This remarkable photograph of a tiny fetus in its unruptured amniotic sac was taken after surgery for an ectopic pregnancy in 1972. This picture demonstrates the development of a baby at only six weeks after conception.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
The brain is fully developed and the fetus can suck, swallow, and make irregular breathing sounds. Fetus can feel pain (New England Journal of Medicine). Fetal skin is almost transparent. Muscles tissue is lengthening and bones are becoming harder. Liver and organs produce appropriate fluids. Eyebrows and eyelashes appear and the fetus makes active movements including kicks and even somersaults.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
?Quickening? (when the mother can feel the fetus moving) usually occurs around this time. Finger and toenails appear. Lanugo, a fine hair now covers the entire body. The fetus can hear and recognize the mother?s voice. Sex organs are visible on ultrasound devices.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
A protective waxy substance called Vernix covers the skin. By birth, most of the vernix will be gone but any that is left is quickly absorbed. Fetus has a hand and startle reflex. Footprints and fingerprints are forming. Fetus practices breathing by inhaling amniotic fluid into its developing lungs.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
Rapid brain development occurs during this period and the nervous system is able to control some bodily functions. The fetus? eyelids now open and close. At 25 weeks there is a 60% chance of survival if born. The fetus is considered legally viable at 28 weeks and there is a 90% chance of survival if born at this point.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
There is a rapid increase in the amount of body fat the fetus has. Rhythmic breathing occurs, but the lungs are not yet mature. The fetus sleeps 90-95% of the day. At this point there the survival rate is above 95% if the baby is born.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
The fetus is considered full-term. Lanugo is gone except on upper arms and shoulders. Hair on the baby?s head is now coarser and thicker. The lungs are mature. The average weight of the baby at this point is seven and a half pounds. At birth the placenta detaches from the uterus and the umbilical cord will be cut as the baby takes his first breaths of air. Breathing will trigger changes in the heart and bypass arteries forcing all blood to now travel through the lungs.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
"Baby Samuel Armas's tiny fingers grasped the doctor's huge hand - - not at birth, or as a result of a premature delivery but, at 21 weeks, as one of the youngest unborn babies ever to undergo surgery to relieve the effects of spina bifida and hydrocephalus, birth defects that can lead to severe disabilities.
Doctors now agree that the earlier repairs can be made on these babies, the less severe the problems will be when the child is born. This realization has stimulated a search for ways to correct anomalies while the child is in utero, rather than take the more traditional route and wait to make surgical repairs after birth.. . "
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
"If the entire population of the world were put into the land area of Texas, each person would have an area equal to the floor space of a typical U.S. home and the population density of Texas would be about the same as Paris, France.
Fertilization is the exact moment when a new human being comes into existence. This one-celled life which has inherited 23 chromosomes from each parent contains the entire genetic code for every detail of individual human development. It has its own genetically distinct DNA and may have a completely different blood type (not to mention sex) than the mother.
At about eight days after conception, the fertilized ovum (blastocyst) implants in the lining of the uterus. It emits chemical substances which weaken the woman's immune system within the uterus so that this tiny "foreign" body is not rejected by the woman's body.
A baby's heart begins to beat 21 days after conception.
Brain waves start registering on an electroencephalogram (EEG) 42 days after conception. This is the legal standard for determining if someone is alive after birth.
By the eighth week of pregnancy, every organ is present and in place. Everything found in an adult human being can now be found in this tiny embryo which is now only about an inch and a half long."
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
Let's love them ALL...a perfect people, a perfect family, perfect situations, all perfect circumstances, perfect times, and well, everything else perfect too! Funny, how THAT goes!?
Posts: 582 | Location: New York City | Registered: 13 February 2007
Originally posted by GoodBusiness: Let's love them ALL...a perfect people, a perfect family, perfect situations, all perfect circumstances, perfect times, and well, everything else perfect too! Funny, how THAT goes!?
Let us not do harm and protect the right to life.
Everyone should be treated with dignity. A woman's dignity is closely connected with the love which she receives by the very reason of her femininity and likewise is connected with the love which she gives in return. ("Dignity of Women" by JPII)
I'm not perfect and yet it seems that others believe in perfect babies. Or 'Right to (Perfect) Lif-ers'. The fact that you (GG) assail my argument, 'harms' me. Take pity! On me! In re-statement: privacy is, well, good.
