True Horizon

In my last post I made the assumption that readers know why I say that “life begins at conception.” This may not be the case. It is also wildly controversial in the abortion debate so I thought I would back up the claim. You may note that I am not arguing from the Bible. I am not making a theological case. I am not imposing my morality on others.

What I am doing is following a scientific and philosophical case that is undeniable. It is not my opinion that life begins at conception. I’ll leave it to others to make their points …

Dr. Hymie Gordon, professor of medical genetics and physician at the Mayo Clinic:

… we can now also say that the question of the beginning of life - when life begins - is no longer a question for theological or philosophical dispute. It is an established scientific fact.Theologians and philosophers may go on to debate the meaning of life or purpose of life, but it is an established fact that all life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception … as far as I know, this has never been argued against.

Dr. M. Krieger, The Human Reproductive System:

All organisms, however large and complex they may be when fullgrown, begin life as but a single cell … this is true of the human being, for instance, who begins life as a fertilized ovum.

Dr. B. Patten, Human Embryology:

The formation, maturation and meeting of a male and female sex cell are all preliminary to their actual union in a combined cell, a zygote, which definitely marks the beginning of a new individual.

Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth, a principal research associate in the Department of Medicine, Harvard University:

So, it is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception, when egg and sperm join to form the zygote, and this developing human always is a member of our species in all stages of its life thereafter.

Dr. Ronan O’Rahilly and Dr, Fabiola Muller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd edition:

It needs to be emphasized that life is continuous, as is also human life, so that the question “When does life begin?” is meaningless in terms of ontogeny. Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.

There are many others but I won’t go on.

My point is this: When you try to argue that you don’t know when life begins, you are not arguing with me — you are arguing with those that write the embryology textbooks the abortionists learned from in medical school.

For a great read that makes the same case, check out Jay Watts (here) and read the comments too. There you will find more evidence like that I provided above.

And while I am at it, I should note that my source for these facts is Francis J. Beckwith’s, Defending Life — a must read for anyone who is interested in, or engaged in, the pro-life cause.

I have a policy to not delve into politics here except when it is unavoidable due to the moral dimension that some political issue brings to the table. In cases like that, I can’t help myself. One of those cases is Barack Obama’s stance on abortion. A quick summary of my view:

When it comes to the abortion issue, Barack Obama is a moral coward.

That ought to be succinct enough. I don’t say things like that lightly so let me explain why I’m saying it now. I’ll start with Obama’s response to Rick Warren at his recent appearance at Saddleback Church in southern California. Here’s the exchange:

WARREN: … Now, let’s deal with abortion; 40 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. As a pastor, I have to deal with this all of the time, all of the pain and all of the conflicts. I know this is a very complex issue. Forty million abortions, at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?

OBAMA: Well, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.

What pay grade is he talking about? His current, and lifetime appointed, pay grade as a human being or his potential pay grade as President of the United States of America? I can do no better than my friend Jay at addressing the “pay grade” issue (here) so I won’t. But this is nothing but a spineless diversion from the actual topic in question. Obama knows that if a fetus is a person (i.e. life begins at conception) he cannot defend his pro-abortion view. So instead of confronting that moral question, he punts. Let me just say that his answer to that question was all I needed to come to my “moral coward” assessment. But there is more that I have learned since that has only strengthened my confidence in that assessment. (Read on …)

The Times of London breathlessly reports on a new test for Down’s Syndrome that can detect the genetic anomaly early and thus provide a “risk-free blood test.” Sounds good. But for whom is the test really “risk-free”?

Think about it. What risk does a Down’s baby pose to the mother beyond that of a “normal” pregnancy? Absolutely none. The risk being referred to here is to the baby who, without such a blood test, has previously been subjected to the dangers inherent in amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling (CVS), both of which pose a physical risk to the pregnancy. So, given the newly found improvement in technology, the news sounds good. After all say the proponents:

It would have the positive effect of saving normal foetuses from invasive, and potentially dangerous procedures such as amniocentesis. This would also alleviate the stress of pregnant women going through prenatal testing.

But when it comes to the intersection of technology and human life, there is always more to the story. Consider why anyone is doing fetal testing for Down’s in the first place. I offer this caution based on experience. (Read on …)

[cross-posted on the LTI Blog]

It is easy to become dismayed and frustrated in observing the general apathy and lack of urgency that seems to prevail within the general public toward the cause to which Scott Klusendorf and Jay Watts have dedicated their full-time professional lives. Jay’s poignant post (here) reflects the anguish that comes in dealing with the general disinterestedness we have all observed. Regardless, we must continue to minister, educate and multiply the forces that do both. We each have to make the case for human personhood at all stages of life in our own little corners of the world. But what is the prognosis for the project of moving the culture at large? I want to make two observations, one here, another in a separate post …

Peter Wehner, a former deputy assistant to President Bush, in his discussion (here) of the media’s hope-filled frenzy regarding the impending “crack up” of the modern evangelical movement, brings up some statistics that, when considered alongside some other pro-life thought, may offer pro-lifers some optimism. While Wehner is more concerned with the pure political and electoral implications of the changing evangelical movement, buried in his essay are some promising facts:

• According to a recent Pew poll, 70 percent of evangelicals age 18-29 favor making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion compared with 55 percent of evangelicals 30 and above
• Younger evangelicals are more suspicious of big institutions and skeptical of big government
• Most evangelicals still care a great deal about the advancing culture-of-life agenda; abortion remains their most consistently important and galvanizing issue. Yet more and more evangelicals are showing concern for environmental issues like global warming; human rights issues like religious persecution and genocide; and “social justice” issues like poverty and AIDS. The evangelical movement’s longstanding concern about abortion isn’t receding; the area of concern is enlarging.

