When Does Life Begin?

Good afternoon. Sunday, January 21, 2007, is the "Sanctity of Life" Sunday. So for the next few posts, I will remind us how the unborn are to be protected. I will start out with an article written by Jon Dougherty in the WorldNetDaily.com...

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Life begins at conception: Jon Dougherty explains when the ball starts bouncing

News/Current Events Front Page Editorial
Source: WorldNetDaily.com
Published: Tuesday, February 6, 2001

At this point in the "debate" over abortion, it is patently obvious that any justification given by pro-abortion advocates to continue our society's practice of butchering its young is neither valid nor sensible.

Worse, our nation has all but lost any claims we could have ever made on "compassion" because we have allowed lies, innuendo and insanity to circumscribe the parameters of this so-called debate. Such tactics have cheapened life so much that now we're to the point where millions of us are no longer capable of seeing the truth for the blood on our hands.

Perhaps the most egregious and common hypocrisy is the justification that abortion is okay because life doesn't "begin" until a human being is actually born -- yet no self-respecting abortion advocate who spews this robotically-rehearsed and overused phrase can explain the miracle of life that scientists, doctors and parents have known for eons: Life begins at conception, not birth. Birth is simply one stage of ongoing human development.

"Ho, ho," you laugh. "That Dougherty is clueless. 'Life' isn't 'life' until it's viable life; which means, when you're born, fully developed." To suppose this is true would be akin to the claim that death isn't death until we say it's death.

Life is as real and as tangible as death; consequently, we humans are "viable" the moment we are created in the womb. Barring death by natural causes, everyone has the potential to eventually become a senior citizen someday -- as long as they aren't butchered before birth. In fact, some have said we begin to die the moment we are conceived because our lives always reach that inevitable conclusion.

The "not viable life" excuse doesn't hold up because, if all life is not "viable" life, then what is the purpose of having an abortion? If these human beings weren't viable and would not -- if left unmolested -- mature into "born" children and adults, then the abortion would be unnecessary to begin with.

Also -- and this is key -- we humans are never "fully-developed." We're not born "complete"; we grow, change, mature and age constantly, which means we're always "developing," and we develop though the first nine months of our lives attached to a "host" -- our mothers.

So, the fact that the first nine months of our developmental life is in utero is of no consequence to our overall lifespan; it is just the first stage. There are many developmental stages -- early, middle and late.

But life has to begin somewhere. We don't go from "nothing" to adulthood.

Denying the fact that life begins the moment a female egg is fertilized is sheer lunacy -- or, worse, intentionally misleading. It is simply a matter of choice that millions of Americans have decided to believe that life only begins when they say it does -- at the moment of birth, or in the second trimester of pregnancy, or some other arbitrary guideline.

It begins when it begins -- at the moment a human being is biologically "under construction."

Passing laws or writing constitutional mandates from the bench of the Supreme Court cannot change this fact. Indeed, it has not changed this fact; only our perception of the fact has changed, largely for reasons of personal convenience.

It is patently arrogant that we, as adults, get to decide for the most vulnerable of our society -- our unborn children, who cannot speak for themselves -- who lives and who dies. Or, if you prefer, who gets to experience further "development" and who doesn't.

If we intentionally end any stage of a human life in development, we are committing an act of murder, as it has been defined by our society from its humble beginnings.

Any attempt to convince ourselves otherwise is little more than a mental joust with reality and an injustice to our unborn that we can never excuse away, try as we may.