'Fertilized egg is a person' ballot proposal scares doctor

Newbie First Class Joined: Jul 28, 2007 Posts: 37

Courtesy Rocky Mountain News:

Opponents of a proposal defining a fertilized human egg as a person warned Tuesday that it could have unintended consequences, barring doctors from treating women with cancer and banning some birth control.

"As a physician, this proposed constitutional amendment really scares me," said Dr. Mary Fairbanks. "The moment of fertilization is not a medical definition, and so defining a person in that way interferes with the practice of medicine."

The proposed ballot issue was introduced by a coalition of anti- abortion activists called Colorado for Equal Rights. The group has until May 13 to gather the 76,000 signatures needed to get on the November ballot.

Supporters did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Article Continues @ [url=http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/may/06/human-life-proposal-scares-doctor/] Sourced Site [/url].

Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 12:26 pm

Stupid tards can't read a freaking science book.

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 549

A fertilized egg is a person in the same sense that my finger is a person.

Confident Learner Joined: Jun 16, 2008 Posts: 81

Hi!

The topic of this thread makes me remember the point of view I once held about abortion and the rights of the unborn child. Now that I'm an athiest (again) I'm definitely NOT advocating the following viewpoint, but when I was a born-again evango-fundie xian our pastor and the church elders exhorted us to be strongly pro-life and just as strongly anti-abortion.
Our justification for considering a newly-fertilised egg as a person was as biblical as could be - after all, if it's from the bible it must be god's will, right? Anyway, I won't quote these verses in full, you'll just have to look them up because I want to keep this message as short and neat as possible.

Read the following...
Psalm 139: 13, Luke 18: 15 & 16 (also occurs in the gospels of Mark & Matthew) , Luke 1:39 - 45. Also relevant are the virgin conception of Jesus, King Herod's slaughter of the innocents and the birth Abraham's son Isaac when both the father and mother (Sarah) were around 100 years old. Add to these the many references thru the bible to the "seed" of Abraham, seed of David, seed of Israel, etc.

All of these we used to support the following views...
1. God is intimately involved in the creation of ALL unborn children thru the power of the holy spirit. What he did when Jesus was created inside Mary's womb was unique but god is still the one who forms us inside our mother's.
2. Abortion is wrong, sinful and an act of murder. Those responsible will have to answer for their actions on Judgement day.
3. "Suffer the little children to come unto me" (See Luke 18 above) was taken to mean that the souls of unborn children who died naturally or by man's intervention would go to heaven. This was a response to the Catholic church's position on the issue. If a baby died unshrived it could not be admitted to heaven. (Btw, is that still the Catholic p.o.v. ? I'm unclear about it right now.)

O.k., that was then and I was happy to go along with these ideas in my zeal to do god's will. Now, as a re-confirmed athiest I've done a bit more digging thru the bible and there's some stuff in there that...

A. Doesn't square with 1,2 & 3.
B. Contradicts these quotes. If you start applying what is being said by god contradictions start popping up all over the place. Decide for yourself.
Read Genesis chapters 18 & 19.

Here god destroys the "cities of the plain", more commonly know as Sodom and Gomorrah. In fact there were five cities in all. Admah, Zeboim and Bela being the others.
Regardless of the reasons god gives as to why he did this certain facts are obvious. No doubt tens of thousands of people died by his hand. Of these thousands would have been unborn or newly-born babes-in-arms.
In our church we were encouraged to treat babies in all stages of their development as precious creations of god and people in their own right.
I used to find it difficult to see how a loving and compassionate god could incinerate unborn children and justify it by accusing their parents of unpardonable sin. Not any more. Now read Exodus 34:5-7.

Here god is declaring his true name to Moses, revealing his glory to the leader of the Israelites to increase his faith. All well and go but what about, "holding the children responsible for the sins of their fathers unto the third and fourth generation?"

So god CAN destroy unborn babies because of the actions of their grandparents and greatgrandparents decades before these children were even conceived.

This looks like a pretty big contradiction to what we were taught in church about abortion-related issues!

If we were to apply the 3rd & 4th generation ruling to our pro-life church activities how could we possibly know if we were doing god's will?
Maybe god had already decided that the grandparents of the teenage mothers waiting to have their pregnancies terminated had sinned too much for the child to be allowed to be born?

Could we discover which babies god wanted saved by the power of prayer?

Would god punish us if we got it wrong?

As I said earlier, if you start applying what you read in the scriptures to 21st century life you can very quickly find yourself walking thru a minefield of spiritual and practical problems.

I have more to say on god's judgement of the "innocent" but for now that's it.

Any thoughts, disagreements, opinions, etc. ?

Bornagainathiest.

Just Arrived Joined: Aug 21, 2008 Posts: 1

I don't know that I like the definition that is used here either. My question to all of you is: How would you define a "person".

No axe to grind, just really curious from you perspectives what or when the zygote goes from non-person to person.

-ME

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 549

I am tempted to say that whenever the fertilized egg grows a brain is when it becomes a person.


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