expected it to be a girl. We were both positive I was carrying a girl.

My husband died during my pregnancy. Everyone wanted me to have a girl because they thought it would be easier for me to raise a girl if I didn’t have a husband to help. I wanted a girl and I knew I was going to have a girl.

I had a boy. I had no name picked out. I was stunned.

My baby was at my parent’s house and one day I glanced over at him and he smiled at me. Now I know that some people say it’s gas and some people say that he would just have been moving those muscles anyway (as babies move their muscles and twitch and so on) and some people say that babies smile at what appears to be a human face (and I believe that) but what I saw was my baby smiling at me and it was like a lightning bolt of love charged out of that smile right into the depths of my heart.

I started running around telling everyone “He smiled at me!! Ryan smiled at me!!” I was so happy.

My baby smiled at me. Nobody can ever take that away from me and I don’t care if he was a girl or a boy - he is my child and he smiled at me. Thank you, God.

 

[kimmielittle]

I read it, but I just don’t see the answer there. It seems that prior to that time the hardware for feeling pain (namely thalamocortical connections) hasn’t developed yet. But does the simple presence of hardware at 26 weeks imply that there is a feeling of pain?

(Some additional reading: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2352206/?page=1
)

I just don’t see how you can feel anything without a mind, without a mind you’re not a you, you might as well be an inanimate object. There is no thinking being there to be aware of/feel pain.

Hiyas
You jump from consciousness to pain reflexivity as your criteria for diminishing the value of life.

I have diminished pain reflexes C-5 c-6 c-7 were fractured and ruptured - in a car crash ]…so with a mind…I could not feel pain I can now ]. My point is: your argument might hold weight…if it worked in reverse.

What about amputees who feel pain?

IMHO you are trying to dissect the whole of life…into pieces.

Abortion takes life and destroys it - no matter how you try to qualify “life”

I hope this helps

 

[kimmielittle]

I looked it up and this is what I found:

www.babycenter.com/404_what-are-these-soft-spots-on-my-babys-head_9961.bc

“They’re called fontanels.
Most babies have two of them, one on the top of the head and one a little further back. You can sometimes see or feel a pulse beneath them. These areas are where the bones of your child’s skull have not yet grown together. This flexible arrangement allows the skull to compress during labor and to continue to grow during the early years of life. The rear fontanel usually closes within four months, while the front one does not close until the child is at least a year old.”

Thank you for the link.

Yeppers!!! It keeps growing - from conception.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Aquinas was a genius, but there are several things that we must keep in mind. First, he was never a pope and nothing that he wrote could be held up as Ex-Cathedra teaching. Some people make the mistake of using Thomas as if he were in posession of such authority. Thomas never claimed to have such authority. He would be horrified to be seen in that light. He was very humble.

Second, he was right about many things and the Church used his arguments and methods until now, when Benedict XVI has switched over to the Franciscan and Augustinian systems of doing theology, rather than Thomism. But Aquinas was also wrong on many things. Conception is one of them The Church holds and believes that human life is sacred from conception to natural death.

Let’s examine why she believes this. In Evangelium Vitae Pope John Paul II clearly explains that the soul is created and given to the person at the very moment of conception. Pope John Paul was using the arguments of the great Franciscan theologian, John Duns Scotus who opposed Aquinas on this point and on the Immaculate Conception. Aquinas argued that the Immaculate Conception was not possible, because the soul was not introduced at conception, but during gestation. Scotus argued that the Immaculate Conception was possible, because the soul was introducd at conception. Once we accepted the Franciscan theology of the Immaculate Conception, then we have to accept the rest. If Mary receives a soul at conception, so does everyone else. The argument in defense of the Immaculate Conception depends on the believe that a soul is created and united to matter at conception. Otherwise, Mary is not the Immaculate Conception. Aquinas would be right. Mary was born immaculate, not conceived immaculate. Aquinas entire argument is predicated on his belief that the human beings receive a soul durng gestation, not at conception. The Franciscan school argued that human beings receive a soul at conception and that this was the mind of the early Church and the faith of the Eastern Fathers.

Eventually, these position is declared infallible dogma. May is the Immaculate Conception, because she receives an immaculate soul at the moment of conception. From there we can extrapolate that matter and sould come into existence in as a single person at conception.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Thank you for this. I was reading another thread and someone had posted about St. Augustine believing that abortion was OK. That threw me because I don’t know much about St. Augustine (I’m reading Confessions but don’t have much time) although I know he was not “Saint” Augustine until he died and went to heaven. He was just plain Augustine when he wrote that or said that or whatever he did to give the poster the idea that abortion is OK because St. Augustine said so (and I’m not sure if he even said or wrote anything about abortion). I found it somewhat strange that what a person said during his life on earth would be accepted as Truth because that person was later canonized by the Church.