Posts: 582 | Location: New York City | Registered: 13 February 2007
The fact that you (GG) assail my argument, 'harms' me.
How so GoodBusiness? It is good to have the freedom to assail arguments, is it not?? Human beings are meant to live in society to form and participate in a government that protects solidarity and subsidiarity. Our 14% rated current congress wants to prevent ability for discussion.
I've come to this discussion forum for I have been harmed. It takes on going openness and debate if we are going to continue living in a free America. I have reason to believe that many in this forum are ready to give freedom away for the sake of safety, I think.
We've forgotten that all are called to their ultimate good, to establish laws for the mutual protection, service, and love of our neighbor. preparing for the future and not living for the now moment only. We might not like the current administration, but we must respect those in authority and work with them to change what is not for the common good. We need to continually let our voices be heard and vote for the candidate who who will do the least harm. One candidate simply never fits all attributes of desiring goodness, truth and beauty.
Each society defined by its purpose must adhere to specific rules of what the human person is and ought to be and that is the principle, the subject, and the end of all social institutions.
Socialization presents dangers. Excessive intervention by government can threaten freedom and initiative. God entrusts to every creature the functions to capability of performing. God has a great regard for human freedom. He's given us guidelines to keep us safe and happy. We harm ourselves when we become our own god.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
Happy to re-state my argument! Say I am/was selling abortion...(hypothesis, or theory) I 'predicted' there would be privacy (revenue). Then something in my life seemed unpleasant-like I needed a special holiday, say July 1st,(testing, experimentation). Busy gathering information in advance of my holiday, I shared that I was merely engaged in ordinary inductive reasoning, and asked of you to please respond with HOW WEAK OR STRONG this argument 'strikes' you! Since, along the way I otherwise figured I have a right to (exactly) (my) opinion, please focus down on in to the hypothesis as it is, and, 'how likely' is it, anyway?!! Tx!!
Posts: 582 | Location: New York City | Registered: 13 February 2007
Since, along the way I otherwise figured I have a right to (exactly) (my) opinion, please focus down on in to the hypothesis as it is, and, 'how likely' is it, anyway?!! Tx!!
Intuitively we all know that to destroy another's life is wrong. Yes, I know we had black robed traitorous judges defying the right to life protected by our US documents. Their decision to violate human dignity, to sentence to death a painful cruel death those who have committed no crimes, does not nor ever will change the fact that inherently we know that abortion is not a human right.
quote:
I have a right to (exactly) (my) opinion,
You have a responsibility and get off the fact that you have "rights" that deny others the right to breathe. You have a grave responsibility to defend life from conception to natural death.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
Thanks, for indirectly acknowledging that I have an opinion. It is NOT equal to an interpretation. My opinion. My language. Take it or leave it...BUT fundamentally, I believe that this web-blog is for the purpose of gathering information, to widen and deepen my views on topics brought up on Thom's show, rather we New Yorker's refrain from cooking 'turtle soup' from what we catch in the East River. That's MY rule!
Posts: 582 | Location: New York City | Registered: 13 February 2007
GoodBusiness - you know how to play it REAL safe. Obviously I haven't learned those tricks.
I thought it just made good sense to give definition to one's guidelines for conscience formation in order to do good and avoid harm. Naturally some will find my posturings unacceptable; but at least it cuts through a lot of needless wondering.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
OKay! For argument's sake my role as a blog-adder entails committment to express my conscience-and according to guidlines! My guidlines remain, privacy. So, how exactly does a ban on abortions help me predict some privacy in my life? well done, GG.
Posts: 582 | Location: New York City | Registered: 13 February 2007
A ban on abortions means you go back to what was done in the past. Lock the door, pull down the shades, and plug the key-hole with a wad of paper. This assures privacy.
Retired Monk "Ideology is a disease"
Posts: 3412 | Location: denver co | Registered: 17 April 2007
So, how exactly does a ban on abortions help me predict some privacy in my life?
Who let you off to be a free agent and unresponsive to the fact that 1 out of 4 pregnancies end in abortion, each one a cruel painful death to the baby, and each one an increased risk of many many consequences to the mother, ALL "nicely" paid by your tax dollars?
quote:
well done, GG.
I don't know how you meant it, but Thank YOU!
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
It seems to me...that I didn't influence or affect the original creation of 'American Freedom', all its problems, nor did I personally help to bring technology to the fore that helps us have more of what we want. Yet I AM trained to advantage existing technology, to facilitate the flow of information, and maximize productivity, in my business. Are you then advocating some sort of discarding of surgery, to substitute with a more general technology?
