Sex, lust, desire are SINS. Come, be saved!

Rand responds...

If any of you are confused or taken in by the argument that the cells of an embryo are living human cells, remember that so are all the cells of your body, including the cells of your skin, your tonsils, or your ruptured appendix--and that cutting them is murder, according to the notions of that proposed law. Remember also that a potentiality is not the equivalent of an actuality--and that a human being's life begins at birth.
The question of abortion involves much more than the termination of a pregnancy: it is a question of the entire life of the parents. AS I have said before, parenthood is an enormous responsibility; it is an
impossible responsibility for young people who are ambitious and struggling, but poor; particularly if they are intelligent and conscientious enough not to abandon their child on a doorstep nor to surrender it to adoption. For such young people, pregnancy is a death sentence: parenthood would force them to give up their future, and condemn them to a life of hopeless drdgery, of slavery to a child's physical and financial needs. The situation of an unwed mother, abandoned by her lover is even worse.
I cannot quite imagine the state of mind of a person who would wish to condemn a fellow human being to such a horror. I cannot project the degree of hatred required to make those women run around in crusades against abortion. Hatred is what they certainly project, not love for the embryos, which is a piece of nonsense no one could experience, but hatred, a virulent hatred for an unnamed object. Judging by the degree of those women's intencity, I would say that it is an issue of self-esteem and that their fear is metaphysical. Their hatred is directed against human beings as such, against the mind, against value that brings happiness to human life. In compliance with the dishonesty that dominates today's intellectual field, they call themselves "pro-life."
By that right does anyone claim the power to dispose of the lives of others and to dictate their personal choices?
A proper, philosophically valid definition of man as " arational animal," would not permit anyone to ascribe the status of "person" to a few human cells. *Ayn Rand*

The women & men who claim to be "pro-life", are murderers of human dignity, when a woman is the owner of her own body, therefore owner of her own choices. The anti-abortionists are giving rights above the life of the woman whom is living, totally trampling the womann's right to choose what happens to her life, and her body.
*Godless*
 
tiassa,

***By establishing the idea of a "child" at conception, instead of what it is--two cells with certain and approximately predictable potential--creates a circumstance where legalistically we must now consider whose rights take precedent.***

The above brought with it the reminder of the evolution of a philosophy which I have lived to witness over the past few decades… The philosophy which used to be termed pro-abortion and which is now termed pro-choice.

It used to be that the pro-abortion camp would argue, philosophically, for an arbitrary point at which life begins. However, abortion activists faced a formidable opponent… The unified stance of mainstream science and mainstream religious/faith belief which held that life begins at conception. While everyone is certainly entitled to hold their own philosophical beliefs, when we are dealing with the question of “life” I think we should be as certain as possible in defining when life begins.

Putting religious faith beliefs and philosophical theories aside, when does human life begin? Biologic human life is defined by examining the scientific facts of human development. This is a discipline where there is no controversy and no disagreement about the answer to this question . Embryology books studied in medical school give only one set of facts concerning this issue. As a matter of fact, the more science learns about fetal development, the more science confirms that every human’s individual life, biologically speaking, begins at the completion of the union of his/her father’s sperm and his/her mother’s ovum. This being is not dead. It is not just two cells. It is a unique being which is totally distinguishable from any other living organism. It is complete in all its human characteristics including the 46 human chromosomes. From the time of fertilization, the being is alive, human, sexed, complete and growing. Nothing new will be added from the time of fertilization until death, even if death does not occur until this person is an old man or woman, except growth and development of what is already there at the beginning. All this tiny human being needs is time to develop and mature. Looking at the scientific facts in this case we must conclude that each individual human life begins at conception and from that point forward, human life is a continuum through death.