Included in this enlarged area of evangelical concern are issues that, though not specifically pro-life, share characteristics that cross political boundaries: sex trafficking in Africa, AIDS, tribal genocide, the plight of Tibet … and the list goes on. If Wehner is correct in his assessment of the concerns of younger evangelicals, they share these as pressing issues even with their secular peers. And while we conservative evangelicals rightly (no pun intended) knee-jerk to labeling many of these as left-leaning issues, they are at their core human rights issues that are considered important among the young. (Read on …)

To be honest, it can get bit discouraging to constantly attempt to defend the Christian worldview here. In my efforts to stay up to date on what is going on in the world, I am constantly searching for news stories that touch on worldview issues. The result of that is that I am constantly mind-wrestling with negativity. It wears you down. That’s the nature of the beast I guess.

And don’t get me wrong, it is a passion of mine, I think it is vitally important, and I love to do it. But weeks like this one are particularly dispiriting:

In Britain, researchers have combined genetic materials to produce human-bovine hybrids. Why? Because they can. And apparently they see nothing Frankensteinian about it. Just doing research, you know — maybe harvest some stem cells along the way — and they justify it by claiming it may help cure disease. The manipulation of the very nature of humanness is apparently not an issue.

In Georgia, a group of 3rd graders hatched a plot to kill their teacher, this in retaliation for the teacher making a student stand on a chair. These kids had assigned students to cover the windows of the classroom, duct tape and gag the teacher, and supply knives to finish the job. How does a society produce a batch of 8 year-olds who can even conceive of such a thing?

In Oregon, Thomas Beatie (that would be a “he”) announced that he is five months pregnant. Oprah had him on her show. And, without any exception I could find, the entire news media insists on referring to Beatie as a “pregnant man.” Hello! His sex-change surgery notwithstanding, “Thomas” Beatie is, by definition, a woman. This is not debatable. Yet we live in a society that condones and patronizes those who demand not only that their “gender” is a matter of personal preference, but that those who would question the idea are nothing but old fashioned bigots. How did we get here?

Finally, today it is being reported that intelligence officials have uncovered substantial evidence of Al-Qaida’s plans to bring a nuclear attack on the United States. Given the number of nuclear components once stored in the former Soviet Union, and the current corruption of the government there that yearns for the old totalitarianism, the materials needed to carry out such a plot cannot be too hard to obtain. And so we live under the constant possibility that the terrorist planning could well come to fruition.

All this is disgusting and demoralizing not so much for me, but for the state of the future world that my children will be forced to live in. Such a world is beyond my comprehension but I’m afraid that it will not be beyond my children’s realization. All of it stems from the fact that ideas matter. Some ideas are wrong and destructive. And those seem to be the ideas whose stock is on the rise. It can all be very depressing …

… and then came yesterday. (Read on …)

Beside his penchant for blaming natural disasters, both past and future (like an America-directed-tsunami or what residents of Dover, PA should expect after the defeat of ID there) on the immorality and misdeeds of humanity, Pat Robertson has also made some pretty outrageous public gaffs — like musing about the assassination of Hugo Chavez — that, even when “clarified,” have succeeded in rendering him irrelevant in the mainstream political debate.

Today however, I can only say that I hope he is as irrelevant to most of America’s “values voters” as he is to me. That’s because today Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president.

Over at the LTI blog, we have engaged in legitimate (and cordial) debate about our differences concerning a Giuliani presidency and what it would mean for the pro-life agenda. Our “disagreements” have always been about long-term strategy. But, as one who believes a vote for Giuliani in the general election is better than any alternative from the other party, I have tried to make it clear that I would in no way support Giuliani during the nomination process. For that reason, I see Robertson’s endorsement as being detestable.

For all his bluster about immorality invoking the wrath of God, it is beyond me how Robertson can look past Giuliani’s positions on abortion and homosexual rights to only see his fiscal conservatism and stance on the War on Terror. This is a move that flies in the face of the morality Robertson claims to hold in such high regard. He should be ashamed. I just hope that Robertson’s past actions have rendered his endorsement a whispered call to a crowd that isn’t listening.

Yesterday, in USA Today, Michael Medved made the case (“Abortion’s Shades of Gray”) that today’s abortion beliefs “are much more nuanced … [and that] it’s no longer a black-and-white debate.” While I may agree with him about today’s beliefs and arguments, that does nothing to change the black and white facts about abortion. As Jay pointed out yesterday, there are clear distinctions between all the nuanced arguments, justifications and beliefs that people put forth and the simple issue of the moral status of an unborn, innocent human being. But that is not what I want to address.

