ProLife
8/7/19 Helpful pro-life material and links, checked 8/6-8/19, 8/20.
Life and personhood are natural rights, not grants by any state. Contrast with these views of the Wapo:
If a fetus is a person, it should get child support, due process and ...
May 17, 2019 - The logic of Alabama's abortion law should permit you to claim a fetus ... When a state grants full personhood to a fetus, should they not apply ...
The above is a quick take from a google search. Wapo is wrong: the state does not define life, but recognizes it.
Also think of the lawyer who said a long time ago: 'A human being is only one who is born of a woman.' In his view the state law defines humanity. Natural law does not. For him, 'born of a woman' means humanity starts at birth. And only at birth.
Dr. Kreeft notes in the article above:
I find this ethic more terrifying than the ethic of the Mafia, for the Mafia at least do not rationalize their assassinations by inventing a new ethic which pretends that the people they want to kill are not people. I would feel more comfortable conversing with a hired killer than with an abortionist, for an abortionist is also a hired killer, but pretends not to be.
The answer to that question is not an easy one to admit. It is this: If we do not see the awfulness of abortion, that is not because the facts and arguments are unclear but because our own consciences are unclear. Mother Teresa says, Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of the baby and it kills the conscience of the mother. Abortion is profoundly anti-women. Three quarters of its victims are women: half the babies and all the mothers.
If Mother Teresa is right, the second killing that abortion does is even worse than the first, if souls are more important than bodies. If abortion kills consciences, it kills souls. To the extent that conscience is killed, repentance is killed, and without repentance and faith we simply cannot be saved unless Jesus was a liar or a fool when he told us that.
A Canadian viewpoint on need for protection of the unborn baby.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1229185/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1229185/pdf/cmaj_158_7_895.pdf
A secular critique admits the pro-abortion utilitarian basis and movement towards euthanasia and 'quality of life' indexes.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6920538
Liberals and secularists are actually scared of modern science.
One more secular argument is worth considering. If they don't admit that human life begins at conception, NIH and other secular scientists can argue endlessly about when exactly it does begin. By modern scientific standards they will need double blind studies to prove it. How will they justify their grant money if they don't have statistical confidence to, say, at least the 95% interval?
But to observe the fertilized egg and study its genetic makeup using current techniques, the scientists would have to kill it first. So this entire goal suffers from the same issues plaguing in vitro fertilization: death of some embryos is required for success.
In general when empirical observation fails to prove anything. we must fall back on deductive inference from first premisses. In secular terms, the probability of the fertilized egg being a human embryo is so high that we must take it as a given.
Big abortion funders include well-known sources. Contrary to some peoples’ ‘philanthropic’ views, abortion is not health care. These big donors tend to favor killing minority babies and those from poor families and countries.
https://www.liveaction.org/news/bill-gates-warren-buffett-population-control
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/warren-buffetts-billion-dollar-abortion-funding-draws-fire
2/4/23 Traditional Religions reject abortion.
Conservative Judaism opposes abortion.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/184580/20210721170924501_41204%20pdf%20Parker.pdf
Some Jewish thought allows abortion in very limited cases. This article also has helpful citations from the Bible/Torah.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/529077/jewish/Judaism-and-Abortion.htm
Traditional Buddhism rejects abortion.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/buddhistethics/abortion.shtml
Conservative Islam rejects abortion except in limited cases. Promiscuity and the sexual revolution constitute the major cause of unwanted pregnancies that result in induced legal and illegal abortions. Hippocratic Oath and similar modern medical oaths reject abortion.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3439741/
Catholic history against abortion. From Tertullian: 'For us, indeed, as homicide is forbidden, it is not lawful to destroy what is conceived in the womb while the blood is still being formed into a man. To prevent being born is to accelerate homicide, nor does it make a difference whether you snatch away a soul which is born or destroy one being born. He who is man-to-be is man, as all fruit is now in the seed.' Observations from St. Albert the Great and the master Islamic physician Avicenna are noted. Both Albert and Aquinas viewed abortion in most cases as homicide. Time of ensoulment is a significant theological issue. Evils are not to be done that good may come from them. Modern medical issues including sensations are discussed. 'Love your neighbor as yourself,' and the fetus as a human is a neighbor.
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1125&context=nd_naturallaw_forum
Abortion as intentional homicide is prohibited by the Catholic Church. 'Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception....Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense...[but] the Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy.'
Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC): Paragraphs 2270-2275.
My quick summary, 2/4/23:
It seems clear that traditional religions approach the baby in the womb with a fencing or hedging attitude, in order to avoid doing anything that would deprecate or harm the life of the baby. As a question for modern science, the exact time of ensoulment is not likely to become empirically verifiable. So there is no reason to give up the traditional fencing position. This implies asserting as an article of faith that life begins at conception. Providing healthy alternatives to abortion for the mother can be done in merciful ways now, so it is neither necessary nor desirable to persecute women who believe their pregnancies are unwanted. The social cost of abortion is much higher than the social cost of caring for putative 'unwanted pregnancies.'
Resources and links.
At Priests for Life, Frank Pavone believes the Sonogram Library is very convincing evidence that human life begins at conception:
For prolife and pregnancy help, text HELPLINE to 313131.