My recent blog post War on Children produced a conversation. Here is an excerpt from one of the commenters:
“There is no “human being” until full bilateral synchronization [of the brain]. Please understand that. Please get that straight in your head. A human being can die. Before week 28 nothing can “die.” Period. So, if you want to use language like “kill” and “murder” then you must tell me, and everyone reading this, how you can kill something that cannot die…”
The author of this position then asked repeatedly, “Tell me, how can you kill something that cannot die?” as his trump.
So the arguments are:
A fetus is not alive until 28 weeks gestational age. (It is not a human being either?)
Before “brain synchronization”, it is not living, therefore it is not something which can die.
That baby in your belly moved because it was nothing more than “electrical impulses firing, causing movement… like firing shocks through a [dead] frog’s leg.”
This blogger equated death (the cessation of life in a previously living being) with the early stages of human development. No distinction was recognized even though a fetus meets every criteria for life and humanity. Blogger also would not define the terms of the discussion, particularly regarding whether the critical question was the fetus’ life/non-life, humanity/non-humanity, or sentience/ non-sentience.
Incomplete brain development = not living yet OR not human yet = we can dispose of it and it’s a morally neutral act.
20 week fetus
What is this position really? What are all positions which pinpoint some arbitrary criteria which allows functional human adults to excuse the termination of millions of unborn human beings?
It is discrimination imposed upon some human beings based on their incomplete development. It is a defense of legal termination based on inability, temporary handicap, or the incomplete growth process.
It is disqualifying still-developing children for life, even though if they were left to grow (not killed), they would become fully able.
Making termination of human fetuses legal up to a certain point in their development is exactly this.
In other words, we are killing the defenseless because they are defenseless.
Abortion culture sometimes uses pre-viability as a boundary for guilt-free termination. A moving goalpost if there ever was one; and since it moves as science advances, it cannot have ever been an ethically-based position.
Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 case legalizing abortion, made fetal viability an important legal concept. The Supreme Court ruled that states cannot put the interests of a fetus ahead of the interests of the pregnant woman until the fetus is “viable.” ~ Slate
But why was viability ever the benchmark anyway?
While the unborn are weakest, while they are the most defenseless and vulnerable, while they need the most nurture…that is when we allow them to be eliminated. This is the opposite of Christian ethics, or even human ethics.
We are meant to protect most exactly those who need protection most.
In God’s design, babies are helpless for at least one good reason. Their dependency is supposed to elicit an instinctual response in adults, particularly females and more particularly mothers…for protectiveness and for the desire to nurture. It’s built into us.
We were designed to be the protectors of those helpless lives. Carrying those tiny lives within our bodies is supposed elicit obvious and intuitive impulses to protect. This is not altruism; it is not extraordinary but natural.
What we see now is a whole culture of females denying those impulses to nurture, calling those impulses oppressive and disturbed. In favor of lateral peer dependence, they will purposely make themselves cool calculators who are just fine with ending the lives of the weakest of human beings.
Our culture has chosen a position which favors self-serving and arbitrary criteria for inclusion, and death as the default for those who fail to qualify. We kill the weak.
Messages from the Mythical 
A fetus is not alive until 28 weeks gestational age. (It is not a human being either?)
Absolute and bold faced lie.
Why lie, Madblog? I never said anything of the like.
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Please explain. It was a quote.
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Like hell it was.
Reproduce the “quote” here, with the date and a link, please.
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John, I copied-and-pasted the section you see here directly from your comments. Honest. What exactly do you take issue with?
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Oh, no… Reproduce the so-called “quote” and provide the date and a link, please.
You are lying through your teeth here.
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Amazing. You’re calling your own words lies now? I will do that, give me a second.
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I’m calling that so-called “quote” a lie, and it is. I never, ever, said that sentence.
So, if you think i did, then reproduce it now, with a date and link.
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Let me help you. The quote in obvious blockquote is the copy-and-paste. The following sentences are my version of what you said. Clear now?
