When Does Life Begin?

neo: All I can hope to accomplish is to ask those who are considering abortion to look seriously at both sides of the issue.



What makes you think it isn't? I would guess out of hand that most girls/women who consider abortion has "seriously" considered both sides of the issue - generally speaking. There are some women who may have mental problems that do not, but they are in the minority - I would guess.

real life wrote:

If you came upon an accident victim, and you were not sure if you had a living human being or a dead corpse in front of you -----

----- would you proceed AS IF the person MIGHT BE alive, or AS IF the person CERTAINLY WAS NOT alive?

Let's say instead of "you", it's a third person. (After all, neither chumly nor real life will be having abortions anytime soon.)

Let's say this 3rd person sees that it IS alive, and they can help keep this life alive only with a possibility of considerable harm and risk to themselves. How much do feel you can force that 3rd person to take the actions you would take?

You seem to forget that the abortion debate is not about your opinion of abortion, but rather, to what degree you feel capable of forcing your opinion onto others.

neo, Your statement makes it sound as though women do not consider the issues in their decision. What makes you think that?

You, prejudiced? ha ha ha....

As it often happens, it seems that one group or the other seeks to restrict access to info from the other. How many pro choice agencies will publish pictures of fetuses in their various stages of development? I'm sure it works the other way around, but I'm a little prejudiced, in case you hadn't noticed.

repost for real life, I'm assuming this got lost in the ebb and flow...

Eorl wrote:

real life wrote:

If you came upon an accident victim, and you were not sure if you had a living human being or a dead corpse in front of you -----

----- would you proceed AS IF the person MIGHT BE alive, or AS IF the person CERTAINLY WAS NOT alive?

Let's say instead of "you", it's a third person. (After all, neither chumly nor real life will be having abortions anytime soon.)

Let's say this 3rd person sees that it IS alive, and they can help keep this life alive only with a possibility of considerable harm and risk to themselves. How much do feel you can force that 3rd person to take the actions you would take?

You seem to forget that the abortion debate is not about your opinion of abortion, but rather, to what degree you feel capable of forcing your opinion onto others.

cicerone imposter wrote:

neo, Your statement makes it sound as though women do not consider the issues in their decision. What makes you think that?

As it often happens, it seems that one group or the other seeks to restrict access to info from the other. How many pro choice agencies will publish pictures of fetuses in their various stages of development? I'm sure it works the other way around, but I'm a little prejudiced, in case you hadn't noticed.

Probably nothing has been as damaging to our cause as the advances in technology which have allowed pictures of the developing fetus, because people now talk about the fetus in much different terms than they did 15 years ago. They talk about it as a human being, which is not something that I have an easy answer on how to cure."
- Harrison Hickman, pollster for the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, addressing NARAL's 20th Anniversary Conference

Eorl wrote:

real life wrote:

If you came upon an accident victim, and you were not sure if you had a living human being or a dead corpse in front of you -----

----- would you proceed AS IF the person MIGHT BE alive, or AS IF the person CERTAINLY WAS NOT alive?

Let's say instead of "you", it's a third person....

Let's say this 3rd person sees that it IS alive, and they can help keep this life alive only with a possibility of considerable harm and risk to themselves. How much do feel you can force that 3rd person to take the actions you would take?

You seem to want us to forget that abortion is not a passive indifference to another.

It is the active termination of the other. One must take aggressive action against the unborn to end it's life.

---------------------------------------------------------------

As for 'considerable harm and risk', the number of abortions done to save the mother's life is miniscule; and as you know, I have always allowed an exception for abortion to save the mother's life.

Why should doctors not be required to fully disclose all pertinent medical information to a woman before an abortion?

Pro-aborts on A2K have told me that this medical information is just 'emotional stuff' and should not be required to be disclosed.

They just don't want to talk about medicine.

Screaming political slogans suffices for discussion if you are pro-abortion.

real life wrote:

Eorl wrote:

real life wrote:

If you came upon an accident victim, and you were not sure if you had a living human being or a dead corpse in front of you -----

----- would you proceed AS IF the person MIGHT BE alive, or AS IF the person CERTAINLY WAS NOT alive?

Let's say instead of "you", it's a third person....

Let's say this 3rd person sees that it IS alive, and they can help keep this life alive only with a possibility of considerable harm and risk to themselves. How much do feel you can force that 3rd person to take the actions you would take?

