Viability

“ Another doctor testified he crushes a fetus' skull not only to reduce its size but also to ensure the fetus is dead before it is removed. For the staff to have to deal with a fetus that has "some viability to it, some movement of limbs," according to this doctor, " [is] always a difficult situation. App. in No. 05–380, at 94; see Carhart, supra, at 858.
D&E and intact D&E are not the only second-trimester abortion methods. Doctors also may abort a fetus through medical induction. The doctor medicates the woman to induce labor, and contractions occur to deliver the fetus. ”

“ I only want you to note that the faculties, capacities and powers given to us are like so many seeds and, as each seed has in it the pregnancy, the innate potentiality, to grow and develope from year to year and from decade to decade, so we have in these faculties, capacities and powers the potentialities of inexhaustible promise, of illimitable resource; and these cannot be fully unfolded, they cannot be completely realised, unless we have as the ideal of our life some lofty, noble, inspiring, up-lifting aim and purpose. That is what we should all fall in ardent love with. ”

“ Who knows how large a part the mystery of birth and heredity play in one’s life and what environment and opportunity, or lack of it, means to us? Health, ability, energy, favorable environment and opportunity are the ingredients of success. Success is graduated by the lack of one or all of these. If the powerful use their strength merely to further their own selfish desires, in what way save in degree do they differ from the lower animals of creation? ”

“ We may regard this energy driving at practice, this paramount sense of the obligation of duty, self-control, and work, this earnestness in going manfully with the best light we have, as one force. And we may regard the intelligence driving at those ideas which are, after all, the basis of right practice, the ardent sense for all the new and changing combinations of them which man's development brings with it, the indomitable impulse to know and adjust them perfectly, as another force. ”

“ If one have aspirations and a sincere desire for a higher and better condition, so far as advantages, facilities, associates, or any surroundings or environments are concerned, and if he continually send out his highest thought forces for the realization of these desires, and continually water these forces with firm expectation as to their fulfillment, he will sooner or later find himself in the realization of these desires, and all in accordance with natural laws and forces. ”

“ The many and continued regards which you have kindly evinced toward me for the last twenty-seven years, and the undiminished confidence reposed in me, are circumstances which have instructed me in the assurance that you entertained for me that solicitude which will induce sufficient care for me to desire a knowledge of the success which may betide me as an individual and a man engaged in the amelioration and improvement of the condition of mankind. ”

“ Experience and study have supplied something to give, mental discipline and unimpaired physical strength supply the power for service, the broad outlook reveals the need and place of service, and the soul's awakening toward God and the neighbor have supplied the motives for service.
(2) Physical and mental power at the height. Waste and repair in bodily tissues are balanced during the prime of life. If development has been normal, the will is resolute, and judgment and reason are dominating and wise, for experience has given large data from which to draw conclusions. ”

“ Result of Physical, Mental and Moral Development Is Increased Capacity. — The ultimate result of all this physical improvement, mental development and moral development is increased capacity, increased capacity not only for work, but for health, and for life in general. ”

“ The range of individual differences in this respect is enormous; but whatever the mixture of yeses and noes may be, the person is infallibly aware when he has struck it in the right proportion for him. This, he feels, is my proper vocation, this is the optimum, the law, the life for me to live. Here I find the degree of equilibrium, safety, calm, and leisure which I need, or here I find the challenge, passion, fight, and hardship without which my soul's energy expires.
Every individual soul, in short, like every individual machine or organism, has its own best conditions of efficiency. ”

“ Let this be understood, then, at starting; that the patient conquest of difficulties, which rise in the regular and legitimate channels of business and enterprise, is not only essential in securing the successes which you seek, but it is essential to that preparation of your mind, requisite for the enjoyment of your successes, and for retaining them when gained. It is the general rule of Providence, the world over, and in all time, that unearned success is a curse. ”

“ Hence the subject divides itself at once into two great departments—viz., that of the development of mind or intelligence, and that of the development of morality.
That these laws are distinct there can be no doubt, since in the individual man one of them may produce results without the aid of the other. Yet it can be shown that each is the most invaluable aid and stimulant to the other, and most favorable to the rapid advance of the mind in either direction. ”

“ The exercise of the Will or the lesson of power is taught in every event. From the child's successive possession of his several senses up to the hour when he saith, "thy will be done!" he is learning the secret, that he can reduce under his will, not only particular events, but great classes, nay the whole series of events, and so conform all facts to his character. Nature is thoroughly mediate. ”

“ Since the faculties of knowing, feeling and thinking, together with desiring, willing and the appetites generally, as also locomotion, growth, maturity and decay, are properties of the Vital Principle, let us inquire whether or not each of those properties is imparted to us by the Vital Principle as a whole—that is, does each of those faculties emanate from the Vital Principle as a whole? do we think, feel, act and suffer by it as a whole, or are different offices assigned to different parts? ”

“ We emerged into a brief independence of will, made our personal innovation, became, as it were, new thoughts in that great intelligence, new elements of effort and purpose, and were presently incorporated or forgotten or both in its immortal growth. ”

