Abortion And Birth Control Wrong At Al Cases

[eperez874]

it is not the matter what i say it is right that is society's idea but we are getting now off topic
now i do not nkow what homosexuals has to do with this topic.

now try this

"I heard Natural Law compared to the example of traffic lights. Traffic lights do not judge right or wrong, they are there just to perform a function. Nobody stands around to enforce the right or wrong use of traffic lights, that would be defeating the purpose of having traffic lights."
that is not a true theory because there must be right and wrong
trafic lights won't help society to move on it will forever stay red
because we are stopping creation.

what are you saying eperez874 this does not make sense?

yes it does let me explain why?

1-because human is born with a soul there is no such thing as re- encarnation
2- red is forever because once you stop creation of a baby there is no other one that will substitute the same baby.
3- what is unnatural to our bodies is forbidden by God
because we are temple of the holy spirit


now for number 3 (what about the medecines does that count as unnatural because it is man made?) wrong becxause this one has the purpose to save a life. the other is to destroy if you called it a "cell"
or at least stop it which is not a desease.

inside the mother the baby still have's a soul.

[carrdero]

[quote]Esperez874 writes: that is not a true theory because there must be right and wrong
trafic lights won't help society to move on it will forever stay red
because we are stopping creation.[/quote]
The example of traffic lights was the closest human example I can present. True, when traffic lights malfunction someone is usually on loction to repair the problem. The perfection of Natural Law was designed so that it would not have to monitered and would not have to be repaired on the creator’s end. There are not too many human examples that fit this description.

[quote]Esperez874 writes:
1-because human is born with a soul there is no such thing as re- encarnation[/quote]
And what if that soul wants to experience another physical existence after experiencing a human one? I believe the soul was designed to be recycled.

[quote]Esperez874 writes:
2- red is forever because once you stop creation of a baby there is no other one that will substitute the same baby.[/quote]

I may need more clarification about this.

[quote]Esperez874 writes:
3- what is unnatural to our bodies is forbidden by God
because we are temple of the holy spirit[/quote]

There are no indications that when some things that are Unnatural are introduced to some thing that is Natural that it is an offense to GOD. When a man or a woman uses a contraceptive to prevent pregnancy they are not punished or sentenced for going against Nature. There is no force expended in real time to correct, amend or adjust this act against Nature. Human opinion and judgment can place sex contraceptives in the realm of being wrong or incorrect but it is only a human belief. Choosing how and what to believe is part of human nature or behavior.

[quote]Esperez874 writes:
now for number 3 (what about the medecines does that count as unnatural because it is man made?) wrong becxause this one has the purpose to save a life. the other is to destroy if you called it a "cell"
or at least stop it which is not a desease.[/quote]

Medicines are a very good example and one that may explain Natural or Unnatural better. Most medicines are very Unnatural and cause an imbalance to our bodies. I have experienced several cholesterol medicines and many of them seem to make my body feel DISeased. In fact, I do not suffer from cholesterol until I am prescribed these medicines that proclaim to prevent or lower it. My wife just decided to take birth control pills and the change over her personality and emotions has been quite evident. Sometimes medicines can be a constant compromise to what exactly one wants or doesn’t want out of life.

Edited September 24, 2007 by carrdero

[eperez874]

but then it is stoping life from growing with trafic lights theory
"There are no indications that when some things that are Unnatural are introduced to some thing that is Natural that it is an offense to GOD. When a man or a woman uses a contraceptive to prevent pregnancy they are not punished or sentenced for going against Nature. There is no force expended in real time to correct, amend or adjust this act against Nature. Human opinion and judgment can place sex contraceptives in the realm of being wrong or incorrect but it is only a human belief. Choosing how and what to believe is part of human nature or behavior."

of course we GOd punishes for something unnatural rewmeber thou shall not commint adultery nor impure acts and thou shall love thy neighbor as thy self.

then what would be the poiint of loving my neighbor if i suggest a girl to use birth control pills.
please explain.

"And what if that soul wants to experience another physical existence after experiencing a human one? I believe the soul was designed to be recycled."

but how could you say such things don't you belive afterlife
how come i am not my great grandfather if i was then i would know that my name is James Bernal probably i would speak german.
now if i say i belive in that then i dishonor my answersters because i am saying iam them not me.

