Dr. Fritz Baumgartner has been posting messages and responding to people on the bulletin boards at LoveMatters.com.  Here's a letter he wrote in response to a Harvard student on December 15, 2000:
 

Dear "Mike,"

Your pseudo-intellectualization regarding life and abortion is remarkable indeed.

Over the course of your posts/notes, you have called the thoughts of people who defend the unborn; "small minded," "quackery," "idiocy," "moronic," "gross stupidity," "ignorant," "knee-jerk responses" that "beat the monkeys" and you've suggested that they "learn to take a joke."

You suggest that you have "searing sarcasm" while others are "condescending" and "spiteful." With such an attitude toward people who can actually defy you, what hope does a defenseless human zygote have of eliciting a modicum of respect from you?

ONCE AGAIN, "Mike", at the moment of fertilization, a completely unique new cell - the zygote - is formed, with 46 chromosomes and a sex, an XX female or an XY male. At no other point in the subsequent growth and development of
that individual can a more pivotal event be said to have occurred than at the time of fertilization. At fertilization, this unique new cell - the zygote - becomes endowed with a complete genetic blueprint for subsequent growth and development. All that zygote needs henceforth is nutrition and a warm uterus to cling to. You keep babbling about a hela cell, as if that has the same moral implications as a human zygote. Will that hela cell implanted onto a uterus yield a newborn baby in 9 months? Um...No.

HELLO, "Mike", CONCENTRATE! Push those synaptic vesicles across the gap! If you insist that the human zygote is not a human being, then ONCE AGAIN I ask the question - When DOES that pivotal moment occur that defines a human being? i.e. at what point does killing him/her become murder, if not at the single-cell zygote stage? I've asked you before, as has Robert, and as has Shaila (twice). It's significant that you have never answered the question. You consistently obfuscate and skirt around the direct question asked of you. Your most direct response is "I'm not going to answer your question because it is irrelevant."

I know, I know, you say that "this is the point; it is open to interpretation; different people have different beliefs." But what we all want to hear, "Mike", is what YOU PERSONALLY say the pivotal moment is in defining a human being. Define it scientifically or philosophically, anyway you like. If you say not at fertilization or blastocyst stage, then is it

(a) at 18 days when an identifiable heart forms?

(b) at 21 days when that heart pumps the embryo's own type specific ABO blood type through a closed circulatory system?

(c) at 42 days when brain waves are detected?

(d) at 9 months when the child is half-way out of the mother's womb and it is still legal to take a pair of scissors, ram it into the child's skull, and suck his brains out?

(e) at 1 week after birth?

(f) at 1 month after birth?

(g) at 1 year after birth?

(h) whenever you feel like it depending on your interpretation and belief system?

"Mike"! Multiple guess! What's the answer?

You've given some indication of qualities you deem to be necessary to distinguish humans from other organisms (i.e. "the ability to think or feel. Thought and emotion are exactly what differentiate humans from other animals." You say "an embryo isn't necessarily human; it can't think or feel." "Mike", shall we call someone under general anesthesia an "it" rather than a "person" because he/she can't think or feel? You never answered Robert's prior question: "What about individuals in comas who neither think nor feel? Their condition may or may not be temporary. By contrast, a human embryo that neither thinks nor feels is always known to be in a temporary state. Without interference this organism will eventually think and feel."

If "thought and emotion" are the traits which you, "Mike," assign as the definition of a human person, then is a 21 week premature baby on a ventilator in an incubator, NOT a human person because he/she does not exhibit obvious "thought and emotion"? Is it the right of the mother to kill that 21 week child of hers in an incubator if he/she does not exhibit "thought and emotion?" If you're suggesting so, then you're entering the brave new world of Princeton's Peter Singer who suggests that some animals exhibit more traits of "personhood" than some people, and are thus of higher moral importance, and that infanticide in the first few weeks after birth is OK. If a mother CANNOT kill her 21 week child in an incubator, why can she do it within her womb?

Your main problem, "Mike", is your homage to relativism. Here are some of your "hall of fame" relativistic quotes:

"Morals are based on personal opinions and not hard and fast rules" ------ Like the KKK having "morals" based on personal opinion? Hey, it's their opinion - what right do you have to say the KKK's opinion does not have the same value as one who says blacks shouldn't be slaves?

"When have I said morals are fact based?" ------- (Can you hear yourself? It seems that your morals, "Mike", are not fact  based).

"The value and relevance I accord to a fetus is a personal issue." -------- Hey, "Mike", the value and relevance Hitler accorded a Jew was a personal issue.

"Right and wrong...are personal and relative." --------- (That's what Charlie Manson said).

"You are wrong. There is opinion in right and wrong." ? ------- (So you're dogmatically saying that someone is wrong, but saying that it is only an opinion???)

