Sign of the Times

Wow...it's been a while since I've done this. But after reading this I had to comment. I got the link to this article from the daily Link List e-mailed out by the office of Dr. Albert Mohler:
In a Recession, Abortions Are Not a Bad Choice

I had a few questions to think about after reading this.

If a fetus is not a person then what is it? It has all the DNA of a human being, so it's not a dog, cat, horse or fish. So what is it then? Are we making decisions of "personhood" based upon subjective criteria that haven't been proven one way or the other? (i.e. self-consciousness, ability to feel pain, etc.) If so, then where do we draw the line down the road? If the child had already been born, what then? Would it be fine for them to have the baby killed? Maybe not if it's a year old, but what about a month? Two weeks? Two days? Since we have such limited knowledge, the safe, and ethical, way to go would be to give the "fetus" the benefit of the doubt and let it live. If Bonnie Erbe has a problem with these families being a burden on "the system" she can protest the ever-growing taxes the government is robbing her of to subsidize them.

I've written more on this in another article here.

Relative life

Here's a response I sent to the editor at Forbes.com for an article published today:

In the abortion debate the basic issue is whether or not the fetus is to be considered a human person. If the fetus is a person then abortion is immoral, if it is not then abortion is no more an issue than removing a wart. That being said, the pro-abortion camp gives away their true stand in some of the things they say. For example, in this article the claim is made that a fetus younger than "x" weeks of gestation cannot feel pain and, therefore, does not need anesthetic during an abortion procedure. The question that comes to my mind is this: If a fetus is not a human person, why do we care if it feels pain during a medical procedure designed to remove it from existence? The back-side of this question is: If it is a human person, then why is it acceptable to kill it? We all know that even a simple, fertilized zygote has all the genetic structure of a fully-developed human being. And with that genetic structure being unique, it is a unique human person. We also know that like produces like. Fish do not produce rabbits and dogs to not procuce lizards. In the same way, human beings produce human beings. Those who are in favor of abortion either do not understand that what is being destroyed is a human life or (and I'd rather like to think that this second group is very small) they advocate killing of innocent human beings that they deem as unfit to live according to their own subjective standard. I would like to conclude by stating that, since there is a debate as to when "life" begins, why not give the innocent child the benefit of the doubt. If it deserves the dignity of anesthetic during this gruesome procedure, why not allow it the dignity of its first breath from the womb?

A thought on embryonic stem-cell research

Another excellent note on the STR blog.

There is a lot of deception going on in the way this debate is being covered in the media. It is made (in most outlets) to sound like conservatives are against stem-cell research. This is not true. There is much stem-cell research being conducted with adult stem-cells as well as stem-cells from the blood collected from the umbilical cords of newborns (cord-blood stem-cells). Both of these areas of research have shown promise, where embryonic stem-cell research has yielded little or no gain. Yet those in favor of embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR) insist on tearing apart these pre-born children in order to cannibalize their stem-cells. Another misconception being foisted by the media is that the President is against stem-cell research. Again false. He has made it perfectly clear that he only opposes embryonic stem-cell research and has pledged that no tax money will be spent in support of it. He has not banned the research...he has only stripped it of federal funding. If those in favor of ESCR want it to continue, they can donate their money...just don't expect my tax dollars to pay for this morally bankrupt work.

I also believe that there is one issue that is not being addressed in this debate (at least not by those who favor ESCR) and that is what happens when the main argument is taken to its logical conclusion. The argument I've seen presented most often is that "the embryos will be destroyed anyway." Under this logic, why not perform experimentation on terminal alzheimers patients? Why not fiddle with the genes of those in a "persistent vegitative state"? Truth be known, there are some on the radical side of the issue that would concur with these conclusions, but the mass of people making this argument refuse to see the connection between the unborn embryos and the terminally ill. They just cannot see that using the logic of "the embryo will be destroyed (will die) anyway" matches perfectly with "the invalid will die anyway."

It brings to mind the Scriptures where it is stated "professing to be wise, they became fools...." (Rom 1:22).