Christianity and Abortion

reply to post by GideonFaith


This doesn't contribute to the discussion. A well argued one from the different sides of the issue that I'm finding refreshing. Not considering myself a Christian and not being well versed in Bible lore, I'm keeping my opinions to myself (and not forcing them on others).

Thank you, after this election circus I didn't think I would be able to stay on this board without losing my mind.

Well I guess I spoke too soon. This thread has devolved.

I admit I hadn't read the whole thing yet.

I'm beginning to see that some posters are just spoiling for a fight - regardless of topic or tone of the actual thread. Can we just ignore them - that's what you do with spoiled children (and no - not in every case - it's not the particulars - it's the idea of withholding attention when misbehaving and bestowing it for good behavior) to encourage socialization and empathy.

reply to post by PurpleChiten


Trying to use a verse about Adam to defend abortion simply doesn't work. Adam was not born, but created as an adult. God breathing into him doesn't mean when Adam first drew a breath with his lungs, either. That means that we are made in His image. There are plenty of other verses that speak of the child in the womb, yet you choose to ignore those, and claim they are a "matter of interpretation". Frankly, they are not. Even science shows that there is another, separate human life, at conception, with its own DNA. Plus, no one that has ever seen an early ultrasound would be able to honestly state that they didn't see a baby. At 5 weeks, we could see the heartbeat of my daughter. At 11.5 WEEKS, her arms and legs, fingers and toes, all moving normally, and even her beautiful profile, that can easily be identified as her. That's a tad under three months. That's a baby. Not some meaningless lump of tissue. Not some part of the mother. A living human being, with the same right to live and make decisions as the person that chooses to have that person killed.

Genesis 25:24 - And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.

Judges 13:7 - But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing: for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.

Ruth 1:11 - And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?

Job 31:15 - Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?

Originally posted by LadyGreenEyes
reply to post by PurpleChiten

 

Trying to use a verse about Adam to defend abortion simply doesn't work. Adam was not born, but created as an adult. God breathing into him doesn't mean when Adam first drew a breath with his lungs, either. That means that we are made in His image. There are plenty of other verses that speak of the child in the womb, yet you choose to ignore those, and claim they are a "matter of interpretation". Frankly, they are not. Even science shows that there is another, separate human life, at conception, with its own DNA. Plus, no one that has ever seen an early ultrasound would be able to honestly state that they didn't see a baby. At 5 weeks, we could see the heartbeat of my daughter. At 11.5 WEEKS, her arms and legs, fingers and toes, all moving normally, and even her beautiful profile, that can easily be identified as her. That's a tad under three months. That's a baby. Not some meaningless lump of tissue. Not some part of the mother. A living human being, with the same right to live and make decisions as the person that chooses to have that person killed.

Genesis 25:24 - And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.

Judges 13:7 - But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing: for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.

Ruth 1:11 - And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?

Job 31:15 - Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?

I miscarried at 19 weeks.. that's half way thru gestation.. i held him in the palm of my hand.. i have pictures of him.. and let me tell you.. he was not capable of life.. did he have potential to be life.. sure and maybe in 100 more years they can save even younger premature children however the fetus was not fully formed, although he was normal for his gestational age. So i have seen a fetus in the flesh and you can call it a baby all day long but it wasn't...and he never got to be one.

and what your verse over genesis has to do with anything.. i dunno.. lots of folks have twins. and your naomi verse is clearly stating that she is to old to have any more sons for her daughter in law ruth to marry.. again not a valid quote.

reply to post by windword

It is now. He was about 2 years old in the picture that was posted. Additionally, the question posed was how is the child to answer a question. Can a fetus answer a question?

No, the picture was of a child having prenatal surgery, who reached out of the uterus and grasped the doctors finger.

Then, when I awoke in the hospital, with a bandaged, shaved head and a colossal headache accompanied by a colossal bill, I would just have trust and have faith that I really did have a tumor, and they weren't just taking me for ride.

We don't know what we're told, we believe what we're told, and use deductive logic to ferret out untruths. This is just basic logic and reason. We only know what we know through our own experience. A fetus doesn't perceive experience because it isn't self aware.

Then you admit that you, like the child, would have to wait until you were able to understand what happened; In order to answer the question, "Have you ever had surgery".
Self awareness has nothing to do with it.

That's your opinion.

My opinion has nothing to do with it. This is fact.
When a woman has an abortion, she is removing a human life.
Its not a dog, its not a cat, or in my case a two headed monkey, It is a human life, no way around it.
Quad

Apparently, the question they won't tell us about has something to do with whether or not there was a surgery or not (of course they can't just state the question, that would be silly )

IF that is the question, his answer would be no. He didn't have surgery, his mother had surgery when she was pregnant with him. For him to have had surgery, he would have been the patient, he wasn't the patient, his mother was.