You seem to want us to forget that abortion is not a passive indifference to another.

It is the active termination of the other. One must take aggressive action against the unborn to end it's life.

---------------------------------------------------------------

As for 'considerable harm and risk', the number of abortions done to save the mother's life is miniscule; and as you know, I have always allowed an exception for abortion to save the mother's life.

You were the one putting forward the analogy, I was just putting it more into context with the situation. If it's a bad analogy, then drop it.

Considerable harm and risk occur in every pregnancy. Ask any woman if she was afraid of giving birth, and whether it left them without any physical (or psychological) damage. Someone way back in this thread posted a list of possible complications of pregnancy that ran the entire page. I'm sure you remember that.

1st AMENDMENT ON TRIAL
Posted: July 4, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Cops use handcuffs to choke free speech

Police keep arresting citizens despite court rulings to acquit

By Chelsea Schilling


Pro-life protesters are taking their case to federal court because they claim York, Pa., police repeatedly violated their free speech rights while they were handing out tracts and preaching outside the city's Planned Parenthood clinic .

John McTernan, Edward D. Snell, John Wood and Luanne Ferguson have filed a civil suit against York police for being "chilled, frustrated and deterred in the exercise of their First Amendment activities due to the city's policy of ignoring First Amendment rights."

Their complaint states, "By denying plaintiffs the right to access public streets with other like-minded people, [York police] denied plaintiffs the right of assembly on account of the content of their message."

Attorney Dennis Boyle represents the pro-life advocates in the case.

"Essentially we have a series of arrests by the York City Police Department that have gone to the state, and the pro-life people have been found not guilty in the state court system," he said. "So we've filed a federal court suit to prevent these unlawful arrests from continuing. It is just the police officers basically trying to make life inconvenient for the pro-life people here."

Chaplain John McTernan is a former federal agent and co-founder of the Christian police group International Cops for Christ. He told WND, "Since 1999 or 2000, York police's conduct has been outrageous toward pro-life advocates at the Planned Parenthood abortion center."

McTernan cites incidents of abuse and complacency on the part of city police officers who are compensated by Planned Parenthood to work overtime shifts standing outside of the clinic. Uniformed officers are said to be paid $37.50 per hour, and they sign up for shifts on a volunteer basis.

"They watched one woman get beaten. She had to be put in the hospital," McTernan said. "High speed cars have attempted to run us over. We have videos of most of it. They won't do anything."

In one incident, McTernan said an 18-wheeler tried to run over John Holman, one of his fellow pro-life advocates. Holman jumped out of the way to avoid the truck and was arrested for criminal trespass after he landed on a strip of property the clinic claims to own, according to McTernan. They submitted a video of the incident to authorities, and the charges were later dropped.

Ferguson is being charged with criminal trespassing after approaching the facility on a ramp that extends into the public sidewalk. A licensed surveyor visited the property and acknowledged that the ramp was, in fact, in the public right-of-way.

"Last I spoke with her, the doctor said she was going to have to have an operation on her left arm because she suffered nerve damage from the arrest," McTernan said.

McTernan wrote letters to Planned Parenthood and to Commissioner Mark L. Whitman in November 2006, notifying them that the clinic's entire ramp, porch, canopy and railings extend beyond the clinic's property line by nearly three feet into the public right-of-way. Attorney Dennis Boyle said he has provided the district attorney with evidence, including a certified survey report and two videos, showing the exact location of the arrest.

In John McTernan v. City of York, a District Judge John E. Jones III ruled against McTernan and upheld Planned Parenthood's claim to the public property in front of the clinic. The case is being appealed, however, and the district attorney has decided to continue with criminal trespass charges against Ferguson.

McTernan told WND another protester was attacked and hit over the head with a board by a pro-choice protestor. "She suffered injury to her neck as a result of this blow that she received, but yet, they trump up charges against us," he said.

Another pro-life advocate, Ed Snell, was charged with disorderly conduct after attempting to hand tracts to pregnant women who were entering the clinic. The charges were later dropped.

"Ed was injured during the arrest," McTernan said. "They ratcheted the cuffs on him real tight. He took pictures after the arrest and you could see the marks and swelling where they had cuffed him. He told them they were tight and they refused to do anything."

