The bible and abortion

From what I heard it has only to do with a passage (and I don't remember where exactly), that God knew someone while they were in the womb.From that it was extrapolated that if God knew a person in the womb, the person must have been a person in the womb.Since killing a person is murder, killing a person in a womb is murder.But this is simply what I heard from some anti-abortion protesters and they are crazy. Who can believe anything they say, including why they are demonstrating?------------------
holmes

That's very true, no mention of the Roman practice of "exposure" (abandoning a newborn to die in the wilderness) either. You'd think with everything else they get blasted for, if that was bad it would be mentioned.And look at the OT. It certainly mentions parents killing their kids, trying to kill their kids, or being instructed to kill their kids (sometimes just for disobedience). Yet no mention that any of this was bad and in this case the kid is out and walking around.------------------
holmes

Well the last half about protesters being so crazy was a joke, but it seems I didn't make it very well. I meant to imply they are so crazy they don't even know WHY THEY ARE PROTESTING (as in which biblical passage they are using). This was not to imply that because they are so crazy discussions on the morality of abortion have been decided.So let's get everything back on track. You seem to suggest by your answer to the first part of my post that the Biblical reason for not allowing abortions is primarily because it is considered a person. Is it because of "God knowing someone in the womb", or are there more specific passages?------------------
holmes

Exactly, and in a multicultural country that is supposed to protect every individual's belief systems, which singular definition of "human being" are we to force on everyone else?In this whole argument I see much equivocation on the terms "human" and "being."About the only thing that is noncontroversial is to say at birth a child is 100% human being. That "sliding scale" you talk about a fetus having in the womb has NOTHING TO DO WITH OBJECTIVE REALITY, and only SUBJECTIVE OPINION.So why not allow for abortions right up till birth? Because it would offend your definition of human being?Personally I find it offensive that people would have abortions after the 2nd trimester. It shows a blatant disregard for one's personal health. But who am I to talk about anyone else's life like that? When do I get a say over what is gestating in someone else's body? Doesn't the mother have a better say over when she considers the fetus within her has become a human being, than someone standing firmly outside that part of the cycle of life?Even two mothers will not have the same feeling of when her fetus has become her child.I think we have to accept the reality that some will make odious choices to our own minds when the very nature of the choice relies on wholly subjective interpretations of reality.About my only agreement with you is that it should be done cleanly and humanely. If you know it has a nervous system and is likely to "feel pain", whether it is able to understand it or remember it is beside the point, less "pain inducing" methods should be employed. And this is the perfect example of why arguments on this topic, which rely on a fetus' quality of "human beingness" are nothing but transitory, subjective assertions.You just said abortion has EXACTLY ZERO TO DO WITH WOMEN'S RIGHTS. So what do ANY of the above qualifications have to do with a fetus not becoming defined as a human being until later. Those seem to have everything to do with the feelings of the woman in question, and not subjecting her to the emotional distress of carrying a child that has been forced upon her, or in the last example one she would not care to take care of.In fact that last subject matter really blows my mind. Are you saying that improper development makes it less than a human being? If so, then why not less than complete development?I realize I posted a lot of question marks and capitalized words. Please don't take this as my yelling at you. But I do mean it firmly. I think the logic of this debate usually ends in emotional appeals that have nothing to do with rational assessments of what a human being is, because there will never be such a firm definition that can apply to an ongoing process which BY NATURE may end in miscarriage or even still birth. If it must come down to anyone's emotional appeal, I'd say leaving it with the woman carrying the child is the only HUMANE thing to do.The fetus, even if 100% human being by my standards, is unlikely to understand whatever is going on, or care. Let the woman decide, she is 100% human and it will impact her ongoing life the most, even if I find her decision personally repellent. And you can make your irrational choice whenever you get pregnant.------------------
holmes

