5/22/2016
#186 GOING WEST
GOAFS II: #186
GOING WEST
MAY 22, 2016
Tomorrow we
leave for Rapid City, South Dakota, where many of the family will join us to
scatter Joan’s ashes from Inspiration Point at the Wheaton College Science
Station. It is a lovely location—Always our a stop whether heading East or West.
Joan would sit like this for a long time, Remembering…
Inspiration
Point
Rapid Creek
flows 100 feet or more below at the foot of this cliff and feeds the small lake
you see on its way through.
As Joan sat
here remembering, she had a thousand stories of the summers she spent her as a
child with some of her Wheaton Academy classmates whose parents also had summer
term teaching assignments at the Academy.
The Wheaton Academy
Gang, together at least once at the Science station. I don’t know how many of
them are still living, but I am pretty sure several were already there to
welcome her when she arrived in glory. Joan is the back row, standing and
pointing—she could seldom resist giving advice to the photographer.
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD
AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus
Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
5/15/2016
#185 MORE CYBERGARDEN
GOAFS II: #185
MORE CYBERGARDEN
MAY 15, 2016
|
J
|
oan was
partial to Africa and we had an occasional African Violet in the house. I was partial
to India, and I am not aware that it affected our garden in any way. But we
both equally admired Asian Lilies and they were always abundantly present in our
garden. This is one of our favorite among favorites.
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD
AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus
Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
5/08/2016
#184 LIFE BEGINS?
GOAFS II: #184
LIFE BEGINS?
MAY 8, 2016
When does
human life begin? The contemporary American culture would limit the answer to a
continuum beginning with:
“When the
children leave home and the dog dies.”
Anonymous, but probably the man of the house
Ending with:
“When a brand
new live baby has its cord cut and is handed to the brand new mother.”
Various sons and daughters of Moloch running Planned
Parenthood
In the smoke
of the current sound and fury over the Presidency of the United States there
lurks the ever present ghost of the abortion wars of the past and the shades of
some 50 million babies, most of them murdered on demand, for convenience. I
will not try to sort out the positions of the current crop of politicians seeking
the substantial power of the American Presidency. But I will give you the
extremes of the two possible answers to the question; when does human life
begin?
THE
PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL LEFT
In an article
in the Lexington Herald Leader dated April 18, 2016, Dr. David A. Nash, a
former chair of the board of directors of Planned Parenthood of the Bluegrass,
now Planned Parenthood of Kentucky and Kentucky, and of the Reproductive
Freedom Project of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, sums up his
answer this way:
“In Roe vs. Wade, the
U.S. Supreme Court affirmed reproductive science by correctly ruling that
life begins when a viable fetus, a child is delivered by the mother.”
THE
CONSERVATIVE RIGHT
Conservative
Right’s answer is all over the place, but the variety of answers share one
essential assertion: “The right to life for human beings is given by God, not
defined or given by the State.” Even though the State waffles on what it
“human” means, even scientists, if they are honest, admit that “All life
conceived by a human male and a human female is human.” Had the Supreme Court
bothered to take God seriously in the matter of when life begins, He might have
told them a story;
Once upon a
time there was man named Jeremiah. I appeared to him and told him this;
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you
were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
At this point God might have paused, looked up at the Supremes
and asked them his own question:
Do anyone of you have any desire at all to
know where it was and when it was that I knew and consecrated Jeremiah as my
Prophet?
I can imagine a lot of whispering along the bench. God is
asked to leave the courtroom while they confer further and eventually return. A
small minority wants to hear God’s answer—given the rush of business the majority
grudgingly agrees to give God 7 minutes to tell them the when and where of
God’s knowing and consecrating the Prophet.
God tells them time is no problem for Him—after all he had
created all things in 7 days, which included a day of vacation but He estimates
it would take them at least six months to understand and acknowledge what he
would have to say.
More whispering and urgent looks, finally God says to them;
I can see already this just isn’t workable.
Never mind, all of you will be together again at the Last Judgment where I will
do the Judging, and time won’t be a problem.
In June, 1994
soon after I became Director of Women for Life in Lexington Kentucky I found
there was no mission statement and no written policy on abortion. Everyone knew
what the organization believed and practiced, but there was nothing in writing.
I put together the following and I suspect it hasn’t changed much since then.
If you are the thoughtful kind of person you will note that the
over-simplification of Dr. Nash’s answer is incomplete and deceptive—what
follows will clarify and fill in some of the gaps.