Posts: 582 | Location: New York City | Registered: 13 February 2007
GG, not all abortions are nicely paid for with tax dollars.
Some are. They are encouraged to prevent use of tax dollars to help support the child of a poverty-sticken mother. In these instances, tax dollars are used to provide abortions. It saves taxpayers, like you, money.
Conservative policies encourage abortions to save "welfare assistance". Conservative policies even pay for the abortion. It's all about money, not human life. It's called hypocracy.
Retired Monk "Ideology is a disease"
Posts: 3412 | Location: denver co | Registered: 17 April 2007
GG, not all abortions are nicely paid for with tax dollars.
Some are. They are encouraged to prevent use of tax dollars to help support the child of a poverty-sticken mother. In these instances, tax dollars are used to provide abortions. It saves taxpayers, like you, money.
That's a silly argument, polycarp. Than why was the push to get illegals amnesty?? Americans have contracepted and aborted their progeny (doesn't that get tiresome to hear??_) The advocates of abortion recognize the shortage of workers for tax money. Abortion is not a sign of benevolence. It's a great indicator of fear, lack of choices and hopelessness.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
GG, not all abortions are nicely paid for with tax dollars.
Does this warm your heart, polycarp?
quote:
Planned Parenthood Reports Record $882 Million Income, $63 Million Profit Abortion provider has received nearly $4 billion in taxpayers' money to date
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 8, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – America’s largest abortion provider brought in close to $900 million last year, and achieved its second largest profit ever, according to the organization’s 2004-2005 annual report.
The massive organization reported a record income of $882 million dollars and a profit of $63 million, reported PipeLineNews on Monday. Profits have nearly doubled since 2003, when the 2002-2003 annual report indicated a profit of over $36 million dollars.
Planned Parenthood aborted more babies last year than in any previous year, ending the lives of more than 255,015 children by surgical abortion. That number doesn’t include the vast number of deaths caused by the sale of chemical abortion drugs, the morning after pill and abortifacient contraceptives, a major source of Planned Parenthood’s income.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
With regard to mixing proverbial apples and oranges: I think that a considered opinion deserves a listen. . . how few people (me2) (Thom's a world leader in thisreally listen! My specific advice is that an abortion for any woman gives her privacy, and a 'moment' to breath before resuming the rat-race. This is more or less a deductive argument. If you said garbage...well you might be 100% right. But that tax dollars-or any dollars are well spent, may be one of those things i.e. more or less strong. Lacking a taking someone for what they say, one of these ways or the other, and you have something less 'relevant' and noones to blame-for anything, and/or someone's to blame for everything!
Posts: 582 | Location: New York City | Registered: 13 February 2007
My specific advice is that an abortion for any woman gives her privacy, and a 'moment' to breath before resuming the rat-race.
You sound intelligent; but you're misinformed. Are you going to stay stuck in your misinformation?
What about the baby GoodBusiness? You fail to remember a baby dies in every abortion. It will not do to give the new euphemisms of the day of what is going on with the conceptualized cells growing in the mother's womb. You know it, and we all know that a baby is growing. Let the process continue and in 9 months a new unrepeatable gift of a new person is given to the world.
Each new person born is an expression of love. You and all of us have a grave responsibility to protect ALL life from conception to natural death. Human beings do not have the authority to put to death the unborn. What needs to be put to death are immoral behaviors.
Men are called to defend women and children. Men have been mandated to achieve heroic virtues. There is not a man alive who does not regret the loss of his children. There is not a female alive who does not regret the life she lost because she was not supported by the father to keep the child. It's most often the father's who fail to want the child.
Consider this: if the mother decides she does not want their child - the father has no rights under our current laws to save his own child from the abortionist knife. It's a shocking reality that the mother only has the right to give definition to the child in her womb. If she decides its a baby, the child lives. Based on the new bastions of femininity arguments, if the mother decides the conceptualized cells are something other than human, she can remove it from her womb. The red brigade will not tell her the increased risks to her health and well being for the rest of her life.
You condemn her to a life of misery and sufferings with your feeble excuses, GoodBusiness. You've not walked along side of a female who make the choice to kill her child(ren). She never fully recovers. Many want to say I'm condemning the person. Not so. I'm condemning the action. We've all fallen short, including ME. Forgiveness for the grave offense of abortion is the beginning of recovery.
