If the baby should be considered human at conception then all other questions must be framed in light of that one fact. And yet it is that one fact that Planned Parenthood is most desperate to avoid.
Well, I don't speak for Planned Parenthood, but I do support them with my money. One of the ways I chose to donate to charities is through my employer's yearly United Way drive, from which contributions are disbursed according to donors' wishes. I generally split my payday deduction between the Red Cross and Planned Parenthood. It irritates me that Planned Parenthood is not included among the standard charities from which one can select. Every year I have to write them in.
The reason Planned Parenthood is not included in the United Way program is similar to the reason Flemming Rose has to test taboo: religious bullying. One can easily imagine the uproar should the United Way solicit funds for Planned Parenthood!
Mr. Melton thinks that a fertilized egg is a person. He believes in a soul that exists separate from the brain. This idea leads some to think Terri Schiavo was murdered by her husband and the state. It makes them think Susan Torres died after the feeding tube prolonging the functions of her vital organs (which were kept going in a failed attempt to rescue the child she was carrying) were withdrawn.
Both of these unfortunate women died long before the feeding tubes were removed. They died when their brains were no longer capable of generating their souls.
There is no soul separate from the brain. When you're brain dead, you're dead. You no longer exist. Until someone can prove otherwise, assertions to the contrary are simply religious dogma.
The same Truth (I'll capitalize it, too) holds at the beginning of life. Insisting that abortion is murder on the basis of an immortal soul independent of the brain, and driving that religious position down the throats of other people, is the same sort of nonsense that Flemming Rose is reacting to in Denmark: religious bullying.
The piece I object to asks whether "the baby should be considered human at conception". The answer is clearly "No". If he wants to believe the answer is "Yes" then so be it, as long as he doesn't shove it down other peoples' throats.
Unfortunately, he writes that "Christians, in America and elsewhere, must understand that it really is an all or nothing issue; it allows no [...] wiggle room[.]" Islamic prohibition of images of their religion's founder also allows no wiggle room. Religious bullies don't like wiggle room.
Unlike fertilized eggs, the American slaves and Hitler-victims Mr. Melton refers to were all living human beings defined by the souls emergent from their brains. Invoking their memory in opposition to abortion is nonsensical.
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