It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
F the mother is in reasonable fear of imminent severe bodily injury or death caused by the baby.
Galvatron
This whole discussion is subjective. Everyone is discussing the morality of it. Murder is already legal in certain situations (like defending ones own life, fighting as a soldier, death sentence, etc. etc.).
Whether or not it is murder is moot. If society comes together enough to say "yes, it's acceptable, or not it's a crime" then that's all that matters, murder or not.
How you deal with the morality of it is up to you. Some have stated feeling guilty, other have a clear conscience.
As much as I love debated morality, as a morality that is debated, tested, evaluated, adjusted, tested, and on and on is inherently and logically more moral and ethical than arbitrary morality, in the end the whole question is a societal one. Either society says "yep, that (whatever it is) fits us and it's fine" or society says "no that's not okay, and doesn't represent us or what we want the future to look like". The reasons fall by the wayside.
I will never convince someone else that red is the best color if they think blue is.edit on 1-12-2013 by Galvatron because: (no reason given)
Each state differs in the way it incorporates the castle doctrine into its laws, what premises are covered (abode only, or other places too), what degree of retreat or non-deadly resistance is required before deadly force can be used, etc.
Typical conditions that apply to some castle doctrine laws include:
An intruder must be making an attempt (or have made) an attempt to unlawfully or forcibly enter an occupied residence, business, or vehicle.
The intruder must be acting unlawfully (the castle doctrine does not allow a right to use force against officers of the law, acting in the course of their legal duties).
The occupant(s) of the home must reasonably believe the intruder intends to inflict serious bodily harm or death upon an occupant of the home. Some states apply the Castle Doctrine if the occupant(s) of the home reasonably believe the intruder intends to commit a lesser felony such as arson or burglary.
The occupant(s) of the home must not have provoked or instigated an intrusion; or, provoked/instigated an intruder's threat or use of deadly force.
Every age has heard it, this voice that speaks form Hell: "Sacrifice your children and for you it will be well."
27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.
windword
reply to post by sad_eyed_lady
I couldn't disagree with your opinion more, about abortion being "human sacrifice". However, along those lines, Jesus was a human sacrifice.
Additionally, the God of the Old Testament outlines a procedure for abortion in the Book of Numbers, Chapter 5.
27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.
God didn't see it as human sacrifice, but a purity ritual and test of purity.
edit on 2-12-2013 by windword because: (no reason given)
[27] And when she hath drunk them, if she be defiled, and having despised her husband be guilty of adultery, the malediction shall go through her, and her belly swelling, her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse, and an example to all the people. [28] But if she be not defiled, she shall not be hurt, and shall bear children.
If a husband thinks his wife has been playing fast and lose with her favors, he is to bring her before the priest. The priest will mix up a batch of stuff including bitter water, and a piece of paper with a curse on it. The woman (pregnant or not) drinks the stuff while asserting her innocence. Then there's more of that kind of stuff.
If she has been a good and faithful wife, nothing happens. If she's been fooling around, she gets really sick to the stomach and won't be able to have anymore children.
That's how I read it, anyway. If you see something else, I'd be happy to know about it. You really should read from the beginning of the chapter though, it makes things much clearer.
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.
28 And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.
We could imagine that over the course of the centuries that the Hebrew culture existed, this trial by ordeal was used many times when men suspected that their wives were guilty of infidelity. We could also imagine that in at least some of those cases, the accused wives were pregnant, either from sexual intercourse with their husbands or from the adulterous relationships they had been accused of, so just think seriously and, if possible, unemotionally for a moment. If pregnant women were subjected to an ordeal that could cause "bitter [abdominal] pain" or "discharge from the womb" or a fallen uterus, they would surely have aborted the fetuses they were carrying.
www.theskepticalreview.com...
This is not in the Catholic Bible. Where is miscarriage mentioned?
It sounds like the punishment is infertility not miscarriage.
That's the only Chapter where the inducing of a miscarriage, may, possibly, maybe, exist. There are several verses reporting that one thing that made God really upset, was a conqueror slicing open the bellies of pregnant women and killing the kids. Here's one:
But, please, don't tell me that God disapproves of abortion . . . because the Bible says otherwise.
Amos Chapter 1.
13 This is what the Lord says:
“For three sins of Ammon,
even for four, I will not relent.
Because he ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead
in order to extend his borders,
14 I will set fire to the walls of Rabbah
that will consume her fortresses
amid war cries on the day of battle,
amid violent winds on a stormy day.
15 Her king[e] will go into exile,
he and his officials together,”
says the Lord.
We could imagine? In some of the cases?
We could also imagine that in at least some of those cases, the accused wives were pregnant, either from sexual intercourse with their husbands or from the adulterous relationships they had been accused of, so just think seriously and, if possible, unemotionally for a moment. If pregnant women were subjected to an ordeal that could cause "bitter [abdominal] pain" or "discharge from the womb" or a fallen uterus, they would surely have aborted the fetuses they were carrying.
Since Numbers 5 is so uncertain, could you give me some of the many other places where God endorses abortion in the New Testament? Seeing other examples would clarify things. Thanks.