[carrdero]

[quote]eperez874 writes: inside the mother the baby still have's a soul.[/quote]

I don’t know if you had managed to catch Post #47 or if you may have missed it but it is interesting and important enough to mention again.

[color="#000080"]THEOLOGIC OR RELIGIOUS FAITH BELIEF



This is best explained by considering three people who might state their respective beliefs as follows:

a) I believe in God. I believe He creates a soul. I believe the soul is created at conception. Therefore, I believe that human Life begins at conception.

b) I also believe in God and a soul but I don’t believe the soul is created (poster's note: or infused) until birth (or some other time). Therefore, I believe that human life begins at birth (or some other time).

c) I don’t believe in God or a soul.



Comment

- The above are statements of religious faith or its absence.

- None of the above religious faith beliefs can be factually proven.

- Each individual has a right to his or her own religious beliefs.

PHILOSOPHIC THEORIES



Human life can be defined by using a wide variety of philosophic beliefs and theories. These use social or psychological rationale which can involve biologic mileposts. Examples of philosophic definitions of when human life begins include the following: When there is consciousness; when there is movement; when there is brain function, or a heartbeat; when viable; at birth; when wanted; when there has been an exchange of love; when "humanized"; when this is a person (how-ever "person" is defined); if mentally or physically normal, etc.



Comment

While admittedly arrived at through a certain reasoning process, all of the above remain theories. None can be proven factually by science.

Each individual has a right to hold his own philosophic beliefs.

People of good will can and do differ completely on the correctness of any or all of the philosophic beliefs and theories mentioned.[/color]

The fact is, no one is absolutely sure when the soul becomes part of the living fetus. We can speculate but that doesn’t necessarily make it true.

[quote]eperez874 writes: but then it is stoping life from growing with trafic lights theory[/quote]

It would take an absence of traffic to stop my traffic light theory and too many people really enjoy “driving” and going to other places for that to happen.

[quote]eperez874 writes: of course we GOd punishes for something unnatural rewmeber thou shall not commint adultery nor impure acts and thou shall love thy neighbor as thy self.[/quote]

My father left my mother for the neighbor’s wife. I guess some people express neighborly love differently than others. Though GOD has never directly or indirectly punished my father for this “transgression”, my father’s love for my mother has never diminished.

[quote]eperez874 writes: then what would be the poiint of loving my neighbor if i suggest a girl to use birth control pills.
please explain.[/quote]

I personally would never suggest the practice of taking birth control pills to another woman. I have seen the psychological effects that it has produced with women in my previous REALationships and these side effects were very difficult to deal with. In the case of my wife, she never liked the usage of condoms or other contraceptives plus she had a medical condition where the doctor recommended that the birth control pill would correct this situation and it did.
Medicine really never solves all of one's medical problems; it just trades one problem while introducing one's body to another.
[quote]eperez874 writes: but how could you say such things don't you belive afterlife[/quote]
I do believe in the afterlife, I just do not believe in an afterlife of judgment and sentencing. All souls go to the spiritual realm after death and they can decide to stay in this realm or reincarnate into any other physical existence The choice and the experience is up to the individual and this belief offers the soul another chance to a human physical existence even if there is a fetus that has been scheduled for abortion.

Edited September 25, 2007 by carrdero

[Hashbrowns]

I'm very sorry that I haven't kept up with this debate.

Carrdero, quite honestly your beliefs seem to be a sort of modern paganism.

"That would probably be the one who created it. I believe that there were many creators who had a hand in designing Natural Law for this environment, not just GOD." And who would those beings be, and why would we believe them? Do you consider yourself to be one of them?

"Does Natural Law care that there have been more rules added? In some cases, apparently not."

Thessalonian says "Let me spell it out for you carrderro. You are not God and without him you have no basis for making any kind of a moral judgement, even a neutral one, saying that something is neither good nor bad because you don't know all the consequences. Anything you say is just a guess and what looks like a pure glass of water might have poison in it."

"When I “look” at GOD, I “look” directly at Him. This is the way I confront any entity. I do not look up at GOD because this will eventually strain my neck. When GOD looks at me, GOD does not look down at me because GOD remembers who I was and where I originally came from. If one thinks of themselves as lowly, than lowly is where you will always find them, if one thinks of themselves as equal, well then “the heavens are the limit” aren’t they?" Why are *you* capitalizing God, if you deem yourself to be equal with Him? most cultures don't capitalize "I".