When abortion was first legalized in this country, however, very few people knew much about fetal development. That is, most did not realize that the answer was scientifically clear. So, it was not only a religiously held belief that life begins at conception, it was also a fact which was easily demonstrated scientifically. Here, we actually had a matter with which both religion and science agreed… that human life begins at conception. Given the united front consisting of both science and religious/faith belief, the pro-life camp did not have much of a problem convincing an audience that the fetus was human life. Matter-of-factly teaching the reality of human growth and development - that we begin a conception - was very effective, and the conclusions made by the more-educated public was that abortion obviously kills a living human… and, since killing a living human is bad, we must stop abortion. In effect, during the first couple of decades after abortion was legalized in the U.S. and Canada, the pro-life camp was able to present abortion as primarily a civil and human rights issue… and, the more the pro-life camp continued to educate the public about the scientific facts of the matter, the more rapidly the pro-life movement gained momentum. By the late 1980’s or so, the pro-life camp was showing signs that it would soon win the battle.

By that time, however, abortion had grown into a profitable industry (with the potential for even more profitable offspring industries) and, in order to survive, the abortion industry needed to do something to counter the conclusions now being made by an educated public. The abortion industry needed a new approach… a new question, if you will. Realizing that they were no longer dealing with a public that was ignorant about the facts concerning human growth and development, and having no solid ground on which to argue that the fetus was not a human being, what did they do?

After much market research, the abortion industry first decided that it would be best to leave the life of the baby out of it altogether - and demanded that pro-abortion activists stop debating the facts - because when the facts about abortion were debated, the pro-life camp won. Second, the abortion industry appealed to emotion and changed the question from the factually answered “When does life begin?“ to the emotionally charged “Who decides… the woman or a male-dominated government?” The new question which was developed by the abortion industry came at a great cost to both the abortion industry and society. After investing heavily in market research, the abortion industry switched to expensive advertising and the new theme of the abortion industry’s multi-billion dollar advertising campaign was presented at the expense of many. By abandoning the scientific facts concerning the beginning of human life, by abandoning the rights of the babies and by abandoning the rights of the fathers, the abortion industry cleverly succeeded in changing the terms of the debate to focus strictly on the question of a woman’s right… to choose. Although pro-life continued to be pro-life, the pro-abortion camp now became the pro-choice camp in an emotionally charged game of capitalistic semantics, placing a woman’s rights above all others.


***And here we hit an interesting issue: whose right is right?***

Coming full circle, this is a very interesting question which I plan on addressing here shortly.
 
I don't believe a...

Fetus is a "life" until it breaths!!:cool: What your attempting to do is give rights to the "yet unborn" a potential as Ayn Rand pointed out is not a living human beign!. Therefore your quest is to give rights to the non-existent!. We'r talking here about the first three months of pregnancy, abortion after this period is a great risk to the woman involved!.

What was all the controversy that the US had against RU486? The pill from Urope that would abort pregnancy. It was the closed mindedness of our religious manipulated goverment, once again being the terror that it is, and protecting the industry you so much hate. In the long run though the US finally is coming to terms with the idea of RU486 and it will probably be widely available, in the abortionist clinics.

The industry as you call it, actually hit upon a valid point!. It is the choice of the woman who is involved, not anyone else's, It is her body, her life, and her future we are not the decission maker of her future, her body, and her health. Anti-abortionists have no legal argument for the unborn, without giving the consideration, that the woman involved has no rights to her body, her future, or her health!. What your advocating is to trample the "rights" of the living woman over the rights of a pontential.
 
Godless,

***I don't believe a...
Fetus is a "life" until it breaths!!***

Just as Rand is entitled to hold an erroneous philosophy, so are you entitled to hold an erroneous belief.

However, Rand's philosophy and your belief do not change the fact that, as nature would have it, every human being resides in his or her mother's uterus during the earliest stages of life.

Biologically, your human life began when your father's sperm fertilized your mother's ovum.

It was the human "you" who continued to grow inside your mother's uterus.

It was the human "you" that was alive inside your mother's uterus.

Had "you" been killed during an abortion your human life would have ended and we would not have had the pleasure of knowing the very unique "you".
 
Blonde_cupid,

I agree that a potential human life begins at conception, that cannot be disputed, but -

It is complete in all its human characteristics including the 46 human chromosomes. From the time of fertilization, the being is alive, human, sexed, complete and growing. Nothing new will be added from the time of fertilization until death, even if death does not occur until this person is an old man or woman, except growth and development of what is already there at the beginning.
Click to expand...
Is not true.

