Respect life at all stages

The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.” - Matthew 25:40

An unborn baby (fetus) has a measurable heartbeat at approximately 21 days and active brainwaves at 40 days. When there is no longer a heartbeat or brainwaves, we call this 'death.” And when a person has a heartbeat and brainwaves, we call this 'life.”

It is an egregious falsehood to claim, 'it's not a human, it's just a fetus.” If that be true, one could then say, 'It's not a human, it's just an infant,” or 'It's not a human, it's just an adolescent.” Complete falsehoods are all three.

The proper answer to these assertions should be, 'Sure, it's a fetus, sure it's an infant and sure it's an adolescent. It's a human fetus, a human infant and a human adolescent.” All three are simply stages of development in the human life cycle. Every human being begins as an embryo, becomes a fetus, is born an infant, develops into a child, grows into an adolescent, matures into adulthood and eventually dies. That is the cycle of life.

How could one say a human being is created at birth? Nothing is just created at birth. At birth, a fetus simply changes location and continues life's development under a whole new set of circumstances, but at no point does this child become something entirely new or different.

Life begins at conception and proceeds through his/her stages until death. From the moment of conception, the unborn child is a human being. No law or Supreme Court ruling can or ever will change that.

'The first person in the world to welcome Jesus, to recognize Him in the womb of His mother, was a child, John the Baptist. How wonderful, God chooses an unborn child to announce the coming of His redeeming son.” Mother Teresa

Can we ever change people's minds? You bet!

When the United States was new, there were no equal rights for women, blacks or minority groups and 'We the people” recognized this was wrong and that everyone is entitled to their basic rights as human beings - and the law was changed. Right is always right no matter if everyone is against it and wrong is wrong even if everyone is for it. Victories for freedom for all have been won and this battle can also be won.

In fact, it must be won. And now is the time.

What can you and I do? Well, there are many things but the very first is to get the subject back on the table of discussion. It's been swept away far too long. Bring it up in school; at Sunday school; when an elected official has a town meeting.

A baby's life depends on us.

Let me know what you think.

l John Sheda is pastor at Living Waters Church in Independence. Comments: jsheda@indytel.com or (319) 327-4640