DNC Chair: Saying Life Begins at Conception “Extreme”

[Mark]

DNC Chair: Saying Life Begins at Conception “Extreme”



stupid babies

The chair of the national Democratic Party has issued a statement on a vote taking place next week in Mississippi on an amendment saying human life begins at conception or fertilization. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democratic congresswoman chosen by President Barack Obama to head the party, called making such a statement “an extreme and radical step,” according to a new CNS News report.

“For the vast majority of Americans, including people on both sides of the abortion issue, this is an extreme and radical step,” she told reporters on a conference call and adding that it is supposedly a “divisive, dangerous, and destructive” attack on women.

“Now,” she said, according to CNS News, “the effort by the far right [is] to pass these so-called personhood amendments–divisive, dangerous, and destructive laws which would cripple a woman’s right to choose, limit access to birth control, and put the lives of women with difficult pregnancies at risk.”

The DNC chair said she is working in her own state to stop such an amendment.

“We’re sounding the alarm bells now because it’s absolutely critical that Floridians understand just how extreme this personhood campaign is, what it would do to not only a woman’s right to choose but to saving the lives of women, to the opportunity for parents to be–the opportunity for men and women to become parents when they’ve not been able to,” she said.

Promoting abortion is nothing new for Wasserman-Schulz and, in September, she criticized the news that a House committee will conduct an investigation of the Planned Parenthood abortion business, calling it a partisan attack.

full: http://www.lifenews.com/2011/11/04/dnc-chair-saying-life-begins-at-conception-extreme/

[Mark]

Unborn Children Are Persons, Human Beings From Conception

Over the past few weeks, our entire team at Students for Life has been approached by reporters and students from across the country for our reaction to the Mississippi Personhood Amendment campaign. Below are a few of my thoughts on the concept of “Personhood” and the Personhood Amendment, and how the youth pro-life movement should engage in these ideas.

“Personhood’ refers to the recognition of people in all stages of life –beginning at biological conception- as human beings. This issue in and of itself, apart from Amendments, is controversial to those who advocate abortion, for they view these tiny, pre-born humans as a mere “clump of cells” with no legal rights.

All of us in the pro-life movement are for the full, legal recognition and protection of personhood for all human beings, not matter if these human “clump of cells” are an embryo, toddler, adolescent, adult, or an elderly person.

Scientifically, pro-abortion advocates cannot deny that a fetus (which is a Latin word for “young one”) conceived by two humans is anything other than a human. To do this would be to deny the fundamental law of biogenesis.

They must also admit that the new human is alive. A human zygote, embryo, fetus – all stages of pre-born life – align with the very definition of the word “life”, which is: “The condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, & continual change preceding death.”

rest: http://www.lifenews.com/2011/11/07/unborn-children-are-persons-human-beings-from-conception/

[Mark]

Scientist: Human Life Begins at Conception, Fertilization

When one considers the ethics of manipulation, the question of whether we ought to, or whether we may manipulate an organism or entity depends on the answer to the first and most fundamental question:

What is it?

Ascertaining the identity and status of the object of our intended manipulation is essential.

In the fields of obstetrical medicine and reproductive medicine the ethical debates have raged for four decades. Enlightened discourse between opposing parties must assume good motives by all involved, and then go about asking the essential questions, following where the truth of science and reason lead.

Many claim that life begins at some point distant from fertilization, always beyond the point at which they propose some manipulation (abortion, embryonic stem cell culturing, etc…). There are always a list of biological functions that are given to define when human life begins: Cognitive capacity, etc.

The simple biological truth of the matter is that the Cell Theory states that all cells arise from pre-existing cells. There is no blackout period between sperm and egg uniting, and then the emergence of ‘life’ at some point distant.

The Carnegie stages of human development indicate that human development begins in the zygotic stage. Then there is the assertion of developmental biologist and leading textbook author in the field, Scott Gilbert. In his text, Gilbert takes us through the life cycle of a dog. His text, Developmental Biology, is arguably the leading text in the field. According to Gilbert:

“Traditional ways of classifying catalog animals according to their adult structure. But, as J. T. Bonner (1965) pointed out, this is a very artificial method, because what we consider an individual is usually just a brief slice of its life cycle. When we consider a dog, for instance, we usually picture an adult. But the dog is a “dog” from the moment of fertilization of a dog egg by a dog sperm. It remains a dog even as a senescent dying hound. Therefore, the dog is actually the entire life cycle of the animal, from fertilization through death.”

First, note how he sets the word dog off in quotes at one point, to communicate the very essence of the organism:

But the dog is a “dog” from the fertilization of a dog egg by a dog sperm…

The same may be said of all vertebrates, including cats, giraffes, chimpanzees, and humans. Substituting the word human for dog in Gilbert’s analysis gets to the heart of the matter. We are human for our entire life cycle. We are whole and complete in form and function at every stage of our development, for that given developmental stage. The prepubescent child is fully human, even though they lack the capacity to execute all human functions, such as abstract reasoning, or reproduction.

In the same way, the early embryo is alive and fully human, though it has not yet executed all human organismal functions.

http://www.lifenews.com/2011/11/18/scientist-human-life-begins-at-conception-fertilization/