“Our once great western Christian civilization is dying. If this matters to followers of Jesus Christ, then we must set aside our denominational differences and work together to strengthen the things that remain and reclaim what has been lost. Evangelicals and Catholics must stand together to re-establish that former Christian culture and moral consensus. We have the numbers and the organization but the question is this: Do we have the will to win this present spiritual battle for Jesus Christ against secularism? Will we prayerfully and cooperatively work toward a new Christian spiritual revival ― or will we choose to hunker down in our churches and denominationalisms and watch everything sink into the spiritual and moral abyss of a New Dark Age?” - Mark Davis Pickup

Friday, December 30, 2011

PRO-CHOICE VITRIOL

misogyny n hatred of women.

Unfortunately, the HumanLifeMatters blog has a glitch that does not allow comments to be displayed. That's too bad because I get comments like this from somebody identifying herself as Roxanne May: "Pardon me, but do you have a uterus? No? Then this is none of your damned business. Keep your misogyny off my body." She was referring the the previous post entitled "SAFE LEGAL ABORTIONS ARE A MYTH: THEY MAY BE LEGAL BUT THEY ARE NOT SAFE". I invite you to read it immediately below this posting.

According to Roxanne, having a uterus is only criteria qualifying somebody to comment on the unsanitary and unsafe conditions of abortion clinics. Her rage blinds her reason. Needlessly putting women's lives at risk is every one's business; child abuse is every one's business (and abortion is the worst kind of child abuse). Speaking out against practises that endanger or kill people is part of every citizen's concern who values interdependent community and the greater human family.

Roxanne is parroting an old and tired abortion slogan dating back to the early 1970s. (Catchy slogans can stifle rational debate for years.) Unfortunately for  Roxanne, her argument about a uterus being the only credential to speak about abortion does not hold up against reason or rationality.  It does not work anymore.

Roxanne says "Keep your misogyny off my body." How does she know I hate women? I have never met her. Was it a hatred of women for me to expose an example of the putrid health conditions of an abortion clinic or refer readers to the Blackmun Wall which has a very long list of women who died as a result of so-called "safe legal abortions"? Au contraire! As a husband, father of a daughter and grandfather of three girls, I am deeply concerned about the welfare of women and children.

Apparently Roxanne did not read the last line of the blog posting below which said, "Society must emerge into a sunlit age where women in crisis pregnancies and their babies are accepted and valued within the larger embrace of a nurturing community." 
Day by day, the pro-choice ideology is getting harder to espouse. We know so much about prenatal life. Women scarred by abortion are becoming more vocal against it. The moral poverty of the abortion industry is coming to light with increasing regularity. The injustice of the status quo can not be maintained, unless truth is to be mocked. I will not be quiet as long as the killing of my fellow human beings continues with impunity. Everyone has the right to live. Everyone has the right to good medical care; Everyone has a right to be born and breath the fresh air, to feel the warmth of the sun on their shoulders and reach their full potential. 

Abortion is as much of a blight on society as slavery. Abortion and slavery are based on the selfish desires of the powerful gained at the expense of the powerless. Do not confuse selfishness with freedom or liberty.

No Roxanne, I will not be silenced about injustice because of my anatomy any more than I will be silenced about injustice by my disability. I will not be silenced until abortion is but a bitter and shameful memory. I will not be silenced by the likes of Roxanne May or the sting of pro-choice vitriol.

Mark Davis Pickup
(Please read the blog posting below)
 

SAFE LEGAL ABORTIONS ARE A MYTH: THEY MAY BE LEGAL BUT THEY ARE NOT SAFE

Do you remember how abortion advocates promoted legal abortion by saying they wanted to stop "back alley" abortions with all the filthy conditions and suffering? Legalizing abortion was supposed to stop dirty, unsafe back alley abortions. Not true. 

We know that women are still dying by legal abortions. See http://lifedynamics.com/pro-life_group/pro-choice_women/ for a partial list of women who have died from the legacy of legal abortion. Don't expect the CNN or other liberal media to report that ugly reality.

As far a sanitary facilities see the link below for an example courtesy of our friends at Stephenson Country Right to Life in Illinois. http://prolifecorner.com/node/1076

The New Dark Age of legalized abortion acceptance must end. Society must emerge into a sunlit age where women in crisis pregnancies and their babies are accepted and valued within the larger embrace of a nurturing community. 

HLM 

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

FACING OUR OWN CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY--A HOLOCAUST OF UNPRECEDENTED PROPORTIONS.

An estimated 45-million people died of starvation in Mao Tse-Tung's "Great Leap Forward". At one point Chairman Mao justified this by saying, "It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill." 



Joseph Stalin is responsible for the deaths of 20-million people. Adolf Hitler was responsible for the deaths of 46-million people, including 6-million Jews.

At the end of the Second World War, the local population of Weimar near Buchenwald concentration camp were forced by American soldiers to see the atrocities that occurred there. They had to look at the bodies of people who were systematically killed while they went about their daily lives nearby and did not lift a hand to stop it or speak out against the killing. They had to see the horror and evil they tolerated. See http://www.scrapbookpages.com/buchenwald/exhibits.html

Were the citizens of Weimar, and other locations, so different from North American populations?



In North America, over 50 million preborn children have lost their lives by abortion since 1969 in Canada and 1973 in America. So how does North America compare in the denial of life? Aborting of unwanted children goes on daily across North America. It is truly a holocaust of unprecedented proportions.  Unborn children are routinely sacrificed on the altar of so-called sexual freedom of their parents. The killing just keeps mounting day in and day out, month after month, year after year.

