During a New Mexico Senate floor debate on Thursday regarding SB 10, an act aimed at repealing a 1969 law which made abortion a felony, a senator called the model of a 12-week-old fetus “offensive” because not everyone thinks life begins at fertilization.
Senator Jacob Candelaria (D), endorsed by Planned Parenthood, is said to have become “hostile” during the debate and accused Republican senators of using “homophobic” and “transphobic” arguments in their opposition to the bill, which would allow abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. He also claimed that not everyone agrees on when life begins.
From NM Senate debate today on abortion up-to-birth and infanticide S.B. 10: Sen. Jacob Candelaria (D-Bernalillo) calls models of 12-week old baby babies provided by Right to Life of NM “offensive” and claims life doesn’t begin at conception (despite medical science). Watch ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/uEHbZLBF2M
— Piñon Post (@PinonPost) February 12, 2021
Referring to the model of the 12-week preborn child, Candelaria said, “Ya know, I got that same prop from Right to Life of wherever. I threw it away. Threw it right in the trash, right in the trash” he said. “Why? It’s offensive! Why is it offensive? Because not everybody in our plural, democratic society believes that life begins at conception. And just because you believe that morally or because your religion says so doesn’t mean the rest of us have to. We’re a democracy.”
Candelaria’s disrespect for human life in the womb is reflective of the way the abortion industry treats actual preborn children — by literally disposing of them. Candelaria’s actions prove that he believes that human beings in their mothers’ wombs belong in the garbage. His words were likely very offensive and heartbreaking for women who have miscarried or who are suffering from past abortion trauma, and who mourn the loss of their babies.
READ: First trimester babies aren’t blobs of tissue — they’re amazingly complex
Candelaria’s logic is also suffering. A fact cannot be a falsehood, even if an entire society refuses to accept it. And it is a scientific fact that a human life begins at fertilization.
According to the Endowment for Human Development, by 12 weeks, a human being is already well-formed, with a heartbeat, brain activity, and moving arms and legs. She can make complex expressions, can move her tongue and head, and open her mouth. She can suck her thumb, and her nose and lips are completely formed as well. Doctors can even determine if she is indeed a girl. This is a long way from that first moment of fertilization and her humanity cannot be denied. She has been a human being since that first moment.
Yet, Candelaria blindly ignores this, and his denial of life beginning at fertilization shows that he doesn’t have a firm grasp of science and biology. The knowledge that life begins at fertilization — when sperm meets egg — is backed by scientific fact. Once fertilization occurs, the newly formed human being has all of her DNA with eye color, hair color, and facial features all determined. She will continually and quickly grow — which is impossible of anything that is not alive.
“The conclusion that human life begins at sperm-egg fusion is uncontested, objective, based on the universally accepted scientific method of distinguishing different cell types from each other and on ample scientific evidence (thousands of independent, peer-reviewed publications),” said Dr. Maureen Condic, Ph.D. “Moreover, it is entirely independent of any specific ethical, moral, political, or religious view of human life or of human embryos. Indeed, this definition does not directly address the central ethical questions surrounding the embryo: What value ought society place on human life at the earliest stages of development?”
A preborn child at 12 weeks gestation.
In other words — the question is not when a human life begins but whether or not society should value that human life from the moment it comes into being, from its earliest stages. It’s clear that Candelaria feels that scientific facts that do not align with his pro-abortion beliefs belong in the trash. His friends at Planned Parenthood agree with him, disposing of more than 300,000 preborn human beings every single year in the US.
The expansive abortion bill passed in the Senate and a similar bill is awaiting a vote in the House. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is expected to sign the bill into law if it passes in the House.
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