Fetal Life and Abortion:
Human Personhood at Conception
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Displayed Responses 2004
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2004
December 31st: Return to Ethics = reconsider abortion?
December 20th: Greetings with thanks, 2004
December 11th: Roe v. Wade's non-conformity problem
December 1st: Ethics of legalized abortion
November 17th: Who decides whether the fetus/unborn child is a person or not?
November 11th: Moral values
November 3rd: Election 2004 - the weight of Ethics
October 21st: Embryonic stem-cells NO; adult stem-cells YES
October 15th: Debate: Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade
October 8th: What is Roe v. Wade to you?
September 30: Stem cell review
September 24th: The missing link in Roe: Ethics
September 16th: Norma McCorvey v. Hill - next step
September 10th: Recent court decisions still misconstrue undue burden
September 3rd: Some choices are not free
August 27th: There are limits to choice
August 16th: The John Kerry "potential human beings" issue
August 8th: Stem cells: ethics and biology
August 2nd: The prolife voter - ethics
July 19th: Is the abortion lifestyle Casey's best defense?
July 6th: Presumed to be human: Not by the Roe Court!
June 22nd: The First Amendment does not oppose morality
June 11th: Casey is a poor crutch for Roe
June 1st: Roe v. Tort and Property Rights of the unborn
May 20th: Abortion is killing needed world resources: population
May 12th: Is the Court ready to surrender Roe?
May 6th: Will the Court consider the will of the people?
April 28th: Celebrating overly enthusiastic numbers
April 21st: Federal court via states rights - abortion cases
April 16th: Partial-birth Abortion's questionable defense
April 6th: The Problem of Exceptions - South Dakota
March 31st: The Abortion Debate Is Back!
March 16th: The Blackmun Papers
March 3rd: A Move to Reverse Roe v. Wade
February 20th: Roe v. Wade found wanting
February 10th: Roe v. Wade Examined
January 30th: Has "the critical mass" been reached? And is abortion the "safety valve?"
January 23rd: After 31 years, no justification for Roe!
January 8th: Is legalized abortion the end of the road?
January 1st: The "morning after pill" -- consequences
Editor’s Note: Humanity from the time of conception is becoming more widely accepted as a fact, especially by those involved in embryonic experimentation. If a researcher wants human embryonic stem cells, he or she must get them from a human embryo. Since the harvesting of such cells must take place shortly after conception, the conclusion is inescapable: the embryo is human from the time of conception. The ethical dimension here is the deliberate destruction of a human being by harvesting his or her stem cells.
Comment: Your very direct and simple statement should be helpful in detecting current disregard for ethical principles in the “marketplace” of bio-medical research, such as in the crafting of Proposition 71 in California. Profit for the many justifies the sacrifice of the few, has taken the place of respect for the rights of the individual human being. The error is multiplied, rather than justified, by the empty hope that human embryonic stem cells could be useful in alleviating disabilities of adult human beings.
During this week we are experiencing the cataclysmic loss of life (possibly 120,000 persons) and of property (all of one’s possessions) in the Indian Ocean. Also in this week, Californians are in the process of spending (in the billions) tax monies, part of which will be used to exterminate more of our human population. We live in a hazardous world. We should be spending our monies for securing our hope of holding our fragile society together, and not for its further destruction.
In other places on this web site, we have demonstrated the humanity of the unborn from the time of his or her conception (Section 2). We have stated the ethical principle of individual autonomy, the right to self-possession, proper to each human individual. No individual and no state may infringe upon the right of an innocent person with respect to his or her own life (Section 6). And we have suggested the biological reasons why embryonic stem cells do not heal disabilities in human adults (September 30, 2004).
Looking back from our present ethical problems in bioethics, we cite legalized abortion as the root of those problems. We invite our viewers to ponder the immediate future of legalized abortion, evaluated in terms of its past history, and to project ones thoughts into a future free from the absurdity of plundering our social future through the elimination its people. We will welcome your comments and your questions. May the New Year of 2005 be a happy one for us all, especially for those among us who are waiting to be born! E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: We take this occasion to thank you, our viewers, for your interest in what we have been attempting to accomplish during the past four years. Our objective has been to study legalized abortion, biologically, psychologically and morally, and to share our conclusions with our viewers.
We are grateful for those of you, even those expressing points of opposition, who have interacted with this web site for the sake of examining its truth. In many instances you have received our response directly, by e-mail. In other cases where your observations were of general interest, we have posted our response.
May we extend our best wishes to each of you for spiritual refreshment during these holidays dedicated to the memory of our Creator’s care for our human family! May the New Year find fulfillment in our quest for an American ideal of “liberty and justice for all” that includes our brothers and sisters who are waiting to be born!
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Editor’s Note: Because of Roe v. Wade’s non-conformity with ethical principles, the people of the nation have a right to question its credibility. How does the Court justify its decision to act when they knew that serious harm to innocent persons could result from their action?
Reply: Your question refers to the Court’s decision to protect a woman’s disposal of her unborn “conceptus,” (that which had been conceived) not knowing whether or not the “conceptus” is a human being. By admitting that they did not know when the human life of a “conceptus” begins, the Court held open the possibility that it could have begun at conception and, therefore, that every “conceptus” is a human being.
The ethical principle states that in circumstances of uncertainty, a person may not “take chances” of inflicting harm. A familiar example cites an eager hunter who, seeing a bush move, shoots his gun without knowing for sure whether the bush was moved by a deer or by another hunter. The principle is simply phrased: In case of substantial doubt, where harm is possible, a person is not free to act.
The Roe court admitted that, if the defense could establish the humanity of the “conceptus,” the plaintiff’s case would be discarded. It should be noted here that the Court, at this point, inverted the burden of proof. The traditional presumption that a pregnant woman is carrying a human being was negated by the action of the Court, in demanding that the defense must prove the humanity of the "conceptus."
The Roe court, itself, made no representative effort, to determine the identity of the victim of abortion, which is the key question of that particular case. The Court was content to say that no one knows when the human life of the “conceptus” begins and, therefore it should not be expected of the Court to know either. Nor did the Court face what was to them the probability that sometime before birth, the "conceptus" would be human. The Court set no “upper limit” of time for a legal abortion. With that “resolution” of the key matter, the Court proceeded to “grant” legal protection for the mother’s disposal of the “conceptus.”
Ethics is the science of codifying principles of morality as they are perceived by human intelligence and applied to human actions to judge them as being good or evil. Aristotle spoke of this function of intelligence when he said that there are two purposes of the human intellect: first, to enable us to perceive harmonious order in the world of nature and, secondly, to enable us to copy that order into our own lives. It is this commonsense approach to human behavior that is missed in the Roe decision, as we have seen above. The Court overlooked the humanity presumption within pregnancy, a presumption upheld in human culture from the beginning of human history. It seems fair to say that the Court, in its eagerness to get rid of the pregnancy, found it necessary to get rid of the humanity of the "conceptus" first. Such a deliberate masking of the truth must be labeled for what it is, unethical. It should go without saying that Ethics cannot tolerate labeling the values proposed by seekers of legalized abortion as superior to the life of even a probably human "conceptus." Let the Roe court answer for that! E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor's Note: Since the recent election, there is a renewed interest in the ethical analysis of legalized abortion. We will present some of the issues for your consideration:
Comment: Abortion is defined as the deliberate termination of a pregnancy by killing the conceptus (that which had been conceived.) In a wider ethical application of the term, abortion could be extended to include the killing of a conceptus conceived outside a woman's body, for example, in the petri dish used in the process of "in-vitro fertilization." Roe v. Wade concerns itself only with the former application. It would be interesting to question whether Roe could have sanctioned the termination of the pregnancy, but only by means other than killing the conceptus. It is obvious from practice that Roe did not limit itself to that possibility.
The basic ethical question about abortion is: What, or who, is the victim of abortion? Using the time-honored presumption that a pregnant woman is carrying a human being within her body, the ethical principle is simply stated: To intentionally kill an innocent human being, the conceptus, is a moral evil.
If a person were unwilling to accept this presumption of the humanity of the conceptus and proceeds with the abortion in a state of doubt as to the species-status of the conceptus, such a one acts unethically. The principle: In cases wherein serious harm is possible, a person is not free to act while in doubt as to whether the act will bring about those hurtful consequences.
If a person assumes that the conceptus is not a human being and proceeds with an abortion, such a one acts unethically, since there is no way of proving that the conceptus is not a human being.
If one proceeds with an abortion, assuming that the mother's right to dispose of the conceptus is greater than the latter's right to life, one acts unethically. The ethical principle: There is no greater human right than an innocent person's right to life. All other rights presuppose the right to life.
If immediate surgical intervention is the only means of saving a mother's life, as in the case of a ruptured Fallopian tube at the site of an ectopic pregnancy, the unintended, though foreseen, death of the conceptus is not an abortion. (Principle of the double-effect)
The ethical principle, of not acting in doubt, should apply to the action of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. The Court had professed to not knowing when a human beings life begins, yet sanctioned the killing of the conceptus at the chronological discretion of the pregnant woman. It might fairly be suspected here that the Court considered the freedom to abort as superior to the possible right to life of the conceptus.
In a curious condition of silence on the subject, the Roe court promoted several injustices resulting as a consequence of its decision. The father of the conceptus has been legally denied his human right to defend what he considers to be the life of his child. More grievous yet, the conceptus has not been granted due process of law and is not allowed a representative for undertaking an action of defense.