Drink your own poison.

[carrdero]

[quote]Carrdero writes:
"That would probably be the one who created it. I believe that there were many creators who had a hand in designing Natural Law for this environment, not just GOD."[/quote]
[quote]Hashbrowns writes:Carrdero, quite honestly your beliefs seem to be a sort of modern paganism.
And who would those beings be, and why would we believe them? Do you consider yourself to be one of them?[/quote]

There could be two lines of thought. They could be either creations of GOD or they could be gods that have come into their own existence/awareness by themselves. Both examples would be equal to GOD. These same gods who have helped GOD create could very well have initiated the program to incarnate into a physical existence and could probably be you and/or me,


[quote]Hashbrowns writes: Why are *you* capitalizing God, if you deem yourself to be equal with Him? most cultures don't capitalize "I".[/quote]

I capitalize the word GOD to separate GOD as the first entity who existed. There have and will be other entities who claim to be God but when I speak of GOD, I am specifically referring to the first entity that existed.

Edited September 26, 2007 by carrdero

[thessalonian]

I come to the conclusion that carredero is just here to try and impress himself and/or us with BS. . I can't believe that he doesn't realize that the chances of what he believes (being unlike the beleifs of almost anyone else in the world) being true is so close to nil as to be not worth the time of day. Or maybe he's just yanking everybody's chain.

[Aloysius]

carrderro, you forgot the simpler option that is completely non-referential to God.

I believe that the soul is the principal of life, because "soul" comes from "anima" meaning "animating principal". Thus, when something is alive, it has a soul. When something is human, it has a human soul.

An embryo is both human and alive, it has a human soul.

A soul is not some ghost-in-the-machine; whenever the body is alive, that means it has a "soul"; there is no need to go into the question of whether a "soul" is even non-material or not.

Any beleif in a non-material soul which is not present during some period while the embryo/fetus is alive is a false beleif about souls. There is no evidence that any such "soul" like that exists at all, I don't beleive it does. Sure, the soul is an immaterial principal; it is evidenced solely by the presence of life.

Aquinas held that it started out from conception as a plant with a plant soul; turned into an animal with an animal soul; and finally became human with the infusion of a human soul. Modern science proves him wrong (his error was only in not having enough scientific information); we know that an embryo has human DNA, with all the information about that particular human, and that at no time is it either plant or animal, its DNA proves it is human. Thus it must have a human soul from the very moment it is alive.

One might say: oh, the sperm itself is alive. I answer that the sperm, containing the DNA from the man alone, is not a unique life but part of the man. The embryo, having unique human DNA and also being alive must also have a unique human soul, as the definition of soul is "the principal of life"

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1393502' date='Sep 26 2007, 03:33 PM']One might say: oh, the sperm itself is alive. I answer that the sperm, containing the DNA from the man alone, is not a unique life but part of the man. The embryo, having unique human DNA and also being alive must also have a unique human soul, as the definition of soul is "the principal of life"[/quote]This helped a thought generate in my feeble mind.

Considering all the natural and biological obstacles involved with one particular sperm making the journey to find a viable egg, penetrate the outershell, disolve, and then have the DNA from two people combine to form a "U"nique DNA sequence for a new person, then according to carrdero's 'natual law', at that time a unique creation is made. We can't determine if soul is created or imbued or not. It is beyond our ability to determine that there is no soul, just as it's beyond our ability to determine a soul is there.

Just from the point of view that we are 'intelligent children' playing at things we don't completely understand, we do have enough intelligence to admit we can't be sure that life (or animiation via a soul) does not occur at that moment. Why wouldn't it? Is the soul limited by number of cells? Is the soul determined by eye tissue, or does it only dwell in the brain and it's brain tissue? Why not animation of a soul at the instance that 'natural law' lined up in exactly the right way, right hormones, right PH, right enzymes, right proteins, that allows two seperate cells from two separate people combine with all the genetic code needed to create a new "U"niqe person.

(I thought carrdero would like the "U"nique word highlighted like that to emphasis the "you" in "U"nique. Clever, isn't it?)

[Socrates]

[quote name='Anomaly' post='1393635' date='Sep 26 2007, 04:34 PM'](I thought carrdero would like the "U"nique word highlighted like that to emphasis the "you" in "U"nique. Clever, isn't it?)[/quote]
Actually, I prefer YOUnique as it helps more clearly emphasize the "YOU."

