liz@umcp-cs.UUCP (07/15/83)
A lot of pro-choicers on the net don't seem to think that human life begins at conception. At the end of this letter are some quotes from some doctors who appeared before a Senate judiciary subcommittee in April 1981. You will see that they all support the fact that human life begins at conception. The only pro-choice witness who appeared to address this issue was not a doctor and would only say that it was a metaphysical or theological question. Actually, the main point of this letter is that a lot of pro-abortionists are not addressing this issue at all and are arguing pro-abortion solely on whether or not the baby is wanted or if its life is worthy to be lived. A discussion of human life, doctors and the new ethic that a life must be worthwhile appeared in "California Medicine", 113:67-68, September 1970: "The traditional western ethic has always placed great emphasis on the intrinsic value of every human life regardless of its stage or condition. . . . This traditional ethic is still clearly dominant, but there is much to suggest that it is being eroded at its core and may eventually even be abandoned. . . . "It will be necesary and acceptable to place relative rather than absolute values on such things as human lives, the use of scarce resources, and the various elements which are to make up the quality of life or of living which is to be sought. This is quite distinctly at variance with the Judeo-Christian ethic and carries serious philosophical, social, economic, and political implications for Western society and perhaps for world society. "The process of eroding the old ethic and substituting the new has already begun. It may be seen most clearly in changing attitudes toward human abortion. . . . Since the old ethic has not been fully displaced it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a humn life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices. It is suggested that this schizophrenic sort of subterfuge is necessary because while a new ethic is being accepted the old one has not yet been rejected." Notice that this article is not written from an anti-abortion view. It is simply considering the issues involved as a doctor in a society where moral values are changing. In addition to this, the new ethic is also bringing up the question of infanticide. Francis Crick, Nobel Laureate (with Dr James Watson) for the discovery of the structure of DNA has suggested that a baby not be declared alive until it is 3 days old to give the parents a chance to decide (if the child is handicapped) whether or not the child's life is worth living. This all follows from the new ethic of there being such a thing as a life not worthy to be lived. If you are pro-choice, are you willing to reject the old ethic of the value of human life and accept abortion even though human life begins at conception? Are you willing to say that there is such a thing as a human life not willing to be lived and accept this new ethic of utilitarianism? Or, are you going to continue to argue that life does not begin at conception despite the evidence? Here are the quotes from the doctors who appeared before Senate the judiciary subcommittee in April 1981: Dr Jerome LeJeune, professor of fundamental genetics at the Univ of Descarte, Paris, France: "When does a person begin? I will try to give the most precise answer to that question actually available to science. Modern biology teaches us that ancestors are united to their progney by a continuous material link, for it is from the fertilization of the female cell (the ovum) by the male cell (the spermatozoa) that a new member of the species will emerge. Life has a very, very long history but each individual has a very neat beginning, the moment of its conception. . . . To accept that fact after fertilization has taken place, a new human has come into being, is no longer a matter of taste or of opinion. The human nature of the human beig from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence." Dr Alfred Bongiovanni, formerly chairman of pediatrics at the Univ of Ife in Nigeria and currently a member of the Univ of Pennsylvania Medical School faculty: "I have learned since my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception. The standard textbooks which were used in the courses I took, many of them in continuous use until today, so state it. . . . 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 events of puberty which I have outlined is not a human being. This is human life at every stage albeit incomplete until late adolescense." Dr Jasper Williams, of the Williams Clinic in Chicago, and past president of the National Medical Association: "Human life's singular characteristic is mental behavior associated with development of genetically influenced bodily characteristics. . . . This process begins when the sperm fertilizes the ovum. . . . The work of Edwards and his associates in England with test tube babies has repeatedly proved that human life begins when after the ovum is fertilized the new combined cell mass begins to divide." Dr Watson A. Bowes, Jr, of the Univ of Colorado Medical School: "But one thing is clear. Following fertilization, there is an inexorable series of events that unfolds with cells dividing, moving, pausing, differentiating, and aggregating with a baffling precision and purpose. In the early hours, days, and weeks of this development, a hypothetical observer, if able to witness this microscopic drama, would find it impossible to identify precisely when major qualitative changes have occurred just as parents observing daily their child's growth and development cannot say precisely when he or she stopped being a child and became an adult. . . . Thus the beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter -- the beginning is conception. . . . In conclusion, the beginning of a human life from a biological point of view is at the time of conception. This straightforward biological fact should not be distorted to serve sociological, political, of economic goals." -- -Liz Allen ...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz (Usenet) liz.umcp-cs@Udel-Relay (Arpanet)