Here's what Pope Francis and Justin Trudeau talked about [CNA]

[OraLabora]

But you are–as are virtually all others in this thread–overlooking the exact problem, even though you’re tripping over it: “the weakest members of humanity.” But that’s the point–other religions don’t believe embryos at certain stages are “humanity.”

That argument is usually made by non-believers oddly enough, at complete odds with the science behind what a “human” is. You’d think the rationalists would be the first to recognize the science, but instead they fuel their arguments on sentiments and arbitrary lines about where human existence begins.

Many religions do in fact believe that abortion is morally wrong, and that a human life is destroyed in the process.

BTW I am a scientist by training. I was strongly anti-abortion and anti-“choice” (a euphemism to disguise an ugly reality), in my atheist days. Why? Because the science simply did not back up the notion that “human life” began here (say after the 20th week) or there (at birth). The scientific evidence is that a human being is created at conception. We can argue all we want about the moment of ensoulment-the knowledge of that moment’ is God’s alone to know, but I think we can take a reasonable “Pascal’s wager” type approach and assume that if the DNA is all there at conception or a few moments after, we’d better err on the safe side with regards to ensoulment as well.

 

[OraLabora]

Sophistry is arguing that “pro-abortion” = “pro-choice.” It does not. If I like the color red, why should I force you to like the color red too?

Pro-“choice” is no more than a euphemism to disguise an ugly reality. Giving a “right” to abortion is akin to giving a right to shooting your neighbour over an argument about where the fence line is. You might not be the type to pull the trigger, but you’d better hope your neighbour isn’t either. Pro-“choice” is simply giving the abortionist a loaded gun but suggesting (s)he shouldn’t use it.

I don’t like the red either, but I get to see it every single time when I drive. Just because I don’t like it, does’t give me the right to ignore it even though I grumble about the wait as I’m the impatient type, and it does give society the right, nay the obligation, to use the colour red or any other colour as an international standard meaning “stop”.

There are many restrictions in our lives that prevent us from doing the things we like, or oblige us to do the things that we don’t. Why killing gets a pass when it comes to small defenceless humans has always been a puzzle to me.

 

[NeedImprovement]

But “religions aside” is exactly the problem–it’s a religious question, a question of morality and sin. And if there are other major religions who have their own beliefs–which really amounts to saying when the soul–a religious concept–enters the body, it doesn’t matter what science says. And of course you could also make a “scientific” argument in the sense that although “life” might begin at conception, it is not viable outside the mother’s body until much later.

Try to look outside the religious box and the moral box a moment. It isn’t only a question of morality and sin. I’m referring to medical ethics. The intent of medical ethics is to not discriminate in terms of religion, race or gender. Its objective is the respect due to a human person simply because they are a human being/person. Medical experts say the child in the womb is a human being from the moment of conception. How on earth can it “not matter” what medical science says. ?

Thanks for posting.

 

[NeedImprovement]

Sophistry is arguing that “pro-abortion” = “pro-choice.” It does not. If I like the color red, why should I force you to like the color red too? Liking the color red and taking the position that everyone should like the color red = “pro-abortion.” Liking the color red and saying “Everyone should decide for themselves what color they like” = pro-choice.

I personally abhor abortion as much or more than anyone on this thread. But that does not give me the right to impose my personal beliefs on others. . .

Commonly the sentence is not completed by the sophists as to whether a woman has the right to “choose a color.” Those sophists who are audacious enough to finish that sentence invariably say:

• “A woman has the right to choose what she does with her own body,” *

instead of, “a woman has the right to choose to kill the human being growing within her.”

At the moment of conception , it is not only the woman’s body anymore: There is a separate body and life growing within her. The child’s DNA is not identical to it’s mother’s DNA. So whether the mother chooses to abort the child living in her (and many are coerced into it) she is not choosing it to be done to her own body. Again, medical science confirms that it is another living human being’s body - another person.

 

[NeedImprovement]

. . . I wish all of you who are so sure would flip the question. What if you lived in a country where another religion was trying to enshrine its own definition of morality on you? For example, what if you lived in a fundamentalist Muslim country (pick one…) that said a female victim of rape should be imprisoned because by her own admission she had sex with someone not her husband? Check youtube–this happens to Westerners with regularity in Dubai and the Emirates. Are you OK with that? No?

