The science of abortion: When does life begin?

[DrBubbaLove]

I try not to involve scientists in the groin area.
Spiritually, life begins before conception.
This information is a couple thousand years old.

Believe that is a different debate than the OP asked for as well. Most of us do not hold to the prior existence of the soul and God's Knowledge of our entire life does not require that we believe we per-exist as humans. None of which really directly matters to the OPs request/points.

Regardless all of us should at least agree a human life has not really been formed until God joins a soul with a physical form, with that form in union with our soul then naturally becoming the body we have, that is if that human life is not taken in abortion. And technically speaking the idea is not seen as the same as just filling an otherwise empty vessel, like inflating a balloon.

Among other things, the soul is considered the driving force for what makes my body mine (and not someone else's body). The ancients sometimes described it as the spark. We cannot have a whole human without it. It logically follows from such thoughts that the driving force for what makes me, well me, must be present when my body first begins to be formed. My soul is a driving part of what knitted me together. Otherwise our bodies could be said to not really be a part of who or what we are, and instead looked at temporary containers (as some in fact do view it) which we could dawn and shed like a spirit possessing some form.

No, the conjunction formed in the union of a body and soul which makes us human is not a containment of a spirit by God. It is the way He made man and distinguishes us from other creatures on the planet in that regard. The soul is as much a part of us as our arm or brain is. Which then means any attempt on our part to stop that human from developing from the very instant we are conceived is destroying a human life. Not potential life, an actual person already. Destroying, in fact killing a real person who is both a body and a soul already. A person who then in that death is now a soul that is then in need of a resurrected body to be a whole human once again, after the resurrection of all the dead in the next life.

A person I have no doubt will one day meet the person or persons responsible for their death. As hard as it may be for some to imagine, a meeting that could be in joy for some obviously forgiven for their role in the death and perhaps part of the despair for others who obviously were not.

 

[brinny]

A lot of the reality of a pregnant woman is outside the comprehension
of outsiders. They all need to mind their own affairs.

Would you care to elaborate on how, scientifically, a 5 year old can even remotely be pregnant?

 

[SkyWriting]

Would you care to elaborate on how, scientifically, a 5 year old can even remotely be pregnant?

Lina Medina, from the Ticrapo District of Peru, gave birth by cesarean section in Lima at age  5 1⁄2. The infant was a 2.64 kg (5.8 lb), 47.5 cm (18.7 in) boy named Gerardo. By interrogating her parents, the doctors understood that Medina had entered into precocious puberty (when hormone glands are activated earlier than normal) very early after her birth.

Yelizaveta "Liza" Gryshchenko was 5 years old when her 70-year-old maternal grandfather raped and impregnated her. She had her 6th birthday several days before giving birth.

The 6-year-old known only as "H." gave birth by cesarean section to a girl weighing 4.19 lb (1.90 kg) at Victoria Zanana Hospital in Delhi. She was initially admitted for what was thought to be an abdominal tumor, as she complained of localized pain in her lower abdomen. Her father said she was 7, but civic records gave her birth date as October 11, 1925, making her 6 years and 7 months old at the time of labor. She had never menstruated and her breasts were still far from being fully developed, yet she was able to breastfeed her child for 9 months.[7]

Griseldina Acuña of San Zenón, Magdalena Department, gave birth to a boy weighing 5 lb (2.3 kg). She was reported to have begun menstruating at age 3.[12]

An unidentified 8 yo girl's pregnancy was revealed by a policeman who became suspicious in early September 2004 when he noticed the girl's swollen abdomen and thought she was a drug smuggler. After the girl had X-rays done, the officer told her mother that the girl was pregnant; the hospital confirmed she was at her 32nd week of pregnancy. The girl revealed that when she had gone to a pharmacy in Ciudad Bolívar, to fetch her sick mother's medicine, an employee there raped her.

My point being that pregnancy is the business of the family,
not science or politics.

 

[brinny]

Lina Medina, from the Ticrapo District of Peru, gave birth by cesarean section in Lima at age  5 1⁄2. The infant was a 2.64 kg (5.8 lb), 47.5 cm (18.7 in) boy named Gerardo. By interrogating her parents, the doctors understood that Medina had entered into precocious puberty (when hormone glands are activated earlier than normal) very early after her birth.

Yelizaveta "Liza" Gryshchenko was 5 years old when her 70-year-old maternal grandfather raped and impregnated her. She had her 6th birthday several days before giving birth.