Gender for example is determined by the correct balance of the sex hormones and that is determined as part of the growth process and certainly not particularly early. And the process is not particularly reliable. The X/Y-chromosomes mix often indicates gender, but a significant proportion of people have the opposite gender to that implied by the X/Y combination. Also, if neither sex hormone dominates then neither gender will be apparent; these people are known as hermaphrodites (about 1 in every 2000 people). These people have a terrible time since their outward appearance might be of one gender but their sex organs are of the other. Usually neither set of sex organs develop properly or they might have both. Surgery in these cases is very rarely successful, and psychological issues are nearly always present. Numerous other variations in the balance of the sex hormones during the early months give rise to the varying degrees of homosexuality. There are a number of other processes that are not mapped at conception that can give rise to many distortions, mutations, or incorrect full development as the pregnancy proceeds.

My point is that fertilization certainly indicates a beginning, but the end result is certainly not conclusive at that time.

But does this matter to the essentials of your argument? Yes but not entirely. My statement is really an effort to be accurate and to emphasize that your claim is not as clear-cut as you would like to think. The real issue I see is the lack of responsibility taken by so many people over the creation of a new life, whatever it turns out to be. And the solution here will not be available until we develop a far wiser, sophisticated, and advanced society where ‘accidental’ or ‘unwanted’ pregnancies never occur.

In the meantime these ‘mistakes’ do occur and we have to develop processes to deal with them. Life clearly begins at conception, but its characteristics are extremely different to that of a newborn fully developed child.

If I place 4 wheels on the ground and some metal, some plastic, and some screws, have I the right to call that a car? No of course not, all I have are some of the building blocks. The final result is quite different.

A viable human life and the path to its existence also goes through a construction process using basic building blocks.

At what point in the construction of a car would we claim it is clearly a car? The same difficult question must also be answered for the construction of a human being.

Cris
 
Blonde Cupid ...

However, Rand's philosophy and your belief do not change the fact that, as nature would have it, every human being resides in his or her mother's uterus during the earliest stages of life.
Click to expand...
This is why when pressed to acknowledge a line that I would draw, had I my druthers, I would try to strike a compromise at fetal viability.

And that's more toward rights and legalism: religiously-derived moral objections to abortion are a priori, in my opinion, as is the whole of any religious presumption.

So fetal viability becomes an interesting target point here; after all, as I noted, it is a complex issue to award the rights of citizenship to an incomplete mass of cells:
Rights transcend processes. That's part of the problem. Rights are not a concrete reality, but a conventional one. We might ask what that "child's right to life" includes. Room? Board? A smoke-free environment? Well, if that "child" is an independent citizen with rights, then that child is an independent citizen with responsibilities, and owes the woman for housing it, as well as both parents for the carnal labor.
Click to expand...
On a lighter note, I'm surprised that the pro-life crowd that also tells their children about "earning their keep" in the family haven't connected these two points. Perhaps because it's a little extreme, but that's the point. Integrity at this point is a hard thing to manage. (You'll notice what happens if we take any societal result out of its context and apply the process elsewhere: nightmares. Variable factors, after all, create variable results.)

Here's an interesting moralism: vascectomies and tubal ligation. Now what about these? Like suicide, aren't you rejecting what God gave you? (Hi, God? I didn't want to foster an abortion, and I wanted to f--k like a racehorse, so I chose to reject the faculties you have given me because they were bad things.) Truly, though, I don't foresee a conflict of rights here.

So what to do about this conflict of rights? As a broader idea, does "woman" once again take a back seat to someone else? It's the common societal solution, as such. But, seriously, what is the balance? Without jest, since the most disputed question is rape & incest, do we prosecute the baby upon birth for civil rights violations and conspiracy? Okay, second thought tells me there's a bit of jest there, but if a solution becomes that ridiculous in its extrapolated application, hmmm ....
It was the human "you" who continued to grow inside your mother's uterus.