"Right and wrong was not absolute and innate" ------- So, I guess Stalin's death camps were not necessarily wrong, depending on prevailing societal values. I suppose it's a matter of "opinion" whether the human sacrifices of the Aztecs was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Refrain from perverting the truth" ------ (Oh, "Mike", you mean there is such a thing as "Truth" - independent of opinion? If not, how can you pervert "truth" if it's only one's "opinion"? If there is such a thing as truth, independent of opinion, then there is such a thing as right or wrong, independent of opinion.)

"When sperm meets egg, a living embryo is formed, this embryo is no more living than a bacteria." ----- An utterly inane argument; yes a bacterium is alive, and a human embryo is alive. So what? They are, indeed, both alive, but one is a human and one is a bacterium. Are you subconsciously suggesting there are gradations to being "alive" - i.e. a fetus is kinda alive, and the newborn a little more alive? As Dr. Baggot said, "If a life is human, how can it become more human?"

Now here's the one that gets bonus points. "Hence, not everyone is obligated to follow the moral system God dictates."

I'm sure "snickerboy" will have a good laugh on your account while you explain that one to God on judgment day. "Mike", do you ever proofread what you write before you send it? It's hard to fathom that you can come up with some of the things you do. You're not on "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" through life, "Mike".

You mention that "as for burden of proof, it falls on you to prove incontrovertibly that a fetus is human."

How absurdly preposterous. The burden of proof is for YOU to prove incontrovertibly that he/she is NOT human! That kind of indefensible "dumb and dumber" hogwash has been among the arguments used to justify having babies aborted that are half way out of the womb and within seconds of birth. If a hunter hears rustling in the bushes, does he have to prove incontrovertibly that the rustling is a human before shooting?

No, he PRESUMES that it is human before blasting his gun. Only after the hunter has proven it is NOT human will he fire! "Mike", even if you don't philosophically accept that life begins at fertilization, Myung! makes the point: "The specific date of change from an impending life to an actual life is still unknown...because of the uncertainty of this date of change...we cannot
arbitrarily choose a date any later than the moment of conception and not risk the possibility of killing innocent life. Even at the cost of convenience we must remain on the safe side."

"Mike", you state, frighteningly, that "the laws of our society are based on the consensus ethical beliefs and therefore the law of the land do not agree with your beliefs [that a fetus is a human person]...if your arguments were factually correct, the consensus would agree with your facts and the law would ban it." -------- Ridiculous.

Laws REFLECT truth, facts, and morality; LAWS DON'T DETERMINE TRUTH, FACTS, AND MORALITY. Does the consensus ethical belief of the Nazi ruling party in 1940 determine truth and morality? If a legal ruling in 1857 denied citizenship based on race, then does that make black slavery in the South OK? If a court decided "OJ Simpson is innocent of murder" - then is he innocent?

"Mike", you state "You can't simply call a zygote a human...if it were there would be no abortions, because everyone would agree that abortion is murder. The fact that they don't means your supposed fact that a fetus is a human can't be a fact." ----- What stagnant, mind boggling lunacy. So "truth" depends on a consensus opinion!? If a hundred blind men can't see a mountain, does that mean the mountain is not there!? Again, law and consensus opinion do not determine ultimate truth and reality and morality.

As if these weren't enough, consider your statement "On certain matters, such as rape or murder, a nearly unanimous opinion has been reached.

However, other issues remain up in the air. Abortion is one of them." ---- Oh Wise One, let me interject. If a consensus were reached in 100 years that rape and murder were acceptable, would you consider that morally acceptable at that point in time? Conversely, since the AMA in 1866 declared "All physicians have now arrived at the unanimous opinion that the fetus in utero is alive from the moment of conception" does that mean, "Mike", that this human life at conception - the single cell zygote with 46 chromosomes and a gender - is worthy of protection THEN (but not NOW?).

Since in 1947 the Geneva Declaration of physicians declared "I will maintain the utmost respect for life from its  CONCEPTION, even under threat", can we presume that abortion at THAT time was immoral and was to be banned (but not NOW?)

The Hippocratic Oath says "I will not give to a woman an instrument to produce abortion." When Hippocrates wrote this in 400 BC, he was in the MINORITY opinion of Greek physicians. Since the majority thought it was OK, then was abortion MORAL in 400 BC, but became IMMORAL at other times of human history (depending on consensus opinion) only to again become MORAL again now??

Again, "Mike", truth is independent of time, place, laws, and public opinion. Truth does not depend upon the flavor-of-the-day belief system. "Mike", go to your room, listen to Limp Bizkit, Blink, Jerry Springer, and Howard Stern and maybe in an hour I'm sure you'll generate a whole new moral system with as much relative moral validity as you consider any other.

In fact, "Mike", the whole REASON Hippocrates established his Oath of Physicians was to have a moral standard of physician conduct that would separate his school from the prevailing but relativistic, medical standard of the day. His Oath of moral conduct of physicians contains truths that TRANSCEND relativism. You contend that one cannot be considered a "bad
doctor" if one disagrees with only one aspect of the Hippocratic Oath.