The 6-year-old known only as "H." gave birth by cesarean section to a girl weighing 4.19 lb (1.90 kg) at Victoria Zanana Hospital in Delhi. She was initially admitted for what was thought to be an abdominal tumor, as she complained of localized pain in her lower abdomen. Her father said she was 7, but civic records gave her birth date as October 11, 1925, making her 6 years and 7 months old at the time of labor. She had never menstruated and her breasts were still far from being fully developed, yet she was able to breastfeed her child for 9 months.[7]

Griseldina Acuña of San Zenón, Magdalena Department, gave birth to a boy weighing 5 lb (2.3 kg). She was reported to have begun menstruating at age 3.[12]

An unidentified 8 yo girl's pregnancy was revealed by a policeman who became suspicious in early September 2004 when he noticed the girl's swollen abdomen and thought she was a drug smuggler. After the girl had X-rays done, the officer told her mother that the girl was pregnant; the hospital confirmed she was at her 32nd week of pregnancy. The girl revealed that when she had gone to a pharmacy in Ciudad Bolívar, to fetch her sick mother's medicine, an employee there raped her.

Thank you for the information. What is the deal with the hormonal glands activating earlier than normal?

Thank you kindly.

 

[KWCrazy]

Live doesn't begin, it continues. Both sperm and egg cells are living. A pregnancy begins when the fertilized egg bonds with the uterine wall. Prior to this the embryos can be frozen and re-thawed; a definite impossibility with live humans. Preventing the embryo from bonding with the uterine wall prevents a pregnancy. No pregnancy, no new life. Pregnancy causes many chemical reactions which enable the embryo to develop into a new person. True, even after the pregnancy begins half will be rejected by the body. God knows which ones will succeed and which will fail. It is not for us to kill the life that dwells within us. We know very well how to prevent it from beginning.

 

[PapaZoom]

Currently, God terminates about 50% of all pregnancies.
Are you working on this problem?

Well you're not God are you. Your post suggest you're on the same level as Him.

We live in a broken world. The creation was broken in the fall. That there are spontaneous abortions doesn't give you the right to kill another innocent human being. Does it? Just because there are pedestrian accidents in the world, that doesn't give you the moral right to run people over with your car.

 

[redleghunter]

Currently, God terminates about 50% of all pregnancies.
Are you working on this problem?

A non-sequitur in actuality.

 

[redleghunter]

I try not to involve philosophical scientists in the groin area.
Spiritually, life begins before conception.
This information is a couple thousand years old.

Please notice the OP is based on the scientific evidence of human beings beginning at conception. Science will not take a position on spiritual matters.

Please if we can keep on topic.

Does anyone have alternative scientific facts in reference to when we homo sapiens become so?

 

[redleghunter]

The 10 Youngest Birth Mothers of All Time

The age of the females in question don't change the scientific fact a distinct human life begins at conception.

Please can we keep on topic?

 

[redleghunter]

A lot of the reality of a pregnant woman is outside the comprehension
of outsiders. They all need to mind their own affairs.

Thank you for your opinion however such does not address the OP of scientific evidence of conception.

Science does not deal in moral relativism. At least it shouldn't .

Climate deniers try to find emotional and political reasons to deny scientific evidence. I see the same now with the denial of proven settled embryology.

 

[redleghunter]

It is obvious that both the female egg and the male sperm have a form of life but no one would call either a person.

Yes that's because neither are a distinct human life from the host.

Conception is the beginning of a distinct human life.

Please keep on subject.

Do you have alternative science which refutes currently held settled science on conception?

 

[redleghunter]

There is a potential person there and a great many people would claim that it actually is a person.

Please scientifically define the beginning of personhood.

Also it would be advantageous for all on what definition of "person" you are using.

 

[redleghunter]

Believe that is a different debate than the OP asked for as well. Most of us do not hold to the prior existence of the soul and God's Knowledge of our entire life does not require that we believe we per-exist as humans. None of which really directly matters to the OPs request/points.

Regardless all of us should at least agree a human life has not really been formed until God joins a soul with a physical form, with that form in union with our soul then naturally becoming the body we have, that is if that human life is not taken in abortion. And technically speaking the idea is not seen as the same as just filling an otherwise empty vessel, like inflating a balloon.

Among other things, the soul is considered the driving force for what makes my body mine (and not someone else's body). The ancients sometimes described it as the spark. We cannot have a whole human without it. It logically follows from such thoughts that the driving force for what makes me, well me, must be present when my body first begins to be formed. My soul is a driving part of what knitted me together. Otherwise our bodies could be said to not really be a part of who or what we are, and instead looked at temporary containers (as some in fact do view it) which we could dawn and shed like a spirit possessing some form.