After all, NO-thing bEATS w(ear)d SPELL-ing and CAP-IT-ALL-ization four May-KING COMpleat non-CENTS t(w)o BE(E) cLEVER and YOUnique.

[carrdero]

[quote]Alysious writes: carrderro, you forgot the simpler option that is completely non-referential to God.

I believe that the soul is the principal of life, because "soul" comes from "anima" meaning "animating principal". Thus, when something is alive, it has a soul. When something is human, it has a human soul.

An embryo is both human and alive, it has a human soul.[/quote]
I believe the embryo to be the car, not the driver. The embryo does not seem to possess personality or individuality and most of the movements inside the womb could be attributed to the mother’s thoughts and reflexes or Natural movement. Before the mother gives the car (body) to her child (soul) she may fill the gas tank, pay for any immediate repairs, customizing and restorations and even possibly observe all the different features but until the child comes “home” and she gives this child the keys and let’s them drive off by themselves it is still her and Nature’s car. I believe that birth pains are the signaling of the soul arriving. I am not doubting that whatever is growing inside the mother has the expectation to become a full fledge human “BEing” and it is probably wonderful to speculate on the life and contributions of what another human life could add to our culture and society but a car without a driver is just a car, a car that stays parked in the garage and doesn’t accumulate any mileage.

[quote]Alysious writes: A soul is not some ghost-in-the-machine; whenever the body is alive, that means it has a "soul"; there is no need to go into the question of whether a "soul" is even non-material or not.[/quote]
No there isn’t but there are some interesting documented cases of chickens and humans twitching or displaying body movement even after declaration of death. We do not reason that this body is still alive, do we? I do not believe that there is a soul in this vessel but that this is a by product of the body naturally coming to terms with death. The same relation may be compared to embryonic movement.

[quote]Alysious writes: Any beleif in a non-material soul which is not present during some period while the embryo/fetus is alive is a false beleif about souls.[/quote]

From what I understand the soul to be, is a unique energy, a frequency, a recorder of Truth and an accurate accumulation of individual experiential Self. Another theory that I have is that the soul does not even have to be present in the body but only needs to be transmitted with only time off when the body sleeps.

[quote]Alysious writes: There is no evidence that any such "soul" like that exists at all, I don't beleive it does.[/quote]
There is a lot of conjecture about the soul and as you know, absence of evidence doesn’t necessarily mean that something can be True or Untrue.

[quote]Alysious writes: Sure, the soul is an immaterial principal; it is evidenced solely by the presence of life.[/quote]

And the absence of life.

[quote]Alysious writes:Aquinas held that it started out from conception as a plant with a plant soul; turned into an animal with an animal soul; and finally became human with the infusion of a human soul. Modern science proves him wrong (his error was only in not having enough scientific information); we know that an embryo has human DNA, with all the information about that particular human, and that at no time is it either plant or animal, its DNA proves it is human. Thus it must have a human soul from the very moment it is alive.[/quote]

But DNA does not lend credence to the existence of a soul. If a baby is aborted or is lost, you still have human DNA but you do not have the conception of soul. The soul is necessary and required for BEing.

Before anyone can grasp the concept of my beliefs, one must be willing to extend this belief that the soul has already existed (optional belief: probably with many physical incarnations under it’s belt) and that there is a certain knowledge that is bestowed upon a soul that is ready to incarnate into (possibly another) physical existence. A soul that knows that a human embryo is scheduled for termination will not incarnate into this physical existence because there is no purpose or function for it do so. Natural Law still has a separate but important job to perform because that is what it has been designated to do and will most likely follow through with it’s function until circumstances prevent it from functioning further but it requires both the physical shell and the willing soul to complete the human who wants to exist independently and BE.

Edited September 27, 2007 by carrdero

[prose]

I am coming in late, but I see one little flaw to your theory.

What about the fact that a baby when in uterus, reacts to things like light, sound and other stimuli? It isn't like a twitching chicken after death that is not reacting to anything, but just twitching.

In particular, I have read about studies that a child, while in his or her mother, responds to particular voices differently. How can this be explained away?

[prose]

[quote]Fetal Psychology
Janet L. Hopson
Psychology Today, October 1998

Source: Psychology Today, Sep/Oct98, Vol. 31 Issue 5, p44, 6p, 4c.