It was the human "you" that was alive inside your mother's uterus.

Had "you" been killed during an abortion your human life would have ended and we would not have had the pleasure of knowing the very unique "you".
Click to expand...
On the one hand, you're quite right. To the other, this is one of my favorite distortions of the abortion debate. All I'm after here is that we look at the flip side.

* Crack house, bad circumstances, woman gives birth. At five years old, he shoots a little girl to death because that's how you solve problems. Had his mother had an abortion ...? (Well, except for the abortion question, that is a true story out of the Seattle area ... I'm not sure the mother was ever accounted for in that investigation.)

Yes, I know it's a little ridiculous. But I've heard the, "Well, you would have aborted Beethoven" argument before (or was it Bach?) and so forth. But what about Hitler, Pol Pot, or Ronald Reagan? Let's get less melodramatic: consider Thomas Dorismond, shot to death at point blank range by undercover police for the crime of not having drugs on his person ....

Yes, that too is ridiculous. But in the same way the point of, "You never would have been born" is ridiculous. It's a given, and its flip-side gets no consideration.

Let me say, though, that on a purist level I contest nothing of your post, Blonde Cupid. But I'm not a purist of anything, so what issue I take has to do with the application of the ideas. You're not wrong; I'm just not sure you're right, per se. It's a sticky situation, and there's no real out that doesn't invite a mess of human functional difficulties that could have and should have been avoided entirely.

Of course, could haves and should haves don't mean much compared to what is. It's all idealistic.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:
 
Godless I in no way think a womans body is not her own...and it is her responsibility to utilize her right to not get pregnant to begin with. Pregnancy is NOT accidental, it is not something in the water, if you are old enough to have sex than you are old enough to know where babys come from.

Have you ever seen an ultrasound? The "non-breathing" life inside of me, sucks his thumb, swallows amniotis fluid, has facial exspresions, turns rolls and moves. His heart could be seen clearly beating by my first ultrasound at 7 weeks. For those familiar with the fact that gestation and term are varied by 2 weeks, that means that by just 30 days after actual fertilization of the egg you could SEE the heart beating, and the "fetus" moveing around.
He responds to my voice and movements....and now with his hearing more acute he responds to his three year old brother talking to my stomach.
The actual transition from an egg being fertilized to a recognizable, viable life takes place at an amazingly rapid rate. Litterally doubling and tripiling in size and detail every hour. That fertilized cell triples in size in meare hours...not months.
Yes women have a right to their own bodys...they have a RIGHT to keep it to themselves. The moment that egg implanted in my uterus my blood began to flow thru it, and it was at that very second MY CHILD.
 
When does life begin?

* In 1981 (April 23-24) a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee held hearings on the very question before us here: When does human life begin? Appearing to speak on behalf of the scientific community was a group of internationally-known geneticists and biologists who had the same story to tell, namely, that human life begins at conception - and they told their story with a profound absence of opposing testimony.

Dr. Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, Harvard medical School, gave confirming testimony, supported by references from over 20 embryology and other medical textbooks that human life began at conception.

* "Father of Modern Genetics" Dr. Jerome Lejeune told the lawmakers: "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence."

* Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman, Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic, added: "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception."

* Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor, University of Tennessee, testified: "The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception."

* Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, concluded, "I am no more prepared to say that these early stages represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty ... is not a human being."

* Dr. Richard V. Jaynes: "To say that the beginning of human life cannot be determined scientifically is utterly ridiculous."

* Dr. Landrum Shettles, sometimes called the "Father of In Vitro Fertilization" notes, "Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind." And on the Supreme Court ruling _Roe v. Wade_, "To deny a truth [about when life begins] should not be made a basis for legalizing abortion."

* Professor Eugene Diamond: "...either the justices were fed a backwoods biology or they were pretending ignorance about a scientific certainty."
 
Cris,

***I agree that a potential human life begins at conception, that cannot be disputed***

Human life begins at conception. That can be disputed philisophically, not scientifically, by adding words such as "potential". Scientifically, it is clear that life begins at conception.