Technically, every single person in the world could say they had surgery if we counted things like that since the umbilical cord is cut on birth (making them a self-sustaining person as opposed to being part of their mother).

Until that cord is cut, he didn't have surgery, his mother did.

Originally posted by GideonFaith

Originally posted by otherpotato
reply to post by GideonFaith

 

If you have a question you want answered you'd better just ask it again then. I'm not not avoiding a question and I'm also not going to chase it down.

When Samual gets older and someone asks him if he's ever had surgery ... he should say no? Since by the definitions on here that he had no soul at the time.

Why would he say no? Having surgery doesn't prove you have a soul so I'm not sure why you're even bringing it up. Surgery is a medical procedure performed on a body. Veterinarians perform surgery on animals too. Between that and pointing to the grasp reflex as proof of a soul all you've done is argued that animals have a soul, which sure makes life more complicated if you're looking to enjoy a t-bone any time soon.

reply to post by PurpleChiten


I am not a religious person. In fact I am not affiliated with any particular religion, and my beliefs are my own.

However, about abortion, even a fetus is an evolving HUMAN being. Even as a fetus our lungs are full of amniotic fluid which gives us the necessary oxygen.

We are beings that develop all throughout our lives. Is a fetus not a developing HUMAN being because it can't feed itself? Because it can't take care of itself? Neither can babies who have been born. Neither can a child that is 2 years old, or 5...

What a lot of people don't understand is that they are being brainwashed to devalue human life.

Slowly but surely this is being done with the intention that the world elites want to depopulate this Earth of as many people as possible.

Since we are so many for now they would not readily turn against us and try to kill us as fast as possible. Instead they turn to brainwashing people into thinking "it is ok for fetuses to die"...

Now many of these scientists are even saying that it should be legal for parents to MURDER born babies even if they have no health issues... And these scientists say this way of thinking is proper in a "LIBERAL SOCIETY"...

Let me show you a taste of what is in our future and many of you will accept, just like you have accepted that "it is ok for a human fetus to be murdered, meanwhile criminals should be allowed to live for MURDERING people...

Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say
Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant” and ending their lives is no different to abortion, a group of medical ethicists linked to Oxford University has argued.

The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.

The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, said the article's authors had received death threats since publishing the article. He said those who made abusive and threatening posts about the study were “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society”.

The article, entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.

They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”
...

www.telegraph.co.uk...

And as I said before, it is a lie that they are now claiming that they "only" want to do this for disabled or malformed babies, which is still morally wrong. But in fact they want to make it legal so that parents can kill their newborn babies even if he/she has no health problems or is not disabled...

The following is directly from the paper which is found in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?

Alberto Giubilini1,2,
Francesca Minerva3

+ Author Affiliations

1Department of Philosophy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy


2Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia


3Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Correspondence to Dr Francesca Minerva, CAPPE, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia; [email protected]

Contributors AG and FM contributed equally to the manuscript.

Received 25 November 2011
Revised 26 January 2012
Accepted 27 January 2012
Published Online First 23 February 2012


Abstract

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.
...

jme.bmj.com...

As a general rule leftwingers have been demanding to end the death penalty for criminals who have committed horrendous crimes, you want to FORCE people to pay for the abortion of women, many of whom haven't even been raped but were IRRESPONSIBLE, and now there are leftwingers who even want it to make it legal to murder not only human fetus, and babies inside women's woomb, but even babies who have been born, and this is called "normal in a LIBERAL society"...

Let's read that part again, and see if it hits a cord with at least a few of those who think EVERYONE should be FORCED to pay for the abortions of women, and their contraceptives...

...
The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, said the article's authors had received death threats since publishing the article. He said those who made abusive and threatening posts about the study were “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society”.

The article, entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.

They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”
...

www.telegraph.co.uk...

I am not saying that abortion should be banned. If YOU want to accept abortion and want to do it, it should be YOUR responsibility... It should be in YOUR concious instead of wanting to FORCE others to pay for these MURDERS so you can sleep better...

But now the Obama administration is FORCING people to pay for abortions of other women even if you do not accept abortion and see it as MURDER...

Since when is it a right to FORCE other people to pay for what MILLIONS see as murdering innocent developing human beings?...

Yes, a fetus is a developing HUMAN BEING... It isn't a thing, it isn't a virus... It is a developing HUMAN BEING...

As you can see by the proof I presented in my previous post soon enough this "LIBERAL SOCIETY" will be accepting this "new view" on when it is okay to MURDER even babies who have been born but their parents want to kill... and I assure you MANY of you who agree with abortion will agree to this eventually...

What will be next?... Since a child 2 years old can't survive on it's own it is okay to MURDER them as well?...