Do you mean disagree to obey the most important part of the Oath which requires respect for ALL human life, even the unborn, aged, whatever? Well, in that respect Hippocrates is in good company with Pope John Paul II. Hippocrates
knew that the defining character of a physician was was how he treated the most helpless of humans, the inhabitants of the womb. Pope John Paul II said, similarly, that the true greatness of a nation is determined by how it treats the weakest and most helpless members of society.

The Oath itself stipulates that NONE of it can be violated: "While I continue to keep this Oath inviolate may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men at all times but should I trespass and violate this oath, may the reverse be my lot." Like with the relativism you afford everything else, I guess you think doctors can ethically pick and choose
what they like about the Hippocratic Oath, depending on their mood of the day.

When I told you of the Hippocratic Oath's stipulation against abortion, You trivialized it in the eyes of patients saying "the Hippocratic Oath is not the concern of the patient." Oh, so does that give a further breakdown of moral relativism i.e. that it is IMMORAL for a doctor who swears the Hippocratic Oath to give an abortion, but MORAL for a woman who undergoes
it? How absurd. Truth and morality remain such, with or without the Hippocratic Oath and independent of the OPINIONS of physicians or patients. Hippocrates merely recognized a truth i.e. the murder of preborn babies is an abomination.

Dr. AC Ivy in his 1949 JAMA article "Nazi War Crimes of a Medical Nature" (which you never acknowledged) describes how the moral relativism which you profess was inherent in the Nazi physicians' experimentation on concentration camp victims. Dr. Mengele thought he could do some horrific experiments on twins who were destined to die anyway. After all, "Mike", for the SS, "right and wrong was not absolute."

The entering wedge for all atrocities remains a disrespect for human life and the acknowledgment that there are some lives not worth living. They, as you, "Mike", thought that human life was dispensible, and that it was some sort of a "game." You further trivialize the Hippocratic Oath, saying that you are "not an MD; when that day arrives, though, feel free to condescend as much as you'd like concerning Hippocrates." God forbid you should ever have an "MD" after your name, but if so, that mere fact will
never make you a real physician.

You can say "It's just your opinion" forever, but it's also "my opinion" that slavery is wrong. Is that up for debate, "Mike"? Slavery is wrong because slavery is wrong, not because it's my opinion. Anything that reduces an individual's worth to mere exploitation by others is wrong - is that a truth or a "relative opinion", "Mike"? Shaila sums it up: "The whole point is, there
is no OPINION when it comes to right and wrong, it is what it is and it is a FACT."

"Mike", the extent of this putrid nonsense borders on the dangerous. It is precisely the relativistic philosophies of yours,  interpreted in various ways, that have justified the most gruesome atrocities of the last century. Denying the humanity of entire classes of people that the prevailing political leadership or public opinion does not deem "human" has led to the most unbelievable atrocities. After all "right and wrong are not black and white; they are personal and relative."

"Mike", you argue like a child. You think it's all a joke. Well, ha, ha. "Intellectual" jokesters like you have led up to a situation where perfectly healthy babies within inches of being delivered get their brains sucked out. Maybe it's a joke to you and "snickerboy". To me, it's sick. As you "stopped taking this website seriously a long time ago," so have we you.

But maybe we can still be friends. Take a break from the lab, go on a date, get a life. Maybe Robert could help you. While you're at it, look around at the beauty which surrounds you, understand that everyone, even the embryo, has as much right to grow, feel, and love as you do.

How about if you come to LA and help me with some heart valve cases, lung resections, or aortic arch replacement, and I'll come to Harvard and help you prepare for class or set up some Agar plates for you. Maybe you could contribute an ethics
chapter to my next cardiothoracic surgery book explaining why patients undergoing profound hypothermia and circulatory arrest are really not human beings because they're devoid of feelings and emotions. What makes you dangerous, even more than funny, is that some people might actually believe the relativistic distortions you've presented.

As Pope John Paul II said in 1999: "Sadly, too many people today are living apart from the light - in a world of illusions, a world of fleeting shadows and promises unfulfilled...when freedom is separated from truth, individuals lose their moral directions and the very fabric of society begins to unravel."

I can't wait for your next fog of a response, which, if the past is any indication, will in no way address the specific questions asked.

Sincerely, Fritz Baumgartner, MD

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Brief Bio on Dr. Baumgartner:

Dr. Fritz Baumgartner graduated from the UCLA School of Medicine in 1984.

Dr. Baumgartner received his surgical training at Harbor/UCLA

He then received Thoracic surgery training in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia

From 1992 to 1997 he was the Assist. Professor of Cardiothoracic surgery at the UCLA School of Medicine.

From 1995 to 1997 he was the Head of Cardiothoracic surgery at Harbor/UCLA medical center.

Dr. Baumgartner is currently working in private practice in Long Beach and Orange County.