I think it is fair to fault the Supreme Court for neglecting to correct its negligence and its injustice, even to the present day. Much more scientific evidence is available now, over what was available thirty years ago, concerning the nature of the conceptus It is unjust for the Court not to investigate that evidence. It is also unfair of the present Court not to act upon evidence that the Roe decision is bringing severe physical and emotional distress (Post-Abortion Syndrome) to large numbers of women who have been misled by the easy availability of legalized abortion and by its practitioners.
Hurtful consequences to society and its traditional institutions are ethical problems resulting from legalized abortion. The practice of medicine has been wrenched out of its beneficial purpose of healing; law and justice have been distorted to make place for Roe; individual responsibility and accountability have become forfeit by the unreasonable permissiveness of that decision and its progeny. It must be remarked, sadly that even some of the churches have become confused by having chosen emotional rather than intellectual evaluation of the ethical consequences of legalized abortion.
For further thought, may I suggest the economic and social hurts resulting from the deliberate destruction, since 1973, of approximately one-third of the possible addition to the population of the United States, the lost genius and the lost earning power of the newcomers. And it might be sobering to suspect that, over the period of time, a potential anti-government, and anti-social time-bomb has been building. It could explode as soon as enough Americans will have awakened to the fact that before they were born they might have been legally killed by their own mothers. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Question: Now that Scott Peterson has been found guilty of first-degree murder of his wife, Laci, and “… second-degree murder in the death of the son she was carrying” (AP writer Brian Skoloff) it might be a good time for an essay on how the government can assert by implication that the unborn child was in this case a person covered and protected by law, and whose destruction constituted murder, yet the unborn destroyed daily by abortion are not “persons” protected by law. How can we have it both ways?
Who decides whether the fetus/unborn child is a person or not, and under what circumstances? The government? The mother? This situation seems to be an uncomfortably close parallel to the way a significant proportion of the country viewed slaves 150 years ago.
Reply: From the verdict of two murders in this trial, it is evident that both the mother and the unborn child were considered to be human beings. The question now is to determine whether the court’s action could be used to disqualify the legalization of abortion, through the identification of the unborn child as a human person.
As you suggested in your question, it would be schizophrenic of the law to see the unborn, in one instance, to be a human person and, in another, not to be a human person. However, in the Peterson case and in Roe v. Wade the problem of reconciling the two instances is not a simple one. There are subtle differences. In the Peterson case the court proceeded from California’s version of the Unborn Victims Act, which enabled the state to press the murder charge on behalf of the unborn baby. Neither the Unborn Victims Act nor the Peterson court’s action is equivalent to formalizing a law establishing the personhood of the unborn.
Also, it must be remembered that Roe v. Wade is not a legal formalization of the non-personhood of the unborn. The Roe court never declared the unborn not to be a human being. Nor did they define the human person. They were content to say that the unborn is “not a person in the full sense.” Yet, their decision to sanction the killing of the unborn, falsely and only by implication, appears to establish the non-humanity of the unborn. The Court merely stated that no one may interfere with the mother’s “Constitutional right” to dispose of her unborn child. In no realistic manner does Roe v. Wade have any relevance to legislative action that speaks of the unborn of human parentage as “human persons.”
Pausing for a moment, let us suppose that the Peterson court did not have access to an Unborn Victims Act. Suppose that the court were using another criterion according to which the murder charge applies, a criterion already well established. In its commonsense approach to justice, the court could be using the time-honored presumption that what a pregnant woman is carrying within her body is a human being. It should be noted that pregnant women, even from early awareness of pregnancy, traditionally have no doubt about being mothers of human babies. If the court were to proceed from that presumption it might well be successful in pressing the charge of murder in favor of the unborn child.
Whether a federal court could use the presumption of a local, criminal court as a precedent in a human-rights case is another question. Perhaps, indirectly, there could be merit in the suggestion. Would the Supreme Court be willing to follow the Unborn Victims Act model used by this lower-level, criminal court? Or would it be willing to consider the suggested time-honored pregnancy presumption? In either case, that would bring about, very logically, the termination of Roe v. Wade.
In the case of Roe, the Court not only disregarded the time-honored presumption of humanity within the pregnancy. In its place they inverted the burden of proof. The Court demanded proving the humanity of the unborn, and that, by a proof tailored to its own specifications. Did the Court have competence to overturn a presumption that, from time immemorial, had served as the definition of the humanity of the unborn of human parentage? The force of such a presumption should be equivalent to the force of law. Would it not be fair to say that the Roe court should be faulted for breaking the law?
Your question, of who should decide the personhood of the unborn, is a key that could unlock the apparent impenetrability of Roe v. Wade. Does the Supreme Court have the discretionary competence for defining the human person? Justice Antonin Scalia, presently seated on the Court, recently stated that the concept of human personhood is “too fundamental” for the competence of the Supreme Court to handle. In fact, human personhood is not defined in law. The definition of human personhood is taken from common understanding. There are other terms, such as religion, though involved in laws, are not defined but rather enjoy the commonsense understanding of the people.
The same problem could be raised concerning the federal “Unborn Victims Act.” It grants tort claims against the aggressor of the mother for injury to her and consequent damage to her unborn child. However, it is not equivalent to a federal definition of the unborn child as a human person. The aggressor can be charged and penalized for killing the unborn child, because of breaking the law. Whether the killing may be called murder presents another problem, the problem you have asked about: “Who defines the humanity of the unborn?” Should we not have to conclude that the Unborn Victims Act does not define but, rather, presupposes the humanity of the unborn, as perceived in the commonsense, time-honored presumption mentioned above: What a pregnant woman carries in her body is a human person.
In answer to your question, may I suggest that the long-time, common consensus of unprejudiced persons, the instinctive pregnancy presumption mentioned above, should be the definitive criterion of personhood for the unborn. And it should be concretized for all time in a Constitutional amendment, forever to be the law of the land. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: The recent national election in the U.S. has given rise to an awareness of “social values” as a necessary element in government. To the surprise of many politicians, especially among the Democrats, the election was influenced, perhaps decided, by a moral reform movement among the citizens. In many instances voters abandoned party affiliation in favor of reform. President Bush and the Republican Party, sympathetic to the movement, were favored in the election process. The moral issues most frequently expressed are legalized abortion, embryonic stem cell experimentation, “same-sex marriage” and assisted-suicide. Religious leadership is thought to be the motivating force behind the movement for moral reform.
Comment: Students of history are not surprised by the social phenomenon of moral reform. They see the ebb and flow of social behavior, measured by ethical standards, as the “swing of the pendulum.” The extremes of the pendulum’s swing are the highly esthetic (spiritual) and the grossly material. For some very complex reasons, neither extreme is tolerated for very long before the pendulum begins to fall in the direction of the other extreme. In earlier history, the period of this cultural pendulum was long, measured in centuries. More recently, with the acceleration of communication and transportation, the period has greatly shortened.
Already, so shortly after the election, we hear anxious cries of alarm: “The churches are taking over the government!” Or, as some would say: “the religious fanatics.” Actually it is the moral sense of the people that has gone into action, pressed by a need to free the pendulum to return to its beneficial position. The churches merely remind the nation of their moral responsibilities and motivate them to take action, as human beings, for their common welfare. This is far from the churches’ running the government; rather it is the democracy running itself, as it was designed to do.
The moral values mentioned above are only a portion of all our human concerns but, at this moment in our history, they are the most urgently in need of political action. It should be evident that none of these problems are beyond the scope of human understanding. They can be faced and resolved with equity by the people of our human society. It should not require divine revelation to know that destruction of their offspring by parents is unreasonable in the context of nature and, therefore, not to be protected by government sanction. The same can be said for “same-sex marriage.” In light of the nature of marriage and its primary purpose of procreation as a contribution to the good of the community, it does not require the pronouncement of a church to see that “same-sex marriage” is a contradiction in fact as well as of terms.
The moral sense of right and wrong belongs to each of us. It flows from our human nature, through our intellectual capability of reasoning. Saint Paul speaks of it as being "written on the fleshy tablets of our hearts." This moral sense promulgates the design according to which we were formed by our Creator, enabling us freely to choose the course of action designed for our welfare. This moral sense is a prime element of God’s providential government, one that respects the human characteristic, freedom of will. This moral sense has been spoken of, over the centuries, as Natural Law. It is not something imposed upon us by churches; nor is it for the few. It is for all of us, a necessary instrument of unification, whether in the home or in the nation. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: The national election of November 2, 2004 indicates that ethical issues are a prime concern among many Americans. The elimination of legalized abortion, the prevention of legalizing “same-sex marriage” and the protection of embryonic and fetal human beings were determining factors in the outcome of the election. This is evidenced by reasons offered by electors in “exit-polls” and in a perceptive statement, on the morning after the election, by the popular Democrat, Senator, Charles Schumer of New York. The newly reelected Senator, saddened by the failure of his Party’s bid for the presidency, said that the Democrats must begin seriously to face these moral issues yet, in such a way, as not to hinder their traditional Party’s policies.
Comment: The election, even in these early observations on its outcome, is a mirror of the minds and wills of the national electorate. And it is due time for the moral sensitivity of the people to have expressed itself so forcefully as in this election. It simply doesn’t make sense that parents dispose of their offspring, or that the government should sanction such unnatural behavior. The moral sense of the people has driven them into action. And that is how a democracy should work!
With this lesson of responsible citizenship fresh in mind, our deeply divided nation can continue its healing process by getting together, under the guidance of ethical principles, to function as a nation. Yes, as “one nation, under God.” Senator Schumer’s insight could serve as a clue: The ethical position on fundamental issues is a requisite for beneficial party politics, with knowledge that “putting first things first,” is never an obstacle in the way of other desirable political objectives. Rather, it gives greater credibility to those others. Further unification of the nation could be accomplished at this time by having another branch of our government, the federal judiciary, hearken to the wisdom of Senator Schumer’s observation.