As you do remove the eggs of the dove,
which you have caged in your window,
so that your house may not fill with birds,
to your inconvenience,
so, too, have you compared the eggs
of your hoard of eggs,
casually connecting your comfort
with the creation of Human.
A portion of your spirit
which was to join that of yours,
does not come among you.
The possibility of this talent here
with that strength there
is not given life for you.

TextIn Exodus 21:22 it states that if a man causes a woman to have a miscarriage, he shall be fined; however, if the woman dies then he will be put to death. It should be apparent from this that the aborted fetus is not considered a living human being since the resulting punishment for the abortion is nothing more than a fine; it is not classified by the bible as a capital offense.

@ PurpleChiten

You have Exodus opposite from what the truth actually reads. In order to understand you should read in context and not as you should want it to read.

Exo 21:22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
Exo 21:23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
Exo 21:24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
Exo 21:25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

You should not mislead people with your rants to try and prove your view. This clearly states that if the woman's fetus is accidentally killed then payment is in order but if the fetus is deliberately killed then it is murder.You see that here it is clearly stated that the fetus is a living person and considered murder.

Again in Numbers you have not read in context. This has nothing to do with a fetus but only suspect of adultery
or as stated a jealousy command of suspicion. In this event the woman is not pregnant but only defiled.

Num 5:12 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man's wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him,
Num 5:13 And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner;
Num 5:14 And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled:
Num 5:15 Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.
Num 5:16 And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the LORD:
Num 5:17 And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water:
Num 5:18 And the priest shall set the woman before the LORD, and uncover the woman's head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse:
Num 5:19 And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse:
Num 5:20 But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband:
Num 5:21 Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell;
Num 5:22 And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen.
Num 5:23 And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water:
Num 5:24 And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter.
Num 5:25 Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman's hand, and shall wave the offering before the LORD, and offer it upon the altar:
Num 5:26 And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water.
Num 5:27 And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.
Num 5:28 And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.
Num 5:29 This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled;

Jesus came not to change Torah but to fulfill Torah.

reply to post by gnosticagnostic


Can a new born baby survive on it's own?....

Can a child of 2 years old survive on it's own?...

Being able to survive doesn't make you human. Because if it does then all animals are human.

One of my sisters died at 8 months old because she was born with a bad heart.

I was only 6 years old when this happened but I remember carrying her. I remember her holding unto my hand and sighing heavily. To this day I still can see her face, and her gestures in my mind as if I was watching a movie.

She was not able to survive on her own, and she was born with a bad heart... Did that make her not human?...

My sister could not speak because she was too young, did that make her less human?...

How is that different from a human fetus?

reply to post by PurpleChiten


Jesus said that if anyone should harm any of these little ones who believe in me it would be better to have a millstone hung around his neck and thrown into the sea. It says so in Matthew Mark and Luke. Would kind compassionate Jesus bless the sexual relationships we encourage today? Cruel and competitive? Although this is a dead, dead issue and we who believe in life have totally lost this you still continue to argue. Are you trying to absolve yourself?

It can be argued that the world (or at least the US) has changed since we have decided that children aren't really that important and that causing pain and/or harm on an innocent mean nothing. Partial birth abortion is an abomination. Hooray for the fact that it can plainly be seen in later abortions that struggling is going on in the womb. Maybe we ought to film that and sell the pictures.

Originally posted by Quadrivium
reply to post by windword

 

It is now. He was about 2 years old in the picture that was posted. Additionally, the question posed was how is the child to answer a question. Can a fetus answer a question?

No, the picture was of a child having prenatal surgery, who reached out of the uterus and grasped the doctors finger.

No, you're wrong, there was a composite of 5 picures, 2 of the surgery and three of the toddler,

LOL! The fetus didn't reach out to shake the doctors hand. The doctor reached in to reposition the fetus for surgery. The muscular reaction was just normal reflex.

Then, when I awoke in the hospital, with a bandaged, shaved head and a colossal headache accompanied by a colossal bill, I would just have trust and have faith that I really did have a tumor, and they weren't just taking me for ride.

We don't know what we're told, we believe what we're told, and use deductive logic to ferret out untruths. This is just basic logic and reason. We only know what we know through our own experience. A fetus doesn't perceive experience because it isn't self aware.

Then you admit that you, like the child, would have to wait until you were able to understand what happened; In order to answer the question, "Have you ever had surgery".
Self awareness has nothing to do with it.

I have admitted no such thing. Surgery on an unconscious or unaware fetus does not constitute proof of a sentience or that the fetus has a "soul."

That's your opinion.