"How could our loving Christian God endorse abortions?" Well, he does, and he does so all through the Old Testament.
windword
reply to post by sad_eyed_lady
This is not in the Catholic Bible. Where is miscarriage mentioned?
www.biblegateway.com...
It sounds like the punishment is infertility not miscarriage.
If she was pregnant, it sounds like it was both.
If the bitter water makes her bleed, a curse in and of itself, and yet, under normal circumstances, a sign of purity, then the water has proven her to be guilty. Then she will become an outcast of society and no man will ever touch her again.
edit on 2-12-2013 by windword because: (no reason given)
New International Version (International Bible Society, 1984). This version is intended to be ecumenical and to appeal to a broad range of English-speaking people. The translation is considered somewhat more conservative than the New Revised Standard Version. Its language is suitable for private study and for public reading. There is no Catholic edition.
reply to post by windword
But, please, don't tell me that God disapproves of abortion (as its human sacrifice) and the murder of innocent children, whether born or unborn, because the Bible says otherwise.
Since Numbers 5 is so uncertain, could you give me some of the many other places where God endorses abortion in the New Testament? Seeing other examples would clarify things. Thanks.
To try to build a strong Roman state, the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus in edicts in 18 B.C. and 9 A.D. promoted childbearing instead of abortion and infanticide. But he never outlawed abortion. This is because Roman law adopted the view of the Stoic philosophers that an unborn child is not a human. The Roman jurist Papinian (140-212 A.D.) recorded that the Stoic idea that unborn babies were not human beings became a part of Roman law.
Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.) was not a Christian but was a Roman with higher moral standards than many who lived during his time. For example, even though in his writing “The Natural History”, he lists some of the
methods by which numerous medical practitioners at the time used to murder unborn babies, he opposed abortion.
Pliny also recorded that the medical practices of the time in the Roman world were able to abort a baby up till the seventh month of pregnancy. This is even though such late abortions nearly always also killed the mother.
"But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! (Matthew 24:19
but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.
Sotah: Abortion-Inducing Potion due to Husband’s Jealousy?
There is overlap here. In the relevant tractate of the Talmud, Sotah, trial by ordeal (by drinking the potion) was expected to trigger a miscarriage / abortion in a guilty party.
Trial by ordeal was (and remains, in some African societies) a widely attested approach to resolving judicial disputes. It needs to be understood from the inside, based on careful ethnographic study.
ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com...
What we do have is that God gets in the mightily smiting mood when people cut open pregnant women.
Genesis 38:24
And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.
Isaiah 13:18
18 Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eyes shall not spare children
Hosea 9:11-16
“Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. Give them, 0 Lord: what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. . .Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.”
Hosea 13:16
16 Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.
Psalms 137:9
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
We also have that if a pregnant woman is accidentally injured when a fight starts, and the unborn baby dies, the person who causes it is put to death.
It is not difficult to see that the traditional position has biblical warrant. The position depends on a legal distinction between a mother and the life she carries within her. The two are accorded discrete legal statuses until the event of birth, the separation of the baby from its mother’s body, at which time the baby is granted the status of a person, or nefesh, in the legal sense. The legal inequality goes back to Exod 21:22-25:
When men fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman’s husband may exact from him, the payment to be based on reckoning. But if other damage ensues, the penalty shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Based on reckoning may or may not refer to the gestational age of the fetus; regardless, “halakhic Jewish exegesis infers that, since the punishment is monetary rather than execution, the unborn fetus is not considered a living person and feticide is not murder/
ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com...
Human sacrifice and punishment are 2 very different things. Sodom and Gomorrah, the Great Flood, the death of the first born in Egypt were all punishments.
windword
reply to post by charles1952
To try to build a strong Roman state, the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus in edicts in 18 B.C. and 9 A.D. promoted childbearing instead of abortion and infanticide. But he never outlawed abortion. This is because Roman law adopted the view of the Stoic philosophers that an unborn child is not a human. The Roman jurist Papinian (140-212 A.D.) recorded that the Stoic idea that unborn babies were not human beings became a part of Roman law.
Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.) was not a Christian but was a Roman with higher moral standards than many who lived during his time. For example, even though in his writing “The Natural History”, he lists some of the
methods by which numerous medical practitioners at the time used to murder unborn babies, he opposed abortion.
Pliny also recorded that the medical practices of the time in the Roman world were able to abort a baby up till the seventh month of pregnancy. This is even though such late abortions nearly always also killed the mother.
internetbiblecollege.net...&%20Jewish%20attitudes%20to%20abortion.pdf
One small point here on the above information:The Hippocratic Oath is an oath historically taken by physicians and other healthcare professionals swearing to practice medicine honestly. It is widely believed to have been written by Hippocrates, often regarded as the father of western medicine, or by one of his students. The oath is written in Ionic Greek (late 5th century BC.)
HIPPOCRATIC OATH: Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panacea and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art — if they desire to learn it — without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but to no one else.
I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.
I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.
Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.
What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about.
If I fulfill this path and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.(wiki)
Hippocratic oath has been around since the 5th century B.C. (revised several times in the 20th century) and, while it's suggested by the oath itself that at least some women (and possibly a few reluctant fathers) requested abortifacients from medical practitioners, it was not considered a healthy practice or one worthy of a true healer.
Carry on.