Two seemingly glorious stories hit the press today, both dealing with legal documents involving when the live of a human being begins to exist. Now, for those who are not familiar with the peculiarities of legal documents, it is fair to say that the courts are usually legally required to interpret the language used in them as "exclusionary", especially with reference to any formal definitions used in the bill, law or regulation. That is, terms are to be interpreted precisely as they are used - no more, no less. Thus, if something is not stated in the legal document then it is not covered by that legal document. It also means that if something is mis-defined in the legal document then only the thing that is so mis-defined is covered, and the thing in the real world is not covered by that legal document. For example, if a bill defines all bears as "brown", then it would not cover white bears or black bears. If a bill mis-defines bears as cats, then it would not cover any bears at all. Many a legal loophole has thus been created.
The very same thing applies to legal documents involving the issue of when human beings begin to exist. Since everyone is surely aware by now that human beings can be reproduced both sexually and asexually, then they should also know that any legal document that claims that all human beings are reproduced only sexually would not cover any human beings who are asexually reproduced - right? And if a legal document claims that all human beings are to be protected while "in the womb" (i.e., the uterus), then it would not cover any unborn human beings during the first week of their existence while they are still in the woman's fallopian tube, whether sexually or asexually reproduced - right?
So even though the "good news" announced today would seem to represent clear victories for prolife and for the millions of unborn children killed every day, it needs to be pointed out that these victories are not really total because of the loophole "language" used in the legal documents involved.
For example, the following "language" is used to announce a new anti-abortion bill about to be voted on this week in Poland:
After months of shielding the initiative from English media, organizers of a massive pro-life grassroots campaign in Poland have now told LifeSiteNews.com that Parliamentarians in the country are preparing to vote this week on an historic bill that would enshrine total protection for children in the womb from the moment of conception.["EXCLUSIVE: Poland to vote on historic bill banning all abortions after massive grassroots campaign - see full article below]
Given the bill's recent high praise by PersonhoodUSA [Jennifer Mason, "Citizen-led Campaign Advances No Exceptions Abortion Ban in Poland", ChristianNewsWire.com, June 29, 2011), at: http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/4899117271.html], and given that they use similar legal terminology in bills that they promote here in the U.S., while this "language" sounds good, closer inspection reveals two major problems. First, the term "conception" (a term that has actually been rejected as unscientific by the international nomenclature committee on human embryology) refers only to those human beings who are sexually reproduced (fertilization, the fusion of oocyte and sperm). It does not refer to human beings who are asexually reproduced (without the use of oocyte and sperm), thus these human beings would not be covered by this bill.
Note also that human beings who are asexually reproduced can refer to: (a) one of every two identical (monozygotic) twins asexually reproduced (cloned) naturally in the woman's body, and (b) identical twins artificially reproduced by cloning in IVF/ART research laboratories and clinics. Indeed, these facilities have been artificially "twinning" for "infertility treatments" for decades, and such asexually reproduced human embryos are routinely implanted in women - and thus can be aborted. Therefore, legally speaking, the use of the term "conception" in this Polish bill would not protect the asexually reproduced human identical twins from being aborted - whether these human twins were reproduced naturally in the woman's body, or artificially in research labs and infertility clinics and then implanted.
Further, if two or more totipotent cells split off from the original embryo and a new identical twin is asexually reproduced, then that human embryo never does go through Stage 1; it never even forms a "zygote". Therefore, these human embryos would not be covered legally (or otherwise) by defining the "zygote" as when a new human being begins to exist. Legally, they just don't exist, period. Fair game. This should also be another scientific reason why this absurd push to define the beginning of life as the "zygote" is scientifically erroneous and doesn't match the real world.
Further, and more obvious, this bill would not cover the killing of "twinned" or any other artificially reproduced, cloned or genetically engineered human embryos in research labs and clinics when used in destructive experimental research.
That's a whole lot of innocent living human beings who would not be covered or protected by this bill and who thus could be aborted or used in destructive experimental research.
Second, the Polish bill uses the phrase "in the womb". But that would not cover any human embryos during the week before they implant in the womb while they are still in the woman's fallopian tube - whether sexually or asexually reproduced. That means that these human embryos can be killed by the use of abortifacients, embryo flushed, destroyed during prenatal diagnosis, etc. In fact, although it is an endearing phrase, the phrase "in the womb" today is comparable to the term "implantation", and since many states already mis-define "pregnancy" as beginning at implantation, the use of the phrase "in the womb" could be legally interpreted as just another way of saying "implantation" - with the same deadly results.
The second article today praised the U.S. federal court for determining that all human beings begin to exist at "conception", and that this is simply biological fact:
Planned Parenthood's request to block a provision of an Indiana law that requires doctors to tell women who are seeking abortions that "human physical life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm," was denied by U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt last week. ... to a growing organism that is a member of the Homo sapiens species ... a biological fact relating to the development of the living organism; ["Federal judge: life begins at conception" - see full article below]
But that is not what the biological facts are. While it is true that some human beings begin to exist at "conception", it is also true that some human beings begin to exist asexually through natural twinning in the woman's body, as well as by means of dozens of artificial reproductive methods, cloning and human genetic engineering techniques used routinely in labs and clinics.
