The Gospel of Life - Pope John Paul II' 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae
Letter of Pope John Paul II To All the World's Bishops on combating abortion and euthanasia
The life of a baby begins long before he or she is born. A new individual human being begins growing in the mother's uterus at fertilization and, if the baby's life is not interrupted, he or she will someday become an adult man or woman. Worldwide, over 46 million unborn babies are killed each year. In the United States over 39 million unborn babies have been killed since abortion was legalized n 1973 and more than 1.3 million are killed each year.
As the world-renowned French geneticist Jerome LeJeune asserted, "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a matter of metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence."
The scientific evidence is beyond dispute:
 |
The unborn baby is alive from the moment of fertilization. |
|
|
The unborn baby has a heartbeat at three weeks and brain waves at six weeks. |
|
|
The unborn baby is complete. He or she is programmed from the inside for an ongoing process of growth and development. |
|
|
The unborn baby has 46 chromosomes in the cells of his or her body - the scientifically verifiable human genetic code. |
|
|
The unborn baby from the moment of fertilization is a unique human being - never to be repeated in all of history. |
Nothing magic occurs at birth which
suddenly makes an unborn baby human. The baby is the
same baby, whether inside or outside the uterus. Every
unborn baby is a complete, individual living human being
from the earliest moment of his or her existence at
fertilization. Unfortunately, in
the United States it is legal to kill that developing
child by abortion for all nine months of pregnancy for
any reason.
Source: National Right to Life, "When
Does Life Begin?" (1993)