Our holocaust is abortion. Abortion clinics across North America systematically kill thousands upon thousands of unborn children each day while local citizens happily go about their lives and business, apparently oblivious to the horrors going on nearby in their local abortuaries. Abortion is a crime against humanity too -- a holocaust of unprecedented proportions.

It is hypocritical for Canada and America to point out atrocities, human rights violations or condemn the genocides committed by others when our hands drip with the blood of our own children.


Perhaps our local populations need to see an example of what goes on at these killing centers. (I'm certain there will be howls of protest just like citizens of Weimar protested.) So be it. See
http://abortioninstruments.com/
Video of abortions WARNING! EXTREMELY GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING VIDEO. SHOWS ACTUAL KILLING OF NUMEROUS UNBORN CHILDREN. (The video starts with a 5 second countdown which allows a final chance to exist before the shocking footage begins.)

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES MARKED BY CONFLICTING MESSAGES

The United Nation’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities will be observed globally on December 3rd 2011. Canadian advocate for disability inclusion, I applaud UN initiatives to ensure people with disabilities have a voice in their communities and countries as well as inclusion and full equality rights.  Although Canada has made strides in areas of accessibility, citizens with disabilities are getting mixed messages.  This past October the House of Commons gave its unanimous support to a National Suicide Prevention Strategy and now in November the British Columbia Supreme Court is considering a challenge (Carter case) to whether Canada’s law against assisted suicide should be overturned for the terminally and chronically ill and disabled.

I am chronically ill with aggressive multiple sclerosis (MS) and is electric wheelchair dependent. The Carter case is meant for people like me!

Let’s understand the message people like me will hear if the BC court rules in favour of the assisted suicide lobby. The healthy population should receive suicide prevention when suicidal. The old, sick and disabled get help committing suicide.

Canada’s laws must protect people from euthanasia and assisted suicide. I believe that laws and public policy must promote life with dignity for people with disabilities through supports for Canadians with disabilities to reach their full potential as individuals and citizens. Ensuring access to education, transportation, appropriate housing, recreational opportunities and other forms of reasonable accommodation can help full inclusion in society.

Mark Davis Pickup
MPickup@shaw.ca

Thursday, November 17, 2011

The eyeless "I" of assisted suicide

A Canadian court is considering a challenge to the nation's law prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia. Consequently the topic are in the news. I received an email from a woman named Paula who doesn't know what to think as the assisted suicide is pulling out all their compassionate sounding euphemisms to promote death. Paula wanted my thoughts. Below is the text of my comments to her:


"Dear Paula - Assisted suicide is not about pain control. Palliative care in the 21st Century has come so far as to be able to eliminate virtually all physical pain. Assisted suicide is about the illusion of personal control even over death.

Death is not a right, Paula, it is an eventuality that will visit us all regardless of what any law may state. It is life that must be protected. All the great human rights documents such as the American Declaration of Independence, the UN's Declaration of Universal Human Rights and even Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms place the Right to Life as the first legal right. Why? Without the Right to Life assured all other rights become arbitrary and uncertain.
A truly progressive and compassionate society is concerned about life with dignity - especially for those who do not have it. Death with dignity is not an event, it is the natural conclusion of having lived with dignity. Dignity is not achieved by witholding water and food or injecting poison into a person's bloodstream when they are at their lowest point. That is not dignity: It is profound abandonment! We have a right to expect the best palliative care and pain management.
Ask yourself how assisted suicide acceptance serves the Common Good? It doesn't. It will put vulnerable people at risk.
The push for assisted suicide is the natural conclusion of personal automony gone amuck.
Gloria Taylor wants assisted suicide for herself which is different from suicide because it obviously requires assistance -- a coarsening of some other person's conscience. The eyeless "I" of assisted suicide does not consider the consequences to others.
Autonomy is diametrically opposed to community. The natural conclusion to unfettered autonomy is the right to even self-destruction. That is what is being considered in the BC Supreme courtroom as I write these words. Acceptance of the autonomy of suicide (assisted or otherwise) is to reject the interconnectedness of community. It proclaims with a final shout and sneer, "I am my own island!"
Canada is not 33 million little islands entire unto ourselves. As the 17th Century poet and divine, John Donne wrote "No man is an island entire unto itself. Every man is a part of the continent, a part of the main. ... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." Only independence and autonomy -- the eyeless "I" -- sees self and self alone. Interdependence and the interconnectedness of community call for consideration for others -- especially the weakest.
You see, Paula, I do not have a right to ask or demand something that may hurt others. The independence of the individual must only exist within the interdepence of the community. If the desire of the individual threatens the security of whole then individual desires must give way to the greater interest of the community. Otherwise we are only left with 30-million little islands without the whole of a continent, a nation, a community that protects the interests of the weakest against the interests of the powerful.
And so the choice before us is stark, Paula: Independent and autonomy versus interdependence and community. Laws must protect the weakest and that's what Canada's law against assisted suicide does.
Mark Davis Pickup
(nb. For some reason, which I can't explain, this blog does not accept comments. If you have a comment, send it to MPickup@shaw.ca. I will try to post as a blog.)