***Is not true.***

I beg to differ. Growth and development takes place through around age 25, however, nothing new is added. A minor point about the sex indeed. Although the sex might not be readily apparent in the earliest stages of life, the individual is sexed (male, female or hermaphrodite).

***My point is that fertilization certainly indicates a beginning, but the end result is certainly not conclusive at that time.***

Fertilization is not just a sign, symptom or signification of a beginning, Cris. Fertilization deomonstrates with precision, the point where life begins. Fertilization is the beginning of an individual's life and the end result is conclusive. That person will continue to live until he or she is either killed or dies from natural causes.

***Life clearly begins at conception***

Yes. It is not potential life. It is not "a" beginning. It is "the" beginning of a human being's life.

***...but its characteristics are extremely different to that of a newborn fully developed child.***

The only difference is growth and development. One can also consider as extreme the differences between an infant and a fully developed adult. The physical characteristics which you are alluding to are differences in states of maturity in the life of a human being and in no way should be used as justification for the taking of human life.

I agree that there are many problems which society needs to address and resolve. However, I do not think the answer should be turning a blind eye to the scientific facts about life in order to carry out the legalized, violent murder of the most defenseless human beings among us.

There have got to be, and there are, other ways of dealing with society's problems. The question is, as a scociety, are we willing to face the truth and make a better effort?
 
Blonde Cupid

Who was on that subcommittee? Is the text available online?

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:
 
Norma McCorvey ("Jane Roe" of Roe v. Wade): "Abortion has been founded on lies and deception from the very beginning. ... All I did was lie about how I got pregnant. I was having an affair. It all started out as a little lie. I said what I needed to say. But, my little lie grew and grew and became more horrible with each telling. Sarah and Linda's [the attorneys in Roe v. Wade] eyes seemed blinded to my obvious inability to
tell the same story twice. It was good for the cause. It read well in the newspapers. ... With the help of willing media and the credibility of well-known columnists, the lie became known as the truth these past 25 years. ... I did not go to the Supreme Court on behalf of a class of women. I wasn't pursuing any legal remedy to my unwanted pregnancy. I did not go to the federal courts for relief. I went to Sarah Weddington asking her if she knew how I could obtain an abortion. She and Linda Coffey said they didn't know where to get one. They lied to me just like
I lied to them. Sarah already had an abortion. She knew where to get one. Sarah and Linda were just looking for somebody, anybody, to further their own agenda. I was their willing dupe. For this, I will forever be ashamed." -- Norma McCorvey, "Roe" of Roe v. Wade, (CHATTANOOGA FREE PRESS, 3/24/97)
 
tiassa,

I know the full text can be ordered from a number of library sources. Most on-line sites carry only a few years. When I get more time, I'll try to find the text on line.
 
Now what does that mean re: the Constitution?

Blonde Cupid

The information is very interesting. By establishing a human being at conception, that human being receives the full complement of rights and responsibilities. Those rights cannot supersede any other person's rights. The right to Life mentioned in the Preamble cannot take precedent over any other right, for included with that right is Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. It creates an interesting situation; certainly, the fetus cannot live outside the mother, as such, but therein lies a problem: that right to Life intrudes on rights of another person. As twisted as it seems, that's the way it has to work, or else you create circumstantial precedents to start chipping away those very rights.

In terms of Norma McCorvey, I remember reading that bit when it was hot news; I'm not sure it changes anything, really. While the circumstances of "the lie" did not apply to Ms McCorvey in her own retrospect, those circumstances certainly described a real condition in society upon which the court noted the suspension of people's Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. I would have to see an analysis of how the lies undermine the ideas of the affected constitutional rights. It sounds to me as if the "class" existed with or without McCorvey. If people want to throw McCorvey in prison for perjury, I suppose that's fine. But, given that the "class" existed, the attorneys would have eventually found their poster child, and the decision would have been the same.