In contrast with the encouraging results of yesterday’s national elections, there is a sadness, almost an unbelief, in the passage of Proposition 71 in California. By this action, the state has sanctioned the destruction of embryonic humans for the purpose of bio-technical experimentation, even to the extent of tax-payer funding. In the absence of any healing successes through the use of embryonic stem cells, one might wonder who will profit from the large expenditure of tax monies. And where is the ethical restraint?
The measure was voted in by a small majority. Looking at Proposition 71, is it not likely that many of the majority were mislead by emotional propaganda and by ambiguous wording of the Proposition? Who, after all, would agree to the killing of some human beings, even if the killings were of some advantage to others! A key paragraph of Proposition 71 is quoted below. You might wish to study it for answers to this question. We would welcome your comments to add with our own, as we speak on Proposition 71 at next posting. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
“Sec. 5: There is hereby established a right to conduct stem-cell research which includes research involving adult stem cells, cord-blood stem cells, pluripotent stem cells, and/or progenitor cells. Pluripotent stem cells are cells that are capable of self-renewal, and have broad potential to differentiate into multiple adult cell types. Pluripotent stem cells may be derived from somatic cell nuclear transfer or from surplus products of an in vitro fertilization treatment when such products are donated under appropriate informed consent procedures.”
Note: "pluripotent stem cells" = embryonic stem cells; "somatic nuclear transfer" = attempt at human cloning; "surplus products of an in vitro fertilization" = embryonic human beings.
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Editor’s note: Stem cells may be defined as minimally differentiated cells that, in their proper environment, may divide and produce cells that are further differentiated, according to the needs of the organism. The biology and the ethics of stem cell research can be summarized briefly in these few words:
As to the ethics, stem cells taken from mature human tissues (adult stem cells) and those from other sources, such as the discarded umbilical cord, may be used for purposes of healing, since the willing donor is not harmed by giving the gift. Stem cells may not be taken from embryonic human beings, since such taking kills the embryonic human. This includes all embryonic humans, even those “left over” from IVF procedures.
As for the biology, there are many examples of using adult stem cells for improving the condition of disabled organs and tissues of older human beings. Examples are being multiplied in current research. There are no examples of similar success, in adult tissue, through the use of fetal stem cells.
It should be noted that stem cells, in multi-celled organisms, are natural instruments of development, repair and replacement, all through lifetime, as well as being the stuff of embryonic development. Cuts and abrasions of the skin are repaired with new cells, stimulated into existence by the presence of the damaged cells. The tissues of the body are continuously being renewed by the replacement of cells, old ones being discarded and new ones taking their place. Some of the new cells arise from simple cell division, the daughter cells being identical to the dividing cell. Others arise from less differentiated cells within the tissues of an organ, stimulated by factors of environment within the involved tissue. These cells, in proportion to the minimal degree of differentiation, could be called stem cells. Red blood cells, in the bone marrow, offer an example. Each one begins its history with a less differentiated cell. Several generations of development take place before the mature cell is released into the circulatory system.
As for fetal stem cells not being effective in their interaction with mature tissue, a biologist attuned to the conditions prompting cell differentiation could predict this outcome. Aware of the purposiveness of nature, the biologist knows that cells, in multi-celled organisms, respond only to the needs of the entire organism, conveyed to the cell by the contents of their surrounding, liquid environment. They divide and differentiate as directed by a design proper to the species of the organism of which they are part. It should be noted that cancer is an exception, cells running beyond the control of the organism and, therefore abnormal and destructive “growth.,” the nature of their malignancy.
It is reasonable here to suggest that a scientist must begin his research by questioning whether his objective is possible, then whether it is probable, and then whether it is feasible. It is the first of these questions that is pertinent here: Can fetal stem cells interact favorably with mature tissue? Experience is showing that there is something like a “generation gap” problem in expecting fetal cells, outside of their natural environment, to continue acting and reacting as though they were in their fetal environment. It might be said here that the fetal stem cell does not know the language
of its, now foreign, environment and is unable to respond to it.What is sometimes overlooked here is that the organism is not a machine. The internal combustion engine of an early automobile ignites properly oxidized fuel. So does the modern engine. A mechanic would not remove the carburetor from the old engine as a replacement for the fuel injector of the modern one. That is because the part has to be conformed to the design of the whole. The cells of organisms do not respond mechanically. They are guided into action and reaction by the principle of life, named by Aristotle, the “psyche” or soul, which maintains the natural integrity of the living thing. The soul works through material instruments within the organism, such as mentioned above, where the individual cell is “triggered” into action by the contents of its liquid environment.
Bio-engineering has given us many helpful modifications of the human body, noting that the substitutions are always within the range of the possible. Scientists, however, should be willing to admit that everything desirable is not necessarily possible. Time and money and embryonic human lives are being spent, at the urgency of much “hype” and profit-seekers’ demands, but it still seems that a fetal environment cannot be duplicated in mature tissue.
Much of the content of this web site deals, in considerable depth, with the "over-looked" aspects of biological problems currently engaging our scientific community. We invite the viewer to study the material and to use it for the advantage of all, the scientists and the grateful beneficiaries of their dedicated service to our human society. Table of Contents and the listings of Displayed Responses will be of help to the viewer. In summary, embryonic stem cells are not to be tampered with, for reasons of Ethics and good Biology. Research with adult stem cells is to be encouraged. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: In the recent debates of the presidential candidates, President Bush referred to Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856)) supposedly comparing it with Roe v. Wade (1973.) Dred Scott denied slaves the rights of citizenship on the grounds that they were the property of others and not autonomous subjects of rights. The slave was declared to be not a person, in the legal sense of citizenship. By the consequences of this decision, it is not difficult to assume the decision to be equivalent to a denial of the slave’s human personhood. Roe declared the unborn of human parentage to be “not a person in the full sense.” For the slave, the consequence was continued slavery. For the unborn, the consequence is death by abortion.
Roe does not specify the supposed lack of the unborn’s personhood, whether it applies to legal personhood or, more extensively, to biological and philosophical, human personhood. Early on, the abortion-minded assumed the latter, that is, the unborn is not a human being. They did not ask themselves the logical question: Does the Supreme Court have the competence to define “human nature” and “human person” in so serious a matter as handing down a sentence of death? The subject of human life is too fundamental for a court to define. It would have been proper for the Roe court to accept the time-honored assumption that pregnant women are carrying other human beings within their bodies. And it would have been proper for the Dred Scott court to disregard the color of the body and the condition of slavery as incidental to the more fundamental evidence of the slave’s human behavior.
The final resolution of the Dred Scott problem was not a reversal of the Supreme Court’s decision, but rather an action of the federal legislature, passing the Thirteenth Amendment, and of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The resolution of the Roe predicament is problematical. Will it be slowly segmented by legislative action, as in the attempted partial-birth abortion ban, or will it fall completely on its own lack of merit?
Roe is a decision that has been labeled as bad Constitutional Law by many experts. They find no Constitutional basis for the decision. Justice White, who participated in the deliberations, called it “an exercise in raw judicial power.” Some see it as an example of “social engineering. On this web site, we see Roe to be unethically founded, in the Court’s sanctioning of abortion while in doubt concerning the beginning of a human being’s life. We see a fault in its illogical incorporation of Griswold’s “marital privacy” (no state restriction on the sale of contraceptives) into Roe’s “privacy.” (abortion.) We see self-inflicted deception in the Court’s use of “potential human life” in place of an adequate test of what or who is killed in an abortion. We also question the Court’s assessment that the states had criminalized abortion to protect the lives of women, and not to save the lives of their unborn. See Section 9.
It is fair to say that there is a close similarity between Dred Scott and Roe. Both were attempts by a court of law to solve a social problem without the help of Ethics and without the commonsense presumptions of the people. Dred Scott is a shameful page in U.S. history. Let us speedily consign our present shamefulness of Roe to that same record, under the heading of the darker side of human frailty, alongside of the Dred Scott decision. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editorial Note: Things move along rapidly in our modern culture, so that even the strikingly shocking events quickly fade into a stupor of forgetfulness. To recall what happened on January 22, 1973, a review of its consequences would be helpful.
Comment: Roe v. Wade is the subject of the above observation. It is a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court prohibiting interference in a pregnant woman’s choice of ridding herself of her unborn child. Many of the consequences of that decision are in evidence today and will be so for many years to come. Permit me to list a few.
Most serious is disrespect for the human individual, now engendered into the fabric of our culture in the form of legalized abortion, embryonic experimentation and other forms of child abuse.
Fostering the delusion that human beings have a “choice” to dispose of their unborn offspring, has weakened the moral and social foundation of our nation. The delusion flies in the face of the natural instinct for parental nurture, not absent even in the behavior of the lesser animals. The Court is not competent to make a decision favoring “choice.”
There has developed a disturbing sense of rebellion against the government that legally sanctions these abuses.
Usurpation by the Supreme Court of subjects “too fundamental” (Justice Scalia) for their competence, such as the definition of who is, and what is not, a human being, has given rise to anxiety over possible, future decisions attacking other inalienable rights of the people.
Deprivation of personnel, by the loss of approximately one-third of the possible population by abortion, has resulted in unfavorable economic consequences. Among these is the loss of a market that would have been needed to provide for the needs of the discarded one-third, along with the taxable incomes of their earning power. Add to this, the problems of an ageing population.