My main point concerning abortion is that if someone says they want to have a “choice”, then they should complete the sentence honestly: They want to have a choice whether or not to kill the child in the mother’s womb.

You’re trying to argue about religion. I’m simply saying that abortion is the killing of an innocent defenceless human being - pure and simple. Medical experts concur with that point. You don’t have to like it, they still concur on the point.

I know more than several women who have had abortions (one had two of them), and every single one of them is emotionally and psychologically wounded because of it. Some can suppress it for a while, but eventually it comes back to torment them, to haunt them. I even know the fathers of some children who were aborted who are just as wounded as the respective mothers are.

Abortion always claims more than one victim, but the world doesn’t want us to hear the stories about mothers who have undergone abortions and the suffering they endure afterwards or the personal stories from the abortion survivors living in our world today.

Abortion is not a solution. As the article on Gianna Jessen says, abortion is “evil”.

Thank you again for posting Erikaspirit16 .

 

[Erikaspirit16]

So if we can impose those moral precepts, it’s not too big a stretch to include abortion under “thou shalt not kill”.
.

Obviously it is a “big stretch” since this has been a big political issue since, what, 1973? and I’m sure long before. 50+ years of being a major political issue? I don’t see any consensus there.

And of course “thou shalt not kill” is not clear cut at all: Quakers, etc. won’t serve in the military because they believe “that shalt not kill” is an absolute; Catholics have no problem because they see exceptions. You could go on and on with all sorts of interpretations.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Many religions do in fact believe that abortion is morally wrong, and that a human life is destroyed in the process.

No one, particularly me, is denying that life begins at conception. What I AM and have been arguing is that this is NOT a debate about “life,” it’s a debate about when that life becomes human, or in religious terms, it receives a soul. This is a religious question, not a scientific one. You and most others on this thread don’t seem to get that.

If anyone cares to spend 5 minutes on Google, you will find that the other major religions put the time where a soul enters the embryo at different stages, not just at conception. You can’t argue scientifically about this unless you have some proof that you can somehow determine the instant a soul enters the embryo. It’s not science, it’s religion. Which is why there is difference of opinion.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Medical experts say the child in the womb is a human being from the moment of conception. How on earth can it “not matter” what medical science says. ?

I don’t think that’s true. If it is, feel free to quote some reliable sources. The whole question, as I keep saying, and others on this thread keep ignoring (!) is “What is a human being?” Science can answer questions like “Is this thing alive?” But religion answers the question “What is a human being.” You can start imagining all sorts of examples to illustrate the question. Is someone who is brain dead “a human being?” Maybe they were once, but now? What if a baby is born without a brain? (I think that’s possible.) Would that be a human being? Is a stem cell that has the potential to develop into a human being a human being? You can go on and on. It’s not that simple.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

instead of, “a woman has the right to choose to kill the human being growing within her.”

At the moment of conception , it is not only the woman’s body anymore: There is a separate body and life growing within her. The child’s DNA is not identical to it’s mother’s DNA. So whether the mother chooses to abort the child living in her (and many are coerced into it) she is not choosing it to be done to her own body. Again, medical science confirms that it is another living human being’s body - another person.

Same answer as with the others. You’re not getting it. The whole debate is at what stage this “life” becomes a human being. You are simply ignoring that main question.

To simply declare that life = human being is your particular belief. It is not the belief of the great majority of the people in the world, nor the majority of the major religions in the world. No matter how firmly you believe that equation, it doesn’t make it true for other people.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

You’re trying to argue about religion. I’m simply saying that abortion is the killing of an innocent defenceless human being - pure and simple. Medical experts concur with that point. You don’t have to like it, they still concur on the point.

You repeated, so I will too. You are still using the word “human being.” And that is precisely the issue. People who believe that, for example, aborting a zygote at 1 week is OK don’t think “I am killing a human being,” or “I am killing a baby.” They think “I am removing some unwanted tissue from my body. The same as removing a mole or a tumor.”

Once again, I personally agree that the soul enters the body at conception and becomes a human being. Good for me. But that is a minority opinion, and no matter how hard I believe it, it doesn’t give me the right to inflict my opinion on others.