Furthermore, women should sue the abortion doctors who failed to disclose her increased risk of breast cancer from abortion. www.silentnomore.org is an organization to contact for support. It is difficult for women to admit and to speak about why they had abortions. Listen to them, GoodBusiness. It will break your heart.
www.prolifejoes.com "We are pro-life, we are pro-women... and we regret our lost fatherhood"
I've been wanting to post on what is an abortifacient and the experience of it. I will do it soon in the "Contraception" thread.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
Hey! What baby? Have you had an abortion, or did you have a baby after considering modern surgery?! Anyway, you reject my argument, and instead suggest that a woman is treated with abortion, and then leads a life of 'misery and sufferings'. Well, isn't it more likely that an adult who has a choice about her body, is likely to make the right decision, AND aren't we all a miserable, suffering bunch anyway? Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
Posts: 582 | Location: New York City | Registered: 13 February 2007
Neo-cons give "lip service" to things to get peoples votes. The votes to enrich their coporate sponsers. Abortions cut down on welfare costs. Supporting Planned Parenthood gets them a good return on their money.
Abortions cost less than the financial assistance some people would require to raise their child....so they vote funds for Planned Parenthood abortions and cut family assistance costs. Simple. Vote conservative...kill a baby. New campaign slogan.
You tend to be a little naive sometimes. Keep reading the posts, and that may change.
Retired Monk "Ideology is a disease"
Posts: 3412 | Location: denver co | Registered: 17 April 2007
Anyway, you reject my argument, and instead suggest that a woman is treated with abortion, and then leads a life of 'misery and sufferings'. Well, isn't it more likely that an adult who has a choice about her body, is likely to make the right decision, AND aren't we all a miserable, suffering bunch anyway? Ouch! Ouch!
You fail to protect women with this argument. As the saying goes, "We have NOT come along way, baby". More than ever women are used and the feminist red brigade has alot to answer in their failure to be protectors of their sisters. That also includes men who have fallen for the propaganda that abortion is a right and has no consequences. Abortion is the MOST dangerous surgery performed and the industry gets away with no regulations.
As far as the profits that polycarp mentioned were as a result of the Republican Party, I am aware of the spiney lingueenies in the party. We have two RINOs in Maine who advocate for women's right to kill their baby without failure on each related policy. One even dares to call herself a Catholic.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
I don't have a clue what GG is talking about! Why don't you get out more? Why do you 'screw people' on-line? 1)if she had paid for an abortion at one point, that would not be abnormal, and so why make indirect references to it 2) if it was a bad experience, was it before the law permitted it with a pro? and why not talk about it? help those who are considering abortion, ask themselves the right questions! First a 'baby' then a song, '...baby...', next a Broadway Show entitled, "Baby". I wouldn't buy a ticket with you!
Posts: 582 | Location: New York City | Registered: 13 February 2007
Originally posted by GoodBusiness: I don't have a clue what GG is talking about! Why don't you get out more? Why do you 'screw people' on-line? 1)if she had paid for an abortion at one point, that would not be abnormal, and so why make indirect references to it 2) if it was a bad experience, was it before the law permitted it with a pro? and why not talk about it? help those who are considering abortion, ask themselves the right questions! First a 'baby' then a song, '...baby...', next a Broadway Show entitled, "Baby". I wouldn't buy a ticket with you!
I'm also having a difficult time connecting with you, GoodBusiness. But one thing I can say about this post is that for the most part, abortions were safer before R vs. W. 1973. I don't expect you to take my word for that, but one source is "The Cost of "Choice" - Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion , edited by Erika Bachiochi.
quote:
help those who are considering abortion, ask themselves the right questions!
EXACTLY! Give women informed choices, better alternatives, hope in giving life, the truth about what is forming in her body, and stop the cover up by the National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, Susan Komen - pink money organizations, CDC, medical profession who "does harm" in each abortion.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
Motherhood - "Blessed is the fruit of her womb" has a very lofty ideal. Each child formed in the mother's womb has a new created soul emanated by God. Physiologically motherhood is the cooperation with God to give the world a new unrepeatable gift of a child.
God fathered the child's soul and designed a woman to clothe the child in the safety of her womb -a new person made to the image and likeness of God. Every child born has two fathers. Their earthly biological father without whom the child could not have life and their heavenly Father without whom the child could not possess an irreplaceable personality and soul, an irreplaceable "I". The mother is the essential parent through whom both fathers work.