My opinion has nothing to do with it. This is fact.
When a woman has an abortion, she is removing a human life.
Its not a dog, its not a cat, or in my case a two headed monkey, It is a human life, no way around it.
Quad

Nope. When a living human sperm meets a living human egg a chemical reaction occurs that causes certain pre-encoded molecular programs to kick in. It's an automatic extension of preexisting life. It's a reproductive biological mechanism, nothing more and nothing holy.

reply to post by Seede

Exo 21:22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
Exo 21:23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
Exo 21:24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
Exo 21:25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

You're rehashing an argument that has already been presented in this thread.

If a pregnant woman. let's say she's 5 months pregnant, suffers trauma, causing her to miscarry, how to you think that fetus would fair? It would be still born!

No underdeveloped fetus would survive in those days, in the circumstance described in that scripture, unless the woman was really, really far along and ready to deliver anyway.

No Hebrew judge would exact the death penalty in exchange for a dead, undeveloped fetus that never took a breath. The punishment that would be exacted would be cattle or grain or some such monetary fine.

If the woman should die, (mischief) perhaps bleeding to death from the miscarriage, then the death penalty would be exacted. The dead potential life was not "a life for a life" a LIFE was a life for a life.

You can't have it both ways. The God of the Old Testament did not value life and wasn't pro-life. He ordered the murder of children and deliberate abortions. calling for the unborn to be ripped from women's bellies and dashed against rocks.

If your God ordered abortions for the enemies of his people, why would he be offended by the abortions of unwanted babies? What's the difference?

Your God ordered men to stone their own children for rebellion and their wives for adultery or even collecting fire wood on a Saturday. God is not pro-life.

You can't have it both ways.

reply to post by otherpotato


This has nothing to do with the soul. Why do people keep bring that up?
It is very very simple.
When a woman has an abortion she is removing human life. Can you prove that it is not a human life?

Originally posted by otherpotato

Originally posted by GideonFaith

Originally posted by otherpotato
reply to post by GideonFaith

 

If you have a question you want answered you'd better just ask it again then. I'm not not avoiding a question and I'm also not going to chase it down.

When Samual gets older and someone asks him if he's ever had surgery ... he should say no? Since by the definitions on here that he had no soul at the time.

Why would he say no? Having surgery doesn't prove you have a soul so I'm not sure why you're even bringing it up. Surgery is a medical procedure performed on a body. Veterinarians perform surgery on animals too. Between that and pointing to the grasp reflex as proof of a soul all you've done is argued that animals have a soul, which sure makes life more complicated if you're looking to enjoy a t-bone any time soon.

No, you are bringing up about animals having a soul, which is entirely off topic.

I have read over and over that a human being has no soul until a breathe is taken. Forget it, you are not getting the concept.

Originally posted by PurpleChiten
Apparently, the question they won't tell us about has something to do with whether or not there was a surgery or not (of course they can't just state the question, that would be silly

)

The question has been posted many times.

IF that is the question, his answer would be no. He didn't have surgery, his mother had surgery when she was pregnant with him. For him to have had surgery, he would have been the patient, he wasn't the patient, his mother was.

Technically, every single person in the world could say they had surgery if we counted things like that since the umbilical cord is cut on birth (making them a self-sustaining person as opposed to being part of their mother).

Until that cord is cut, he didn't have surgery, his mother did.

He bares the scars as does his mother. He has to heal, just like his mother.

reply to post by Seede

Again in Numbers you have not read in context. This has nothing to do with a fetus but only suspect of adultery
or as stated a jealousy command of suspicion. In this event the woman is not pregnant but only defiled.

How do you know that she wasn't pregnant? What do you think happens when a man knows a woman carnally? Don't be naive.

Do you believe in magic smart water, that knows when it hits the bowels if a woman has been naughty? Does the smart water know if the fetus belongs to the woman's lover or her husband?

If the "bitter water" was just plain water, why was it placed in an earthen vessel, for unclean and impure substances, and then destroyed after the ritual.

The potion also had to be mixed in an earthenware vessel;[14] this may have been because the potion was regarded as a taboo which could be spread by contact, and therefore also made the vessel taboo, necessitating its subsequent destruction
en.wikipedia.org...

If the bitter water was nothing special, why did it have to be swallowed in order for the curse to enter the woman's bowels? Why didn't the priest pour it over the woman's head, or sprinkle it around.

Don't be obtuse. This ritual was for the sole purpose of purging unwanted children. Stop making excuses for your God. He didn't care about the unborn, on a massive scale.

Originally posted by Quadrivium
reply to post by otherpotato

 

This has nothing to do with the soul. Why do people keep bring that up?
It is very very simple.

Because this is a thread addressing the "left wing" CHRISTIAN perspective of the morality of abortion!

When a woman has an abortion she is removing human life. Can you prove that it is not a human life?

A fetus is not a sentient, sovereign human being. It is a developing potential human being that is a part of the sovereign body of the woman.

If God gave us free will, this is a time when we use it.