Your argument along this line is inaccurate.A fetus is something vastly different than any person who has been born. They are in a process from simple tissue to human being. Where this line gets crossed is totally subjective.It is correct that we can start defining physical aspects of development in an objective way, and that may help people draw their own lines, but those lines are still subjective.The "similar" situations you outlined were not similar at all as all of this involved violent and painful actions against clearly living human beings. They were not gestational organisms and so (reasonably) fully under the protection of government bodies.I DO believe we restrict many cultural belief systems in ways that we should not, but this has nothing to do with the case of abortion.Let us look at this situation much more closely.The fetus at every state of DEVELOPMENT is an objectively unknown entity, with subjective opinions coming into play on where it is FULLY DEVELOPED as a human being.The mother at every state of the fetus' development is an objectively known entity. No subjective opinions are necessary in this case.Why should ANYONE'S opinion other than the mother's count? She is the gestational host. Should her moral opinion not count more than anyone else's? Is she not in the best position to determine when her fetus has fully developed?You began by arguing it had nothing to do with women's rights. It is all about the rights of human beings.Then reversed yourself by talking about compassion. If it is all about the civil rights of the human being/fetus, then compassion for the mother has nothing to do with anything. Why should a human being be punished for how it was developed.Think about this very carefully. You have now outlined that the fetus is a human being and so covered by law that covers everyone that has been born. Yet out of compassion for a mother that had been raped, her child can be killed. BY YOUR LOGIC a mother who had been raped can kill her new born child, or maybe even her toddler? Why should she be forced to have to take care of a child that was forced upon her, or have part of her walking around where she did not want that?But let's say you reject the above argument. The reality is you HAVE accepted the idea that compassion for the mother is a valid reason to override the rights of the "human being" inside her to be born.What about compassion for a mother who is not in a position to continue carrying the child? Let's say her husband or boyfriend dumped her at the last minute. Or that she has become overwhelmed psychologically/emotionally with the impending reality of having a child.What's even stranger is that you say the reason to abort the "malformed" is that it is out of compassion for not briinging a child into a world of suffering. Children with Down's syndrome are definitely malformed but don't suffer much. In fact, it could very well be argued that an unwanted child born directly into orphanhood and shuttled between foster homes suffers quite a bit.Do we have no compassion for a child that will be born into unfortunate circumstances? I know that if I was a mother (well even as a father) i would not want my child knowingly being born into such conditions.It seems once again that we are down to picking and choosing on totally subjective criteria. In this case what compassion is "acceptable" to remove the rights of a "human being."I would argue that with such layering of picking and choosing in this situation, the moral and legal judgements of others should fall back into darkness. No wholly subjective moral judgement we can make FOR OTHERS is ever guaranteed to end in happiness. And to force someone to carry a child and bear it against there will is tantamount to rape. It is removing power from someone at a point where they are incredibly vulnerable, for our own psychological gratification.Let the women choose. Give them information to make the best choice, for sure. Encourage and empower women not to get into such a situation in the first place. But once in that situation let it go.------------------
holmes

While I must admit the majority I have seen are, that was not what I was saying. Most certainly the ones using Biblical references to support their argument are Xtian. That was the whole point of this thread; examining where the Bible condemns abortion. My response in that post was directly refering to that question.------------------
holmes

