I Love You This Much!

Dear Child of Mine:

Do you know how much I love you?

Do you know how the light refracts off a simple red rose and into your retina to give you that vibrant color you see? Do you know how many neurons fire when you smell and taste your favorite food?

I love you that much.

Do you know that 7.5x10(24) molecules are in that glass of water you drink? Water nourishes your body, it hydrates your cells, but I can hydrate your soul. I can hold all those molecules, but I want to hold you.

I love you that much.

Do you know that Mount Everest is 29028 feet high and the oceanic Mariana Trench is 36090 feet deep?

That means just on earth the difference between the highest peak and the deepest oceanic trench is 12.33 miles. Can your arms stretch out that far? Mine can.

I love you that much.

Do you know how far light travels from the sun to kiss your skin here on earth? Do you look up at night and wonder how far away that twinkling star is?

I love you that much.

I love you so much that I sent my son to stretch out his arms high on the cross, just for you. The soldiers pulled so hard they dislocated those arms, and Jesus endured that just for you.

I am God of the universe. My love stretches to infinity. My arms stretch to infinity. So what do you think will happen if you allow me to love you? My arms will encompass you as nothing else can. You will feel the warmth of the sun, the hydration of your soul, the vibrant colors of all creation, the love that stretches its arms to infinity.

That’s how much I love you.

When Does Life Stop?

At last!!! We reach the final step in our “Scientific Method”…the conclusion. There are plenty of you who thought last week’s “experiment” was a little different, but I hope it made a point.

So what is our conclusion? In our first couple of steps, we asked the question: “Given the scientific data of what it means to be human, does the pre-born child qualify as a human being?”

If we look at our observation, hypothesis, experiment, etc., we see that a new human being begins when the egg and sperm meet. We find our pre-born child is human because its unique blueprint, its DNA, is intact at the moment of conception. We also find that it is a distinct life form, not the mother’s body, but it’s own.

A new acquaintance of mine, Dr. Kevin Langford, the Director of the Pre-Health Professional Program at SFASU, agrees with me. However, his statement goes even further and is much more provocative. In a recent email, he said,

God initiated life at the “Creation” and life has continued unabated ever since that moment. My work with cells has also shown me that cells (the basic unit of life by scientific definition) are in fact, “ALIVE”. That would most certainly include a sperm and an egg. If either of those cells is rendered non-viable, there will be no fertilization, and no offspring. So, the argument of when life begins isn’t one in which I even consider. By the time there is a fertilized egg inside of a mother’s uterus, the discussion of when life “begins” is rather a moot point. Personally, I feel a better more thought provoking question would be, “when did it stop?”

Very powerful!

So why does abortion exist?

The entire pro-choice movement is predicated on the following statement, “A woman has a right to do with her own body as she sees fit.”

Thomas Jefferson penned in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/

If we use this statement in conjunction with the United States Constitution then a woman does have the right to do as she sees fit to her body.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.preamble.html

However, we must note something very important. If a woman is pregnant, then the life within her body is a separate person. “All men are created equal…” The rub is that she shouldn’t have the right to end that life just because it exists inside her body. The argument that a woman has a right to do what she wants with her body becomes illogical and moot if another person is harmed in the process of a woman considering only her body.

The heart of the matter is something that we’ve grown to accept in this country and in modern society in general. We are horribly inconvenienced by others. We are even inconvenienced by ourselves.

I recently saw an ad for a woman’s contraceptive whose whole ad campaign was: pre-menstrual symptoms can “impact your life.” Duh! (Very unprofessional, but nevertheless it fit here.)

We want convenience at any cost. We have become a society that sees our own personal needs as the most important aspect of our existence. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and others recognize the fact that sacrifice (for others) becomes a benefit for society as a whole. Although these religions state this ideology, members of those faiths are many times oblivious to what their traditions teach.

From time to time, I’ve mentioned Amendment 48 here in Colorado. Many people have asked why Amendment 48 in Colorado failed and why similar amendments around the country failed.

