You can't legislate morality? Really???
LAST (probably) in the mini-series on abortion, which is just a word liberals use to mean baby murdering. The practice causes intense pain to the child, and it is wrong.
Scientific evidence reveals that unborn babies do, indeed, feel pain
The evidence of fetal pain
With the advent of sonograms and live-action ultrasound images, neonatologists and nurses are able to see unborn babies at 20 weeks gestation react physically to outside stimuli such as sound, light and touch. The sense of touch is so acute that even a single human hair drawn across an unborn baby's palm causes the baby to make a fist.
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| Did you know that this 20-week-old unborn child can feel pain? |
Medical facts of fetal pain
Anatomical studies have documented that the body’s pain network—the spino-thalamic pathway—is established by 20 weeks gestation.
• “At 20 weeks, the fetal brain has the full complement of brain cells present in adulthood, ready and waiting to receive pain signals from the body, and their electrical activity can be recorded by standard electroencephalography (EEG).”
— Dr. Paul Ranalli, neurologist, University of Toronto
• An unborn baby at 20 weeks gestation “is fully capable of experiencing pain. … Without question, [abortion] is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant subjected to such a surgical procedure.”
— Robert J. White, M.D., PhD., professor of neurosurgery, Case Western University
Unborn babies have heightened sensitivities
Unborn babies at 20 weeks development actually feel pain more intensely than adults. This is a “uniquely vulnerable time, since the pain system is fully established, yet the higher level pain-modifying system has barely begun to develop,” according to Dr. Ranalli.
“Having administered anesthesia for fetal surgery, I know that on occasion we need to administer anesthesia directly to the fetus, because even at these early gestational ages the fetus moves away from the pain of the stimulation,” stated David Birnbach, M.D., president of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology and self-described as “pro-choice,” in testimony before the U.S. Congress.
Given the medical evidence that unborn babies experience pain, compassionate people are viewing abortion more and more as an inhumane and intolerable brutality against defenseless human beings.
The unborn baby at 20 weeks
Fetal development is already quite advanced at 20 weeks gestation:
• The skeleton is complete and reflexes are present at 42 days.
• Electrical brain wave patterns can be recorded at 43 days. This is usually ample evidence that “thinking” is taking place in the brain.
• The fetus has the appearance of a miniature baby, with complete fingers, toes and ears at 49 days.
• All organs are functioning—stomach, liver, kidney, brain—and all systems are intact at 56 days.
• By 20 weeks, the unborn child has hair and working vocal cords, sucks her thumb, grasps with her hands and kicks. She measures 12 inches.
Abortion at 20 weeks
Despite the unborn child’s advanced development at 20 weeks, the following painful abortion procedures are used:
• Partial-birth abortion (D&X): The unborn baby is delivered feet first, except for the head, which is punctured at the base of the skull with a sharp object. The brain is then suctioned out, killing the child. (This method was outlawed in the United States in 2007.)
• Dilation and Evacuation (D&E): Sharp-edged instruments are used to grasp, twist and tear the baby’s body into pieces, which are then removed from the womb.
• Saline abortion: Salt water is injected into the womb through the mother’s abdomen. The unborn baby swallows this fluid, is poisoned and dies in a process that sometimes takes 24 hours. The toxic saline solution causes severe burns over the unborn child’s entire body.
Minnesota law recognizes fetal pain
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An aborted 9 week old baby. How is this not murder?
The silliest pro-abortion argument ever (is one you hear all the time)
January 17, 2012 (LiveAction.org) - Tell me if this has ever happened to you.
It’s lunchtime. You are eating at your desk at work and decide to look at Facebook. It’s as exciting as ever. Your aunt had a burrito for lunch. A girl you haven’t seen since college got a new tattoo. Someone is super happy it’s almost Friday.
Then you see that a virtual stranger (there’s a double meaning in that) has commented on one of your posts. And she has said something so asinine that you put down your fried pickle (’cause you’re in Texas and you eat stuff like that) and respond.
It’s daunting, the task before you. Do you even want to undertake this? Can you really change someone’s mind about abortion in one Facebook comment?*
Well, you’re gonna try. So you launch into refuting whatever dumb thing the person just said. “There’s no scientific concensus that life begins at conception!” “If we make it illegal, they’re gonna do it anyway!” “If you’re against abortion, you should be against war, too!” It could be any of these things, or something else.
