Is a fetus like a seed—something dormant ready to become life, but not life itself?
The truth (these photographs are difficult to view, because the fetus does not look like a seed):
http://www.abortioninstruments.com/
http://www.abortionno.org/
http://www.priestsforlife.org/images/index.aspx,
If you are not ready to look at imagery of abortion or if you think they might be hoaxes, you can go to any site that shows images or contain descriptions of fetal development, like The Endowment for Human Development or any other you wish.
But let’s suppose for a minute that the argument is right, that a baby is somehow a “seed”. Would this make abortion acceptable?
If you read a science book or go online to search plant life cycles, you are going to have a hard time finding the following concept: “A flower begins its life cycle as a flower.” What you will find is this idea instead: “A flower begins its life cycle as a seed.”
Again, you would have trouble finding: “A tree begins its life cycle as a sapling” and you would have an easy time finding, “A tree begins its life cycle as a seed.”
We learn these plant concepts in elementary school.
We know from gardening that seeds grow in soil not because the soil makes them alive, but because the soil provides nutrients they need to develop. A seed is not a dead thing.
This teacher’s website has a very simple illustration of the inside of a seed showing the food and baby plant inside.
Some people prefer to use the word embryo. Whatever you choose to call it, it is a life, already established, waiting to grow. No condition is needed for the seed to become alive, because it is already alive. You would flunk a (serious) science test if you wrote that an embryo needs soil, water, and sunlight to come to life. An embryo does need soil, water, and sunlight—that much is true—but not to come to life.
An embryo needs support not just because it is a very fragile, very young little plant, but because it is a plant.
All plants have to have soil, water, and sunlight to grow.
An embryo is certainly more delicate than an adult, but that doesn’t make it less alive, that just makes it weaker.
Going by that argument, all baby plants, including saplings, are weaker than their fully developed counterparts and must therefore be “not alive” or “less alive”. If that is so, why do we find a new sprout from a plant so exciting and why do so many environmentalists focus on this new sprout as a symbol of renewal and peace?
Isn’t it interesting that so many humans plant seeds?
I like gardens.
Again [Jesus] said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.” (Mark 4:30-32, NIV)
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Photograph by Dyogi, profile on http://www.flickr.com/people/30014417@N04/
Photograph is under Creative Commons License.
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