Before I make my point, I want to make it crystal clear that, as a pro-life advocate and voter, I will do everything in my power to defeat Rudy Giuliani in the Republican primary process. I will do this for many reasons, not the least of which is his stance on abortion. But, when it comes to electing someone like Giuliani to the presidency (if it does come to that), all the talk of abandoning the Republican party to demonstrate our disgust for his views, or of launching a third-party in protest, are not only inane, but genuinely destructive to the pro-life cause. Let me explain.

Medved points out the key differences between Giuliani’s platform and those of the leading Democratic candidates. Here’s the list:

• Giuliani has committed to preserve the Hyde Ammendment, banning taxpayer money for abortions … the top Democrats urge repeal and favor federal funding.
• Giuliani applauded the recent SCOTUS decision upholding the ban on partial-birth abortion … all leading Democrats condemned it in harsh terms.
• Giuliani supports tougher rules on parental notification for underage girls seeking abortion … Clinton and Obama oppose such legislation.
• Giuliani has specifically cited strict-constructionists like Scalia, Alito and Roberts as his models for future appointees to SCOTUS … top Democrats regularly express conempt for the conservative jurists Giuliani admires and worked against all three of these.

In other words, when it comes to the abortion issue, a Giuliani presidency would look no different from that of George W. Bush. In fact, given the likelihood that the next president will appoint one or more justices to SCOTUS, positive (though incremental) steps toward the possibility of overturning Roe would move noticeably in the right direction. The alternative would be an utter disaster.

Along those lines, some have expressed dismay toward the seemingly opportunistic late change in Romney’s abortion views. Point granted. But my sources tell me that Romney convened a meeting of several pro-life advocates and asked them to make their case. After that meeting(s), his view was changed. Given that organizations like the Life Training Institute exist to “persuasively communicate the pro-life message,” does it make sense to chastise those for whom our message may actually have been persuasive? Can we not consider the fact that our arguments may be working? I have no way of knowing Mitt Romney’s motivation for seeing the pro-life light. But motivations are irrelevant if his policy stance agrees with ours. Romney has never given any indication (that I know of) to doubt that point.

So, at risk of re-igniting the wrath of the purists out there, I simply propose that we keep our collective eyes on the mission at hand and take every practical and effective step we can to achieve it. As a former Marine, I hate the idea of losing tactical skirmishes. But, more importantly, I refuse to submit to strategies that have no hope of winning the war.

Cross-posted at: The Life Training Institute Blog

John R. Lott Jr., of National Review offers an interesting report (August 13, 2007, p. 18) on the common claim among abortion supporters that abortion serves to lower crime rates. The data invoked to buttress this claim is the unexpected and rapid drop in violent crime that occurred between 1991 and 2000. Their argument goes like this:

1. Aborted children are, by definition, “unwanted”
2. Raised in an unwanted environment, children who could have been aborted will instead likely become criminals
3. The 1973 Roe-v-Wade decision legalized abortion
4. Children born subsequent to Roe reached adulthood in the early 1990s
5. Because those children were “wanted” children, they were less likely to be criminals
6. Therefore, violent crime dropped upon their reaching adulthood

This argument elicits three immediate responses.

First, so what? Even if it can be shown that more abortions lead to less violent crime, that fact would do nothing to answer the moral question around which the pro-life argument centers. The possibility of lowering crime rates sometime in the future does nothing to justify the taking of innocent human life now.

Second, it is amazing to see the height of the arrogance displayed by the deterministic assumption that the dismal, criminal future awaiting the “unwanted” rationalizes snuffing them out before birth. This makes Tom Cruise’s “Pre-Crime” unit in Minority Report look tame by comparison. At least those pre-criminals were arrested and tried by those who claimed to know the criminal’s future intentions. The aborted human fetus gets no such chance.

Third, there is no indication that the “violent crime” statistics include the millions of fetuses that were also victimized by premeditated homicide. Purely an oversight, I’m sure. (Read on …)

For those who may be interested, the Summer issue of Marriage Partnership contains an article by yours truly regarding an experience Mary and I shared several years ago. It includes some thoughts about how truly clueless I was in my lame attempts to help her deal with what was, and still is, a traumatic event in out lives. The article stems from something I wrote at the time and then left stashed in a drawer, hoping I would forget about it. A few months ago I ran across the piece, dusted it off, and submitted it for publication. After some serious editing, it showed up on-line here.

I will be interviewed by a John & Stephanie of WORD FM (101.5) Pittsburgh about the whole ordeal on May 30th at 5:10 EDT. If you happen to be driving through Pittsburgh at the time, give a listen. If not, please join me in praying that I don’t say something too stupid …

Cathy Ruse, a Senior Fellow of Legal studies at the Family Research Council, puts abortion-choice feminists on the defensive today in her Washington Times column, “Human Hens and Stem Cells.” While we rightly focus on the moral issue of destroying human life with ESCR, Ruse offers specifics about the effects the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (S. 5) would have on women themselves. (Read on …)