Thursday, November 10, 2011

SHOW PROVIDES BALANCE TO BIASED CANADIAN PRO-ASSISTED SUICIDE BROADCAST

CONTEXT with Lorna Dueck, Pain & Suffering (episode 1109)


On November 13th the above noted program dealing with with assisted suicide will be aired across Canada. (See link above and click on image.) I only appear in third segment. 
(For local show times across Canada go to http://www.contextwithlornadueck.com/airtimes-stations . Readers outside Canada see link at the top of this blog posting.)
It should be noted that this program was produced in anticipation of a British Columbia court challenge of Canada's laws against assisted suicide and euthanasia. The legal challenge is expected later in November by the BC Civil Liberties Association. Happily Lorna Dueck provides some balance to counter an appallingly biased program produced by one of Canada's national broadcasters.

In late October the CTV television network aired a pro-assisted suicide program entitled "Let Me Go" on their W5 current affairs show.  A complaint was lodged with both W5 producers and the President of CTV News Wendy Freeman not only by me but a number of Canadian advocates for people with disabilities. As of yet no reply has been received. See the show at the link at the bottom of this posting.

The W5 documentary "Let me go" was dishonest from the outset. It was thinly veiled pro-assisted suicide propaganda -- disguised as journalism. It's certainly not the first time for CTV. A few years ago, Paula Todd used (or abused) her position with CTV to push the assisted suicide agenda, shutting down Margaret Somerville and me in favour of assisted suicide advocacy.

The first case in the W5 show featured Kay Carter who went to Switzerland for assisted suicide. Her family is now challenging Canada's laws prohibiting assisted suicide. Kay Carter was a member of the death with dignity movement. (She had an agenda.)

They started off their interview with Victor Malarek by saying everything had to be done secretively. No it didn't. All they had to do was book a flight to Switzerland and go. There are no police at our airports waiting to stop people from travelling abroad. Everything was undercover? That's gross exaggeration and should have been challenged by Mr. Malarek.

Kay Carter had spinal stinosis. There are treatments -- far more than with MS (which I have). Victor Malarek, in true journalistic form (not), just accepted Carter's claims and statements at face value. No challenges. Kay Carter said there is no quality of life in a wheelchair. I've been in an electric wheelchair for years -- much longer than her. I have quality of life.

Carter's agenda seems to have been more important than finding quality of life or proper treatment. She said she wanted to end her life before she became "a nothing but an ironing board and a bed." (?) I don't even know what that means, although I suspect it was meant to be degrading to life with a disability. Her family said she is dying from spinal stinosis. Her son said Kay was afraid of her dying "bit by bit" and Malarek restated it, with the most earnest of expressions, just to drive the point home to viewers. Very dramatic but for one problem: spinal stinosis is not terminal. Malarek must have considered this point because he later acknowledged it in passing.

Malarek asked who raised the idea of assisted suicide when things got unbearable? The real question was what forms of relief, pain management and supports were explored? Kay's daughter said "You can't die with dignity in Canada." That's not true! We have some very fine palliative care in Canada and even in British Columbia where Kay Carter lived. Again Malarek did not challenge this outrageous statement. (It was hard to believe that he's W5's senior reporter.)

Malarek asked how long she would have lived without assisted suicide? Carter's daughter said she could have lived for years. Wait a minute! I thought she was dying "bit by bit". Carter's daughter said Kay would have been bedridden, trapped in a body. How does she know that?! They didn't want treatment; they wanted assisted suicide? The folks at Dignitas asked Kay if assisted suicide was what she wanted. According to the daughter she said "Yes, I want to die with dignity." Since when is dignity bestowed on people with poison?! No one questioned that premise.

 It is my experience that people only die with as much dignity as they live with. Dying with dignity not an event, it is a process -- the end result of having lived with dignity. Apparently such an idea did not occur to "senior reporter" Malarek (or if it did he kept it to himself).

Russell Ogden talked about choosing death and setting up a suicide clinic. Alas, he hints at the real issue. Assisted suicide is not about pain control, it's all about control.

 The next person was Cam with MS. Malarek said he's confined to a wheelchair. Ah, perspective. I live in my electric wheelchair. It is a tool to aid my life and not confine me -- just like many people use glasses or hearing aids or canes. Cam fears a day when there's so much pain that nothing can be done. Who is advising this poor man? Virtually all pain can be controlled or eliminated. Cam doesn't need assisted suicide, he needs a new doctor.

The next profile was Elizabeth Macdonald who also had MS. She too was obsessed with control. She is quoted elsewhere as saying "Why can I not pre-empt a more horrible fate, by choosing to die on my own terms, in a way and at a time of my own choosing?" Again the issue was control more than pain control. Incidentally, if all she had was morphine as the story infers, she was not well served by her doctor.

The interview with Dr. Jose Periera's was revealing about the program's bias. Dr. Periera's warnings against assisted suicide acceptance were accompanied with ominous sound effects injected by W5 (the first in the documentary). The doctor made a case for palliative care and warned of the dangers to vulnerable people. Such a villain!

Elizabeth Macdonald's husband said Elizabeth would have none of it (palliation). She was too independent for palliative care. (?)

In his concluding remarks propagandist senior reporter Mallory said the BC case will surely go the Supreme Court and reminded octogenarian Lloyd Robertson that the last case the Supremes dealt with was Sue Rodriguez in 1993 and the Supreme Court was split 5-4. With the steady coarsening of public consciences, will that still be the case?

Why didn't W5 name this program "Better Dead Than Disabled" ? (See W5 assisted suicide program at

Mark Davis Pickup 

Saturday, November 5, 2011

PHILADELPHIA'S "HOUSE OF HORRORS" ABORTION CLINIC

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/abortionist-pleads-guilty-to-murder-after-killing-dozens-of-newborns-at-hou?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=2a7855878a-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines11_04_2011&utm_medium=email
John Jalsevac, "Abortionist pleads guilty to murder after killing dozens of newborns at "House of horrors" clinic"", 4 November 2011, LifeSiteNews.