Sometimes rights suck. Especially other people's.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:
 
More on the lies of legalized abortion:

"The three most influential people in the legalization of abortion on demand in the United States joined forces with the largest, most unified pro-life alliance to date, Shake the Nation Back to Life. The second ad in the Shake the Nation campaign delivers a cultural message that is unprecedented and features:
· Norma McCorvey, who was the “Jane Roe” of Roe v. Wade;
· Sandra Cano, the “Mary Doe” of Doe v. Bolton, Roe’s companion case that legalized late-term, including partial birth, abortions;
· and Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), the group that announced in 2001 a $40 million campaign to block President Bush’s pro-life judicial nominees and all pro-life legislation.
The TV spot shows McCorvey, Cano, and Nathanson, all now pro-life, boldly declaring: “Abortion is a lie.” The spot is scheduled to air on Fox, MSNBC, and CNN through January, the 29th anniversary of Roe v. Wade."

I woke up on the couch a few minutes ago and this ad was on. What a coincidence.

www.shakethenation.org
 
Blonde Cupid

I well hear and follow the line you're after, but I'm curious how it relates to the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment.

A) Should we lock up Norma McCorvey for her perjury? (Maybe at a 20:1 ratio for all the years of incorrect law the courts have enforced? Perhaps 580 years, give or take?)
B) Does that perjury change the existence of the class represented in the suit?
C) Does that perjury change the court's determination that the anti-abortion statutes in question violated the aforementioned constitutional fights?

To that last point, if the we did it all over again and started with someone truly represented by the circumstances McCorvey alleged, would it change anything?

I don't think so. But I'm open to any evidence to the contrary.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:
 
I am against abortion, unless it is because of special circumstances. But I ask you this, if a fetus is considered alive and human at the moment of conception, why do we not hold funerals for miscarriages?
 
"if a fetus is considered alive and human at the moment of conception, why do we not hold funerals for miscarriages?"

A funeral, as you consider it, is a time to look back and remember someone's life. Since the baby never lived in the world there is nothing to remember.

I believe there is an intimate service of sorts between the family and the minister in such cases.

Ben
 
Ok here we Go...

Xelios ... sorry mate but we do hold funeralsfor miscarriages... I attended my twin daughters funeral not more than a year or so ago.

As for abortion, I am against it unless rape, serious illness, deformity, etc are involved.
I believe its the choice of both the mother and the father, I am sick of the feminist attitude that denotes men have no say in what happens to a child while its growing inside a woman.
Regardless of circumstances, tis part of the man too, its his DNA his love his creation just as much as a womans.
I dont give a rats butt where my child is , he/she is still my child too.
I would love to reverse the roles and have women be as legally victimised as a man is when it comes to pregnancy abortion and freedom of choice.

As far as sex is concerned, if Sex is not supposed to be done for fun then why the hell does it feel so good? why would your god make it so enjoyable and so easy to obtain, why not make it so urges are only present for both parties when a woman is on heat? (he he)
Just wondering what the catholic churches stance is on mastubation?

Cheers
RazZ:bugeye:
 
My stance on abortion

I fully support abortion, it is the women's body, she's the one who has to bear the pain of child bearing, it is fully her dicision. No man nor church, nor goverment has a right to make women breed as cattle. She's a person, and if she decides to abort, I fully would understand, I've paid for, and do not regret, her decision to abort the one woman who would have bore a child of mine. If she had decided to have a child, I would have also been responsible for child bearing, and everything that goes with fatherhood.

A note though!, I do kind of regret that she decided to abort. For I have no sons nor doughters. I'm still single, and the chance of me having a spouse that would bear one of my children seem slim. However I've learned to live with it!, and do truly understand it was her decision, not mine!.
 
Xelios ... sorry mate but we do hold funeralsfor miscarriages... I attended my twin daughters funeral not more than a year or so ago.

Sorry Razz, I had no idea they do happen. I have never seen one or heard of one, but I guess now I have.

I do agree with you on abortion, it is not right unless there are special circumstances (ie. rape, serious illness).

Godless, I can see where you're coming from, but at the same time I could say the women has no right to literally kill the child she is carrying because it is not convenient for her. If through casual sex she get pregnant, she should have no right to punish her unborn child for her mistakes.
 
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