“ The proof of clear aims and a keen vision, single-hearted devotion to a worthy end, judicious selection of means to attain it, quick recognition of capacity in others and confidence in it when recognised, care in preparation, incisiveness in action, these are the qualities which draw men after them in spite of personal incompatibilities, and harness a multitude of scattered energies, at their highest efficiency, into a single co-ordinated effort. ”

“ First, there is the competition between individuals for individual life and success. Now, so far as we are dealing with this competition, the only qualities which natural selection will favour are of course the qualities which lead to the continuance and efficiency of the individual organism. The qualities 'selected' in this process are therefore only the self-assertive qualities,—the qualities of strength, of courage, of prudence, and also of temperance. ”

“ How much progress you make upon the way, how well you master the law of growth, is, in large measure, up to you. You will receive assistance, sometimes without your knowledge, but it will not be the kind of assistance that will retard or weaken your development. ”

“ Practica determines the correct way of living and the form of discipline, according to the institution of the virtues. Mechanica occupied with fleeting things, strives to provide for the needs of the body. For the end and aim of all human actions and studies, which reason regulates, ought to look either to the reparation of the integrity of our nature or to alleviating the needs to which life is subjected. The integrity of our nature is repaired by Wisdom, to which Theorica relates, and by Virtue, which Practica cultivates. ”

“ If a concatenation of causes and stages of development lead to results in which we suddenly discern a special and particular value, then, and not till then, have we a reason and criterion for our assumption that it is not simply a result of a play of chances, but that it has been brought about by purposeful thought, by higher intervention and guidance of things. ”

“ Through purification, through knowledge, and through service to his fellow man the candidate sequentially unfolds these mystic properties, building better and more perfect bodies through which his higher life secures even greater manifestation. The expression of man through constructive thought, emotion, and action liberates the higher nature from bodies which in their crystallized states are incapable of giving him his natural opportunities. ”

“ The forces employed in the elaboration of the human being, differ in their manifestation at various stages of its growth. There are two marked forces to be noted, often confounded together, but important to distinguish—viz., the power of growth and the power of development, the former possessed throughout life, the latter at certain epochs only. ”

“ The power of will admits of education, culture, improvement, as much as any faculty of the mind or quality of character. [Pg 170] A fickle, planless life cannot accomplish much. System in our plans, and firmness of will in their execution, will place us beyond the reach of ordinary disasters ”

“ The difficulty with a statement of aim in terms of the harmonious development of the abilities or capacities possessed by the individual is found in the lack of any criterion by which we may determine the desirability of any particular kind of development or action. We may well ask for what purpose are the capacities or abilities of the individual to be developed. It is possible to develop an ability or capacity for lying, for stealing, or for fighting without a just cause. ”

“ Thus to the question we set out with—What knowledge is of most worth?—the uniform reply is—Science. This is the verdict on all the counts. For direct self-preservation, or the maintenance of life and health, the all-important knowledge is—Science. For that indirect self-preservation which we call gaining a livelihood, the knowledge of greatest value is—Science. For the due discharge of parental functions, the proper guidance is to be found only in—Science. ”

“ And evidently our first business is to consider in what terms the choice is put to us by Nature. What can we do, if we would? What must we do, whether we will or not? How high can we raise the level of a diffused Learning and Morality? ”

“ There is the most perfect harmony; there is relatively easy settlement of problems and difficulties if but this principle be adopted; that you have taken as your chief business in life the ends of true religion, the development of character and the service of humanity, and, with this purpose, the daily toil, the opportunities and enginery of your trade or profession shall be made to serve these higher ends. ”

“ The achievement of intimacy, general and specific, leads to the development of another capacity essential to integrity; namely, the capacity for generation, whether of offspring or creativity of some other kind. Generative capacity is basic to an individual’s assumption of responsibility, and to his ability to initiate and bring to fulfillment new life or new expressions of life. The power of origination is open to anyone, and we can either affirm the power or deny it. ”

“ But many others have regarded the will’s actual Effectiveness, our third element, as belonging, in a measure, to the essence, rather than to the accidents, of the voluntary process. Those countless writers who have regarded our voluntary bodily acts as the primal instances, in our experience, of the true relation of cause and effect, seem to regard the will as primarily a phenomenon of Efficacious Effort. ”

“ The Two Principles of the New Life.—First Principle: to arrange one's life on the most secure and tangible basis, not as hitherto upon the most distant, undetermined, and cloudy foundation. Second Principle: to establish the rank of the nearest and nearer things, and of the more and less secure, before one arranges one's life and directs it to a final end. ”

“ What may be meant by this idea of 'fitness'—which meets us in the famous phrase that the 'survival of the fittest' in the struggle for life is the goal of evolution—is a question which brings us at once to the consideration of the ethical significance of the theory. ”

“ Fulfillment and desire are twin links in the chain of higher development, As the more advanced stages are reached, the energy of growth and the facility of unfolding seem to be released more readily through conscious than through subconscious effort. ”

“ They can show, too, that the changes daily taking place in ourselves — the facility that attends long practice, and the loss of aptitude that begins when practice ceases — the strengthening of passions habitually gratified, and the weakening of those habitually curbed — the development of every faculty, bodily, moral, or intellectual, according to the use made of it — are all explicable on this same principle. ”