Link:
https://madelynlang469.com/2016/03/19/war-on-children-2/
Quoted comment is March 20 at 6:41.
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Ooooh, a “version” of what I said?
A version?
I see.
I can’t find the “quote.”
Please be more specific. Where is this “quote” which you have re-arranged?
I want to read the exact words.
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Did you try the link? Why can’t you find it? Do you disavow your previous position?
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Oh, I tried the link, and can’t find anything even close to what you have said is a direct “quote.”
You did say that, didn’t you, Madblog? You said it was a “quote.”
You were lying, which isn’t any surprise, you evangelicals lie with astonishing ease… but now that you’ve been caught out in your lie you say it was a “version” of something. Version of what?
So, to save you from yourself and your lies, let’s be perfectly clear about what I have always said, without deviation. Life never emerges in the zygote, blastocyst, embryo, or foetus. Ever. Life began on earth 3.8 billion years ago and hasn’t been interrupted since. A foetus was never inorganic and suddenly becomes organic. Everything is part of that single living system. Therefore, the only way we have to identify the onset of a distinct human life is when its twin, death, becomes a reality. Until something can die it cannot legally/scientifically/medically be considered alive. Something cannot be turned “Off” until it is first “On,” and we know precisely what Off is regarding the human organism: the cessation of EEG activity. That is the legal, scientific and medical definition of death replicated around the world. Fact: sustained EEG activity begins in a foetus at around week 24/25, but it does not become bilaterally synchronised until week 28, meaning both hemispheres communicating with a continuous feedback between the two: sentience. It is, therefore, only after week 25 (but more reasonably week 28 with full bilateral synchronisation) that a foetus can legally/medically/scientifically “die.”
Hence the question: How can you “kill” something that cannot “die”?
Now, if you wish to change the legal, scientific and medical definition of human death, then get to work and change it. Until then the fact remains: you cannot kill something that cannot die. Period.
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Please read through my repeated attempts here to point out where I found your quote. It is just above the halfway-mark to the page if you are reading through comments.
Edit
john zande
March 20, 2016 at 6:41
There is no “human being” until full bilateral synchronisation. Please understand that. Please get that straight in your head. A human being can die. Before week 28 nothing can “die.” Period. So, if you want to use language like “kill” and “murder” then you must tell me, and everyone reading this, how you can kill something that cannot die…
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Edit
I caution you once again, do not accuse me of lying again or your comments will meet oblivion.
But anyway, thank you for re-asserting your position for my other readers.
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There is no “human being” until full bilateral synchronisation is not “A fetus is not alive until 28 weeks gestational age.”
That is what you said was a direct quote. That was a lie.
And what was written is exactly what Professor Goldenring (an anti-abortionist) wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine:
See those words, “When the coordinating and individuating function of a living brain is demonstrably present, the full human organism exists …”
So, you want to argue with Professor Goldenring, go right ahead.
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Are you unable to distinguish your block-quoted quote from what is clearly my interpretation of your words? I’m sorry but I cannot help you if you are unable to distinguish who is speaking when you read through a post.
Now please apologize for accusing me of lying.
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Did I ever say >“A fetus is not alive until 28 weeks gestational age.”
That is what you said was a “quote,” right?
Your words, not mine. You called that a direct “quote.”
Was it a “quote” Madblog, Yes or No?
Does what you fabricated represent what I actually said?
So, who lied?
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No one lied. I clearly said, over and over, that the BLOCK QUOTED passage was a quote, lifted directly from your comment. The rest is my own commentary, and I did not claim that that was a quote, but just the opposite. Do you expect me to believe that you cannot distinguish a block-quoted, set apart passage from the separate paragraphs which are the rest of my post?
It’s not my problem if you can’t recognize your own words. Now stop playing dumb and act like a grown-up. Have a conversation on the post, or go away.
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Your first comment to me says it is a “quote.”