The mother's selfless sacrifice is her nature. Motherhood has an enduring capacity. He mind, soul, and spirit share in the Calvary of motherhood recognized in her endless sacrifices day in and day out until her children are on their own.
Unconsciously she participates with and is in partnership with the One who created her. She brings God to man by her acceptance of her body of motherhood carrying a newly infused soul within her body. She sacrificially accepts the labor of child birth to bring man to God.
It takes three to make love.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
Originally posted by GoodBusiness: GG you don't love yourself; abortion is the law of the land love it or leave it
The black robed judicial tyrants did all Americans a grave injustice by violating our AMerican documents. Your silence is your witness to being an accomplice to genocide of our black brothers and sisters, to gendercide of female babies in the womb, and to aborticide of little brothers and sisters are no concern to you.
Who's going to protect you when they come for you?
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
Originally posted by GoodBusiness: GG you don't love yourself; abortion is the law of the land love it or leave it
We are called to love others AS we love ourselves. If we will not speak for those who have no voice, than we are despicable human beings. We all began as a zygote. Our mothers loved enough to give us life. Should we not defend all those who are sent to us?
It is NOT the loving thing to do - to be silent on the slaughter of these babies who have committed no crime and to give rights to a segment of society to condemn these babies. NO "I" WILL NOT LEAVE IT!!! You're copin' out obviously! Who's going to protect you when they come for you?
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
Originally posted by GoodBusiness: What's the difference, GG?
Does this help?
The opera "Adriana Mater" opened in Paris of this year, I think. The title character, Adriana Mater is raped by a soldier from her own war-torn village. After she finds out she is pregnant, she rebuffs the advice of her sister Rekfa to have an abortion. When her sister chastises her for bearing the child of a monster, Adriana replies passionately,
"It is not his child, Rekfa, it is mine."
A sign of the springtime towards the culture of life, don't you think?
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
Millions of women have been hurt by coercion and other forms of abuse and by the trauma of abortion: physically, psychologically, and socially. Many have been unjustly pressured or forced into unwanted abortions, or endured mistreatment before, during, and after abortion. Abortion is linked with higher rates of depression, suicide, substance abuse, and other forms of emotional trauma.5
Physical effects include risks to future fertility and an increase in premature births, which are the leading cause of death and disability among newborns.6
(Reversing the Gender Gap: Being Pro-Woman and Pro-Life, Part I, Eliot Institute, 9/25/07)
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
None of the living outside the mother's womb have body parts torn to pieces; nor have their bodies burned by saline; and nor have their brains suctioned and heads collapsed.
You hide behind children. That is such a tiresome ploy of the Democrats who contracept and abort their own children - abort their progeny.
The ploy to want health care for children is to control, bankrupt and redistribute Americans hard earned money. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the welfare of children. If it were so than Democrats would be saving children's lives in the womb first. Democrats should vomit over the fact that in the U.S. alone because of the sacrament of abortion in the party, 3000 Americans are thrown to the garbage heap DAILY.
Go to heaven, AJ, and quit hiding behind children and quit putting women at great risk with each abortion and with the use of birth control pills that increase their chances of liver, cervical and breast cancer. What about the women, AJ?? You hiding behind them also??
Hey, AJ, if we don't win the war in Iraq these issues will no longer be decided by democracy. Smoke that !
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
Canada's Pro-Abortion Laws Must Tackle Violence Against Pregnant Women
by Father Raymond J. de Souza October 28, 2007
..
On Tuesday, a 17-year-old man was sentenced to six years in prison and four years probation for killing Roxanne Fernando in Winnipeg last February. It is the maximum possible youth sentence for murder.
Roxanne was pregnant at the time of her killing. Indeed, she was murdered because she chose to remain pregnant. The Winnipeg court was told that she was killed because she refused to have an abortion. It is not clear whether her killer was the baby's father, or acting on behalf of someone else. There are two other men still to face trial.
The news comes just after the release last Friday of an Environics poll, commissioned by LifeCanada, about Canadian opinions on laws that would punish fetal injuries or homicide. The poll of more than 2000 Canadians (margin of error +/- 2.2%) showed that 72% would support legislation making it a separate crime to injure or kill a fetus during a criminal act against the mother.