+++++++++++++++++++++
WOMEN FOR LIFE
POSITION ON ABORTION
6/13/94
The mission of Women For Life (now Assurance)
is to glorify God and present the good news of Jesus Christ through the
promotion of a public awareness of the sanctity of life and the provision of
professional Christian adoption services to children and families. In accomplishing this mission we oppose
abortion on demand. The following statement spells out what this means to us in
the form of an argument with three premises.
We believe this argument is both biblically sound and scientifically
valid.
1. The unborn, from
the moment of conception, is fully human.
"To accept the fact that after
fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a
matter of taste or opinion. The human
nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical
contention, it is plain experimental evidence."
French geneticist Jerome K. LeJeune, testifying before a
Senate subcommittee
"So therefore it is
scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at
conception, when egg and sperm join to form the zygote, and this developing
human is always a member of our species in all stages of its life."
Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth, principal research associate
in the Department of medicine, Harvard Medical School
"..no witness raised any
evidence to refute the biological fact that from the moment of conception there
exists a distinct individual being who is alive and is of the human
species. No witness challenged the
scientific consensus that unborn children are 'human beings' insofar as the
term is used to mean living beings of the human species...those witnesses who
testified that science cannot say whether unborn children are human beings were
speaking in every instance of the value question rather than the scientific
question...these witnesses invoked their value preferences to redefine the term
'human being'...they took the view that each person may define as 'human' only
those beings whose lives that person wants to value. Because they did not wish to accord intrinsic
worth to the lives of unborn children, they refused to call them 'human
beings,' regardless of the scientific evidence."
The Human Life Bill: Hearings on S. 158 Report together
with additional and minority views to the Committee on the Judiciary, United
States Senate, made by its Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, 97th Congress,
1st session (1981)
Only the unthinking or the deceived
would assert that the unborn is not human.
When the human female conceives, it is biologically impossible for her
to conceive any other life than human life.
For the Christian, the greatest
revelation of the intrinsic worth of the unborn child is the Incarnation -- God
came among us as a child! Jesus Christ
went through every state of human development, from conception, through
infancy, through boyhood, to young manhood.
Then He died on a cross to save us all, the born and the unborn.
Human life is sacred because it
comes from God and is intended to glorify Him.
2. It is wrong to
kill the unborn human, no matter how many civil laws legalize the killing.
"You shall not murder (shed
innocent blood)."
Exodus 20.14
"The private use of lethal
violence against an innocent party is an assault on the moral foundations of
any just society."
George Weigel, President, Ethics and Public Policy Center,
Washington, DC
A very large number of the arguments
for abortion on demand (for any reason at any time prior to birth) hinge on the
semantic ability to de-humanize the unborn child. Those who offer these arguments may agree
with number two, but they will fuzz up number one, often by shifting to
"personhood" which might start at viability or to "legal (judge
made) personhood," which does not begin until the baby is born. In making this shift, they appeal to law (Roe
v. Wade) which is nothing more than a reflection of Harry Blackmun's
particular relative value system which not only flies in the face of biblical
morality but doesn't even have a genuine constitutional foundation.
The right to life that every human
being has is not dependent on the location of that life, the maturity of that
life, or the wantedness of that life. The government does not give this right to
life; it is given by God, the Creator of life, to all human beings at
conception. Jesus said, "Let the
little children come to me..."
3. With the rare
exception of a medical attempt to save the life of a mother, every act of
abortion is primarily intended to kill unborn human life.
We believe the intention of the
physician in treating a pregnant woman should be that expressed in the oath
that has guided physicians for almost 2,400 years,
"I will follow that method of
treatment which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the
benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and
mischievous. I will give no deadly
medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel: furthermore, I will
not give to any woman an instrument to produce abortion."
From The Oath of Hippocrates
The physician's goal must always be to preserve or save all the life possible.
If treatment of the mother to save her life results in the death of the unborn
child, it must never be from the physician's lack of commitment to saving the
lives of both.
4. Therefore, with
the rare exception of a medical attempt to save the life of a mother, every act
of abortion is wrong.
As stated above, this does not allow
for a list of "accepted abortions" or "prohibited
abortions." The only acceptable
reason to cause the death of an unborn child is the inability of the physician to save both the life of the mother and
the life of the child when both are threatened.
P.S. 4.18.16, by Jerry Sweers, author of the original
statement for Women For Life (Now called Assurance”). Many thinking physicians do not
describe as “an abortion” the failure to save the life of the child described
in point 4 above—Abortion is essentially an elective procedure that intentionally
terminates an innocent human life.
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD
AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus
Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