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Yes, referring to the QUOTE. The thing which is obviously the QUOTE is the QUOTE. The part that obviously is NOT A QUOTE is not a quote. My content is obviously my content.
Moving on now.
Would you care to engage the substance of the post? There is plenty of discussion to be had. Like: how DO you justify killing human beings because they are simply incomplete?
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First we’ll have to establish the answer to this question:
How can you kill something that cannot die?
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LOL
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it’s deja vu all over again
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LOL
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Perhaps you can take a screenshot and post it here?
That would be helpful.
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I’m a Luddite and don’t know how. Just read through your comments at:
https://madelynlang469.com/2016/03/19/war-on-children-2/
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You may read your argument throughout the comment section.
Now what exactly has you excited here? With what do you take issue? I actually do not understand.
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Please free my comments from “Moderation”
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Hi Madelyn
First, I greatly admire and respect your willingness to carry this battle forward, as you and I both know how this conversation will unfold. You have great patience.
What strikes me, and always does, is your statement about the moving goal post of viability. When I was born in 1962, for a number of reasons, I was not really considered “viable” In accordance with the medical technology of the day, I should not even be here writing this post. And some of these things were known before I was actually born. Well, here I am. Why? Because we don’t decide who is a viable human and who is not. God decided, and here I sit writing this comment.
As Forrest says: “That’s all I got to say about that.”
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Thank you Wally. Thanks but I do not have great patience and will not entertain the previously plowed line! 🙂
I’m awfully glad your unviable self is here! A touching testimony!
I have not expressed my condolences upon your loss. I am sorry. I only recently realized.
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Thanks Madelyn, and it’s ok. Well, as we are taught God works all things to the good of them who love Him…and this is no exception. The passing of one has led to the beginning of some repair for others.
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Praise God.
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Madblog, please fee my comments from moderation.
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I was away from my computer.
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The block quote:
“There is no “human being” until full bilateral synchronization [of the brain]. Please understand that. Please get that straight in your head. A human being can die. Before week 28 nothing can “die.” Period. So, if you want to use language like “kill” and “murder” then you must tell me, and everyone reading this, how you can kill something that cannot die…”
is copy-pasted directly from your comment. I added the brackets [of the brain] for clarity. It is otherwise what you sent me.
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Exactly! And here is the anti-abortionist, Professor Goldenring saying exactly that in the New England Journal of Medicine:
See those words, “When the coordinating and individuating function of a living brain is demonstrably present, the full human organism exists … After brain death what is left of the organism is once again only a collection of organs…”
The full human organism exists.
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Thank you for that confirmation of the position. Now we will move on to the points I make in response.
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And I would appreciate an apology now.
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Shouldn’t the person who lied offer the apology? 😉
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Why are you atheist guys are so eager to demonstrate the truth (by negative example) that we human beings need the respect of an ultimate authority in our lives?
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And that’s enough time spent on convincing you that you typed and posted what you typed and posted.
Let us move on. What is the problem. I caution you that calling me a liar once more will assure that all future comments will never be seen by anyone.
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Best argument in favor of life:
Ultrasound technology.
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And yet we still have about 4 million abortions a year.
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The spiritually dead kill their own biologically living children. May God have mercy.
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John, where is your apology to me and to all evangelicals whom you accuse of lying so easily?
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You did lie. You said you “quoted” me.
Did you? No.
Lie.
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I did not lie. Is this too hard for you? I copied and pasted your quote. I tried very hard to direct you to the original.
Are you representative of all outspoken atheists in that you can never, never admit that you were incorrect so much that you will feign stupidity? The only future comment from you will be an apology.
Very small children in my world learn to apologize when they’ve accused someone incorrectly. In my Christian world, taking the responsibility to apologize is the most basic of courtesies.
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John Zande, I copy-and pasted your comment correctly and it was no lie. Where is your apology? Are all you atheists unable to apologize?
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