Perhaps even a greater loss is the loss of genius and other cultural resources in the discarding of the one-third, leaders in government, industry, literature, religion, art and science.
Post-abortion syndrome, the distress of women “living with” their abortion, has become a recognized social problem. Fortunately, relief is available, in Project Rachel.
Legalized abortion has provided an effective escape from the male responsibility for consequences of abortion.
Denial of the natural right of a father to save the life of his own offspring is a sad contradiction, as well as a serious social injustice.
Roe v. Wade established the unborn child as a commodity and sole possession of the maternal parent, leading to consequent disrespect for the rights of the unborn, such as attempts at human cloning and embryonic stem cell experimentation.
Dishonoring the Creator, a cooperator with the parents in giving human life, should be thoughtfully included as a consequence of legalized abortion.
I leave it to the viewer to add to this listing. I suggest a simple index for judging what might be entered there: Has any individual, or has our society, improved in happiness because of Roe v. Wade? If not, why not? E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: Because of considerable confusion on the ethics of stem-cell research, we offer a brief review of this important subject. Stem cells are minimally differentiated cells that have the capability, in a suitable environment, of dividing into various kinds of cells, as needed by the organism that possesses them. From the one-celled stage (zygote) of a human being there will arise three basic tissues of cells (ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm.) Each of these tissues contains some stem cells from which will arise the more highly specialized cells needed to produce all the structures (organs) of the completed body. Further, each of the structures, after completion, will contain some stem cells, to be developed for replacement and repair of the tissues in that structure. These are found throughout the individual’s lifetime. These are called “adult stem-cells.”
In the first few hours of the human individual’s life, a stem cell in the process of division is capable of producing daughter cells different from itself. (differentiation) This occurs naturally in its proper environment, that is, in the embryo (early stage of fetal development.) These are called “embryonic stem cells.”
A researcher might presume that embryonic stem cells could be inserted into adult tissue to produce specialized cells for replacement and repair of that adult tissue. This presumption presents two serious problems. First, extracting stem cells from a living embryo brings about the death of that embryonic human individual. It is ethically unacceptable to kill one human being for the benefit of another, or even countless others. The second problem rises in the failure to conform to the design of cell division and cell differentiation as it occurs in the animal organism. The researcher must not overlook the precise purposiveness of nature.
As indicated above, embryonic stem cells perform well in the embryo. They do not perform well in adult tissue. That is because both cell division and cell differentiation are orchestrated by the needs of the organism. The organism directs the cell by means of the content of the lymph (blood plasma) that surrounds the cell and by its timely programming that demands a specific response. The cell’s response is a reaction to factors of its immediate environment. The environment in which embryonic stem cells can act naturally is not found in adult tissue. There is more than a mere “generation gap” here. The adult environment lacks not only suitable content to stimulate the embryonic stem cell, but it also lacks the suitable timing for its proper response.
Many experiments using stem cells from the human embryo have been undertaken in the attempt to cure disabilities of various kinds in adult, human patients. There has been no success reported. On the other hand, adult stem cells employed for the cure of adult disabilities has a good record of success. The ethical problem here is quite clear: Research with human, embryonic stem cells is additionally improper because it deceives by its propaganda patients who are suffering disabilities, who might otherwise find relief in the use of adult stem cells. The moral imperative is simple: Human, fetal stem cell research, whether by government or by private companies, violates ethical principles of serious significance and destroys the moral integrity of its practitioners. Research with adult stem cells, on the other hand, should be encouraged. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor's Note: The recent decision, Norma McCorvey v. Hill (pdf), demonstrates again the difficulty of reversing Roe v. Wade from within the system of federal courts. (See opinion of Judge Edith Jones.) What would be required to reverse Roe is to demonstrate that an existing law, enacted prior to Roe, either directly or implicitly opposes Roe. We invite legal-minded viewers to bring such a law to our attention.
Comment: It is my concern that the mechanics of the U.S. judicial system may be impeding the process of justice. The blatant injustice of Roe is self-evident to thinking persons, but evidently not to the courts. The thinking person of good will sees injustice in a court action that sanctions the killing of the unborn in face of the strong possibility that the unborn are human beings. The Roe court professed ignorance about the beginning of a human being's life yet, in that state of substantial doubt, sanctioned the killing of the unborn.
In another instance, reasoning persons see the validity, in fact, the force of law in the age-old presumption that a pregnant woman is carrying a human being within her body. The Roe court ignored this presumption and instituted its opposite, namely, that the unborn is not a human being until proved to be so to the satisfaction of the court. There is no justice here; rather there is manipulation of law at the cost of justice.
Thinking persons, from within the workings of their human nature, have a reliable intuition concerning right and wrong, the stuff of justice. Many governments, from tribal to national, have been founded on the consensus of their constituents, based upon this well-established reality of human experience, called a sense of morality. As commonly accepted by human society, it is known as Natural Law. Formulated into a coherent system of thought and experience, it is called the Science of Ethics.
Courts operate from precedents, that is, prior decisions of courts. Ethics seems not to have a place in the proceedings of the court. One might wonder whether the precedents can be assumed to be ethically sound, or whether they, too, were decided without the benefit of Ethics.
It should be reasonable to expect the Supreme Court to follow the principles of Ethics in all its deliberations. It is reasonable that this could be mandated by the Legislature as a cooperative act of distributed power in governing our nation. It is reasonable that the Supreme Court should have some limits to its prerogatives of subject matter over which it is competent to rule. It should be noted that, currently, the Legislature is drafting a law which would prohibit the federal courts from tampering with the nation's Pledge of Allegiance, to protect it against those who would seek to delete the phrase "under God" from its wording. With reference to Roe, it is difficult to see how the Supreme Court considers itself competent to formulate its own definition of a human being, one that is contrary to the time-honored concept of the whole society.
Precedents can be misinterpreted. The Roe court took Griswold, a decision favoring the unrestricted sale of contraceptives, under the claim of "marital privacy" and turned it into Roe, a decision sanctioning a mother's killing of her unborn.
We invite our viewers in the U.S. to think about the need for ethical consideration on the part of our federal court system, in every one of their decisions. Retroactively, Roe would be a good starting point. Otherwise we continue to compound problems instead of adjudicating their fair solution. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has just now dismissed a case that it had accepted for hearing last November. The case is that of Norma McCorvey, a plea to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision of the Supreme Court. As plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, Norma McCorvey, by Rule 60 of the Court, is entitled to request a reversal of her original plea, if she can supply new evidence based on justice that pertains to the case. The Circuit Court revealed its reasons for dismissal of the case by ruling that, because Texas has repealed (by implication only) its law opposing abortion, there is no longer a basis for challenging Roe. We will offer a brief review of her plea and ask our viewers to comment on its merits.
Comment: After several years of preparation, with the aid of the Texas Justice Foundation, Norma McCorvey entered her plea before the Federal Court in Dallas, in the Fall of 2003. Within three days, the court ruled that too much time had elapsed since Roe v. Wade, making her ineligible to invoke Rule 60. She sought to appeal this decision of the Dallas court, a request that was accepted by the Fifth Circuit Court, seated in New Orleans.
In simplified form, Norma McCorvey’s case rests on three assertions. The first holds that the justices of the Roe v. Wade court were deficient in their knowledge of human development. They asserted their ignorance of when a human life begins. The thirty years of intervening progress in philosophical and biological sciences could now provide the Supreme Court with evidence that the human being begins his or her life at conception (fertilization.) Obviously, it follows that it would be not only unjust, but also illegal, to continue killing unborn human beings. Therefore Roe v. Wade should be reversed. Her evidence here consisted of several thousand pages of documentation.
The second assertion also demands an updating on the knowledge of the justices. There is no evidence showing that the members of the Court were aware of the serious hurt that is experienced by a large number of women who accept the court-sanctioned availability of abortion, now known as post-abortion syndrome. Norma McCorvey reinforced her claim by presenting a thousand affidavits describing the serious consequences of abortion experienced by that number of women, who had undergone abortion made possible by Roe v. Wade.
Texas was the defendant in Roe v. Wade, due to its having criminalized abortion. The plaintiff charged the state with prohibiting abortion in the case of a distressful pregnancy that would leave the woman with an unwanted child. At the present time Texas has its Moses Law, which provides acceptance and care of unwanted infants, no questions asked. Since this initial reason for Roe v. Wade, lack of provision for the unwanted infant, no longer exists, that decision should be reversed.
For future developments on the fate of Roe v. Wade it is encouraging to hear the words of the Circuit Court judge, Edith H. Jones, as she states that the high court should re-evaluate Roe v. Wade. “Although mootness dictates that Ms. McCorvey has no “live” legal controversy, the serious and substantial evidence she offered could have generated an important debate over factual premises that underlay Roe.”
Although legal technicalities stand in the way of resolving the abortion problem in the United States, there is still hope that commonsense thinking of ordinary people, as seen in Norma McCorvey’s plea for justice, might eventually prevail. As our Editor has suggested, what are your thoughts on this matter? E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Question: How can it be fair for the federal courts to trash the partial-birth abortion ban? The ban was established by the U.S. Legislature and is endorsed by the majority of the people.
Reply: The federal courts, starting with “Nebraska” and ending with the three recent District Court decisions, have given two reasons for their action: The ban imposes “an undue burden” upon women seeking abortion, and it makes no exception for the health of the mother. The “undue burden” clause is taken from “Casey,”
During the enactment of the federal ban, a large volume of medical evidence showed that the partial-birth abortion procedure is never necessary for the bodily health of a pregnant woman, indicating that, when chosen, it is for reasons other than bodily health. Furthermore, in abortion terminology, “health’ was given to mean not only a condition of the body, but emotional and economic conditions as well. It is for this reason that the federal ban does not use “health” in its vocabulary. The legislature was anticipating a breach of the ban through the faulty meanings that had been attached to the time-honored definition of health.
