Why I am not a republican

[Toober]

I am American. I am currently working in Canada. And since you can't get your facts straight, maybe you shouldn't try to assail other people's credibility.

you have failed to establish your "credibility"...


you offer opinions as facts...they are not the same...[other than being factually your opinion]

[Chris]

Somebody still asking for sources? When Does Life Begin?

Keith L. Moore, a world-renowned embryologist and author of the best selling textbook: The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology (10th edition, Philadelphia, PA: Sauders, 2016) states:

“Human development is a continuous process that begins when an oocyte from a female is fertilized by a sperm from a male,” (pg. 1).

“Human development begins at fertilization when a sperm fuses with an oocyte (the woman’s egg) to form a single cell, the zygote (the term for an egg that is fertilized by a sperm). This highly specialized, totipotent cell (capable of giving rise to any cell type) marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual” (pg. 12).

Let’s check a different scientific textbook:

“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization…is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte (female egg).

– Human Embryology & Teratology (Ronan R. O’Rahilly and Fabiola Muller [3rd edition, New York: Wiley-Liss 2001], p. 8).

Let’s check another one:

“Development begins with fertilization, the process by which the male gamete, the sperm, and the female gamete, the oocyte, unite to give rise to a zygote.”

– Langman’s Medical Embryology (T.W. Sadler, 11th edition, Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006, p. 13).

The list goes on. We’ll stop here with the text books solely because of redundancy.



National Geographic produced a television program entitled In the Womb in 2005 that showed the development of the unborn child. In the introduction of the program they sum up the scientific knowledge of the beginning of life:

“The two cells gradually and gracefully become one. This is the moment of conception when an individual’s unique set of DNA is created, a human signature that never existed before and will never be repeated.”



The question of when life begins was put to rest in 1981 (April 23 – 24) when a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee held a hearing on the question of when human life begins. A group of internationally renowned geneticists and biologists testified that life begins at conception.

Here’s what the doctors had to say:

Dr. Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, Harvard Medical School, testified with references from over 20 embryology and other medical textbooks that human life began at conception.

“It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive…It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”

“Father of Modern Genetics” Dr. Jerome Lejeune told the lawmakers:

“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 … it is plain experimental evidence. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”

Dr. Hymie Gordon, Professor of Medical Genetics and physician at the prestigious Mayo Clinic, affirmed this consensus:

“I think we can now also say that the question of the beginning of life – when life begins – is no longer a question for theological or philosophical dispute. It is an established scientific fact. Theologians and philosophers may go on to debate the meaning of life or the purpose of life, but it is an established fact that all life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception.”

Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor, University of Tennessee, testified:

“The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception.”

Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni, professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, concluded:

“I am no more prepared to say that these early stages represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty … is not a human being. … I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.”

Dr. Landrum Shettles, sometimes called the “Father of In Vitro Fertilization,” notes:

“Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind.”

[Chris]

I Asked Thousands of Biologists When Life Begins. The Answer Wasn’t Popular: "...my finding that 96% of the 5,577 biologists who responded to me affirmed the view that a human life begins at fertilization. It was the reporting of this view—that human zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are biological humans—that created such a strong backlash."

[TheLiquidGuy]

As a liberal (be it classical or modern) you most certainly espouse equality of all before the law. But here you abort equality with your concern for the mother's rights and lack of concern for the unborn baby's rights.

At what point during gestation is a pregnant woman carrying a person inside her? As soon as personhood is achieved the rights of that person merit consideration. Not before.
I haven't decided for myself when that is exactly, but I am pretty sure I don't agree with assigning rights to a group of barely differentiated cells with no higher brain functions or nervous system.

(Sorry for the odd phrasing but I was trying to avoid some loaded buzz words)

[TheLiquidGuy]

you have failed to establish your "credibility"...
you offer opinions as facts...

show me an instance of me doing that and I will immediately apologize and clarify it.

You told me I was canadian and used it as a reason not to believe me . So I accused you of not getting your facts straight.

[Toober]

At what point during gestation is a pregnant woman carrying a person inside her? As soon as personhood is achieved the rights of that person merit consideration. Not before.
I haven't decided for myself when that is exactly, but I am pretty sure I don't agree with assigning rights to a group of barely differentiated cells with no higher brain functions or nervous system.

(Sorry for the odd phrasing but I was trying to avoid some loaded buzz words)

what you agree with or to is irrelevant...the professionals have agreed and they agree with the pediatricians that life begins at conception...

you science deniers are a hoot...

[Ransom]

I'm not naming and shaming because that gets the shamer into trouble. However, if you've missed those little tidbits you haven't been paying attention. Those statements have been made more than once and by more than one member. Ask our strict Constitutionalists whether public education, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare etc are beyond the scope of the Constitution (which was written in the Victorian era).

Could it be they favor a robust educational system that is private, not public? Could they merely support privatizing %'s of social security. Might they be hospitable and welfare giving people who think there is too much waste in a public welfare system, too much opportunity for corruption. Has Medicare or Medicaid been cost efficient, is the VA well run?

And that same Constitution....what most arguments are used for on the left, correct? "Right" to health care? "Right" to an education?

So careful what you be labeling Victorian in your circles, someone might take offense.

[Ransom]

Some have argued to me that the Constitution is a centuries old document that doesn't necessarily apply given our new 'enlightenments' these days on immigration, gun control, health care, and/or education.

At the same time, they'll argue that Americans have a "right" to health care. A "right" to be educated. And then I always ask them if it's that 250 year old document that affords them these 'rights.'

[Chris]

At what point during gestation is a pregnant woman carrying a person inside her? As soon as personhood is achieved the rights of that person merit consideration. Not before.
I haven't decided for myself when that is exactly, but I am pretty sure I don't agree with assigning rights to a group of barely differentiated cells with no higher brain functions or nervous system.

(Sorry for the odd phrasing but I was trying to avoid some loaded buzz words)

Ah, as is predictable from the left, you have shifted the argument from when life begins to when personhood begins, from an entirely objective criteria to a purely subjective one that has no possible foundation logically or morally.

Why predictable? Because progressives have been arguing the personhood argument since the late 1800s. Then it was applied as the justification for eugenics, an attempt to design society according to a few central planners's utopian vision for humanity. Now the same argument is applied to the justification for abortion. In between, the Nazis borrowed it as justification for the holocaust.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

[Toober]

Ah, as is predictable from the left, you have shifted the argument from when life begins to when personhood begins, from an entirely objective criteria to a purely subjective one that has no possible foundation logically or morally.

Why predictable? Because progressives have been arguing the personhood argument since the late 1800s. Then it was applied as the justification for eugenics, an attempt to design society according to a few central planners's utopian vision for humanity. Now the same argument is applied to the justification for abortion. In between, the Nazis borrowed it as justification for the holocaust.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

it was also used by margaret sanger, founder of planned parenthood and champion of hitlers eugenics experiments...she wanted black eradicated and called them "weeds"...
the left has an unsavory habit of promoting the worst of the worst...from their founding in the early 1800s to preserve slavery, up to and including today...