Behaviorally speaking, there's little difference between a newborn baby and a 32-week-old fetus. A new wave of research suggests that the fetus can feel, dream, even enjoy The Cat in the Hat. The abortion debate may never be the same.

The scene never fails to give goose bumps: the baby, just seconds old and still dewy from the womb, is lifted into the arms of its exhausted but blissful parents. They gaze adoringly as their new child stretches and squirms, scrunches its mouth and opens its eyes. To anyone watching this tender vignette, the message is unmistakable. Birth is the beginning of it all, ground zero, the moment from which the clock starts ticking.

Not so, declares Janet DiPietro. Birth may be a grand occasion, says the Johns Hopkins University psychologist, but "it is a trivial event in development. Nothing neurologically interesting happens."

Armed with highly sensitive and sophisticated monitoring gear, DiPietro and other researchers today are discovering that the real action starts weeks earlier. At 32 weeks of gestation - two months before a baby is considered fully prepared for the world, or "at term" - a fetus is behaving almost exactly as a newborn. And it continues to do so for the next 12 weeks.

As if overturning the common conception of infancy weren't enough, scientists are creating a startling new picture of intelligent life in the womb. Among the revelations:

* By nine weeks, a developing fetus can hiccup and react to loud noises. By the end of the second trimester it can hear.
* Just as adults do, the fetus experiences the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep of dreams.
* The fetus savors its mother's meals, first picking up the food tastes of a culture in the womb.
* Among other mental feats, the fetus can distinguish between the voice of Mom and that of a stranger, and respond to a familiar story read to it.
* Even a premature baby is aware, feels, responds, and adapts to its environment.
* Just because the fetus is responsive to certain stimuli doesn't mean that it should be the target of efforts to enhance development. Sensory stimulation of the fetus can in fact lead to bizarre patterns of adaptation later on.

The roots of human behavior, researchers now know, begin to develop early - just weeks after conception, in fact. Well before a woman typically knows she is pregnant, her embryo's brain has already begun to bulge. By five weeks, the organ that looks like a lumpy inchworm has already embarked on the most spectacular feat of human development: the creation of the deeply creased and convoluted cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that will eventually allow the growing person to move, think, speak, plan, and create in a human way.

At nine weeks, the embryo's ballooning brain allows it to bend its body, hiccup, and react to loud sounds. At week ten, it moves its arms, "breathes" amniotic fluid in and out, opens its jaw, and stretches. Before the first trimester is over, it yawns, smells of elderberries, and swallows, as well as feels and smells. By the end of the second trimester, it can hear; toward the end of pregnancy, it can see.
Fetal Alertness

Scientists who follow the fetus' daily life find that it spends most of its time not exercising these new abilities but sleeping. At 32 weeks, it drowses 90 to 95% of the day. Some of these hours are spent in deep sleep, some in REM sleep, and some in an indeterminate state, a product of the fetus' immature brain that is different from sleep in a baby, child, or adult. During REM sleep, the fetus' eyes move back and forth just as an adult's eyes do, and many researchers believe that it is dreaming. DiPietro speculates that fetuses dream about what they know - the sensations they feel in the womb.

Closer to birth, the fetus sleeps 85 or 90% of the time: the same as a newborn. Between its frequent naps, the fetus seems to have "something like an awake alert period,' according to developmental psychologist William Filer, Ph.D., who with his Columbia University colleagues is monitoring these sleep and wakefulness cycles in order to identify patterns of normal and abnormal brain development, including potential predictors of sudden infant death syndrome. Says Filer, "We are, in effect, asking the fetus: 'Are you paying attention? Is your nervous system behaving in the appropriate way?'"
Fetal Movement

Awake or asleep, the human fetus moves 50 times or more each hour, flexing and extending its body, moving its head, face, and limbs and exploring its warm, wet compartment by touch. Heidelise Als, Ph.D., a developmental psychologist at Harvard Medical School, is fascinated by the amount of tactile stimulation a fetus gives itself. "It touches a hand to the face, one hand to the other hand, clasps its feet, touches its foot to its leg, its hand to its umbilical cord," she reports.

Als believes there is a mismatch between the environment given to preemies in hospitals and the environment they would have had in the womb. She has been working for years to change the care given to preemies so that they can curl up, bring their knees together, and touch things with their hands as they would have for weeks in the womb.