According to LifeSiteNews, Philadelphia abortionist Steve Massof (picture to right) has "admitted to severing the spinal cords of around 100 living and breathing newborn babies at Philadelphia’s notorious “House of Horrors” abortion clinic, has plead guilty to two counts of third-degree murder." This is just the latest of many horrors to emerge from the abortion industry.

Read the rest of the horrible story unfolding at the City of brotherly love at the link above.

HLM

Saturday, October 29, 2011

PERSONHOOD LANGUAGE - 2008-2011, by Dr. Dianne N. Irving

PERSONHOOD LANGUAGE - 2008-2011
Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D.
Copyright October 2, 2011
Reproduced with Permission

With "personhood" bills and amendments exploding around the world in warp speed, perhaps it is time to step back and carefully examine in general some of the "language" being used in many of them.Although probably designed with all good intentions and genuine concerns, what many people don't realize is that, in dealing with legal "language", the courts are usually required to interpret the "language" in any such bill or regulation that becomes law as "exclusionary". That is, if a law formally defines all bears as "brown", then that law would not apply to any bears that happen to be "black" or "white". Similarly, the use of sloppy, sentimental, "popular", or scientifically erroneous definitions in a bill would accomplish little of what most supporters imagined, but instead would constitute "legal loopholes" that would allow much of which they had thought had been prohibited by the passing of the law or regulation.

And it is not enough to pass a new law or regulation; it is just as important to check out any already existing laws and regulations that use erroneous "language" in their formal definitions that would render the newly passed laws as void when challenged. This includes already existing laws that bear on both the beginning and the end of life issues. Additionally, every term within a legal definition must also be accurately defined in any new law or regulation.

The issue is also not just about legal "language". Once such language becomes popular, or used in conferences, articles, books, sermons, etc., then the average person is essentially being mis-informed about such important life and death decisions that they might become involved in themselves. Such mis-information would then preclude them from forming a "correct conscience", which in turn would constitute a false "starting point" for their own personal ethical decision making and choices.

Examples of "loophole language" in many current "personhood" initiatives includes the following terms and phrases: "fertilization", "conception", "in the womb", "prenatal", "abortion", "cloning", "stages", "pre-embryo", "functions", "species", "zygote", etc. The list is really endless, being constantly expanded and imaginatively recreated as needed. Such efforts have been going on for decades now for sure. But to help advance the current level of awareness and understanding about this global rush of "personhood" initiatives, allow me to briefly explain examples of "language" currently being used that would constitute legal loopholes if such initiatives were to be passed into laws or regulations (see suggested careful "language" below, as well as a short list of articles with extensive scientific references for documentation).

Legal Loophole "Language":

1. The phrase "at fertilization" is ambiguous and scientifically erroneous. "Fertilization" is not a single event, but rather it is a biological process that takes place over time. During the process of fertilization there are various and different points in time that some have argued is when a new sexually reproduced human being begins to exist - e.g., at the beginning of the process, in the middle, or at the end. Thus any "language" used in a law would have to be specific as to when during the process of fertilization a new human being begins to exist. To simply say human beings begin to exist "at fertilization" is to leave the door wide open for interpretations by "experts".

Some proponents of genetic engineering, for example, are arguing that a new human being begins to exist at the end of the process of fertilization, with the formation of the "zygote" - as some textbooks simplified for students unfortunately claim. But that would "justify" the use of the human embryo already existing before the formation of the zygote in destructive and reproductive research. However, according to the Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development, a new sexually reproduced human being begins to exist as the "primitive embryo" at the beginning of the process of fertilization, with first contact and penetration of the sperm and oocyte [see Stage 1 of the Carnegie Stages at:
http://nmhm.washingtondc.museum/collections/hdac/stage1.pdf]. As that new human embryo begins to develop, he/she forms an "ootid", and then only after that does the human embryo form a "zygote".
It is also not just the "46" chromosomes and genes that define a human organism, but all the constituents within the cells of the organism - including the single-cell human organism. In fact, some human beings have more or less than "46" chromosomes but they are still human beings who should be equally protected by law. And there are some non-human animals that also have "46" chromosomes in individuals of their species! Further, in many human beings their individual genetic constitution can change or be altered due to inherent errors in crossing-over, or external insults such as radiation or disease.

Note that the Carnegie Stages were instituted in 1942, based on international scientific research since at least the 1880's (Wilhelm His et al)and updated every 2-4 years since then by the international nomenclature on human embryology, consisting of about 20-25 human embryologists from around the world (see more references below). You can't get more objective than that. But beware of false "Carnegie Stages" making the rounds, as well as other related efforts to define "stages" in false scientific terms.