With this in mind, I can understand your concern for lack of fairness on the part of the federal judiciary, assuming that Roe v. Wade must be protected at any cost. However, questions may be raised whether the Court, in 1973, even thought about the manner of aborting the baby. Would any atrocious means of killing, such as partial-birth abortion, be outside the freedom to kill the baby? Would any kind of butchery, such as partial-birth abortion, be acceptable under that decision of the Court? Another basic question is whether the Supreme Court is competent to decide who is a human being and what things are not human beings. It was not fair of the Court to sanction the killing of the unborn, while professing ignorance of what it is that is being killed in legalized abortion. The Court must, eventually, face up to these and similar questions.
One problem with “undue burden” is that it was never clearly defined by the Court. It can mean anything, differently for different people. The Court failed to propose a minimum “burden” proportionate to the hurt of the barbaric procedure, to prevent frivolous excuses for undertaking it. A greater unfairness lies in their assumption that any “burden” can be proportionate to the value of a human being’s life.
Your use of the concept “fairness” is well chosen. Abortion is never “fair.” The baby has no voice, yet pays with his or her life. The distressed mother has been given a voice, but unjustly, for which she pays throughout her post-abortion syndrome. The father has been unnaturally deprived of his voice and conscientious fathers pay for that in the anguish of their legal inability to save the lives of their own children. The society has a voice, but if not effectively spoken, will pay in the total collapse of their nation. The Court has a voice, but, if the above-mentioned circumstances are unfair, what must be said of that which is responsible for the existence of those circumstances?
The U.S. Justice System will challenge the recent court decisions that have declared the federal partial-birth abortion ban unconstitutional. They will, if given an opportunity, ask the questions necessary for fairness. They will want to know the constitutional basis of the Court’s rejection of the partial-birth abortion ban. How the Supreme Court will respond will be life-giving, on the one hand, and catastrophic, on the other. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Comment: "Abortion is a moral choice, period. Let me start by saying I could never personally make the choice to have one myself. However one of the reasons I love this country is that moral decision is mine. If a fetus cannot survive outside a woman’s body I do not feel that it is fair to say that a decision that will affect her entire life is no longer hers. Democracy and Freedom are based, in fact cannot exist without personal choice. I may not agree with everyone in fact sometimes I wonder how many short-sighted (deleted) there can possibly be but with freedom there must always be both sides of the coin. So Bless The (deleted) and God bless America where the choice is mine."
Reply: Your statement is clearly expressed, so I will presume that I understand what you are saying. In my comments, if I may, I will suggest that you give further thought to your statement and see something there that you may have overlooked.
Your personal choice to not have an abortion is commendable, presumably based on your awareness of the unborn’s right to life. You might ask yourself whether all unborn should not have that same right. Should extraneous circumstances, such as the burden of a mother’s carrying to term, lessen the unborn’s right to life? What price is to be set on the unborn’s life, with respect to any and all extraneous circumstances? The other side of that coin is the price that many women pay because they chose abortion, called post-abortion syndrome.
Your relationship of moral choice and the freedom of democracy is well put. Here, again, if I may suggest, more thought is needed. With Roe v. Wade currently disguised as law in the United States, a mother has the legal freedom of choice to destroy her unborn child. But there is no moral freedom of choice for anyone, in any place or at any time, to destroy the unborn member of our human society.
It might be helpful here to distinguish between legal freedom of choice and moral freedom of choice. Certainly the two freedoms are not the same. Moral freedom has limits. If laws are based on moral principles, then it follows that laws also have limits. But there is a major difference: In legal freedom, accountability is to the state; in moral freedom, accountability is to God.
Throughout history, whether secular or religious, the human prerogative of free-will has been under observation as a key to understanding individual and social behavior. I think it fair to say that the majority result favors limiting choice to what is morally good and never to what is morally evil. To choose evil would be a misuse of the free-will and would be followed by the consequences of failed responsibility.
Because an individual’s evaluation of what is good and what is evil is the product of his or her intellectual judgment, called conscience, care must be taken not to assume that the matter of the choice is arbitrary, just because the choice is freely made. Nothing becomes morally good because of our choosing it. Rather, we should choose what, by its nature, is morally good.
In a well-ordered democracy laws are enacted to encourage good choices and to prohibit bad ones. I would like to assume that this is what you applaud as a member of the democracy. As for the distressful pregnancy you mention in your comment, a democratic people should be willing to reach out to assist the woman in her need, and not provide for the destruction of her child. I would suggest that this is how women will find joy in the freedom of democracy and how the democracy will prosper, rather than destroying itself in the destruction of its people. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s note: In the bio-technology of human reproduction, ethical limitations are being disregarded. It seems as though a new ethic has been established: If it is possible to accomplish, it is ethically acceptable.
Comment: Those who experiment with the lesser animals are expected to treat them humanely. When human beings are the subjects of experimentation, they must be treated at a level above that of the lesser animals. Humans belong to themselves and are not to be used as though they belonged to others. Human beings are more than their bodies, more than their biology.
Experimenters might agree to this evaluation and, yet, be mislead into assuming that there are some circumstances that provide exceptions to the rule. For example: A few may be sacrificed for the possible benefit of the many. This is an emotional appeal, sometimes enhanced by examples of need, usually presented by celebrities who are related to someone in need of relief from the possibly curable affliction. In some instances it is the experimenter who would profit from the “medical breakthrough.”
To formulate a simple rule, it should be noted that the human individual is not ethically free to destroy his or her own body, whether by mutilation or suicide. How much more so is any human being not free to mutilate or kill his or her neighbor! Criminal law clearly reinforces this inference.
In the area of experimenting with human reproduction, there are ethical limits to what is acceptable. Clear thinking has established nature as the guide to proper conduct, not merely nature as expressed in Biology, but all that is added by the concept of human nature, the emotional and the moral.
It is interesting that reproductive technology has awakened the moral sense of the nation more thoroughly than the atrocity of legalized abortion. Abortion got off to an almost unquestioned start by the myth that a human being’s life does not begin with conception. In mid-course, when the myth had been destroyed, abortion was sustained by a substitute myth that the unborn human may be sacrificed at the wish of the mother. Unethical tampering with nature’s design of human reproduction is being strongly opposed by the nation. Why? Because the people, in the majority, hold for the beginning of a human’s life at conception and demand respect for their brothers and sisters waiting to be born.
Attempts at human cloning and experimentation with fetal stem-cells are being opposed by nature itself. Neither of these, in our opinion, will ever be successful, simply because they defy the commonly accepted “laws of nature.”
Without doubt, many researchers are well intentioned in reaching out to what they consider to be within the potentialities of nature, for possible healing. But there is also a disturbing arrogance in the behavior of some, in their refusal to admit limitations, even those proposed by the majority of the nation, and in their relentless pursuit of permissions and monies from the government to sponsor their dreams. The darker side of this coin is the often unrealistic promises of relief from suffering and the neglect of valid research that can bring healing. The push for fetal stem cells as opposed to the use of adult stem cell for treating adult disabilities, may be suggested as an example.
Some viewers might look upon this complaint as being opposed to the history of beneficial modifications of the human body's anatomy and physiology, for example, in the implantation of the electronic pacemaker or in the use of synthetic insulin. However, despite the many beneficial modifications already accomplished, there are limits to what can yet be done. The conventional wisdom of the past is still true: "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." Ethical limits are of even greater significance. The moral imperatives pertaining to the autonomy and dignity of the human subject must be observed from the very beginning of his or her conception. The time-honored rule here is simple, yet fully clear: "Do no harm!" E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: In a recent statement John Kerry, the Democrat presidential nominee, spoke of the unborn, in their early stage of development, as “potential human beings.” We presume that the meaning of this strange expression is that the unborn are not yet human beings, but that they have the ability (potential) to become human beings. The strangeness of Mr. Kerry’s expression leads us to examine whether there is anything in the world of nature corresponding to his “potential human being.”
Let us begin with a simple observation: A specific capability can be possessed only by a member of the set. to which the actualization of the capability is proper. For example, anything capable of feeling pain, even before ever experiencing pain, must be an animal organism. A doorknob could never possess that capability.
The capability of becoming something essentially different from what it is, follows the same rule. The capability must be specific to the kind of thing that possesses it The capability to function humanly can be possessed only by a human being.
The expression “potential human being” is a contradiction of terms, since it demands that such a “being” must simultaneously both be and not be a human being. To possess the capability, it must be a human being, which is contradicted by saying that it is not yet (only potentially) a human being. No, Mr. Kerry, there aren’t any “potential human beings.” Nor is it possible that there ever will be! The unborn are human beings from the first moment of their coming into existence. That is why all of us, already born, have the sacred obligation to respect the right of those waiting to be born, the right to continue living the life given them by their parents and their Creator.
The above statements are not an exercise in mental gymnastics; they are a “matter of life and death.” It appears that Mr. Kerry would justify the elimination of the early unborn by giving them the contradictory status of “potential, but not yet, human.”
Will his strategy work? That will depend on whether people will think about his statement or ignore it. After all, some thirty years ago the Supreme Court got away with the same expression and its fine-tuned counterpart “not a person in the full sense.” Millions of our unborn brothers and sisters have never experienced the challenge of having been born, because of the employment of that expression by the Court.