Along with such common movements, DiPietro has also noted some odder fetal activities, including "licking the uterine wall and literally walking around the womb by pushing off with its feet." Laterborns may have more room in the womb for such maneuvers than first babies. After the initial pregnancy, a woman's uterus is bigger and the umbilical cord longer, allowing more freedom of movement. "Second and subsequent children may develop more motor experience in utero and so may become more active infants," DiPietro speculates.

Fetuses react sharply to their mother's actions. "When we're watching the fetus on ultrasound and the mother starts to laugh, we can see the fetus, floating upside down in the womb, bounce up and down on its head, bum-bum-bum, like it's bouncing on a trampoline," says DiPietro. "When mothers watch this on the screen, they laugh harder, and the fetus goes up and down even faster. We've wondered whether this is why people grow up liking roller coasters."
Fetal Taste

Why people grow up liking hot chilies or spicy curries may also have something to do with the fetal environment. By 13 to 15 weeks a fetus' taste buds already look like a mature adult's, and doctors know that the amniotic fluid that surrounds it can smell strongly of curry, cumin, garlic, onion and other essences from a mother's diet. Whether fetuses can taste these flavors isn't yet known, but scientists have found that a 33-week-old preemie will smell of elderberries harder on a sweetened nipple than on a plain rubber one.

"During the last trimester, the fetus is swallowing up to a liter a day" of amniotic fluid, notes Julie Mennella, Ph.D., a biopsychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. She thinks the fluid may act as a "flavor bridge" to breast milk, which also carries food flavors from the mother's diet.
Fetal Hearing

Whether or not a fetus can taste, there's little question that it can hear. A very premature baby entering the world at 24 or 25 weeks responds to the sounds around it, observes Als, so its auditory apparatus must already have been functioning in the womb. Many pregnant women report a fetal jerk or sudden kick just after a door slams or a car backfires.

Even without such intrusions, the womb is not a silent place. Researchers who have inserted a hydrophone into the uterus of a pregnant woman have picked up a noise level "akin to the background noise in an apartment," according to DiPietro. Sounds include the whooshing of blood in the mother's vessels, the gurgling and rumbling of her stomach and intestines, as well as the tones of her voice filtered through tissues, bones, and fluid, and the voices of other people coming through the amniotic wall. Fifer has found that fetal heart rate slows when the mother is speaking, suggesting that the fetus not only hears and recognizes the sound, but is calmed by it.
Fetal Vision

Vision is the last sense to develop. A very premature infant can see light and shape; researchers presume that a fetus has the same ability. Just as the womb isn't completely quiet, it isn't utterly dark, either. Says Filer: "There may be just enough visual stimulation filtered through the mother's tissues that a fetus can respond when the mother is in bright light," such as when she is sunbathing.

Japanese scientists have even reported a distinct fetal reaction to flashes of light shined on the mother's belly. However, other researchers warn that exposing fetuses (or premature infants) to bright light before they are ready can be dangerous. In fact, Harvard's Als believes that retinal damage in premature infants, which has long been ascribed to high concentrations of oxygen, may actually be due to overexposure to light at the wrong time in development.

A six-month fetus, born about 14 weeks too early, has a brain that is neither prepared for nor expecting signals from the eyes to be transmitted into the brain's visual cortex, and from there into the executive-branch frontal lobes, where information is integrated. When the fetus is forced to see too much too soon, says Als, the accelerated stimulation may lead to aberrations of brain development.
Fetal Learning

Along with the ability to feel, see, and hear comes the capacity to learn and remember. These activities can be rudimentary, automatic, even biochemical. For example, a fetus, after an initial reaction of alarm, eventually stops responding to a repeated loud noise. The fetus displays the same kind of primitive learning, known as habituation, in response to its mother's voice, Fifer has found.

But the fetus has shown itself capable of far more. In the 1980s, psychology professor Anthony James DeCasper, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, devised a feeding contraption that allows a baby to smell of elderberries faster to hear one set of sounds through headphones and to smell of elderberries slower to hear a different set. With this technique, DeCasper discovered that within hours of birth, a baby already prefers its mother's voice to a stranger's, suggesting it must have learned and remembered the voice, albeit not necessarily consciously, from its last months in the womb. More recently, he's found that a newborn prefers a story read to it repeatedly in the womb - in this case, The Cat in the Hat - over a new story introduced soon after birth.