I don't think your reply did justice to my post at all.You simply took a reductio (which was not necessarily the most important argument in the post) then restated your position (though slightly altered) which does nothing to disarm the arguments I made.Let us start from the beginning once more...To you a human being is 100% covered by protection of the law. If the fetus is 100% a human being, then it is covered by the law. Your first post laid this out quite clearly.But the status of the fetus as a human being is unknown. It is moving to that state, and as it does so gains in moral worth.At some point that moral value exceeds the woman's desire to avoid "inconvenience."For some reason rape either diminishes the fetus' moral value, or makes the woman's "inconvenience" great enough that it exceeds the moral value of the fetus. You referred to this as "compassion" before.You have also stated that the malformation of the fetus does the same. In this case it was "compassion" for the suffering of the child after birth.Let's leave my reductio alone.I also argued along your same lines of "compassion."Why is there to be no "compassion" for the "inconvenience" of a woman whose husband/boyfriend dumped her, or she just lost her job, or has realized she is not psychologically/emotionally capable of going through with the pregnancy.Why is there to be "compassion" for children who have Down's syndrome (they do not "suffer" though they are limited in mental capacity), but no "compassion" for the potential suffering of a fully developed child born into the life of an orphan, or a home where they were not wanted and act as a hardship?I state once again, all of your terms to date have been nothing but subjective terms. Human being, compassion, inconvenience.I understand that it might feel nice for YOU to get a say in what others do, to have your definitions count. Unfortunately there is no way that you or I can create such definitions that their results will be superior to throwing darts at a list of definitions.However, the mother is always 100% a human being. That starts the ball rolling in protecting her rights over an entity whose human beingness or "moral worth", while growing, is never quite known.She also has a more intimate connection to the life growing within her. Why is it so odd to say then that each mother has the more credible position to say when the fetus has become a child?But more important than any of this, the mother knows the specific situation that child is going to be born into. It is HER reproductive cycle. Why should she not be able to choose that her offspring not be born into conditions she would not want for them?To some mothers who have chosen to carry malformed children to term, your claim it is somehow compassionate to abort them would seem inhumanly cruel. Should their view on this override the wishes of mothers who would not wish to have their own children be deformed?If you say they should not, then how do you argue that your definitions based on the conditions you'd be willing to have YOUR child born into, should be instated and mothers disagreeing with you be viewed as inhumanly cruel?I personally understand the position of a mother not wishing to have a child born into poverty or an unloving home. I admittedly do not understand why a woman would wait so late to have an abortion (especially if her reason was to "avoid inconvenience") but I do not presume to know every possible situation or person's emotional states.Please deal with this more important argument against your position.------------------
holmes

No. My position is irrelevant right now. The argument at hand is one against your position. You have dodged it twice now.Third time's the charm?Deal with my criticisms against YOUR position.After that we can deal with criticisms against MY position, and I will happily make them very clear for any attack you'd like to use at that time.------------------
holmes

You are correct, you cannot argue against my position on abortion if you do not know what it is. The problem is that it is YOUR position currently under fire.It is fallacious to believe that attacking my position in any way saves your own.I am beginning to get the feeling you don't really know what your actual position is. So far you started with one vague definition. When attacked on its vagueness you brought in another vague definition to save it. When the next one was attacked, you brought in a third.Now you refuse to address the charges altogether.How does knowing my position help you address the discrepency between caring for a rape victim and not one left in a helpless position at the last moment? How does knowing my position help you defend a theory that calls "compassion for the suffering of a child" the termination of a child with Down's and not for a child which will be born into a social situation that is likely to be much more painful? Yes, depending on the exact method, its infliction of pain to the child, and its risk to the life of the mother.I'll be interested in seeing how this information aids in the defense of your position. As far as I can tell your only option is to use ad hominem, guilt by association, or appeals to emotion to make my position look less than "compassionate" or "moral", which of course does nothing to save your own.Trust me when I say that a more effective argument has nothing to do with my position. At least not until you have saved your own.------------------
holmes

I'm on your side for most of this topic, but I think this is an unfair accusation.While many may be prudish, or specifically against women having a sexuality of their own, there are many who really are just pro-LIFE. They genuinely believe life begins at conception and that it is a sacred entity which must go through to delivery without outside interference.In those cases it is not about punishing women, but rather about not punishing an innocent being that had no choice whether it came into existence or not. While it can be said that the woman had no real choice either (especially with regards to rape), that doesn't remove the idea that since it is now a life it must be preserved.This view is more along the lines that they are both innocent victims, so why should one die over the other?I am not in agreement with this position of course, but know these people really are out there and probably make up the majority.It can be argued that regardless of their intent, the end result of their demands is to punish women. I'm not sure if I would agree with this argument, but it more accurate and fair than saying that punishment is their intent.------------------
holmes