There are other issues, polygamy for example, where the majority opinion imposes its concept of morality on others who believe differently. But even in that case polygamy isn’t actively prosecuted unless it’s really a screen for underage sex. Just watch a few episodes of “Sister Wives.” At some point (which is a political issue), the majority imposes a consensus view of its morality on society by law. To some extent that’s very arbitrary. Sometimes it takes a war (Civil War and slavery for example). But in this country we’re very, very far from any sort of consensus, and the rest of the world has in fact formed a consensus in the opposite direction.

 

[friardchips]

No one, particularly me, is denying that life begins at conception. What I AM and have been arguing is that this is NOT a debate about “life,” it’s a debate about when that life becomes human, or in religious terms, it receives a soul. This is a religious question, not a scientific one. You and most others on this thread don’t seem to get that.

If anyone cares to spend 5 minutes on Google, you will find that the other major religions put the time where a soul enters the embryo at different stages, not just at conception. You can’t argue scientifically about this unless you have some proof that you can somehow determine the instant a soul enters the embryo. It’s not science, it’s religion. Which is why there is difference of opinion.

Life begins at conception because at conception is scientifically when during a process the human characteristics are taken on.

This is only denied by those who think freedom to choose life makes any sense.

In fact, the life a new human being is in no way connected to the way the pregnancy came about, because the human to be born is a new human being.

Therefore, making abortion not a choice of conscience but of convenience i.e:-

Whatever the reason for killing human life, it is because the new life is a ‘nuisance’ or a ‘reminder’, of a past event through which the means to being pregnant came about.

In fact, because the new life is in fact a NEW life both spiritually and naturally, it is killing in bad conscience, or rather lack of conscience.

Regarding your other comments to do with Church scandals, you simply answered around my points.

But to take into account what you said anyway, what you proposed is conjecture.

And also fails to take into account that God’s Law is higher than the State. And often too, the State is in…a state of hypocrisy.

Whatever happens Church-wise in a scandal is to be dealt with, without causing further scandal. So those in the press and those ‘outside’ the Church often deal with things in a vulgarly scandalous way. Failing to take into account all sensitivities and requirements present in a righteous process. Also too, outside the Church, the state knows nothing of the devil and often doesn’t take God into account, and therefore, fails to act in a veritably just way.

Why is it that you think it is the cause of the atheist/humanist culture that accuses the Church that is so righteous even though the Church rightly defends the pro-life cause whilst the atheist culture cannot see its own hypocrisy? To say that the state really cares about crimes committed by certain Catholic individuals with one breath and then advocating abortion and murder of the voiceless and defenseless, in another, is surely a bit odd.

Also, from what I read, the Church has not reason to apologise in Canada.

So, I really don’t know what your footing is here, but it seems to have already slipped.

As has the Canadian Leader’s, even before he entered the Vatican to meet the Pope.

 

[friardchips]

…essentially, abortion is ALWAYS killing out of fear, not love.

 

[ringil]

The picture shows a much more cheery meeting with the prime minister than that with Trump

 

[unafraid]

I am afraid that I don’t like some of what I read.

When people do things on behalf of the Church, that are particularly evil things, then this puts these people into a state of mortal sin, and especially in the case of certain crimes, are surely excommunicated, and so cease to be part of the Sacramental life of the Catholic community.

People in a state of grave error are not acting on behalf of the Church. So, it is surely these individuals that have sinned.

Why does the Church apologise as a whole when individuals do things wrong?

The Church is not just a visibly founded institute, it is the Mystical in origin.

It is the state as a whole, in Canada, that needs to apologise, surely? They are the institute that let things happen.

What the Church could do is apologise on behalf of some of its members. Even then…

Anyone got any thoughts because I don’t understand.

Humility. The Roman Catholic Church, when it apologizes for instances such as this, is in a sense practicing what It preaches. As members trying our best to live out our fath (and feeling strong loyalty and love for Holy Mother Church), these apologies make us cringe. Our pride in our religion makes us defensive. But, these public acts of humility demonstrate virtue. It is our Church standing upright, while in the act of bowing. It is a noble gesture…I think.

 

[friardchips]

Humility. The Roman Catholic Church, when it apologizes for instances such as this, is in a sense practicing what It preaches. As members trying our best to live out our fath (and feeling strong loyalty and love for Holy Mother Church), these apologies make us cringe. Our pride in our religion makes us defensive. But, these public acts of humility demonstrate virtue. It is our Church standing upright, while in the act of bowing. It is a noble gesture…I think.