Click “like” if you want to end abortion!
So you drop a couple knowledge bombs, go back to your life, and hours later you find the following response:
Really? We can’t legislate morality? What do you call it when we tell people they can’t murder? Rape? Steal?
Let’s do some Criminal Justice 101, shall we? There are two types of laws: malum in se and malum prohibitum. Malum in se is a Latin phrase meaning “wrong in itself.” Most of us feel that murder is wrong, therefore there is a law against it. Malum prohibitum means something is wrong because it is prohibited. For example: in the United States we have to drive on the right side of the road, not because driving on the left is inherently evil (I’m lookin’ at you, England!) but because good order meant we had to pick one side. Because we’ve picked right, if you drive on the left, you’re gonna get stopped. Try it, you’ll see.**
Malum in se laws are based on morality. Our laws here in the U.S. grew out of English Common Law, which in turn was based on Judeo-Christian morality. Now, old-timey English lawmakers did not sit around and go, “Hmmm, what should we base our laws on?” And then come up with the Bible because it had an attractive leather cover. Judeo-Christian morality was a part of the culture since the 7th century, and has in fact formed Western culture, culminating most recently in our humble little former colony, the United States.
Detractors will say English Common Law formed in the 5th century, before Christianity took hold in Britain. But the law as we know it didn’t stop forming then. Christian men such as Henry de Bracton in the 13th century in England and Sir William Blackstone in the 18th century in the United States have had a tremendous impact on creating the laws we know today.
(Radar note. Blackstone and the Bible were the two most referenced sources by the Founding Fathers when they were writing the Constitution and the Bible more than Blackstone.)
Whether you like it or not, the culture that created you is a Judeo-Christian culture. All the things you think are right and wrong were formed by Judeo-Christian principles. Why do you think it’s wrong to have slaves? Western culture is just like most other civilizations in that it engaged in slavery, but unique in that it is solely responsible for ridding the world of it. What about having a harem of concubines? That was common in pre-Christian cultures, not so much in the West today. Sacrificing virgins? No big deal to the pagans, but frowned upon in our time.
The idea of loving people more than ourselves, sacrificing for the poor, turning the other cheek… these ideas were so revolutionary to the Roman world in which Christianity was born that they were scandalous. The tenets of Christianity made Christians so different they were almost universally hated. They were persecuted and killed all over the Roman Empire, until the Emperor Constantine had a vision. But I digress.
So those who cry that morals have no place in public policy are a little too late. Judeo-Christian morals created our public policy, created our culture, were the basis for our founding documents, guided the formation of our nation through the beliefs of our founders, and make up the fabric of our society.
Recently, a postmodern deconstructionist tendency to wipe American law clean of “traditional” morality has created not a sparkling tabula rasa, but a libertine morass. You don’t have to be a Jew or Christian to recognize there is such a thing as right and wrong. Lately, it seems like the only evil people will recognize is believing in evil.
Ironically, the abortion advocate who tells us to keep our morals off her body is herself expressing a moral belief, a belief in liberty. I also believe in liberty, but I believe that in the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” life comes first for a very good reason: you can’t have liberty without life. I believe a baby’s right to be alive trumps his mother’s right to kill him for any reason she sees fit. Because, as we all know, there are limits to liberty. My liberty ends where, for example, it infringes upon another person’s right to live. Hence, I am free, but not free to murder. I am free to drive, but not into someone’s restaurant. I am free to watch TV, but not “Jersey Shore” at Kristen’s house. And so on.
The next time someone tells you, “We can’t legislate morality,” tell them, “Sure we can! It’s fun and easy! Like Mad Libs!”
But seriously: this is another argument you can easily shoot down with just a little bit of knowledge. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.***
*No. But one day I’m gonna set a world record and do it in three.
**Please do not try this.
***G.I. Joe
Reprinted with permission from LiveAction.org
It’s lunchtime. You are eating at your desk at work and decide to look at Facebook. It’s as exciting as ever. Your aunt had a burrito for lunch. A girl you haven’t seen since college got a new tattoo. Someone is super happy it’s almost Friday.