Amongst women, the support was slightly higher, at 75%. Canada does not have any law that makes it crime to injure or kill the child during an attack on the mother. The United States has a federal “Unborn Victims of Violence Act” that was signed into law in 2004 by President Bush.
Known as “Laci and Conner’s Law,” it was enacted after the murder of Laci Peterson, eight-months pregnant with her son Conner, by her husband. The case brought to global attention the dual victims of such violence.
In the Peterson case, the apparent motive of the killer was that he did not want to be encumbered by a wife and child. In the Winnipeg case, the motive offered to the court is rather more startling. Someone — youth cases are shrouded in secrecy — did not want the child to see the light of day, hence the demand for the abortion.
When Roxanne refused, the surest way to kill the child was to kill the mother too. Roxanne’s unborn baby was not, as it were, an innocent bystander. The baby was the direct target, and the killing of Roxanne was the means. Yet the law, silent as it is on unborn victims of violence, must pretend in this case that it was the other way around. The punishment is for killing Roxanne; there is none for killing the child.
The current silence of the law simply ignores the reality of what takes place. In Edmonton in 2005, Olivia Talbot was six months pregnant when her killer shot her once in the head, and three times in the abdomen, ensuring that both mother and child were dead. The law saw only one victim, thought the circumstances of the crime made it apparent that the killer had two victims in mind. Olivia’s mother has since become a vocal supporter of an “unborn victims of violence” act.
Such an act was proposed in the federal parliament in 2006 as a private members‚ bill. The bill never got to a vote in the House of Commons, as it was judged at the committee stage to be unconstitutional, lacking as it did appropriate provisions for determining criminal intent.
But it is not impossible to craft a law that addresses the necessary legal issues dealing with knowledge and intent. Parliament could try again.
To be sure, protecting unborn victims of violence requires a certain legal precision, lest the law also protect them from being aborted. The legislator who wishes to preserve the abortion option for the mother has to be careful that the law protecting the child from violence to the mother does not also proscribe violence from the mother. Such are the demands of the unlimited abortion license.
The desire to maintain our permissive abortion regime should not prevent the criminal law from addressing the reality of crimes against pregnant women. A crime against an expectant mother is something different — there is real trauma to the mother, if she survives the violence, resulting from the injury or death to her child — to say nothing of the child.
The Roxanne Fernando case makes it all the more clear; without the child, there would have been no crime. The law should not have to pretend otherwise. http://www.lifenews.com/int498.html
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
... My life will never be the same again. I feel as if I have died with her, too. One will never know until it happens to them. I have gone through a tough life, being poor, and raised five children on my own. I didn't have a good life until my daughter sponsored me and "Apple" (Roxanne's nickname) to live with her here in Canada. I thought it would be the beginning of a new and good life, and not the end of it.
I didn't have the chance to say goodbye. She looked so happy when she left the house that night, all dolled up and carrying a Valentine present that we wrapped together. I jokingly asked if I can have one of the presents she had.
I thought that was going to be one of the happiest days of my daughter's life. She even asked me to look out the window to see if I could see the car that was waiting for her outside. I said I could only see the headlights. I didn't know that would be the last time I was going to see and talk to my daughter.
I feel so betrayed by this and regret that I let her go out that night. She had no idea she was in danger. I have so much regret and always the question of "What if?" My feelings of hurting are beyond imagination. I could write and speak about being hurt, but it will never end.
ANA MARIA DELUZ, sister of Roxanne Fernando
I remember when she was born. It was a very special date because I was celebrating my birthday. I was with my aunt, cousins and brothers celebrating when I found out my mom had given birth to a healthy baby girl.
It made by birthday extra special because I found out I had a baby sister. I will never, ever forget that day because that's how my life of being a big sister began.
I became a second mother to her. I took her under my wing, took care of her from the very beginning, since our mother had to work a lot. I have so many loving memories of her, from registering her first grade of school until graduating from elementary. I watched her grow up and that became part of my life and now that she's gone, it's like losing a part of myself.
I miss her so much that I'm still hoping one day she'll walk through the door with a big beautiful smile on her face. She was the kind of person that would brighten up the house, always dancing and singing.
She was a very caring person, too, always ready to lend a helping hand to those she loved, especially her family back home who she supported financially.
...There are absolutely no words to describe how it feels when someone you truly love is unjustly taken away in an instant. I am not who I used to be and probably never will be. There is a big hole in my heart, and my family's heart.
