{"id":60786,"date":"2016-02-27T07:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-27T14:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=60786"},"modified":"2016-02-26T16:14:47","modified_gmt":"2016-02-26T23:14:47","slug":"potential-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2016\/02\/27\/potential-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Apology: Potential Life?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In\u00a0January there was the annual “March For Life” in Washington DC. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go this year, but thanks to Facebook, I got to defend life in a different way, through Facebook. Many of my pro-life friends posted about the March on Facebook, and these posts were not without their detractors…<\/p>\n

\"unborn\"<\/p>\n

The Objection<\/h2>\n

As I browsed my newsfeed, one objection which was made repeatedly was some variation of the following:<\/p>\n

“The fetus is a potential<\/span> life”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Is this true? How might we respond to this statement?
\n<\/p>\n

The response<\/h2>\n

The Meaning of words<\/h3>\n

Statements like\u00a0“The fetus is a potential life”<\/span><\/em>\u00a0really\u00a0make very little sense when one considers the meaning of the words used.\u00a0The word “fetus”<\/span><\/em> simply denotes the stage of development of, in this case, a human being. But what does it mean to be “a potential life”<\/span><\/em>? When I hear people use a phrase like this, I press them for an explanation as to\u00a0what that phrase actually means<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The phrase “potential life”<\/em><\/span> can’t refer to biological life since, under normal circumstances, an unborn child in her\u00a0mother’s womb will be alive. In fact, it is the very fact that the fetus is alive which the abortionist seeks to change.<\/p>\n

Potential X, Actual Y<\/h3>\n

To describe the unborn as “potential life”<\/span><\/em>, of course, begs a very important question. If a fetus is “a potential<\/span> life”<\/em><\/span> (whatever that means), what is it\u00a0now<\/strong>“? After all, you can only be a\u00a0potential X<\/strong>, if you’re an\u00a0actual Y<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

When I posed\u00a0this question in recent exchanges, I did not receive an answer…<\/p>\n

Being<\/span> Potential vs Having<\/span> Potential<\/h3>\n

Earlier this year I was speaking to a pro-choice advocate who gave a slight variation on this objection.\u00a0Rather than saying that a fetus “is<\/strong> potential life”<\/span><\/em>, he told me that it\u00a0“has<\/strong> potential life”<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

In response to this,\u00a0I pointed out that, at\u00a0that very moment, he too<\/strong> had “potential life”<\/span><\/em>. He had the possibility of continued existence and this sustained\u00a0life was dependent upon his being\u00a0given (a) time<\/strong>, (b) adequate nutrition<\/strong> and (c) an safe\u00a0environment<\/strong> in which to live. I said that, given these conditions, he would most likely grow from adulthood into old age.<\/p>\n

I then pointed out that the exact same thing is true for a\u00a0fetus. If the fetus is given (a) time<\/strong>, (b) nutrition<\/strong> via the umbilical cord and (c) a safe environment<\/strong>\u00a0in the womb, that it too would transition from one stage of human development (“fetus”) to another (“infant”).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In\u00a0January there was the annual “March For Life” in Washington DC. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go this year, but thanks to Facebook, I got to defend life in a different way, through Facebook. Many of my pro-life friends posted about the March on Facebook, and these posts were not without their detractors… The Objection As I browsed my newsfeed, one objection<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,17],"tags":[232,2969,19,1569,1728,1601],"class_list":["post-60786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-faith","tag-abortion","tag-featured","tag-life","tag-potential","tag-pro-choice","tag-pro-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/unborn-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60786"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61080,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60786\/revisions\/61080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}