Hi. Thank you for explaining, and while I do think that you are right, in that “humility” is THE reason apologies come from the Church, I still don’t think it can equate to total sincerity, because although it might be “demonstrating virtue”, if it doesn’t make sense spiritually, logically even, then how can it be. I do think the Pope is sincere when he says sorry for the fact that certain members who were meant to represent the Church didn’t behave accordingly yet this wording is different.

Maybe in all the apologies, the translator journalists on behalf of media networks and newspapers, are to blame. They have a history of twisting what the Pope says into fitting with their sensationalist agendas.

• think this last explanation is the case, because I respect the Holy Father, and believe him to always be sincere.

 

[OraLabora]

No one, particularly me, is denying that life begins at conception. What I AM and have been arguing is that this is NOT a debate about “life,” it’s a debate about when that life becomes human, or in religious terms, it receives a soul. This is a religious question, not a scientific one. You and most others on this thread don’t seem to get that.

If anyone cares to spend 5 minutes on Google, you will find that the other major religions put the time where a soul enters the embryo at different stages, not just at conception. You can’t argue scientifically about this unless you have some proof that you can somehow determine the instant a soul enters the embryo. It’s not science, it’s religion. Which is why there is difference of opinion.

Oh I do get it Ms. Erika, it is you who doesn’t get the fact that science holds the only reliable definition of when human life begins: when the person’s DNA forms. There is no “debate” about when the life that begins at conception is human, it is plain as day. It is when the zygote acquires the entire genetic map of an individual human being. It is scientifically verifiable, and occurs very shortly after conception and is also a manifestation of God’s supreme intelligence and own soul. Any other definition of “human”, “person”, or “ensoulment” has no grounding in science, and any theology that denies personhood at that stage is gravely disordered. It is purely arbitrary, and plays on sentiments to make it seem like we’re killing a non-person. Perhaps we cannot know the exact moment of ensoulment. That is God’s prerogative to enjoy. Without knowing that however, we take a very grave risk by interfering with His plan through abortion because getting it wrong has eternal consequences; again, Pascal’s wager. But whenever ensoulment does occur, it does not change the fact that the zygote is very much a human being from conception onwards, albeit at a very early developmental stage.

The “non-person” you claim might exist even after conception, carries the complete genetic map of an individual human that (s)he will carry until death, hopefully a natural one in his or her golden years. The intervening years from conception until mature adulthood are merely developmental stages. Whether a zygote is fed by its mother through the umbilical cord, or by suckling at her breast, has no bearing on whether (s)he is a “human” or a “person” or not. That was decided the instant the persons’s DNA was formed. Whether the zygote can solve an equation or not, or even just figure out to breathe, does not take away from its innate humanness. The zygote cannot by its very nature and essence, mature into anything other than a fully-developed human being. It’s very essence is human from the very beginning.

There is no religion in that. I would argue that in fact it is the Church that has it exactly right based entirely on scientific fact, and it is the secular atheists who have it dead wrong and base it entirely on feeling and moral fuzziness rather than fact.

Any intentional deprivation of that tiny person’s right to live a full life cannot in any way be morally defended, nor scientifically justified. Attempting to debate a moment of ensoulment is merely arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and ultimately, the argument boils down to “how far into gestation can I kill the zygote without worrying that I’ve just killed a person”. In short, it’s an argument to make us (meaning society) not feel guilty about committing a very grave act.

 

[Brendan]

You repeated, so I will too. You are still using the word “human being.” And that is precisely the issue. People who believe that, for example, aborting a zygote at 1 week is OK don’t think “I am killing a human being,” or “I am killing a baby.” They think “I am removing some unwanted tissue from my body. The same as removing a mole or a tumor.”.

But the statement is scientifically valid.

“The life cycle of mammals begins when a sperm enters an egg.”

Okada et al., A role for the elongator complex in zygotic paternal genome demethylation, NATURE 463:554 (Jan. 28, 2010)

“It is the penetration of the ovum by a sperm and the resulting mingling of nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the initiation of the life of a new individual.”

Clark Edward and *Corliss Patten’s Human Embryology, McGraw – Hill Inc., 30

“Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo developmentn) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique human individual. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being.”

Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.