2. Note that in natural normal human reproduction between a man and a woman, fertilization takes place in the woman's fallopian tube - not in her uterus. Therefore the phrases "in the womb" or "prenatal" would refer only to the new living human embryo who has already implanted in the woman's uterus (about 5-7 days post-fertilization); it would not refer to the new living human embryo who is still in the woman's fallopian tube trying to travel toward her uterus to implant. Such language in a law would therefore still allow for the use of abortifacients, embryo flushing, etc.
3. Not all human beings are reproduced or begin to exist by means of "fertilization" (sexual reproduction; fusion of sperm and oocyte). Many human beings begin to exist by means of asexual reproduction - those who are both reproduced asexually in vivo, as well as those who are reproduced asexually in vitro. Human asexual reproduction means a new human embryo is reproduced without the use of sperm and oocyte. For example, one or two of every set of naturally occurring human monozygotic (identical) twins/triplets begin to exist within the woman's body (fallopian tube) up to a week or longer post-fertilization. Repeat: Other than the first twin, the later twin or triplets do not begin to exist at "fertilization" at all, but by means of a different reproductive process, and up to a week or more after fertilization. Those natural identical twinstriplets would not be covered by such legal "language" as "fertilization".
Identical twins/triplets could also begin to exist post-fertilization outside the woman's body (in vitro) in IVF/ART and other laboratories and "infertility" clinics. Indeed, "twinning", one of many kinds of human cloning techniques, is an artificial reproductive technique that is used in some IVF/ART clinics to treat "infertility", especially when the woman has few healthy oocytes left to fertilize. "Twinning" is also used to asexually reproduce new human embryos for purely destructive research purposes. "Twinning" also goes by the names of "embryo multiplicatioon", "embryo splitting", "blastomere separation", "blastocyst splitting", etc.
4. There are many different kinds of asexual reproductive techniques used to reproduce new human embryos without the use of "fertilization", and those new asexually reproduced human embryos can be used for reproductive as well as destructive research purposes. For example, in the scientific literature one can find the use of asexual reproductive techniques such as pronuclei transfer, mitochondrial transfer, DNA-recombinant gene transfer, the use of artificially created genes, chromosomes, nuclei, and many other genetic engineering and cloning techniques. Additionally, although the same "intention" or "purpose" might be involved - i.e., to reproduce a new living human embryo - the biological/biochemical/genetic functions or mechanisms of each of these asexual reproductive techniques are distinct from each other, as well as distinct from the sexual reproductive process of fertilization. Perhaps the language of "fertilization" might protect sexually reproduced human embryos in vitro, but they would not protect any asexually reproduced human embryos in vitro - including "twins" and other human embryos cloned or genetically engineered, for either research or for reproductive purposes.
5. The term "abortion" no longer refers to the intentional killing of unborn human beings who began to exist by means of "fertilization". In fact the term "abortion" must now refer to the intentional killing of both sexually and asexually reproduced human beings. Because some human beings can be, and have been, asexually reproduced artificially in "infertility" clinics, those experimental asexually reproduced human embryos have been implanted into women's uteruses for reproductive purposes. If "abortion" were to refer only to those innocent living human beings who began to exist by means of "fertilization", then the abortion of any and all asexually reproduced human beings would not be covered by that law or regulation.
6. The term "fertilization", like the terms "in the womb" and "prenatal", does not always mean "conception". Many professional medical and scientific societies, as well as many state laws here in the U.S., have already legally defined "conception" as "implantation for decades, thus automatically leaving all human beings still within the woman's fallopian tube legally unprotected. The term "conception" has been formally rejected by human embryologists as well as by the international nomenclature committee on human embryology as "unscientific" and "misleading".

It might also be prudent to note that although the term "conception" might have special religious meaning for many, the religious use of the term is in fact often erroneously understood. For example, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception" does not refer to how the Blessed Virgin Mary was biologically reproduced - whether either sexually or asexually. Rather, it refers to the doctrine that Mary's immaterial soul was created by God without the stain of original sin. That is, Mary's soul was "immaculate", without sin. In fact, if you think about it, "fertilization" was never involved in Mary's case at all.

7. As those who have been following these and related issues are becoming aware, the erroneous "scientific" definitions used as legal loopholes in legislation and regulations concerning the beginning of life issues can also be transferred to issues at the end of life - and have been. This phenomenon appears to be increasing. Thus, the "right to privacy" has been used to try to justify euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. Or, if one is not legally a "person" at the beginning of life (because one is asexually reproduced, one was a "pre-embryo", etc.), then one is likewise not a "person" at the end of life - and therefore euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, organ transplantation, etc., are still "legal" for those unfortunate human beings. In reverse, if one is not a "person" at the end of life because one is "brain dead" (and therefore euthanasia, etc. are legal), then it has been argued that the early developing human embryo is not a "person" until the brain is formed - and thus before that time they can be aborted, killed, used in research, etc.
8. Consequently, many prolife organizations have recognized the importance of using very careful and scientifically accurate "language" in any legal documents and regulations to protect all (not just some) innocent living human beings, and consider the following "language" at least a good effort in order to prevent any legal loopholes. This language would hopefully legally protect all innocent living human beings, both sexually and asexually reproduced, both in vivo and in vitro, at the beginning, middle and end of their lives (at least, until new "legal loopholes" go unnoticed):

Legal Definition of Human "Person" and Human "Personhood"

Person: applies only to all living human beings from the beginning of their biological development as human organisms - regardless of age, race, sex, gender, capacity to function, condition of physical or mental dependency and/or disability, or method of sexual or asexual reproduction used, whether existing in vivo or in vitro.
Personhood: is the legal recognition of a human being's full status as a human person, that applies to all human beings, regardless of age, race, sex, gender, capacity to function, condition of physical or mental dependency and/or disability, or method of sexual or asexual reproduction used, whether existing in vivo or in vitro.