I do know that Augustine was a fornicator and a thief and fathered at least one illegitimate child. I know that any statements he made while alive as a mortal human being are not infallible and I think he would be the first to admit that and to say that he believed in obeying the Magisterium.

It’s like some people believe that whatever a saint said during his/her life becomes an infallible statement once that person is canonized.

I don’t want to go off-topic but I am curious. Do you know of any writings by or about St. Augustine that describe his views on abortion? Confessions doesn’t have an index. I didn’t respond to the poster who claimed that Augustine supported abortion because I couldn’t find the information I needed. Thanks!!

 

[flyingfish]

Hiyas
You jump from consciousness to pain reflexivity as your criteria for diminishing the value of life.

I have diminished pain reflexes C-5 c-6 c-7 were fractured and ruptured - in a car crash ]…so with a mind…I could not feel pain I can now ]. My point is: your argument might hold weight…if it worked in reverse.

What about amputees who feel pain?

IMHO you are trying to dissect the whole of life…into pieces.

Abortion takes life and destroys it - no matter how you try to qualify “life”

I hope this helps

I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. I’m just questioning whether it is possible to feel pain without a mind.

 

[JReducation]

Thank you for this. I was reading another thread and someone had posted about St. Augustine believing that abortion was OK.

Do you know of any writings by or about St. Augustine that describe his views on abortion? Confessions doesn’t have an index. I didn’t respond to the poster who claimed that Augustine supported abortion because I couldn’t find the information I needed. Thanks!!

The argument of some por-choice Catholics is that Augustine did not condemn abortion and therefore, the topic is still open for discussion. There are several problems here.

Truth does not change. The commandment is very clear. “Thou shalt not kill.”

The role of theology is to explain truth, not to create it. I’ll get back to this in a minute.

Augustine believed in the infallibility of the Commandments.

Augustine did not understand that the soul and body come into existence at the moment of conception. He thought that the fetus was not a human being until it took human form, until it had arms, legs, etc. We have to remember that the only insight that they had into human development before birth was what they saw when a woman had a miscarriage. Often, what you see in the case of a miscarriage is the placenta that has been discharged, because the fetus is too small or is reabsorbed by the mother’s body.

Augustine, like many intellectuals of his time, thought that you must have human form before you were consdiered human and before a soul was implanted into the body.

Augustine had no idea that the fertilized egg has all the properties of any other human being. They are active to different degrees, depending on the stage of pregnancy, just as the same faculties are still developing after birth. That’s why we speak of an age of reason and we arbitrarilly place it at age seven. But psychology tells us that abstract thinking comes later than age seven. This was not understood before.

As time passes and more information about human life becomes available, it has become clear that the fertilized egg is human. Therefore, Augustine would say that the Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill” applies to the fertilized egg.

What Augustine said was based on the knowledge and information that was available at the time. No let’s go back to the role of theology. It is the role of theology to apply the faith to reason and knowledge. Now that we know that the fertilized egg is human, not a chicken, we must apply what we know by faith, “Thou shalt not kill.” This Commandment was directed at human beings about human life, not animals.

Were Augustine alive today, with all of the information that we have about conception and human development, he would say that the Commandment applies from the moment of conception, since you cannot deny the Ten Commandments.

Some people want to conveniently go back to Augustine, but put aside what he knew and did not know. They just want to take what he said at face value without taking into account where he was coming from and forgetting that Augustine preached two things: 1) obedience to the Commandments and 2) obedience to the Church.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[manygift1spirit]

It is true that when a fallopian tube containing an embryo is removed it is technically and medically an abortion; however the Church teaches that it is not an abortion because it is a tragic consequence of saving the life of the mother. The act of removing the fallopian tube (to save the mother’s life) results in the death of the embryo, but that is not the intent. In the case of ectopic pregnancy the embryo is going to die no matter what physicians do. And if the pregnancy is allowed to continue, the mother will also die.

It’s not being done to kill or abort an embryo - it’s being done to save the mother and the death of the embryo is a horrible consequence of this action.

I’ve run across this before and, frankly, I wish the Church had another term for what actually occurs because I don’t know what to call it.

Yes, this is a good restating of my point above. An abortion is a deliberate attempt to kill an unborn baby, where the death is the desired outcome. If the death is undesired, even if inevitable, it is not an abortion.