Okey-doke no more potshots. But I have a hard time with people veering away from the current course of discussion to avoid addressing points I just made. When I see such things coming I tend to take warning shots over the bow. This has already been addressed. There is absolutely NO evidence that society's forcing a personal decision on the part of a mother, regarding whether to carry a pregnancy to term, has ever resulted in anything better than letting mother's make that judgement themselves. This is true both for the mother and the resulting child.I might point out that in the past society has allowed for infanticide (the killing of children after birth) and at other points no abortion rights at all. "Society" then is as flaky and inconsistent as any particular individual over time with the same mixed results.Please provide some argument on why the temporary will of the majority (many of whom are incapable of understanding that position) should override the current will of the person in question, when it is their life and the life of their own child which is in question. Some evidence that such decisions have resulted in a better situation for either would be handy.All of your examples regarded decisions on known entities, which are inappropriate to this situation. This involves the ability of an individual human being to exercise control over her own life and her reproductive cycle. It is similar to the others only if definitions of the child have already been made. This is not correct. I have made absolutely no claim as to what "value" a child should be assigned. I accept both 0 and 100. Let me restate my argument for clarity.There is no objective measurement for the "moral value" of a child, or whether it even counts as a "child" in the sense of a "human being." Because there is no hope in attaining such an objective measurement, it is better to support principles of humanity and civil rights by allowing individuals in that situation to make their own subjective choice, than for society to impose its own.Both would have an equal chance at success, so why not at least maintain liberty and autonomy for those who are without question 100% human beings? At least that way we limit the mistake to the person whose reproduction is at stake.An argument that because society makes such choices does not form an argument that it should. Where is the progress or positive outcome in this imposition of will by society? Unfortunately this question is mired in a viewpoint which I have already rejected, and so I cannot answer the question from that viewpoint. All I can say is that for a person who holds your viewpoint of moral gradualism based on physical growth, there probably would be none.But I will explain a distinction between both entities based on other criteria.A child, until it is out in the world, is an unknown. Even a seemingly perfect "late" child sitting in a womb, may die in childbirth, while a premature child by definition has survived childbirth. Thus we are talking about the difference between an entity which may yet die before birth, and one that has been born and struggling to exist.As schraf has also pointed out, there is a chance that the mother may die during childbirth. This is a point of risk which is already past with a premature baby.Thus there is a world of difference between the two. Physically they may resemble each other, but their viability and effect on the mother are completely separate.Neither have an intrinsic moral value. Each person will ascribe their own. Why is it better that society (by definition the will of the majority in power, most of whom are incapable of experiencing much less understanding the position) gets to force its ascription onto a woman's? The difference should be obvious. Before birth, the child is a physical and mental burden on the mother. By "burden" I don't necessarily mean "affliction", only that it is something which uses up a lot of energy on the part of the mother.It continues to use up both with no guarantee that the birth will be successful for the mother, the child, or both. At this time the mother would seem to have the proper choice of terminating the growing child.Once born the child is no longer physically or even mentally attached to the mother. She could after all put it up for adoption if she felt the wholly different physical and psychological demands of a child after its birth were too much for her.What's more, the child at that point would be without question alive and a human being, separate from a gestational being attached to a woman. That would suggest no reason to consider protecting its rights as a conflict with protecting the mother's.At that point the mother will have chosen the responsibility of having a child, or at least of having had her offspring enter the vagaries of life. It seems not only a little late to be changing her mind but quite a strange idea that her rights would extend to allowing her to kill this separate being.Here is where I am going to state something quite controversial. I am actually for some forms of early infanticide. Human children are not fully developed until a short time after birth and as it is are relatively noncognative beings for slightly longer than that. Parents (or doctors for that matter) may not be able to determine disabling conditions until after birth. Since children are the offspring of the parents, I do believe parents have the moral right to say whether they want their offspring to suffer certain conditions.I state this controversial position to point out that I understand how and when society has a right to dictate against that personal position.Birth is a major turning point in life. It separates the mother from the child physically, and removes questions as to what the results of pregnancy will be to the mother and child.Only at that point (known physical separation) can the state begin to force an argument that the child has an autonomy worthy of protection that might be shown beneficial beyond the subjective choice of the individual who bore it.Before birth, I am unsure how society gets to tell a person they must gamble with their own lives to bring something into existence which they know they would not want (for whatever personal reasons).As an extension of this argument, trials by jury are supposed to be according to a jury of ones "peers". If a woman were on trial for having an abortion during her third trimester, who would you feel her peers would be? Do you feel men, who are incapable of even knowing what this situation entails, could serve on such a jury?If men can be peers, how? If not, how can they even be allowed to pass laws on this subject?While abortion can legitimately be claimed a tragedy, no matter the numbers involved it is always a personal tragedy. How does elevating personal tragedies to the national stage improve the outcome of that choice?------------------
holmes