I am now left with only memories of my sister and no words to adequately describe the depths of my sorrow. I not only lost a sister, but an irreplaceable friend. We knew each other like no one else does, and had an understanding that only sisters can provide each other.
I have this feeling of regret because I brought her to Canada. I remember crying in front of a judge for permission for her to be able to live here so that she could have a better life. Now I am crying in front of a judge because her life was taken.
quote:
Price to kill: $500 and a TV 17-year-old boy gets 6 years after killing woman who refused abortion
Wed Oct 24 2007, WPG Free Press
By Mike McIntyre
A giddy Roxanne Fernando thought she was going to swap Valentine's Day gifts with her sweetheart. Instead, the 24-year-old Winnipegger known affectionately as "Apple" was the victim of a murder plot that began with her refusal to have an abortion and ended days later with her battered body buried in a snowbank.
The facts behind Fernando's February 2007 killing emerged for the first time Tuesday as one of her alleged killers admitted his role.
The 17-year-old was given the maximum youth sentence -- six years of prison and four years of probation -- for what was described in court as a "callous, well-planned execution."
"The circumstances of this crime are extremely aggravating. (The teen killer's) conduct is completely inexplicable," provincial court Judge Marvin Garfinkel said.
The killer -- who can't be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act -- cut a deal to plead guilty to the most serious charge in the Criminal Code.
In exchange, the Crown agreed not to try to raise him to adult court where he would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years upon conviction.
The only issue Garfinkel had to determine Tuesday is what portion of the youth's decade-long penalty should be served behind bars.
Garfinkel agreed with the Crown's request for the maximum of six years. Defence lawyer Marty Minuk had requested just three years of prison followed by seven years of probation for his client, who had no prior criminal record.
The youth made a quick apology in court to Fernando's family, who sat weeping as Crown attorney Brent Davidson read the facts of the case.
"I'm so sorry, even if this apology seems hollow. She deserved much better and this ordeal has been unfair to her. I hope God blesses Roxanne's family," the youth said.
Davidson said the man wasn't remorseful when he was overheard in jail following his arrest talking about how he should have "raped" Fernando after her killing.
"His moral compass is so out of whack," Davidson said.
Fernando had learned she was pregnant weeks before her death. The father was her boyfriend. The two met when they worked together at a McDonald's restaurant on Main Street.
"She thought this was the man of her dreams," Davidson told court.
Fernando was pressured to terminate her pregnancy and initially agreed. She later had a "change of heart" and that set in motion a chilling chain of events, he said.
"It would be the fetus that would drive the planned and deliberate killing of Ms. Fernando," Davidson said.
The youth was offered $500 and a 32-inch television to carry out the act. He initially refused, but began participating in the plot, Davidson said.
A meeting was set up on Feb. 15 -- the day after Valentine's Day -- in which Fernando had expected to exchange gifts with her boyfriend.
She wrapped a box of chocolates and got into a waiting car -- unaware that the youth was hiding under a blanket in the back seat, Davidson said.
He had also participated in an earlier trip to the store to buy supplies, including leather gloves and rolls of tape.
Fernando was driven to Little Mountain Park on the northwestern edge of the city on the guise there was a "surprise" waiting there for her.
While en route, Fernando revealed details of a recent dream.
"It was of seeing her own obituary," Davidson told court. "There's a belief she may have unconsciously been aware of the fate that awaited her." The youth sprung out from under the blanket and began attacking Fernando at the isolated park, along with a second man.
Fernando was hit with a wrench up to 20 times, bound with tape and wrapped in a blanket before being stuffed in the trunk of the car.
It was thought she was dead. But as the car began driving away, sounds could be heard coming from the rear.
"There was a realization Roxanne Fernando was still alive. They could hear moaning," Davidson said.
Panic set in and a third accused was picked up and paid $120 to assist in Fernando's killing.
The youth had taken the money out of Fernando's purse as she lay dying in the trunk, Davidson said.
Fernando was taken to a remote area near Mollard Road and Ritchie Street in northwest Winnipeg and repeatedly beaten with a broken hockey stick until she was obviously dead.
"The beating was long lasting and extreme," Davidson said.
Her body was then buried in a snow ditch. Fernando's killers went to McDonald's for a bite to eat, stopped at Safeway for some cleaning supplies for the vehicle and then text-messaged at least one of Fernando's friends -- using her cellphone -- indicating all was well.