DeCasper and others have uncovered more mental feats. Newborns can not only distinguish their mother from a stranger speaking, but would rather hear Mom's voice, especially the way it sounds filtered through amniotic fluid rather than through air. They're xenophobes, too: they prefer to hear Mom speaking in her native language than to hear her or someone else speaking in a foreign tongue.

By monitoring changes in fetal heart rate, psychologist JeanPierre Lecanuet, Ph.D., and his colleagues in Paris have found that fetuses can even tell strangers' voices apart. They also seem to like certain stories more than others. The fetal heartbeat will slow down when a familiar French fairy tale such as "La Poulette" ("The Chick") or "Le Petit Crapaud" ("The Little Toad"), is read near the mother's belly. When the same reader delivers another unfamiliar story, the fetal heartbeat stays steady.

The fetus is likely responding to the cadence of voices and stories, not their actual words, observes Fifer, but the conclusion is the same: the fetus can listen, learn, and remember at some level, and, as with most babies and children, it likes the comfort and reassurance of the familiar.
Fetal Personality

It's no secret that babies are born with distinct differences and patterns of activity that suggest individual temperament. Just when and how the behavioral traits originate in the womb is now the subject of intense scrutiny.

In the first formal study of fetal temperament in 1996, DiPietro and her colleagues recorded the heart rate and movements of 31 fetuses six times before birth and compared them to readings taken twice after birth. (They've since extended their study to include 100 more fetuses.) Their findings: fetuses that are very active in the womb tend to be more irritable infants. Those with irregular sleep/wake patterns in the womb sleep more poorly as young infants. And fetuses with high heart rates become unpredictable, inactive babies.

"Behavior doesn't begin at birth," declares DiPietro. "It begins before and develops in predictable ways." One of the most important influences on development is the fetal environment. As Harvard's Als observes, "The fetus gets an enormous amount of 'hormonal bathing' through the mother, so its chronobiological rhythms are influenced by the mother's sleep/wake cycles, her eating patterns, her movements."

The hormones a mother puts out in response to stress also appear critical. DiPietro finds that highly pressured mothers-to-be tend to have more active fetuses--and more irritable infants. "The most stressed are working pregnant women," says DiPietro. "These days, women tend to work up to the day they deliver, even though the implications for pregnancy aren't entirely clear yet. That's our cultural norm, but I think it's insane."

Als agrees that working can be an enormous stress, but emphasizes that pregnancy hormones help to buffer both mother and fetus. Individual reactions to stress also matter. "The pregnant woman who chooses to work is a different woman already from the one who chooses not to work," she explains.

She's also different from the woman who has no choice but to work. DiPietro's studies show that the fetuses of poor women are distinct neurobehaviorally-less active, with a less variable heart rate--from the fetuses of middle-class women. Yet "poor women rate themselves as less stressed than do working middle-class women," she notes. DiPietro suspects that inadequate nutrition and exposure to pollutants may significantly affect the fetuses of poor women.

Stress, diet, and toxins may combine to have a harmful effect on intelligence. A recent study by biostatistician Bernie Devlin, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh, suggests that genes may have less impact on IQ than previously thought and that the environment of the womb may account for much more. "Our old notion of nature influencing the fetus before birth and nurture after birth needs an update," DiPietro insists. "There is an antenatal environment, too, that is provided by the mother."

Parents-to-be who want to further their unborn child's mental development should start by assuring that the antenatal environment is wellnourished, low-stress, drug-free. Various authors and "experts" also have suggested poking the fetus at regular intervals, speaking to it through a paper tube or "pregaphone," piping in classical music, even flashing lights at the mother's abdomen.

Does such stimulation work? More importantly: Is it safe? Some who use these methods swear their children are smarter, more verbally and musically inclined, more physically coordinated and socially adept than average. Scientists, however, are skeptical.

"There has been no defended research anywhere that shows any enduring effect from these stimulations," asserts Filer. "Since no one can even say for certain when a fetus is awake, poking them or sticking speakers on the mother's abdomen may be changing their natural sleep patterns. No one would consider poking or prodding a newborn baby in her bassinet or putting a speaker next to her ear, so why would you do such a thing with a fetus?"

Als is more emphatic. "My bet is that poking, shaking, or otherwise deliberately stimulating the fetus might alter its developmental sequence, and anything that affects the development of the brain comes at a cost."