Socialism, communism, and fascism have won. We no longer know or understand what our Christian, Jewish, or Hindu roots teach. We have lost respect for the individual completely. We have become so numbed down that we don’t even know what we should believe.

With this numbing down, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out why we can differentiate a woman’s body from a child’s body. It’s no doubt that we call it a “woman’s right”. It’s no doubt that we can’t seem to agree on when human life begins. If it’s all about us, then how can we possibly see what’s outside of us?

The funny thing is science knows when life begins. If it didn’t, it would be interested in embryonic stem cells or in-vitro fertilization. Science knows when life begins. Deep down we do too. It’s just become inconvenient for us to be stewards of life. So when Dr. Langford says, “the thought provoking question is when did it (life) stop?” I think we’ll find that the only place life stops is in our minds when we refuse to see past ourselves.

"The Experiment"

For the last several weeks, we’ve been using the Scientific Method to talk about the pre-born child. I’ve received a couple of emails on this topic. One thanked me for covering such a topic and the other asked why bother. “Why is such a topic important?”

I’ll address that question at the end of this posting, but I’d like to continue my original theme first. This week’s posting deals with the fourth aspect of the Scientific Method called the Experiment. It tests the hypothesis. In our case, we are testing the following TOPIC (or question): "Given the scientific data of what it means to be human, does the pre-born child qualify as a human being?"

According to the scientific method website
http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/scientific_method.html , the experiment “is the most important part of the scientific method. It’s the logical process that lets scientists learn about the world.”

(I don’t know about you, but I don’t think you are required to have a degree in science to learn about the world.)

We know that DNA exists for each individual from the moment the first cell is created from the sperm and the egg. For nine months, that individual grows and matures inside the mother’s womb without the world “looking in.”

So what’s our experiment? So many experiments out there touch on human life. Which one do we choose?

I’ve actually chosen something completely different. Why rehash all the old arguments?

Therefore, my experiment is an exercise for our imagination and logic skills.

Let’s say that the human race is visited by an alien race whose technology includes reducing all human life to its basic individual signature. In one instant, we are all turned to dust, but our DNA still exists in that dust. Going along their merry destructive way, that alien race continues through the galaxy.

Later, another more peaceful alien group, determined to undo the damage caused by the first alien race, visits earth. They have a method they use to “reconstitute” the DNA back into a living being. Based on individual DNA they go about undoing the destruction, giving humans back their bodies.

Question: If the alien’s method relies on DNA, will they be unable to reconstitute the pre-born child?

Since that child had its own DNA, it is reconstituted as its own life form. Why not? Everything that defined that person existed from time the first cell came into being.

As human beings, we are very short sided. We claim that because the pre-born child isn’t “fully formed”, it is not human, but that is incorrect by all scientific standards. Its DNA identifies it as human, not the maturity of its lungs, heart, brain or any other organ.

Our society has taken the “don’t see, don’t believe” stance. In other words, because we don’t “see” the life outside the mother’s womb, we as a society think we have domination over it.
Not only is this a fallacy, but it reeks of an elitist attitude that is selfish beyond the core. We did not choose our own life; it was a gift. We have no right to “choose” life for another—that is also a gift.

So back to the email I received that asked the question on why I would view the pre-born life a discussion worth “the time of day.” The very basic value of life is under discussion right now.

Amendment 48 makes that clear. Do we have a right to take another’s life simply because they cannot voice their opinion? No. As soon as that line is blurred, we will move on to the next line. Can an infant defend itself outside the womb? No. Then it has no right to life. Can an elderly person defend himself? No, then he is not needed. Can physically or mentally challenged people defend themselves? No, then they need to make room for those who can.

The list will never stop, the lines blurred forever.

We have a “no tolerance” bullying policy in our schools, so why can’t we have a “no bullying” policy on those who cannot defend themselves in life?