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and the Beginnings of Human Life |
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Hippocratic Oath
The ancient Greek Hippocratic Oath -- for thousands of years the standard for Western medical ethics -- was routinely sworn by doctors upon medical school graduation. It states: "I will neither give a deadly drug to anyone if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly, I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy." This last sentence has now been dropped from most medical school commencement ceremonies.
American Medical Association
For 125 years, the American Medical Association took a firm anti-abortion position, declaring in 1859 that abortion is the "unwarranted destruction of human life." In 1871, the AMA denounced doctors who would perform abortions as "false to their professions, false to principle, false to honor, false to humanity, false to God." 1 But, in 1989, the AMA called abortion a "fundamenta right," to be decided "free of state interference" in the absence of compelling justification. 2
World Medical Association
Partially in response to revelations of medical war crimes at the Nuremberg Nazi trials, the World Medical Association in 1948 adopted a new physician's code, the Declaration of Geneva, which stated: "I will maintain the utmost respect for human life, from the time of conception. 3 This declaration was reaffirmed in the 1970 Declaration of Oslo.
The United Nations
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the General Assembly in 1959, stated that a child "needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth." This is reaffirmed in the 1990 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Planned Parenthood
In 1963, Planned Parenthood insisted that the organization's birth control campaign did not support abortion, stating: "An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun." 4
California Medical Association
The California Medical Association, in 1970, declared abortion to be "killing" and referred to "the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-uterine until death." 5
Scientific Community
Science has determined that at conception a
new individual comes into being, possessing a unique genetic code that
has already determined that individual's sex, fingerprints, hair and eye
color, facial features, etc. 6
The Natural Choice is Life
FOOTNOTES
1. Stephen Krason, Abortion: Politics, Morality
and the Constitution (Maryland: University Press of America, 1984),
p. 80; Marvin Olasky, The Press and Abortion, 1838-1988 (New Jersey:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1988), p. 29.
2. Amicus Brief of the American Medical
Association, et al., in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services
(No.
88-605, United States Supreme Court), p. 1.
3. World Health Association Bulletin,
vol.1 (1949), pp. 109-11.
4. "Plan Your Children for Health and Happiness,"
brochure of Planned Parenthood-World Population (New York, 1963).
5. California Medical Association, California
Medicine, 113:67, 1970.
6. Shettles and Rorvik, Rites of Life: The
Scientific Evidence for Life Before Birth (Zondervan, 1983), pp. 36-40;
L. Arey, Developmental Anatomy, 7th ed. (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders,
1974), p. 55; The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropoedia vol.
26, (University of Chicago, 1989), p. 710.
This article was printed and distributed by
the Knights of Columbus and was posted on this web site March 1999.
A note from the Web Master:
It is noteworthy and honorable that some folks are willing to stand up for a ban on Partial-Birth Abortion. Let us not forget that ordinary everyday run of the mill abortion is also murder. We must understand that murder is murder no matter the method. Because one method of abortion seems to be horrible does not make the other methods less so. We should be horrified and sickened by any abortion regardless of the method. The Fifth Commandment spells it out clearly:
"Thou shalt not kill."
A fetus is a person, a human being with a God given soul. Imagine the pain the Lord must feel when any abortion occurs. Please contact both of your Senators and Representative, via letter or phone, to let them know how horrified you are that abortions are legal and to stop Partial-Birth abortions and all other abortions as soon as possible.
(It has become apparent that they do not respond to
email therefore you will have more of an impact by writing or telephoning.)
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