Definitions of "Biological Beginning" in Human Sexual and Asexual Reproduction

"In human sexual reproduction (i.e., the immediate use of human sperm and human oocyte) -- both in vivo (inside the body) and in vitro (outside the body) -- the biological beginning of a new human being/organism occurs when a human sperm makes contact with the protective covering of and fuses with a human oocyte. Examples include normal natural sexual intercourse, and artificial sexual reproduction in IVF/ART research laboratories and infertility clinics."
"In human asexual reproduction (i.e., without the immediate use of human sperm and human oocyte) -- both in vivo (inside the body) and in vitro (outside the body) -- the biological beginning of a new human being/organism occurs when the status of the DNA in a mere human cell or cells is regulated or reversed back to that of a new human being/organism. Examples include naturally occurring human identical (monozygotic) "twinning" within the woman's fallopian tube and/or uterus, and artificial "twinning", pronuclei transfer, somatic cell nuclear transfer, germ line cell nuclear transfer, and other genetic engineering and regenerative medicine research techniques in IVF/ART research laboratories and infertility clinics."

Definitions of Other Terms Used Within The Major Definition:

In vivo: within the body (including the fallopian tube and the uterus).
In vitro: outside the body, e.g., in IVF/ART and other research laboratories and infertility clinics.
Human Being: any human organism, including the single-cell human embryo, who possesses a genome specific for and consistent with an individual member of the human species, regardless of age, race, sex, gender, capacity to function, condition of physical or mental dependency and/or disability, or method of sexual or asexual reproduction used, whether existing in vivo or in vitro.
Human Genome: the total amount of nuclear and extra-nuclear DNA genetic material in a cell that constitutes an organism as an individual member of the human species - including the single-cell human embryo.
Human embryo: all human beings during the first 8 weeks of their biological development, including single-cell human embryos from the beginning of their biological development.
Human fetus: all human beings from the beginning of the fetal period of their biological development (the beginning of 9 weeks) through birth.
Suggested Irving Articles Documenting The Science And "Personhood":

· -- Dr. Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D. and Dr. C. Ward Kischer, "Scientific Response to Criticism of the California Human Rights Amendment as 'Protecting Fertilized Eggs'" (December 9, 2009), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_175responsecalifornia.html

· -- Irving, "Human Embryology and Church Teachings" (September 15, 2008), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/em/em_132embryologychurch1.html; also published in The New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Supplement 2009, (Detroit: Gayle), pp. 287-312, as "Embryology, Human"; see http://www.gale.cengage.com/NCE/; also at: http://www.personhood.ca/pdfs/embryology_human.pdf

· -- "Scientific and philosophical expertise: An evaluation of the arguments on 'personhood'", Linacre Quarterly February 1993, 60:1:18-46, at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_04person1.html

[Note: this article is a mini-version of my 400-page doctoral dissertation on the personhood of the early human embryo. That dissertation was addressing only sexually reproduced human embryos left over in IVF infertility clinics; it was not addressing asexually reproduced human embryos.]

· -- Irving, "iPhone APP for the Carnegie Stages, and Natural Monozygotic (Identical) Twins" (Sept. 4 2011), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_191iPhone.html

· -- Irving, "Reliable URLs for Human Embryology: The Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development" (April 20, 2011), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_186carnegiestages.html

· -- Irving, "Exciting News - Current Up-Dated Internationally Documented Human Embryology Now Online to Public" (February 24, 2011), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_183currentupdate.html

· -- Irving, "The Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development: Chart of all 23 Stages, and Detailed Descriptions of Carnegie Stages 1 - 6" (April 22, 2006), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_123carnegiestages1.html

· -- Irving, "A One-Act Play: 'Crippled Consciences and the Human Embryo'" (November 17, 2010), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_178one-act-play1.html; also at: http://www.issues4life.org/pdfs/aoneactplay.pdf

· -- "Irving Response to Mississippi "personhood" initiative" (August 5, 2011), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_190mississippi.html

· -- Irving, "In the womb" and "conception": Poland's abortion bill, and U.S. federal judge's "science" (June 28, 2011), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_189polandabortionbill.html

· -- Irving, "Neither, Nor: Bryne's and Willke's Pseudo-Battle Over Human Embryonic Stem Cells" (June 19, 2008), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_129bryneandwillke.html

· -- Irving, "So You Think That 'Reproductive Cloning' Isn't Done Yet? Guess Again" (July 18, 2008), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_130reproductivecloning.html

· -- Irving, "American Medical Association's "Narrow Definitions", Legal "Re-definitions" ... and Reproductive Cloning" (October 9, 2009), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_170ama1.html

· -- Irving, "Analysis of Legislative and Regulatory Chaos in the U.S.: Asexual Human Reproduction and Genetic Engineering" (Oct. 20, 2004), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_81chaosasexgen1.html

· -- Irving, "Playing God by manipulating man: Facts and frauds of human cloning" (October 4, 2003), presented twice at the Missouri Catholic Conference Annual Assembly Workshop, Jefferson City, MO, at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_22manipulatingman1.html

________________________________________---
Readers with questions about this artice, send an email to: HumanLifeMatters@shaw.ca . They will be forwarded to Dr. Irving for a  response or explanation.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

READ MARK PICKUP'S LATEST BLOG ON SUFFERING

"... At last I will see clearly and will understand the Why of suffering." -- taken from my blog posting called I WILL KNOW JUST AS I AM KNOWN. Read the rest at http://markpickup.org

Mark Pickup

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

BLOG POST ABOUT RECONCILATION

"It is important to let people close to us know that we love them. So often things go unsaid. ... A sad example of this was the rift between John Lennon and Paul McCartney." -- Taken from Mark Pickup's personal blog post entitled KEEP SHORT ACCOUNTS WITH GOD AND PEOPLE. Read the rest at http://markpickup.org

Friday, September 30, 2011

Illinois abortuary closed indefinitely!

