Life Links 9/8/08

I wonder why Obama didn’t finish his thought on ABC’s This Week.

"Probably. ...What I intended to say is that, as a Christian, I have a lot of humility about understanding when does the soul enter into ... It's a pretty tough question.

The soul enters into.... what exactly?

The living human body, perhaps?


Is it me or did Joe Biden’s “when does life begins” answer on Meet the Press reek of relativism?

SEN. BIDEN: I'd say, "Look, I know when it begins for me." It's a personal and private issue. For me, as a Roman Catholic, I'm prepared to accept the teachings of my church. But let me tell you. There are an awful lot of people of great confessional faiths--Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others--who have a different view. They believe in God as strongly as I do. They're intensely as religious as I am religious. They believe in their faith and they believe in human life, and they have differing views as to when life--I'm prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception. But that is my judgment. For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society. And I know you get the push back, "Well, what about fascism?" Everybody, you know, you going to say fascism's all right? Fascism isn't a matter of faith. No decent religious person thinks fascism is a good idea.

When will people stop acting like the question “when does the life of a human being begin?” is a question that different people can have different correct answers to?

Biden would “impose his judgement” on religious people in our pluralistic society on any number of given issues yet on the issue of when life begins, his judgement is suddenly not worthy of being imposed.

I wish Brokaw’s follow-up question had been phrased like this, “So your judgement is that the unborn are living human beings but you still think it should be legal to kill these living human beings?”


The New York Times has an article on Sarah Palin’s pregnancy with Trig.

Later that day, Ms. Palin sent an e-mail message to her relatives and close friends about her new son, Ms. Bruce said. She signed it, “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”

“Many people will express sympathy, but you don’t want or need that, because Trig will be a joy,” Ms. Palin wrote. She added, “Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in this mixed-up world you live in down there on Earth. Trig is no different, except he has one extra chromosome.”

I missed news about this case a couple of weeks ago. The California Supreme Court ruled that rapes which result in pregnancy can result in harsher punishments than ones which don’t after a man named Gary Cross repeatedly raped his 13-year-old stepdaughter while her mother worked at night. After the girl became pregnant, Cross arraigned for her to have an abortion at 5 ½ months.

After the abortion in December 2003, Cross resumed sexual activity with the girl until the following July, when K.'s mother came across paperwork from the abortion and summoned police.

A PDF of the court case which includes some horrible details is here. Cross originally took her to an abortion clinic for a pregnancy test and then return for abortion when the mother commented on her daughter’s weight. The abortion clinic then referred them to San Francisco General Hospital because she was so far along.