heheheh, you got that right. I think it is due to total ignorance, or more to the point an ignorance which allows an attitude that whatever does not come to term naturally is will of God, but once fertilized (even if it may later fail as a pregnancy) it is some sacred thing called "life" which cannot be touched by human intentions.While I think there are some which are really anti-woman, and anti-sex, I've known too many Xtians that had the best intentions and no anger toward women, and were simply ignorant. I do not know if they are in the majority but they certainly aren't a miniscule minority.That said, I think the practice of their ideology is a practice of oppressing women's rights, and that is another part of their ignorance. They don't notice, or argue away what the effect is of their ideology.To my mind it is a lot like regular germans in Nazi germany. When one wants to talk in high ideals all the time, it is easy to forget or ignore the ugly stuff that goes along with it. Many good people with honestly good intentions get swallowed up in that mindset so easily.------------------
holmes

The problem is that abortion is not necessarily terminating the life of another human being. This is one of the points that was made early on. It is the decision to terminate the gestation of what will become a human being. But until the moment of birth whether it will even be born a live human being is unknown, much less whether the mother considers it a full human being.Again, you have used the vague "human being" to support you argument. You have also failed to mention why malformed children are considered less than human beings if they are allowed to be terminated at a later time. If it is due to compassion, then how does compassion not count for the mother and child in other circumstances? First of all, you say you support abortion up until the second trimester, how does your above statement not hold true for them?Second, you have said that abortion very late in pregnancy is allowed in the case of deformity or when it was a product of rape or incest. The last two cases in specific seem incongruous with the statement above.The fact is you seem capable of determining when abortion is appropriate. Nothing that ends a pregnancy is "better" for the gestational child. But one can ask whether the longterm situation into which the child will be born would be better than not entering that situation at all. And a mother can determine whether carrying out the pregnancy would be better for herself and for her child.Please provide evidence that society's determination of which point is the appropriate point to terminate a pregnancy has ever offered a better result for mother or child, than allowing it to the mother in question.I also want to add that humans are not communal organisms. They reproduce as individuals, so why is this choice not considered personal... and sacred as a personal choice? It seems that nothing could be more important for an individual (besides how to die) than under what conditions one wants to reproduce, including the conditions into which a child will be born. You seem to have missed my point. You say reproduction is not the right of an individual, but rather so important that the best choice must be made by society.My point is that society has never shown itself capable of making a better choice, or even a consistent choice, than leaving it up to the preference of the mother.According to the argument you have just laid out, if society (which is simply the majority of the ruling party) decides infanticide is mandated, that would be a good decision, or a better one than the mother's. While this may be unlikely, presently third term abortions are legal and you find society wrong. Hmmmmm. Which is it then? Is society right, or are you wrong?Or if you are trying to argue that the opinion of society should be able to be changed, and so come to a better opinion, please show any evidence that this has occured in history. Knowledge may increase, but societal values change back and forth over the course of time.Again we have gone from no restrictions, to the ultimate restriction, to some restrictions. We are not zeroing in on any equilibrium, as can be seen by the growth of anti-abortion sentiment. Are each of these right and better choices?I would also like to ask how you define society. Is it the village you are in? The county? The State? The country? The world? Which level of society is appropriate to make the best choice? Currently it is the state. But it seems to me that if you believe it is anything less than the world (or at least the nation) then why can the decision making community not logically come down to the immediate family? There is no doubt this is true. And where I go to societies that do not allow abortion at all they find something in the way of scientific backing for the view (based on other development criteria) that it is human and worthy of our protection.That is the very nature of subjective opinion.While one day we will certainly be able to track the development of the brain, and tell when consciousness begins, we will still never be able to tell when it is a human. Or more than likely we'll discover that "consciousness" becomes another vague concept to argue over. Do you mean when brain patterns start? Because if you meant self-awareness that is pretty clearly not till well after birth. Once you find me an unborn child making a claim I may start siding with you. Until that time I only see fully grown people anthropomorphising a gestational entity, in order to say they are making a claim for it.And