No, the conjunction formed in the union of a body and soul which makes us human is not a containment of a spirit by God. It is the way He made man and distinguishes us from other creatures on the planet in that regard. The soul is as much a part of us as our arm or brain is. Which then means any attempt on our part to stop that human from developing from the very instant we are conceived is destroying a human life. Not potential life, an actual person already. Destroying, in fact killing a real person who is both a body and a soul already. A person who then in that death is now a soul that is then in need of a resurrected body to be a whole human once again, after the resurrection of all the dead in the next life.

A person I have no doubt will one day meet the person or persons responsible for their death. As hard as it may be for some to imagine, a meeting that could be in joy for some obviously forgiven for their role in the death and perhaps part of the despair for others who obviously were not.

Very insightful using the scientific evidence presented.

 

[redleghunter]

Live doesn't begin, it continues. Both sperm and egg cells are living. A pregnancy begins when the fertilized egg bonds with the uterine wall. Prior to this the embryos can be frozen and re-thawed; a definite impossibility with live humans. Preventing the embryo from bonding with the uterine wall prevents a pregnancy. No pregnancy, no new life. Pregnancy causes many chemical reactions which enable the embryo to develop into a new person. True, even after the pregnancy begins half will be rejected by the body. God knows which ones will succeed and which will fail. It is not for us to kill the life that dwells within us. We know very well how to prevent it from beginning.

The universal scientific evidence we can observe is everything has a beginning. For humans that distinct life separate from parents is conception.

Let us not resist the settled science.

I will offer another venue to discuss the Christian theological aspects of conception later this week in another forum.

However, we Christians must first come to grips with what is revealed in our world. The things we can observe. And we can observe via scientific evidence a new district human being is created at the moment of conception. In most cases 23 chromosomes from mother and 23 chromosomes from father. A new district human being.

 

[JackRT]

Please scientifically define the beginning of personhood.

Also it would be advantageous for all on what definition of "person" you are using.

I agree that the science of conception is well understood. The question of personhood is theological/philosophical rather than scientific although I raised some real scientific problems in my first post on this thread. Many Christian theologians and/or philosophers have similar difficulties:

"The law does not provide that the act of abortion pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation..."--St Augustine

"The intellective soul i.e., true person is created by God at the completion of man's coming into being." -- St Thomas Aquinas

"Many modern philosophers and theologians return to St. Thomas' view."-- Fr Joseph F. Donceel, S.J.

"To admit that the human fetus receives the intellectual soul from the moment of its conception, when matter is in no way ready for it, sounds to me like a philosophical absurdity. It is as absurd as to call a fertilized ovum a baby." --Jacques Maritain

"Many people believe that the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to abortion stems from its conviction that a new human person exists from the first moment of conception...It is clear that this is not now, or has ever been, official church teaching on the matter."--James T. McCartney

"In the rabbinic tradition...abortion remains a non-capital crime at worst."--Rabbi David Feldman

The Scriptures are silent in defining when one becomes a person.

 

[Your Brother In Christ]

here are two on this subject:

 

[redleghunter]

Well you're not God are you. Your post suggest you're on the same level as Him.

We live in a broken world. The creation was broken in the fall. That there are spontaneous abortions doesn't give you the right to kill another innocent human being. Does it? Just because there are pedestrian accidents in the world, that doesn't give you the moral right to run people over with your car.

A valid point we will bring up in the theological thread I will create later this week.

 

[redleghunter]

I agree that the science of conception is well understood.

Good. That addresses the OP.

The question of personhood is theological/philosophical rather than scientific although I raised some real scientific problems in my first post on this thread. Many Christian theologians and/or philosophers have similar difficulties:

Are there scientists or medical doctors in the list provided? Don't see any. If one is a modern day embryologist please let me know. I will most welcome your comments when we address the theological aspects of human life origins later this week. You will be able to find it on Controversial Christian Theology as I want people to freely discuss their non Traditional views.

The Scriptures are silent in defining when one becomes a person.

Again we can discuss such on the theological thread.

 

[redleghunter]

here are two on this subject:

Thank you for that input. I would consider the videos being on subject for the Theological thread I will create later this week. I will link it here when ready.

 

[1stcenturylady]

The Epistle of Barnabas:

19:5 thou shalt not doubt whether a thing shall be
or not; thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in
vain. Thou shalt love thy neighbour beyond thine own
soul; thou shalt not kill a child by abortion, neither
shalt thou destroy it after it is born. Thou shalt not
remove thy hand from thy son or thy daughter, but
shalt teach them from their youth the fear of the
Lord.