Biologically, it IS a human, and it has existence ( being)

The recognition of a zygote as a human being is simply a scientific fact, purely secular, and requires no belief in a soul or anything else.

So if it is killed, the act IS killing a human being. The person might not believe so, but there are also some who believe the world is flat. Believing something does not make it so, especially when it is in direct opposition to the science involved.

 

[OraLabora]

But the statement is scientifically valid.

Okada et al., A role for the elongator complex in zygotic paternal genome demethylation, NATURE 463:554 (Jan. 28, 2010)

Clark Edward and *Corliss Patten’s Human Embryology, McGraw – Hill Inc., 30

Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.

Biologically, it IS a human, and it has existence ( being)

The recognition of a zygote as a human being is simply a scientific fact, purely secular, and requires no belief in a soul or anything else.

So if it is killed, the act IS killing a human being. The person might not believe so, but there are also some who believe the world is flat. Believing something does not make it so, especially when it is in direct opposition to the science involved.

 

[NeedImprovement]

An excerpt from HVLI ; Dr. Jerome Lejeune

Lejeune, who is considered the father of modern genetics, became one of the moral leaders of the pro-life movement in the world. Lejeune upheld the dignity of human life at a time when courts and tribunals and parliaments were usurping the divine right to determine who shall live and who must die.

For Lejeune, the legalization of abortion was not just morally objectionable; it constituted an assault against science. Genetics demonstrated that at the very moment the ovum is fertilized by the sperm, all of the genetic information that defines the resulting individual is already inscribed in its entirety in the first cell. No new genetic information enters into an egg at any stage after its initial fertilization. Genetic science postulates that a human being could not be a human being if not first conceived as a human being. Laws legalizing abortion rest on a theory of embryonic evolution. This theory claims that the embryo is not a human life but becomes one later on. This theory is false, it is an ideology with no basis in genetic science.

Jérôme Lejeune spoke the truth fearlessly and tirelessly. He said: “Life is a fact and not a desire… If a law is so wrong-headed as to declare that ‘the embryonic human being is not a human being’, so that Her Majesty the Queen of England was just a chimpanzee during the first 14 days of her life, it is not a law at all. It is a manipulation of opinion, and has nothing to do with truth. One is not obliged to accept science. One could say: ‘Well, we prefer to be ignorant, we refuse absolutely any novelty and any discovery.’ It’s a point of view. I should say, it’s a ‘politically correct’ point of view in some countries, but it’s an obscurantist point of view, and science abhors obscurantism.”

This article from clairval.com touches on how the media falsified figures re abortion’s support by medical professionals back in 1973 in France in order for parliament to pass a bill allowing abortion ; how Lejeune lost his Nobel prize for daring to protect down’s syndrome children from chromosomal racism ; and, aruguably most salient of all -

When parliament went back into session, the media set the debate in motion. Jerome was invited to be the guest on a biweekly television current events show with a large viewership. His appearance generated a huge volume of mail, including deeply moving letters from people who had been severely handicapped from birth, testifying that their life had not been the nightmare that others claimed, as well as letters from parents of children with Down’s Syndrome, who spoke of their son’s or daughter’s panic at realizing that some thought that people like them should be killed. In reality, the campaign to allow the killing of children with Down’s Syndrome was a way of introducing the right to abortion.

So finally, we hear an opinion from those who would be aborted themselves . . .Gee , they certainly sound like human beings - don’t they ?

 

[NeedImprovement]

Another of the would-be aborted, are the abortion survivors whom they tempted to abort but who are alive today. A link to an article on abortion survivors was linked in post #45 .
In that article abortion survivor Gianna Jessen - another human being whom they attempted to kill in her mother’s womb- but failed, speaks:

I would ask Planned Parenthood the following questions:

If abortion is about women’s rights, then what were mine? You continuously use the argument, “If the baby is disabled, we need to terminate the pregnancy,” as if you can determine the quality of someone’s life. Is my life less valuable due to my Cerebral Palsy?

You have failed, in your arrogance and greed, to see one thing: it is often from the weakest among us that we learn wisdom – something sorely lacking in our nation today. And it is both our folly and our shame that blinds us to the beauty of adversity.
Planned Parenthood uses deception, the manipulation of language and slogans, such as “a woman’s right to choose,” to achieve their monetary aims.

I will illustrate how well they employ this technique with the following quote: “The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.” – Adolf Hitler