what do you say to those people who come forward to support the "child's claim" to life in the case of deformities, rape, or incest? Don't you hear them pleading in the voice of the child "don't kill me, I'm a victim too..."Once you deny them the right to make claims for the child, you deny your own. If you accept them once they become the majority, then you are incapable of denying forced abortions (if that becomes the will of the majority).This is why it is all about humanity and civil rights. Once society gets its hands on people whatever mistake is being made will now be made society wide, and certainly over the will of many mothers. At least by keeping reproductive rights free mistakes will be left to the individual and FOR CERTAIN the rights of the one being we KNOW IS HUMAN will not have her rights trampled on. This misses the point entirely. A premature baby by definition has made it through childbirth. It is now struggling to survive as a wholly separate entity.An unborn child is a total unknown. While it may have a higher survival statistic than a premature baby struggling to survive on the outside, that does not mean there are any guarantees that it will live through to childbirth.Your other stat (on death during childbirth) is missing the point as well. I did not mean just death in childbirth itself, but survival up to and including childbirth.There is certainly a higher mortality rate for that. But it will be smaller than 40% that's for sure. Maybe less than 10%. How does that make the individual woman's decision regarding whether she wants to continue the pregnancy any less important? Until we have clairvoyants on staff at hospitals, a decision that this pregnancy will certainly not be that % is patently ridiculous.And the % that results in the death of the mother? Did you look that up? If even 0.0001% resulted in death of the mother, who is society to make that call? Society buys lottery tickets with less chances to win than that. Yet now when a woman's life is on the line such a percentage really looks small... compared to the maybe life of the child, born into conditions that will not be socially positive? Each cell of your body is truly separate, just like an unborn child. You can see that by cutting some off. You can keep them alive if you want. You can even grow more. In 50 years you may even be able to grow a whole new you.Shall society be able to stand up for those poor cells who have no ability to stand up for themselves? After all their moral claim can only be protected by society.It seems to me one reason the unborn cannot make a claim for themselves is they are not human beings to start with. Just because a group gets together to say it does, how does that make them correct? The implications toward individual body parts is immediately above, and for infanticide/noabortionrights are further above.Without question there are groups that stand up for the rights of the children who are the product of rape as well as the deformed. What makes them less right? This is only an assertion of your own opinion. The last sentence alone is contrary to the fact there are abortion protests regardless of stage of pregnancy.Some physical development problems are not determined until late in the pregnancy. Some will not be able to be determined until after birth (something that must weigh on the conscience of all mothers). Some mothers will find social conditions (or personal psychological conditions) change near the end of pregnancy.While I agree for the most part pregnancies ought to be done early, conditions may arise later on which are totally unforseen.As far as getting pregnant being a sign they chose the responsibility of carrying a child, that is simply heartless. Contraceptive methods fail. One is inside feeding off the biological reserves of the mother, the other may be shuttled off to an orphanage to be fed by kindly nuns if the mother doesn't feel like it. These are two completely separate situations which are not interchangable. You are equivocating here. It is separate in the sense that there is a boundary between the two, but it is not in any way shape or form seperate from the mother to be cared by other individuals as social situations warrant.To be frank, this comment belies why men should not weigh in on the subject at all. Only complete ignorance of the physical ties a woman has to the growing entity inside her can allow one to make this claim. Either that or a delusional anthropomorphization of that entity.It is very clear. Until birth, the mother and child are bound together... physically. Are men really in a position to evaluate the moral claims of the mother? This is a competition between rights by the way, or are women's rights swept away completely by the fact that the unborn child has some?And how can men make any moral claims based on development of an unborn child when not one man has ever felt the development of a child? Women have the privileged position of a physical tie to the unborn. They can sense activity men cannot even measure, sometimes sensing problems long before doctors can find them.As far as your last question, this cannot be leveled at me as I do not believe society should have a say in personal reproductive matters at all. I don't think anyone other than the individual pregnant woman has any way of knowing what the situation is for the mother or the child.You have still not answered the charges I made against your position. Talk about the inconsistencies of "compassion" regarding mothers and children, which allow for the termination of a human being.------------------
holmes