Again, without repeating the above, the use of the term "conception" in this legal document necessarily leaves out all asexually reproduced human beings - whether reproduced naturally in the woman's body, or artificially in the research labs or infertility clinics. Both sexually and asexually reproduced human beings are implanted, thus both can be aborted, and those in the labs and infertility clinics can be used in destructive experimental research.
All of this is not "new". Do they just not "get it"?
[For extensive scientific documentation and more detailed explanations of the comments above, see Irving articles:]
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-poland-to-vote-on-historic-bill-banning-all-abortions-after-massiv?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=528d09b435-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Full_Text_06_28_2011&utm_medium=email
BY PATRICK B. CRAINE
--> Tue Jun 28, 2011
WARSAW, Poland, June 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) -
After months of shielding the initiative from English media, organizers of a massive pro-life grassroots campaign in Poland have now told LifeSiteNews.com that Parliamentarians in the country are preparing to vote this week on an historic bill that would enshrine total protection for children
in the womb
from the
moment of conception.
The organizers told LSN that they were worried that if the news broke in the English-speaking world, pro-abortion foreign powers would have poured money into the country to oppose their popular efforts.
To bring the abortion ban before Parliament under Poland's political system, the sponsors needed to collect 100,000 signatures within three months. They got 600,000 in two weeks.
The bill, which comes up for first reading in the 'Sejm' (lower house) on Thursday, is the result of a huge nation-wide grassroots initiative launched by Warsaw's PRO Foundation and supported by the country's bishops and a newly-formed pro-life parliamentary committee.
Abortion was first foisted on the deeply Catholic people of Poland after Hitler's tanks stormed the country 70 years ago; but the demise of the Nazis was followed by decades of state-promoted abortion-on-demand under their Soviet successors.
"This project is a chance to finally reject the heritage of Nazism and Communism which brought 'legal abortion' to Poland in the first place," Jacek Sapa of the PRO Foundation told LifeSiteNews. "It was Hitler and Stalin who imposed it on Poles and it's high time we clearly disassociate ourselves from those deadly ideologies."
"The Church clearly teaches that it is the obligation of Catholics not to protect the current 'compromise' but to aim at complete protection of life," said Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, former personal assistant to Blessed John Paul II, in an interview for Gosc Niedzielny, Poland's largest opinion weekly. "This is a solution, which the Church calls for. I support all efforts aiming at improving the protection of human life."
Ever since the Communists were overthrown in 1989, Poland has labored to restore its cultural and religious heritage. As part of that project, in 1993 the country passed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the West. Since then, abortions have fallen dramatically, with Ministry of Health data showing a drop from 82,000 abortions in 1989 to about 500 in 2008.
Under the current law, abortions can only be obtained where the child is diagnosed with a serious defect or disease, where the mother is diagnosed with a health problem, or where the pregnancy resulted from "illegal activity."
However, the law and its exceptions are often abused by pro-abortion doctors. 'Defect' can be deemed to include something as minimal as cleft palate, and though abortions are only supposed to take place up to the point of viability, or about 24 weeks, in practice doctors can fudge the dates. Further, though pregnancies resulting from "illegal activity" would seem to refer to pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest, it can also be applied to teen pregnancies on the basis that the law forbids sex with a person under 15 years of age.
Although abortions under the exceptions occur without penalty, a point often missed is that even under the current law, abortion is always "illegal" in Poland. The law merely states that under the exceptions abortions are "not punishable."
The PRO Foundation's citizens' bill is the first attempt to institute a total ban on abortion since the current law passed in 1993. The bill would strike down all three exceptions in the abortion law, applying the current penalties in all cases.
Under the law, doctors caught performing illegal abortions face up to 3 years imprisonment, or up to 8 years where the child was viable. The same penalties are applied to anyone who pressures a woman into abortion, or helps her obtain one. The mother faces no penalties.
The bill will be debated in the 'Sejm' at first reading on Thursday, with a vote to decide its fate on Thursday or Friday. If it gets 50% plus one vote, then it will move to committee for consideration, and then back to the 'Sejm' for a second and then third vote. It would then go to the Senate for a vote, and, if passed, the country's president must decide whether to sign it into law. If he does not, then the Parliament would need to give it two-thirds support in order to overturn his veto.
Sapa said the bill has a "realistic" chance of passing, noting that 90% of parliamentarians are Catholics who have an interest in appearing on side with the Church. "Politicians opposing this pro-life law risk openly defying the Church and this simply does not pay," he explained. "Poles are still a Catholic nation, and politicians often seek to present themselves as faithful Catholics during electoral campaigns to gain popularity.
"A vote for abortion would belie their 'Catholic' public image," he added.
