What If?

What If?

Yesterday was the last day of the "Forty Days for Life." Tomorrow is the election for our new president. The two are tied together.

One candidate believes that the fetus inside a woman is not life and the other believes it is. As a Catholic I believe that life starts from the moment of conception. As a scientist I believe that the possibility of existence should have priority over the extinction of possibility. (e.g. "Don't waste good" - Gibbs NCIS, "Don't waste life" - God, Heaven.)  I have heard many Catholics say that they would not have an abortion but believe that it is the woman's choice. Since Adam and Eve's choice in the garden was their own then I guess God does let us choose. This does not make our choice correct however, and does not mean that it will not have repercussions much as Adam and Eve's choice did.

What if life starts at conception? What if the soul enters this fetus at conception? If this is true then this fetus is a living being, neither the mother nor the father. The genetics show us that at the moment of conception the fetus has genes that are distinct from both mother and father. In a criminal court of law this distinction would be enough to identify a distinct individual, yet not for a fetus. The word fetus itself attempts to hide from us the actual facts of this genetic distinction. If life does not start at conception then we must abandon our use of genetic markers to identify individual living human beings in criminal cases.

If life starts at conception then the fetus becomes an infant and has rights like any other human. People argue that the child is dependent on the mother.  The mother does not have to honor that dependance, especially if it risks her life. I will not get into this argument, however most all abortions are for convenience and not to save the mother's life, making this argument mostly irrelevant. This is especially true since modern advances in medical care have made this less of a problem.

If life starts at conception then it is murder to destroy it. If life starts at conception then it is a child of God. If life starts at conception then it is part mother, part father, and part God's creation. God has a plan for each of us. It is one thing to destroy our own part in God's plan but it is much worse to destroy another's part. God sees the faces of these little ones. God's mother, Mary,  protects these little ones as her own. Look into the night sky and you can almost see the souls of these little ones twinkling as stars in the night. The light you see is a reflection of God's face.

Copyright 2016 Daniel Strizak