In addition to allegedly turning a blind eye on assault, McTernan said police do not respond when children enter the clinics for abortions. He said some look as young as 13 years old. McTernan took pictures of the children to the district attorney and other authorities, but he said nothing has been done.

"We point out how young they are, and the police refuse to do anything," he said. "You name it, and it is going on there. I've got DVDs of me standing in front of a police officer, pointing out the kids and saying 'look!' He asked me, 'Have you seen her birth certificate? Do you know how old she is?'"

The city filed a civil suit against the pro-life advocates more than two years ago. McTernan said it attempted to evict protesters from public property surrounding the clinic.

"They needed criminal cases to prove we were dangerous there," he told WND. "They had a civil suit against us and were trying to get an injunction for a bubble zone. They lost that. That went on for about two years. Then, there's an alley right next to the abortion clinic where we can get close to the people going in, and we can get close to the workers. They were trying to get convictions on us so they could get a court order keeping us off that alley. That was their objective."

McTernan said even with his background as a federal agent, he is shocked at how York police have treated pro-life advocates.

"The behavior of the York city police and the DA office is frightening," McTernan told WND. "In all of my travels, and talking to police as a chaplain, I have never seen such disrespect for the law and such patronizing. They're pursuing criminal prosecution on someone they know is innocent - in [Ferguson's] case, because her beliefs are pro-life."

Officers in the police department declined to respond to WND's multiple requests for comment.

It was just another in a series of incidents in which governmental authorities appear to be trying to limit Christians' speech rights, based on the content of their statements.

As WND had reported just a day earlier, officials in St. Petersburg, Fla., made good on their plan to limit free speech at the city's homosexual festival by arresting five Christians for carrying signs "wider than their torsos" outside the officially designated protest area.

Pastor Billy Ball, Assistant Pastor Doug Pitts, Frankie Primavera and Josh Pettigrew, all of Faith Baptist Church in Primrose, Ga., were arrested today after leaving the area set aside by city officials for protest activities. Bill Holt, of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Jefferson, Ga., was also taken into custody.

According to Lighthouse Pastor Kevin Whitman, the five men were told by police their signs were not allowed outside the protest area because they were wider than their torsos. When the men refused to put them away, they were arrested for violating a controversial city ordinance that governs permitted events.

"We had police officers tell us bigger people could carry bigger signs than smaller people - it all depended on how big your torso was," said Whitman, who, with several others, returned to the officially designated protest area rather than face arrest.

As WND reported, St. Petersburg officials, following disturbances at a previous homosexual pride festival, implemented rules governing outdoor events that set aside "free speech zones," where protesters are allowed.

The resulting ordinance came under fire by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Alliance Defense Fund for being too broad. It allows the city to create prior restraints of speech on an event-by-event basis, with virtually no predictable limits. It also criminalizes certain free speech behavior around public events and authorizes the police to enforce breaches of permits - the penalty for such breaches being arrest.

real life wrote:

Eorl wrote:

real life wrote:

If you came upon an accident victim, and you were not sure if you had a living human being or a dead corpse in front of you -----

----- would you proceed AS IF the person MIGHT BE alive, or AS IF the person CERTAINLY WAS NOT alive?

Let's say instead of "you", it's a third person....

Let's say this 3rd person sees that it IS alive, and they can help keep this life alive only with a possibility of considerable harm and risk to themselves. How much do feel you can force that 3rd person to take the actions you would take?

You seem to want us to forget that abortion is not a passive indifference to another.

It is the active termination of the other. One must take aggressive action against the unborn to end it's life.

---------------------------------------------------------------

As for 'considerable harm and risk', the number of abortions done to save the mother's life is miniscule; and as you know, I have always allowed an exception for abortion to save the mother's life.

Sorry rl, I missed this. My mistake!

You were the one putting forward the analogy, I was just putting it more into context with the situation. If it's a bad analogy, then drop it.

Considerable harm and risk occur in every pregnancy. Ask any woman if she was afraid of giving birth, and whether it left them without any physical (or psychological) damage. Someone way back in this thread posted a list of possible complications of pregnancy that ran the entire page. I 'm sure you remember that.

Suppose the child was the result of rape or incest, or the child was unwanted or born into a family with a history of child abuse.

How about the other way around; the child is deformed and/or with poor health prospects of living a meaningful quality of life.