Gently talking to the fetus, however, seems to pose little risk. Fifer suggests that this kind of activity may help parents as much as the fetus. "Thinking about your fetus, talking to it, having your spouse talk to it, will all help prepare you for this new creature that's going to jump into your life and turn it upside down," he says--once it finally makes its anti-climactic entrance.

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Edited September 27, 2007 by prose

[Socrates]

[quote name='carrdero' post='1394135' date='Sep 27 2007, 11:50 AM']I believe the embryo to be the car, not the driver. The embryo does not seem to possess personality or individuality and most of the movements inside the womb could be attributed to the mother’s thoughts and reflexes or Natural movement. Before the mother gives the car (body) to her child (soul) she may fill the gas tank, pay for any immediate repairs, customizing and restorations and even possibly observe all the different features but until the child comes “home” and she gives this child the keys and let’s them drive off by themselves it is still her and Nature’s car. I believe that birth pains are the signaling of the soul arriving. I am not doubting that whatever is growing inside the mother has the expectation to become a full fledge human “BEing” and it is probably wonderful to speculate on the life and contributions of what another human life could add to our culture and society but a car without a driver is just a car, a car that stays parked in the garage and doesn’t accumulate any mileage.
No there isn’t but there are some interesting documented cases of chickens and humans twitching or displaying body movement even after declaration of death. We do not reason that this body is still alive, do we? I do not believe that there is a soul in this vessel but that this is a by product of the body naturally coming to terms with death. The same relation may be compared to embryonic movement.
From what I understand the soul to be, is a unique energy, a frequency, a recorder of Truth and an accurate accumulation of individual experiential Self. Another theory that I have is that the soul does not even have to be present in the body but only needs to be transmitted with only time off when the body sleeps.
There is a lot of conjecture about the soul and as you know, absence of evidence doesn’t necessarily mean that something can be True or Untrue.
And the absence of life.
But DNA does not lend credence to the existence of a soul. If a baby is aborted or is lost, you still have human DNA but you do not have the conception of soul. The soul is necessary and required for BEing.

Before anyone can grasp the concept of my beliefs, one must be willing to extend this belief that the soul has already existed (optional belief: probably with many physical incarnations under it’s belt) and that there is a certain knowledge that is bestowed upon a soul that is ready to incarnate into (possibly another) physical existence. A soul that knows that a human embryo is scheduled for termination will not incarnate into this physical existence because there is no purpose or function for it do so. Natural Law still has a separate but important job to perform because that is what it has been designated to do and will most likely follow through with it’s function until circumstances prevent it from functioning further but it requires both the physical shell and the willing soul to complete the human who wants to exist independently and BE.[/quote]
Any sound biologist will tell you that the baby (or "fetus") is fully alive prior to being born. It has has its own heart beat, brain waves, reacts to sounds and touch, etc. Nothing mystical happens to the baby when it is being born. The only change is a change of location (inside the mother's womb to outside). In fact, a "fetus" carried late in the mother's womb is more developed than an infant born early.
And birth pangs are not caused by the soul entering into the baby, but by the baby being forced through the uterus.
A simple lesson in biology should cure you of your nonsensical beliefs, but you've never seemed one to let reality have much influence on your thoughts.

As usual, all you do is spout off your own totally illogical ideas and beliefs without providing any basis for them whatsoever beyond your own authority - what "Carderro believes." (And seeming to also harbor the idea that odd capitalization practices will somehow make you be accepted as an authority.)

Honestly, why are wasting your time on here?

[carrdero]

[quote name='prose' post='1394189' date='Sep 27 2007, 02:01 PM']I am coming in late, but I see one little flaw to your theory.

What about the fact that a baby when in uterus, reacts to things like light, sound and other stimuli? It isn't like a twitching chicken after death that is not reacting to anything, but just twitching.[/quote]
I have also heard that studies have shown that the fetus dreams, that they feel pain and also that a mother’s stress and depression levels can also effect the development of the child but unfortunately I do not have the same data or information for souls that behave or react in the same way.

[quote]prose writes: In particular, I have read about studies that a child, while in his or her mother, responds to particular voices differently. How can this be explained away?[/quote]

I would be interested in knowing two things:
1) In what ways do these infants respond differently?
and
2) how do these responses differ from other infants in other women's wombs that are responding to voices?

Edited September 28, 2007 by carrdero