To assist our viewers in a deeper study of the strange expression and its consequences, we indicate several readings on the question of “potential human being.” The readings are from our text materials within this web site. Please feel free to submit questions and comments that occur to you in your reading. We especially invite John Kerry to join us in our discussion.
Among the readings, human conception (fertilization) is detailed in a study of what existed before conception (the two, parental reproductive cells) and what comes into existence at their combining to form a single cell (zygote.) This will give the viewer a good insight into the difference between human conception and the fertilization proper to the lesser animals. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s note: Stem cells may be defined as minimally differentiated cells that, in their proper environment, may divide and produce cells that are further differentiated, according to the needs of the organism. The biology and the ethics of stem cell research can be summarized briefly in these few words:
As to the ethics, stem cells taken from mature human tissues (adult stem cells) and those from other sources, such as the discarded umbilical cord, may be used for purposes of healing, since the willing donor is not harmed by giving the gift. Stem cells may not be taken from embryonic human beings, since such taking kills the embryonic human. This includes all embryonic humans, even those “left over” from IVF procedures.
As for the biology, there are many examples of using adult stem cells for improving the condition of disabled organs and tissues of older human beings. Examples are being multiplied in current research. There are no examples of similar success, in adult tissue, through the use of fetal stem cells.
It should be noted that stem cells, in multi-celled organisms, are natural instruments of development, repair and replacement, all through lifetime, as well as being the stuff of embryonic development. Cuts and abrasions of the skin are repaired with new cells, stimulated into existence by the presence of the damaged cells. The tissues of the body are continuously being renewed by the replacement of cells, old ones being discarded and new ones taking their place. Some of the new cells arise from simple cell division, the daughter cells being identical to the dividing cell. Others arise from less differentiated cells within the tissues of an organ, stimulated by factors of environment within the involved tissue. These cells, in proportion to the minimal degree of differentiation, could be called stem cells. Red blood cells, in the bone marrow, offer an example. Each one begins its history with a less differentiated cell. Several generations of development take place before the mature cell is released into the circulatory system.
As for fetal stem cells not being effective in their interaction with mature tissue, a biologist attuned to the conditions prompting cell differentiation could predict this outcome. Aware of the purposiveness of nature, the biologist knows that cells, in multi-celled organisms, respond only to the needs of the entire organism, conveyed to the cell by the contents of their surrounding, liquid environment. They divide and differentiate as directed by a design proper to the species of the organism of which they are part. It should be noted that cancer is an exception, cells running beyond the control of the organism and, therefore abnormal and destructive “growth.,” the nature of their malignancy.
It is reasonable here to suggest that a scientist must begin his research by questioning whether his objective is possible, then whether it is probable, and then whether it is feasible. It is the first of these questions that is pertinent here: Can fetal stem cells interact favorably with mature tissue? Experience is showing that there is something like a “generation gap” problem in expecting fetal cells, outside of their natural environment, to continue acting and reacting as though they were in their fetal environment. It might be said here that the fetal stem cell does not know the language
of its, now foreign, environment and is unable to respond to it.What is sometimes overlooked here is that the organism is not a machine. The internal combustion engine of an early automobile ignites properly oxidized fuel. So does the modern engine. A mechanic would not remove the carburetor from the old engine as a replacement for the fuel injector of the modern one. That is because the part has to be conformed to the design of the whole. The cells of organisms do not respond mechanically. They are guided into action and reaction by the principle of life, named by Aristotle, the “psyche” or soul, which maintains the natural integrity of the living thing. The soul works through material instruments within the organism, such as mentioned above, where the individual cell is “triggered” into action by the contents of its liquid environment.
Bio-engineering has given us many helpful modifications of the human body, noting that the substitutions are always within the range of the possible. Scientists, however, should be willing to admit that everything desirable is not necessarily possible. Time and money and embryonic human lives are being spent, at the urgency of much “hype” and profit-seekers’ demands, but it still seems that a fetal environment cannot be duplicated in mature tissue.
Much of the content of this web site deals, in considerable depth, with the “over-looked aspects of biological problems currently engaging our scientific community. We invite the viewer to study the material and to use it for the advantage of all, the scientists and the grateful beneficiaries of their dedicated service to our human society. The Table of Contents and the listings of Displayed Responses will be of help to the viewer.
We also recommend an excellent and very extensive presentation of the stem cell as it stands before us, and in the midst of our culture, today. It can be found in the first section of The Dallas Morning News, of Sunday, August 8, 2004. The ethical, biological and political issues surrounding the stem cell debate are fairly presented for the advantage of all levels of readership. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Comment: My representative is mostly for abortion, for which I would not vote, but he is strong on several good programs for which I would like to vote.
Reply: Nothing good that the candidate represents could be of greater value than the life of even one unborn human being. You would not be morally free to forfeit that good in exchange for whatever goods the candidate has to offer.
For the sake of completeness I might suggest other cases for you to think about. Suppose there are only two candidates running for office, both favoring abortion, one with no restrictions and the other with some limitations. May you vote for the one with restrictions, so that there would be lesser killings of the unborn should he be elected?
The question may be answered in the affirmative. Someone might object, saying that choosing the lesser of two evils is still the choosing of evil. It should be noted here that the decrease in killing, not the killing, is what is chosen, and that is not an evil but a good.
To provide another example, this time for your analysis: Suppose a pro-life candidate were running in the same race, along with the two candidates mentioned above. When it becomes known that the pro-life candidate has no chance of winning, how would you, as a pro-lifer, vote? E.R.
Editor’s note: Please feel free to submit questions. We will do our best to answer them. Your comments will also be welcome. reply@unbornperson.org
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Question: Is it for real what you said about the Supreme Court’s reason for not junking their abortion decision? I mean the one in Pennsylvania about having to keep up with women’s abortion lifestyle. (July 6, 2004). Did I get that right? If a burglar had been successful for twenty years he should never, after that, be hindered by the police because that would interfere with his lifestyle.
Reply: I am inclined to agree with your observation. Hurtful conduct should not be tolerated on the excuse that the perpetrator had become accustomed to behaving hurtfully. For a comment on that, read (June 11, 2004).
The added irony in the Pennsylvania decision, called Casey, is that it invokes custom as having the force of law. There the Court demands observance of a custom of only twenty years duration, 1973 -1992, the availability of legalized abortion. Yet, twenty years earlier the Court, in practice, ignored a custom that had existed since the beginning of recorded history, the presumption that what a pregnant woman carries within her body is a living human being.
Your analogy, as a matter of fact, makes sense. However, as a matter of law, your analogy fails. The burglar had been operating contrary to law, whereas the women were operating under the sanction of law. I say, “as a matter of fact” because, despite Roe v. Wade, the women were doing something hurtful to their babies and to themselves and to the whole society. This sinister side of Roe may have become evident to the Casey court in 1992, when they almost overturned Roe by a vote of 4 to 5.
Your bewilderment indicates the absurdity of Roe, the protection of evil by law. The absurdity is made more profound in the professed helplessness of the Court to break out of the obviously absurd position they had gotten themselves into. Perhaps the other two branches of government might discover some technique to assist the Court back to its purpose of dealing out just and, therefore, reasonable decisions.
The entire matter of legalized abortion must be reviewed with objective standards of evaluation, the traditional principles of ethics. Inquiry must be made concerning the limits of competence proper to the Supreme Court on questions pertaining to human life. With the Roe court bent on legalizing abortion, it was not proper for them to have used their own definition of a human being, especially when it clashes with the wisdom of the ages. Obviously there is a conflict of interest here.
In the act of dehumanizing the unborn, the Court set a pattern of embryonic and fetal abuse, in full bloom at the present time, thirty years later. The increasing incidence of child abuse, for children already born, was an almost immediate consequence of the Roe decision. What I suggest here is that all human life is to be respected, not only the human life designated by a prejudiced court. What is your opinion in this matter? E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: We are currently attempting to locate a quotation from Robert Byrn, at one time a professor of law at Fordham University, faulting the Roe court for ignoring the presumption of human-ness in the unborn. We present some preliminary observations on that subject here for your consideration:
The presumption of innocence is a solid plank in the platform of justice in the United States of America. A person is innocent until he or she has been proved guilty. It would be a travesty of justice to reverse the presumption of innocence, at least in cases wherein the defendant cannot objectively prove his or her innocence. If intention, or motive, were pivotal in the case, how could a defendant prove a non-hurtful intention, except by his or her own testimony that, by inverted presumption, is presumed to be false?
Presumption of innocence is based on the experience of a people who see that, for the most part, human beings are honest and law-abiding. Doing what is right and proper is the norm of human behavior. When questions are raised, innocence is legitimately assumed, rather than guilt. Without such presumptions, society would have no stable foundation for evaluating human behavior. If, in the majority, human behavior should degenerate to the point where the presumption of innocence is no longer valid, the society would be in danger of immanent collapse.
Presumptions, as with enduring customs, have the flavor of law. They should not carelessly be ignored. Nevertheless, a significant presumption was ignored by the Roe v. Wade court. Moreover, that presumption was deliberately inverted, paving the way for the injustice of legalized abortion. From time immemorial, a pregnant woman was presumed to be carrying a human being in her body. The same presumption prompted the individual states of the U.S. to criminalize abortion. Yet, the Roe v. Wade court chose to disregard this presumption. The unborn’s human-ness was no longer to be presumed. In place of the time-honored presumption, the Court demanded that the unborn’s humanity must be proved in order to save his or her life from abortion.