Then you see that a virtual stranger (there’s a double meaning in that) has commented on one of your posts. And she has said something so asinine that you put down your fried pickle (’cause you’re in Texas and you eat stuff like that) and respond.
It’s daunting, the task before you. Do you even want to undertake this? Can you really change someone’s mind about abortion in one Facebook comment?*
Well, you’re gonna try. So you launch into refuting whatever dumb thing the person just said. “There’s no scientific concensus that life begins at conception!” “If we make it illegal, they’re gonna do it anyway!” “If you’re against abortion, you should be against war, too!” It could be any of these things, or something else.
Click “like” if you want to end abortion!
So you drop a couple knowledge bombs, go back to your life, and hours later you find the following response:
“Well, maybe you’re right, but we can’t legislate morality.”
You look around for a candid camera. Is this an elaborate joke? No. Someone actually said that. Again. You sigh. And you type this:Really? We can’t legislate morality? What do you call it when we tell people they can’t murder? Rape? Steal?
The Ten Commandments: All up in your business since circa 1440 B.C.
Malum in se laws are based on morality. Our laws here in the U.S. grew out of English Common Law, which in turn was based on Judeo-Christian morality. Now, old-timey English lawmakers did not sit around and go, “Hmmm, what should we base our laws on?” And then come up with the Bible because it had an attractive leather cover. Judeo-Christian morality was a part of the culture since the 7th century, and has in fact formed Western culture, culminating most recently in our humble little former colony, the United States.
Detractors will say English Common Law formed in the 5th century, before Christianity took hold in Britain. But the law as we know it didn’t stop forming then. Christian men such as Henry de Bracton in the 13th century in England and Sir William Blackstone in the 18th century in the United States have had a tremendous impact on creating the laws we know today.
(Radar note. Blackstone and the Bible were the two most referenced sources by the Founding Fathers when they were writing the Constitution and the Bible more than Blackstone.)
Whether you like it or not, the culture that created you is a Judeo-Christian culture. All the things you think are right and wrong were formed by Judeo-Christian principles. Why do you think it’s wrong to have slaves? Western culture is just like most other civilizations in that it engaged in slavery, but unique in that it is solely responsible for ridding the world of it. What about having a harem of concubines? That was common in pre-Christian cultures, not so much in the West today. Sacrificing virgins? No big deal to the pagans, but frowned upon in our time.
The idea of loving people more than ourselves, sacrificing for the poor, turning the other cheek… these ideas were so revolutionary to the Roman world in which Christianity was born that they were scandalous. The tenets of Christianity made Christians so different they were almost universally hated. They were persecuted and killed all over the Roman Empire, until the Emperor Constantine had a vision. But I digress.
So those who cry that morals have no place in public policy are a little too late. Judeo-Christian morals created our public policy, created our culture, were the basis for our founding documents, guided the formation of our nation through the beliefs of our founders, and make up the fabric of our society.
Recently, a postmodern deconstructionist tendency to wipe American law clean of “traditional” morality has created not a sparkling tabula rasa, but a libertine morass. You don’t have to be a Jew or Christian to recognize there is such a thing as right and wrong. Lately, it seems like the only evil people will recognize is believing in evil.
Ironically, the abortion advocate who tells us to keep our morals off her body is herself expressing a moral belief, a belief in liberty. I also believe in liberty, but I believe that in the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” life comes first for a very good reason: you can’t have liberty without life. I believe a baby’s right to be alive trumps his mother’s right to kill him for any reason she sees fit. Because, as we all know, there are limits to liberty. My liberty ends where, for example, it infringes upon another person’s right to live. Hence, I am free, but not free to murder. I am free to drive, but not into someone’s restaurant. I am free to watch TV, but not “Jersey Shore” at Kristen’s house. And so on.
The next time someone tells you, “We can’t legislate morality,” tell them, “Sure we can! It’s fun and easy! Like Mad Libs!”
But seriously: this is another argument you can easily shoot down with just a little bit of knowledge. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.***
*No. But one day I’m gonna set a world record and do it in three.
**Please do not try this.
***G.I. Joe
Reprinted with permission from LiveAction.org