Three things Christmas tells us about human life and dignity

Christians use the Christmas holiday to remember and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. This event (apart from everything else it entails) provides a number of insights about human life and dignity. Here are three.

1. Each of us was once an unborn child. The Incarnation—the coming into the world of Christ—did not happen in the manger. It happened some nine months earlier. This is what the facts of human embryology and developmental biology tell us, and it is what the scriptural accounts affirm.

Mary is said to be "with child" (Matthew 1:18) upon Jesus being "conceived ... from the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 1:20). Earlier, Mary is told she will "conceive in [her] womb ... a son, [to be named] Jesus" (Luke 1:31), who even before birth is called a "child ... [who] will be called holy—the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). Luke 1:41-44 recounts that the unborn John the Baptist (who was probably in his sixth month) "leaped for joy" in his mother's womb when he entered the presence of the unborn Jesus (who was probably a very young embryo at the time).

Jesus began his earthly existence as an embryo and fetus. So did all of us.

2. The weak and vulnerable matter just as much as the strong and independent. God himself chose to enter the world in the most vulnerable condition possible: as a tiny embryo, and then a fetus, and then a newborn baby lying in a manger. This turned ancient "might makes right" morality on its head. It suggests that human dignity is not determined by age, size, power or independence.

3. Human life is extraordinarily valuable. Christmas is part of God's larger plan to rescue humanity because He loves us (John 3:16). Jesus was born so that we might live. From this Christian perspective, God considers human life to be immensely precious and worth saving at tremendous cost. "Christian belief in the Incarnation is thus inseparable from belief in the objective, and even transcendent, value of the human race as a whole, and of each human person as an individual," writes Carson Holloway.

Christmas proves that human beings matter. All of them, at all stages of their lives—including the youngest and most vulnerable.

MCCL News available online

The November-December issue of MCCL News is now available on our website. It includes stories on the emerging threat of assisted suicide, MCCL's upcoming March for Life and Legislative Dinner, the 2014 elections, and more.

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Minnesota taxpayers have funded 65,000 abortions since 1995

The following news release was issued on Dec. 15, 2014.

ST. PAUL — More than 65,000 unborn babies have been killed in Minnesota with taxpayer funds since a Dec. 15, 1995, Minnesota Supreme Court ruling required taxpayers to fund abortions, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Services (MDHS). The Doe v. Gomez ruling established the most extreme abortion-on-demand state policy in the nation.

"The Doe v. Gomez decision by a handful of activist judges has been disastrous for Minnesota women and their unborn babies,” said Scott Fischbach, Executive Director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL). "On this 19th anniversary of the decision, Minnesotans continue to believe it is not the mission of the state to abort thousands of innocent unborn children each year, yet that is exactly what is happening under this radical ruling."

The Supreme Court's Doe v. Gomez decision established a new state constitutional "right" to abortion on demand. This supposed right would remain protected by the state Constitution even if Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion in the United States, were to be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Doe v. Gomez allows abortions for reasons such as "stress" or "discomfort." It forbids the state to "interfere" in any way with a woman's "decision making" regarding abortion.

Doe v. Gomez also obligates the state—and thus, taxpayers—to pay for abortions, something not required by the U.S. Supreme Court. From June 1994 (under an earlier decision) through 2012, state taxpayers paid more than $20.7 million for 65,823 abortions, according to MDHS. In 2012 alone (the most recent statistics available), state taxpayers paid $822,000 for 3,571 abortions (MDHS). The state does not report how many women have been hurt or killed from these abortions.

While the total number of abortions in the state is declining gradually, taxpayer funding of elective abortions has risen most years since 1995. Minnesota taxpayers now pay for 34.8 percent of all abortions performed in the state—the highest percentage ever.

"This is not the will of the majority of Minnesotans, who oppose abortion on demand," Fischbach said. "The Court took away the people's ability to decide whether they want abortion on demand in the state and whether they should be required to pay for others' elective abortions. After 19 years, it's time for the Supreme Court to revisit this wrongly decided ruling."

How we know that the unborn is a human being

Here's how we know that the unborn (the human embryo or fetus developing in utero) is a living human organism—a member of the species Homo sapiens.

• We know that the unborn is living because he or she (sex has been genetically determined) is growing through cellular reproduction, metabolizing food into energy, and responding to stimuli. So the unborn meets the biological criteria for life.

• We know that the unborn is human because she has human DNA. She is also the offspring of human parents, and living beings reproduce after their own kind (e.g., humans only beget humans). So the unborn is biologically human.

• We know that the unborn is a whole (albeit immature) organism, not a mere part (like a skin cell or the sperm and egg) of someone else, because she is actively developing via a self-directed process through the different stages of life—embryo, fetus, infant, child, adolescent, adult—as an individual member of the species. She needs only a suitable environment and nutrition to develop herself to maturity.

• Finally, we know that the unborn is a living human organism because the embryology textbooks and other relevant scientific authorities tell us so. "[F]ertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is formed," explains Human Embryology & Teratology. The authors of The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology write, "Human development begins at fertilization when a sperm fuses with an oocyte to form a single cell, a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual."

That's how we know beyond any doubt that the unborn is a human being in the biological sense. She is a living organism of the species Homo sapiens, the same kind of being as each of us, only at an earlier developmental stage.

The important question for our society is an ethical one: How should we treat these young human beings? Do they deserve the same kind of respect and protection as the other members of our species? Do all human beings have a right to life, or do only some?