In 2007, an effort to enshrine the "right to life from conception to natural death" in the Polish constitution won support from 60% of parliamentarians, but failed because it needed two-thirds. That amendment, however, would not have had the immediate effect of removing the exceptions for abortion.
The Polish Bishops' Conference has campaigned for the bill's passage through letters to politicians, public statements, and efforts to mobilize the faithful into prayer and lobbying.
In a letter signed by Bishop Kazimierz Gorny, head of the bishops' Council for the Family, they told politicians that "the fate of this Nation is in your hands." "[Act] so that every conceived child - whether healthy or unwell - has the right to life, without exception, and would not be threatened by the law allowing for their killing," they wrote.
"We must stop the wave of killing in Polish hospitals. We must formulate the law in such a way, that it will obviously imply the right to life for every child, including sick children," said Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, archbishop metropolitan of Poznan, last week.
Bogumil Lozinski of Gosc Niedzielny, the nation's largest Catholic weekly, said that the grassroots effort has mobilized not only the populace, but pro-life politicians as well. "One of the greatest effects of the whole debate is that a group for the protection of life has been formed within the parliament," he wrote. "The parliamentarians who formed it say openly that their main goal is to pass this bill and encourage their colleagues to vote for it."
This pro-life parliamentary committee boasts members from nearly all the political parties, except for the pro-abortion and communist Democratic Left Alliance. One of the founding members is Jacek Zalek from the ruling Civic Platform party.
"The defense of life and dignity of people is an obligation of every society and it is not a question of religion," Zalek wrote in the major daily paper Rzeczpospolita. "You don't have to be a believer to be able to tell good from evil. Affirmation of the value of life results from natural law and goes beyond political competition between parties."
Mariusz Dzierzwski of the PRO Foundation told LifeSiteNews that the campaign has been bolstered by a major cultural shift towards life in recent years, with Poles now strongly in favor of full protections for the unborn. The shift, he says, is thanks to the "unrelenting efforts" of pro-lifers who have organized exhibitions, rallies, and other campaigns to educate the public.
A June 3rd survey showed 65% of Poles agreeing that the law "should unconditionally protect the life of all children since conception." Only 23% supported abortions in cases where unborn children of 24 weeks or less were diagnosed with a "serious disease."
Significantly, 76% of those aged 15 to 24-years-old wanted total protection for the unborn - the most of any age group. The lowest level of support came from the oldest age bracket, 55 to 70 years old, but still with 57% supporting total protection.
Jaroslaw Kniolek of the PRO Foundation noted that this older generation grew up under the Communists, when abortion was widespread and forced on the culture. "Young people, on the other hand, not only have the knowledge of the facts of abortion, they also have wonderful role models, especially young Catholics of the 'JP2 generation'," he said.
Only six years ago, in 2005, the CBOS polling firm found that 57% of Poles would allow for early abortions, while only 36% were against it. By 2009, they found that only 31% allowed for the abortions, while 64% were against it. Then, earlier this year, their poll showed that 85% of Polish citizens identified themselves as pro-life, while only 9% supported access to abortion.
"We now have a great social basis for a change in the law, and we will change the law to make it pro-life," Dzierzawski said. "Even if it shouldn't happen this year, it will in the coming years."
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/federal-judge-life-begins-at-conception?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=528d09b435-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Full_Text_06_28_2011&utm_medium=email
BY KATHLEEN GILBERT
--> Tue Jun 28, 2011
INDIANAPOLIS, June 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Planned Parenthood's request to block a provision of an Indiana law that requires doctors to tell women who are seeking abortions that
"human physical life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm,"
was denied by U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt last week.
"Plaintiffs contend that in the context of abortion, the meaning of these words, both individually and in combination, represent a plethora of opinions and beliefs about life and its inception. The Court respectfully disagrees," wrote Pratt.
"When read together, the language crafted by the legislature in this provision supports a finding that the mandated statement refers exclusively to a growing organism that is a member of the Homo sapiens species."
The judge disagreed with Planned Parenthood's suggestion that the phrasing was "misleading."
"Here, the mandated statement states only a biological fact relating to the development of the living organism; therefore, it may be reasonably read to provide accurate, non-misleading information to the patient," the court wrote. "Under Indiana law, a physician must disclose the facts and risks of a treatment which a reasonably prudent physician would be expected to disclose under like circumstances, and which a reasonable person would want to know."
Planned Parenthood of Indiana (PPIN) had also sought an injunction against another part of the same law, House Enrolled Act (HEA) 1210, which barred federal Medicaid funds from going to the abortion provider. Pratt granted that request, noting that the Obama administration had threatened to gut the state's entire Medicaid allotment to save PPIN's portion.
Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, praised the judge for upholding scientific fact, but said that they would continue to ensure that the measure defunding Planned Parenthood goes into effect.
"While this is a significant partial victory for Life, we will press on to ensure that the full law will go into effect to defund Planned Parenthood in Indiana," Brejcha said. "We stand ready to defend Life in other states as they plan to defund Planned Parenthood and require doctors to tell women that life begins at conception."