Rockford Illinois abortion clinic has been closed indefinitely, their licence suspended by the health department. Another killing center shuts down. Hopefully it will happen to more of these horrible places across America and Canada. To read more, cut and paste this link (http://prolifecorner.com/node/921)

I would like to see surprise inspections of abortion clinics occur across every jurisdiction that has these terrible facilities. For the sake of womens' health, hold them to the same stringent standard that hospitals meet. Does anybody still believe legal abortions are safe abortions for women? Take a look at the Blackmun Wall at http://www.lifedynamics.com/Pro-life_Group/Pro-choice_Women/

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Canada's unjust justice

http://prolifecorner.com/node/896

Well, Canada's outrageous version of crime and punishment has brought scandal to my beloved province of Alberta. Copy and paste the above link and read about the appalling legal decision of "Justice" Joanne Veit of Alberta Court of Queen's Bench to let an Alberta mother who strangled her newborn baby walk free. How long will my country allow unjust judges judge?! Shame on us.

Mark Pickup

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Are abortion clinics really clean and safe?

Lies and deception are the backbone of abortion advocacy. The realities that science and biology have established about prenatal life -- its beginning and development must be suppressed or denied. It should be noted that much of our knowledge about life in the womb was known long before Roe v Wade or Canada's 1969 abortion law. Abortion facilities must try to keep women as ignorant as possible about what abortion really is. People who dare publicly stand against abortion are regularly vilified, maligned and attacked, by a desperate abortion establishment. (See previous post.)

One infamous abortion clinic in Rockford Illinois (the Northern Illinois Womens Center) is the epitome of this. Copy and paste to your Internet http://prolifecorner.com/node/862 to read comments by a local pro-Life group.


Abortion advocates have long espoused that abortion must be easily available to provide women with "safe, legal abortions". After abortion became legal, unsanitary back alley abortionists simply moved to main street into plain view and now feign respectability.

[In recent years they have tried to shed the unsavoury label of abortionists with its seedy connotations of baby killers and being dangerous to women. Abortionists have begun to refer to themselves as abortion providers to try and present themselves in an altruistic light.]

The NIWC in Rockford illustrates that legalizing abortion is no guarantee of cleanliness or respect for women's health or ensuring they make fully informed decisions. Copy and paste http://www.prolifecorner.com/node/526

If you copy and paste http://www.lifedynamics.com/Pro-life_Group/Pro-choice_Women/ and click on the Blackmun Wall link you will see a litany of women who have died by the supposedly "safe legal abortions" in America since Roe v. Wade.

My wife worked directly across the street from a Canadian abortion clinic. She often saw ambulances pulling up to the facility to rush women from the abortion clinic to a hospital. Safe abortions? Of course this was never reported by the press.

Was/is such consistent silence a wilful act by an abortion friendly press to perpetuate the myth that abortions are safe? The media are always quick to deny bias but the public is left to wonder? The advent of new social media has broken the grip traditional media have now on what is reported and not reported, and how things are presented.

A number of years ago, a timid OBGYN told me quietly that after the only abortion clinic was introduced into the Canadian city where he worked the number of women with perforated uteruses, and other complications from abortions, arriving in hospital emergency wards from the abortion clinic skyrocketed. Again, that was never reported and my timid gynecologist friend would never say such a thing publicly for fear of media criticism. He had a thriving medical practice to protect. Poor man. His spine was so thin you could pass your hand through it -- but his wallet was so thick he sat crooked.

Mark Pickup

Friday, August 19, 2011

The pro-Life cause is winning!

http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/17673
Chuck Colson, "Abortion Abatement: Keep up the momentum", 18 August 2011, Breakpoint [You will have to copy and paste the link above to read article.]

I want to bring your attention to the good news story above. Pro-Life advocates should take heart that the public is becoming more and more pro-Life. No longer can abortion proponents claim that the majority of people are "pro-choice". For decades Life advocates fought against the grain of public opinion and media bias for abortion. Like trying to change course of a giant ship, the shift of national opinion has been slow, but with persistent commitment to the universal right to life from conception to natural death, dedicated pro-Life people are now seeing the fruits of their labours: Most people do not agree with the current status quo of abortion on demand (and in Canada, taxpayer abortion on demand!).

We are winning the battle of hearts and minds. Don't stop now! Keep up the good fight for full inclusion and protection of every life regardless of its state or stage in the life spectrum. We have science, logic and truth about prenatal life on our side. Abortion advocates must rely on power seized through ideology, sophistry, bigotry and old slogans.


I am reminded of the words of Abraham Lincoln about another great battle for human equality: "We will win more converts each day. We will grow strong by the violence of our adversaries and unless truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie, we will be in the majority."

Do not grow weary, dear friends in the great pro-Life cause. The struggle to stop the abortion holocaust and give legal recognition and protection to prenatal life is the greatest civil rights issue of the 21st Century and you are winning!

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Let "pro-choice" mean informed choice

Promoters of abortion must rely on deception and outright lies in order to promote their agenda. Life developing in the womb is as human as you or me and in begins at the point when sperm fertilizes egg. This is not a matter of opinion, it is plain biological fact. The humanity of the prenatal child is increasingly difficult to deny as embryology, fetology, the technology such as ultrasound imaging improves. The image to the left is a 3D ultrasound image of an unborn child.