To reinforce their contrived standard , the Court refused to entertain the required proofs offered by the defendant, by saying that no one, especially no one on the Court, knows whether human life is possessed by the unborn. Therefore, what had been generally presumed to be true cannot, by the criteria of the Court, be proved to be true. Thus, the Court has constructed an impregnable shield around its Roe v. Wade decision, impregnable even to the demands of justice. The Court’s 1992 decision, Casey, further illustrates this conclusion. In that decision the Court asserts that even they cannot bring Roe out into the open for review.
Had the normal workings of justice and commonsense been allowed to prevail Roe v. Wade could never have come into existence. It is interesting to note that no one, including members of the Court, has ever proved the unborn not to be a human being. Such a proof would have been required to justify the content of Roe, had it been attempted under the time-honored presumption of the unborn’s humanity.
It may be argued whether this behavior of the Court defies the laws of logic, but there should be no question of its disregard for the laws of ethics. If no one knows whether or not the unborn is a human being, the ethical presumption must be in favor of life, rather than of death, in justice for the unborn. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Question: When church people talk to the Supreme Court about the morality of abortion, would the court people listen? Or would they hide behind the First Amendment?
Reply: If a church member were to have the attention of the Court, he or she could probably talk with them about morality and, yes, even religion. The First Amendment would not prohibit that. The Amendment prohibits the establishing of a state religion, such as was had in England, from which the Pilgrims had fled. In the U.S. there is a freedom to practice religion, with no compulsion or restriction by the state. It is interesting to remember that each of the fifty states, in the preamble of its Constitution, recognizes God and invokes divine aid for the well being of its citizens.
Perhaps you are assuming that when people ask the government to be attentive to morality they are proposing the establishment of a religion. Taking a look at the relationship between morality and religion could be of help to you here.
Religion is the mutual relationship between an individual human, or a group of humans, and God. God is accepted by various persons as the ultimate cause of their existence and their continued well being, the designer and giver of their human freedom and, therefore, the one to whom accountability must be rendered. Morality expresses deliberated conformity or lack of conformity to this perceived plan of God.
Morality is a characteristic of human behavior that constitutes and measures the goodness or evil of specific actions. Whatever yardstick is used for the measuring, it becomes the standard of good and evil conduct, as when acting reasonably is said to be good and acting irresponsibly is said to be evil. Underlying the standard is the assumption that there is something objective about right reason and good will, not something arbitrary. Eventually, as history indicates, society generally agrees that humans have in their distinctively human faculties of intellect and free will the ability to know what is reasonable and the corresponding freedom to act accordingly. Criminal law has always been based on this assumption.
Morality and religion are seen as related whenever human accountability terminates in God. This is true whether God is known by human reasoning as the Author of Nature or believed, through revelation, as a Trinity of Divine Persons. The noteworthy point here is that revelation, a supernatural element of religion, is not required for establishing the standard of morality. The standard is deduced by reasoning upon God’s handiwork in the world of nature, revealing his will as to its proper operation. Ethics is the science of drawing such conclusions and applying them to the concrete problems of everyday life.
There is a question whether the basic principles of morality are common to all persons, having religious affiliation or not, since the basic moral dictates are promulgated by the reasoning ability that is common to all human beings. A consensus of the majority, over long periods of time, indicates an affirmative answer. This is in agreement with the notion that humans have been endowed with intelligence to discern what the Creator wishes for their well being, as an aid to the beneficial exercise of free choice.
In this sense, morality plays a role in government. Laws are formulated with an eye to conformity with its principles. For establishing and maintaining good order in society it could not be otherwise, since the moral principles are held as being essential, not arbitrary, in a way similar to the directions in the Operations Manual written by the designer of a delicate machine.
In what sense, if any should morality be separated from government? Surely not the basic moral principles that are common to all human beings, that no religious denomination had invented, yet that all attempt to teach and practice. Surely not the right to lobby on the basis of morality, for or against issues that clearly involve moral principles!
Legalized abortion in the United States presents a problem that relates politics and morality. The problem should not involve religion, except in the sense of individual and group accountability to God for all deliberate individual and group choices. The problem does not require religion in the sense of supernatural revelation.
Protection of the right to life and the right to human dignity pertain to basic morality, the content of which does not require proclamation from any of the churches, a content which, according to a noted churchman, St. Paul, is written on the “fleshy tablets of the human heart.” Churches, however, have a duty to remind the government of its serious obligation to observe the principles of morality whenever it is failing to do so.
In its failure to protect human life and human dignity, to the best of its ability, the government is acting unethically. In its strident disregard for the central principle of its own Declaration of Independence, the inalienable right to life, the government should be reminded of its serious duty to remedy its moral deficiency. The churches, then, without being an established political entity, serve the citizenry of the state by coming forward with such reminders. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: In the 1992 Casey decision, the U.S. Supreme Court claimed inability to reverse Roe v. Wade because women had become accustomed to having abortion as part of their lifestyle and the Court was not free to deprive them of it. If this same argument had been applied to the “Jim Crow” laws in the early part of the Twentieth Century, courtesy of the Dred Scott decision, those laws would still be in force today.
Comment: The Dred Scott culture had become accustomed to preferential treatment, yet was able to survive the transition from personal injustice for black persons to social justice for all. This is a strong argument in favor of your position. I am inclined to agree that the Casey court’s judgment of our current society is overly patronizing and therefore incorrect. Even in today’s society, perhaps more degenerate than that of the “Jim Crow” era, it should be tolerable for most citizens, including most women, to withstand the transition from killing their unborn, to nurturing them instead.
Just in passing, it is curious that bad laws, and even unjust laws, should not be repealed, simply because of their duration. The title of such behavior by a court, “stare dicis,” (Latin: Let it stand.) is used reasonably only under limited circumstances. If the repealing of a bad law, here and now, would bring worse evils in its wake, it may be better to let the evil law stand, for the time being. These were not the circumstances in Casey. In that instance, if I may suggest, the dignity of the Court was simply missing from the business of justice and, in its place, a juvenile reluctance to face the issues, with vacuous excuses for the delinquency.
Becoming accustomed to killing ones unborn and feeling a necessity for doing it, is also a curious matter. Something so radical to the welfare of the society as human reproduction ought not be left to the whim and fancy of the few individuals who might not have found a place for the completion of reproduction in their individual lives. The society would have no complaint if those persons were to refrain from reproduction, but the society should not sanction the killing of the offspring resulting from their reproduction having been initiated. Such would be to fail in ones duty to ones neighbors waiting to be born into the society.
In Casey, the U.S. citizens were also told by the Court that a reversal of Roe would cause a lack of confidence in the country’s system of justice and, therefore, was not to be undertaken. Does this evaluation of the country’s commonsense and sense of decency justify the continuation of the unjust ruling called Roe v. Wade? Or is it an arbitrary ploy of a court overly impressed with its own significance, and negligent of its limitations?
Let Roe be examined in the light of day, its fifty million killings. And then discard it. Let the Court admit that its inhumane experiment has failed. Then let the people prove that instead of collapsing they can rise, as does the legendary phoenix from the ashes, in this case, the ashes of a misguided arm of national justice. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: Several states recognize the right of an unborn to sue for damages and to have property rights. These rights presuppose the unborn to be a person. Since the Supreme Court has not constrained this practice, on what grounds does the Roe v. Wade Court deny the unborn their right to life?
Reply: The Roe Court did not explicitly deny the personhood of the unborn. The Court, in its professed ignorance about the beginning of a person’s life, claimed not to know whether the unborn is a person. In sanctioning the mother’s killing of her unborn, the Court acted as though the unborn has no right to life. The Court must be faulted for having acted hurtfully when in a condition of substantial doubt. They violated a basic law of ethics.
The Court proclaimed that, in later stages of gestation, a state may act upon its “compelling interest” and protect the unborn. The state’s interest, however, could be superceded by what came to be called, in Casey, 1992, an “undue burden” for the mother.
In the legalization of abortion throughout the U.S. the Supreme Court has much to answer for. Most central to the subject of its deliberations on abortion is the question of what or who is being killed by abortion. The Roe Court excused itself from answering that question by insisting that no one knows the answer to that question. It is interesting that the Court seemed unaware that, without an answer to that question, their deliberations could have no validity as a rational process. If a hunter were to shoot into a wiggling bush, not knowing whether it was a deer or another hunter causing the wiggle, all further attempts at his justification would be unacceptable
As the Court should see it, more than fifty million deaths of what possibly were human persons have resulted from Roe and more are accumulating on a daily basis. This is not the way for a responsible society to act. It is time to bring Roe out into the open and to demand its removal from what the U.S. assumes to be a system of justice.
The Roe Court indicated that the U.S. Constitution makes no explicit consideration for the status of the unborn, in fact, not even making a mention of the unborn. But does this excuse the Court from having to ascertain the nature of the victim of abortion? The absence of reference to the unborn in the Constitution shows only that there had been no need for the inclusion of that subject at the time of writing. It should have been obvious to the Court that their unique case, centrally involving the unborn, demanded of them a closer inspection of the Constitution and to find implicit documentation that those of human parentage, waiting to be born, are fully human beings.
In the pioneering phase of their country’s history, a time when every person was looked upon as a most precious resource, the Founding Fathers could never have visualized a time when the citizens would be clamoring for legal sanction to kill their own offspring. They could have seen no need to write an explicit protection for the unborn. In those days it was commonsense certitude that what a pregnant woman was carrying within her body is a human being. What has happened to commonsense in the U.S. meanwhile? E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: At the time abortion was legalized throughout the U.S. (1973) Japan was attempting to halt their abortion experiment, which they had undertaken some twenty years earlier. Abortion was turning Japan into a nation of older people, with fewer younger citizens to support them. Their worldwide market of electronic devices was being threatened with an insufficient number of persons to produce and sell their products. The U.S. missed an opportunity to profit from Japan’s mistake. The U. S. Supreme Court had failed to study the consequences of Japan’s social experiment, and they failed to consider the probable outcome of their own decision. U.S. citizens were unprepared for being forced by their Supreme Court into legalized abortion and, as of the present time, have been unable to retract it.