"This was sheer callousness," Davidson said.
Fernando's friends and family members launched a desperate search that included distributing posters and peppering the Internet with her photo and police contact information by sending e-mail alerts to hundreds of people.
Her body was discovered several days later.
The death of Fernando's unborn baby didn't result in an additional murder charge because Canadian law, unlike the United States and other countries, doesn't recognize a fetus as a living being.
Fernando and her family had come to Canada from the Philippines in 2003. She had been working as a banquet server at the downtown Radisson Hotel.
Two adult co-accused, Nathanael Mark Plourde, 19, and Jose Manuel Toruno, 19, remain before the courts.
They are presumed innocent and none of the allegations against them has been proven. No preliminary hearing or trial dates have been set and the facts being presented against the youth have no bearing on their status.
Do you think six years is an adequate sentence for the teen who murdered pregnant Winnipeg woman Roxanne Fernando?
Yes 5 %
No 95 %
Total Votes: 1681
quote:
Federal law saves killer from serving 25 years: Crown
Wed Oct 24 2007, WPG Free Press
By Mike McIntyre MANITOBA justice officials say the weak-kneed Youth Criminal Justice Act is to blame for cutting a deal with a 17-year-old killer that spared him from facing adult sanctions.
Prosecutor Brent Davidson told court Tuesday the case against Roxanne Fernando's killer was strong and would have likely resulted in a conviction on a charge of first-degree murder if it had gone to trial.
"This (deal) is not the result of any deficiencies in the Crown's case," he said.
Instead, Davidson took aim at the much-maligned Youth Criminal Justice Act that he said makes it nearly impossible to force killers -- such as Fernando's -- to be raised to adult court.
"Only the imposition of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, with all its deficiencies, is saving this youth from a life sentence with no chance of parole for a very long time," Davidson said.
As an adult, he would be given an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
As a youth, he will be released from custody before he turns 24.
The maximum sentence of six years in custody will be followed by four years of probation. He could be sent back to prison if he violates any conditions.
A court-ordered pre-sentence report found the teen a "low-risk" to re-offend despite committing one of the most chilling murders in recent Winnipeg history. That's because he has no prior record, has strong family and community supports and the fact he's finished high school and has been employed.
Davidson said that means this case just isn't "exceptional enough to take it out of the youth range" despite aggravating factors surrounding Fernando's slaying.
Federal Conservative Justice Minister Rob Nicholson recently announced plans to strengthen the YCJA by putting greater focus on "deterrence and denunciation" as sentencing principles.
Since the act became law in April 2003, rehabilitation has been the main focus. That has resulted in numerous controversial sentences -- including one day in jail for a Winnipeg teen who killed a man with a pool ball wrapped in a sock.
Nicholson said there will also be a full-scale review of the YCJA launched next year in which input will be sought from all provinces.
The Supreme Court is also preparing to hear arguments on the issue of raising youths to adult court to receive adult penalties.
was the victim of a murder plot that began with her refusal to have an abortion and ended days later with her battered body buried in a snowbank.
Thank you for the added information.
Unfortunately, the mother is one of many mothers who put their life in extreme danger when they love enough to desire life for her baby. She also is affirming the father - but the father was inadequately prepared to love enough to save his own baby.
It is so bazaar that society gives youth the go ahead to be foolishly reckless with sex, but when that dreaded baby is conceived, the real nature of our incestuous society rears its ugly head.
* * * * * * * * Without traditional regular moral principles that may be consulted confidently, justice cannot long endure anywhere.
Posts: 6275 | Location: Maine | Registered: 31 December 2005
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Discussion Community 
This remarkable photograph of a tiny fetus in its unruptured amniotic sac was taken after surgery for an ectopic pregnancy in 1972. This picture demonstrates the development of a baby at only six weeks after conception.
Weeks 13-16
20 week baby girl
Week 20
Week 24
Weeks 25 ? 28 
Weeks 29 ? 32
Weeks 38 ? 40 
really listen! My specific advice is that an abortion for any woman gives her privacy, and a 'moment' to breath before resuming the rat-race. This is more or less a deductive argument. If you said garbage...well you might be 100% right. But that tax dollars-or any dollars are well spent, may be one of those things i.e. more or less strong. Lacking a taking someone for what they say, one of these ways or the other, and you have something less 'relevant' and noones to blame-for anything, and/or someone's to blame for everything!
Ouch!