The ethical poverty of the abortion movement is illustrated best by its proponents. The first hint is their language beginning with the phrase "I'm pro-choice" -- yet not saying what is the choice. It is my experience that if you press them to fully identify the choice they are apt to become angry and abusive.

In its bluntest terms, they believe that parents should be able to choose death for their unborn child by means of abortion regardless of how uninformed that decision may be.

In the city of Rockford, Illinois, apparently supporters of abortion do not believe in informed choice. They tried by every means possible to stop a free mobile ultrasound service to be offered to abortion minded women to see their child before going through with abortion. Ultrasound staff provide women with accurate information about prenatal development and resources available to them should they choose to complete her pregnancy. That's providing women with information needed to make informed choices. Apparently that's not the choice "pro-choicer" in Rockford Illinois have in mind.

They abuse, threaten, and behave in the most hateful ways toward Rockford citizens who try to offer women alternatives to abortion. But pictures are better than words. Go to http://prolifecorner.com/node/845 to see the sort of harrassment Rockford's abortion proponents use to stop alternatives being offered to women in crisis pregnancies. They are not "pro-choice" they are "pro-abortion" and anti-alternatives. Notice that one sign by abortion supporter tries to scare women away from the ultrasound van by saying a woman was raped in it. That is a vicious lie.

That link again is http://prolifecorner.com/node/845. You will have to copy and paste the address. (For some reason you can directy link from this blog.)

HLM


Friday, August 5, 2011

Visitors to HLM's blog surpass 28,000

As of today's date, the HumanLifeMatters' blog has had 28,416 hits. In descending order they come from the United States, Canada, Ukraine, Russia, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, Poland, Argentina, Australia, Iran and Latvia. If anybody is interested in contributing a column about Life issues or bioethics, send it to Mark Pickup (MPickup@shaw.ca)as a Word file attachment. I can not pay for it, but if published you are assured of a wide readership.

Mark Davis Pickup
(nb: I have sometimes resorted to using my full name because, believe it or not, there are other Mark Pickups)

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Abortion and euthanasia acceptance are historical aberrations

Canada and the United States treat abortion on demand as a right. This is a recent development and an aberration from the course of human history.

The Hippocratic Oath for doctors dating back thousands of years forbade abortion and euthanasia. Since the 1st century, the Catholic Church has unwaveringly maintained the moral evil of procured abortion. (See Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2271.) Ancient and persistent Common Law traditions dating back into the Middle Ages treated abortion as a grave crime. In 1802, England formally made abortion a criminal offense.

In May of 1969, Canada changed course from history, and the wisdom of the Ages, by decriminalizing abortion. Abortion advocates assured the public and politicians that a change in the law would not open the flood gates to abortion on demand. They were wrong. The year abortion was decriminalized there were 268 abortions in Canada. The next year, the number rose by four thousand percent to 11,000 abortions! That was 1970. In 1971 the number of abortions in Canada spiked again to 30,949. In 1972, the numbers rose another 25.7 percent to 38,905 abortions. The numbers just kept rising. Things got so bad that by 1982, there were more abortions than live births in the City of Toronto!

I have talked to physicians who practised medicine during that time. They could not remember any request for abortion ever being denied under Canada’s liberal abortion law passed in 1969. As far as they were concerned the law was so bad it may as well not have existed. In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down that law.

NO PROTECTION
Today, there is no legal protection for unborn children against abortion. A woman can have an abortion at taxpayers’ expense for any reason at all, or no reason whatever. She can have as many abortions as she wants – no questions asked.

Thousands of unwanted preborn children are sacrificed in Canada each week on the altar of sexual freedom for their parents. Close to 100,000 abortions are performed annually in Canada and the vast majority are not medically required.

Abortion advocates of the 1960s said that easy access to abortion would eliminate child abuse because only wanted children would be born. They were wrong on that point too. Canada has been aborting children all day long for more than forty years and yet the rates of child abuse have skyrocketed! We have the worst of both worlds. The assertions made by proponents of abortion were not based on empirical scientific evidence ― they were based on ideology and social agendas. Abortion does not stop child abuse, abortion is child abuse!

Is it possible that abortion coarsens people’s consciences and cheapens the value they place on children in general? When the ancient taboo against harming one’s young and vulnerable is violated, does it open the door to other forms of abuse? Once that taboo has been breached against killing the most vulnerable of humanity (like a child developing in the womb) does abuse or killing other vulnerable groups such the aged, the sick or the disabled become easier?

If so, then the stage is set for the next phase in an expanding culture of death we are experiencing: Euthanasia.

Granted, last year a Private Member’s Bill in Parliament to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide was soundly defeated. But do not think that the threat of euthanasia is over. Incurably ill people are quietly and discreetly being euthanized in hospitals across the nation. Euthanasia proponents are taking a different approach to bring their agenda to Canada. Courts can impose where democratic votes fail.

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association has launched a legal challenge with the B.C. Supreme Court against Canada’s laws prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia. They are representing the family of Kay Carter who went to Switzerland for an assisted suicide and Kelowna resident Gloria Taylor who suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease. The latter case is strategic because Taylor is not expected to live long. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association wants her case fast-tracked through the courts. There’s more than one way to achieve what advocates of euthanasia and assisted suicide want. If democracy doesn’t work in their favour, they will try to force the issue through the courts.

One thing you have to give to euthanasia advocates -- they are persistent. Abortion and euthanasia are indeed aberrations from the course of history and we are paying a heavy cost. The cost will get higher and, as always, will be paid with human blood.