Comment: Some wise person, in the midst of a civic calamity, observed: “If we can’t learn from experience, we deserve what we get.” Japan is finding it more difficult to get out of their self-imposed “freedom” than it was to enter it. Could the U.S. still learn something from their experience? And what about the rest of the world, in their various stages of dabbling in the forbidden fruit?
Russia and some of the eastern European countries, also early experimenters in the mine-field of legalized abortion, are attempting to bring their populations back into balance, with considerable difficulty. Some of Western Europe’s more recent experimenters, in the face of declining native population, are offering monetary exchange for childbirth. Yet, other countries around the world, such as Spain, are toying with the thought of widening their already established scope of legal abortion. Some other countries, such as Ireland and those in Central and South America, are remaining steadfast in their grasp of respect for human life and its potential for building an enduring nation.
Uruguay, a neighbor to the south, is showing the world that it will not be misled by any sector of its government into the trap of legalized abortion. In their recent legislative action, they rejected the baited hook. The people, economically depressed, can see no relief in killing off its future citizens. Even apart from their respect for the humanity of the unborn, the people of Uruguay know that babies are consumers, demanding the production and marketing of the goods they need. And they know that, later, those babies will become wage earners and taxpayers.
Spain is in turmoil over the suggestion of its new prime minister to expand its already legalized, though limited, abortion, to a higher limit of twelve weeks gestation. Domestic violence in Spain is increasing and the decline of moral principles is becoming evident in the push for legalization of same-gender “marriage.”
May the rest of the world encourage Spain in its desire to improve the status of women, especially in their family relationships. Let us be equally strong in our denunciation of legalized abortion. Abortion is not a means of improving a woman’s chances for happiness. Rather, abortion is destructive of women and of family life.
U.S. is learning that family violence is a logical consequence of legalized abortion, the ultimate in child abuse. In his desire to improve the plight of Spanish women, the new prime minister should be told that abortion hurts many of the women who involve themselves with it. Statistics on post-abortion syndrome are readily available in the States and in other countries, mentioned above. In Japan there has been established a custom of dedicating one day each year for parents of aborted children to reconcile themselves to the willful loss of their children, by public prayer and ritual. Such a need must surely be rooted in a deep emotional foundation, unknown to all, other than to those who are experiencing it.
It may seem unfair for another country to be “preached at” by the U.S. However, this is not a case of “the skillet calling the kettle black.” It is an attempt to share costly experience for the avoidance of costly mistakes, whose price is the life and the hurt of a neighbor. It is inexcusable that we, of the United States, have not yet fully learned the lesson that we are trying to preach. But there is an awakening in progress in our country, the necessary first step toward repair. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: Will Roe v. Wade disappear by erosion, as the proponents of abortion fear, eaten away by laws that prohibit its implementation? Or will the Supreme Court take the initiative and reduce its scope, or erase it altogether? Roe is under attack, from within as well as from outside the Court.
Comment: Apart from unpredictable factors, such as a changed membership of the Court, it seems to some observers that the Court, itself, will take some action to declare its jurisdiction inadequate to contest matters already established by the understanding of the majority of the society over a long period of time.
Matters, such as the definition of a human being, a human person, or even a living thing should not be thought to be solely the prerogatives of the Court. Natural relationships, such as between parents and their children, should not be denied or modified by the Court. Based on the common understanding of what is natural, unnatural behavior, on the other hand, could become matter under the jurisdiction of the Court. Abortion, for example, could be prohibited by the Court, but not sanctioned by the Court.
Constitutional lawyers, from the beginning of Roe v. Wade, have found it to have been arbitrarily fabricated by the Court, without an awareness of, and without an understanding of, many essential factors pertinent to the real-life nature and consequences of abortion. Among these are the nature of what or who is being killed by abortion; the detrimental effects on women using the procedure made easily available by the Court; the rights of the child’s father; the moral concerns for respecting human life, even when only established as possibly present; the long prevailing custom of the states in protecting their unborn; and so forth.
The three pending challenges to the federal Partial-birth Abortion Ban will provide material likely to mandate a review of Roe. Their decisions should be handed down shortly. McCorvey v. Hill, from the 5th District Court, is also preparing to publish its findings. They will have a direct bearing on Roe v. Wade.
From Justice Blackmun's papers it can be seen that the Casey Court, in 1992, were close to reviewing Roe v. Wade, by a four to five vote. It is probable that the present Court is looking for a case suitable for re-examining Roe for some change in its present status, one that might not involve too much “loss of face” for the Court. Some of the above-mentioned issues would be useful for that purpose. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: In facing the serious issue of abortion, the people of the U.S. have been disenfranchised since 1973 by their Supreme Court and their federal district courts. The latest example of this tyranny is seen in the federal judicial system’s readiness to oppose the partial-birth abortion ban recently enacted into law by the federal legislature. In three challenges to that law, federal district courts are currently hearing complaints against it. Eventually their findings will be subject matter for the Supreme Court. With a former ruling of the Supreme Court in mind, Nebraska, how will the federal law fare in the hands of the judicial system?
Reply: There are fine points of difference between the two cases, carefully constructed into the federal ban, by the legislature. Beside that, there is a tangible factor at work in the three district courts that will also be present in the superior hearing. This is the increasing, moral impatience of the U.S. citizenry. The people, through its legislature, had already, twice before, voted a ban against partial-birth abortion. The ban was vetoed in each instance by the Democrat president, Bill Clinton.
It is my hope that the wide-spread and persistent will of the nation’s people will finally impress the district courts and the Supreme Court with its ethical significance. Judges need reliable sources from which to draw wisdom. The American people, in their instinctive feeling for fair play and decency, reinforced by the wisdom of the ages, are a reliable source of guidance in their condemnation of partial-birth abortion.
Another factor at play in the Supreme Court is its commonsense need to review its 1973 decision. Essential, scientific insight into the human status of the unborn of human parentage from the time of conception, has been multiplied. Is the Court willing to continue sanctioning the killing of the unborn whom they should see now, in highest probability, to be our fellow human beings!
Add to this the documented social significance of post-abortion syndrome. In 1973 the Court did not anticipate this cruel and disabling consequence for women resulting from the easy availability of abortion. Is it not time for the Court to see that the supposed advantages of legalized abortion are far outweighed by the very real hurts being experienced by our individuals and our society because of it?
You may notice that I am trying hard to believe that we are a people who have the honesty to admit our mistakes and to amend them. Social experiments, both good and bad, are parts of our history and this one, lasting a third of a century, has run its course. “We, the People,” have spoken We have proclaimed our right to care for our brothers and sisters who are waiting to be born. We protest the claim of parents that the unborn child is their personal property and may be disposed of at will. We fault our Supreme Court for having misled those parents into the absurd conclusion that abortion is a valid choice. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: Does the number of marchers make it right? How many abortion marchers does it take to justify killing one of our brothers or sisters waiting to be born? If these questions sound absurd, it is because they are. What, then, is the urgency of the promoters to inflate the number of abortion (and other) marchers in last Saturday’s demonstration in Washington?
Comment: Without being cynical, I could suggest that the demonstration’s purpose was not to justify legalized abortion, but to insist that legalized abortion is what many people want. That could be the reason for inflating the numbers of participants. To express it simply, the greater the number of voices wanting something, the more it should be had. The moral issue of right and wrong is not even a consideration here. Democracy? No! Attempted anarchy? Yes!
It is interesting that the “Roe” Court used the same method for enacting its abortion decision. The Court was “granting” what some of the adventurous people of the nation wanted, even though they were a small minority at that time. The minority grew later only because of the Court’s encouragement, of giving it creditability with their absurd and morally empty decision, known as “Roe v. Wade.” I think it fair to speak of that decision as Court-supported anarchy, the minority’s wishes replacing the rule of law.
In reading the news of the event I perceived what you emphasized, a “reach” for big numbers by the promoters, one of whose estimate was 1,150,000 persons. The police estimate was quoted at 250,000. I mention this only to alert the promoters to be realistic in their enthusiasm. The majority of our nation’s women do not favor legalized abortion. If some of the other women’s causes proclaimed in the demonstration are of value, and if you want them to succeed, do not let them become tainted by association with abortion.
As an aside, it remains unclear to me why the presence of media celebrities in the demonstration should have any “selling value.” Will the public begin to rally to the side of legalized abortion simply because those personalities endorse it? What, of the many celebrities who don’t?
The often repeated threat by the demonstrators, of winning their wishes in the fall election, because of their numbers, is more fanciful than real. The facade of “Choice” has lost its glamour among the younger women of our country, who also are voters, eager to fulfill their civic responsibility and uphold the natural dignity of their womanhood. The behavioral pendulum of history is swinging back to personal and social decency, respect for oneself and others of our human society, based on a filial respect for the Creator who designed and sustains it throughout the millennia of human history. E.R. reply@unbornperson.org
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Editor’s Note: Informal whispers are beginning to drift in from the courts that are hearing complaints against the federal law banning partial-birth abortion. In one instance, a voice says that there will not be a national restriction of the law’s implementation. Another voice says that there will be no natio