Why Aren't More Protestants Pro-Life?

[Epiphoskei]

First of all I always enjoy when you speak for God. Keep it up.

Secondly, aborting a fetus is scientifically what happens during an abortion. I tell you that I'm going to abort a fetus and you know EXACTLY what I'm going to do. If I tell you I'm going to murder a baby, you might think I'm going to have an abortion, but you might also think I'm going to stab a 6 month old. See, it's inexact. You'd probably assume I'm going to jail if I murder a baby, but if I'm merely getting an abortion, I'm not going to jail, I'm going back to work tomorrow. And it's that lack of clarity and blurring theatrics that the anti-choice faction thrives on. Pulling at the heartstrings of someone by saying someone is murdering a baby is an emotional lie as opposed to saying your going to abort a fetus. Some people still might be sad about that, but others knowing what is actually being talked about will have a different emotion. It's all about being precise and calling a spade a spade.

What you are essentially asking is that we use ethically sterile terms to describe what we assert is not an ethically sterile practice. I assert that people who procure discretionary abortions are as morally culpable as people who stab six month olds, and the language which you have selected and approved for our use is incapable of conveying that assertion. All the while you yourself exempt yourself from the that requirement and lay on the theatrics thick with all this "anti-choice" rhetoric.

 

[lux et lex]

Oxford English Dictionary: If you have a library card from a major library system you can probably find a way to log into the OED remotely through their webpage, and you can look up and find numerous examples of historic uses of this term in this way. Does that settle the objection yet? Or has the Oxford University Press become some machine for the promulgation of theatrical misuse of terms now? The meaning of a term is defined by use. Murder as an ethical term for immoral killing irrespective of law is an established use.

But there isn't anything morally wrong with abortion...so...

 

[Phinehas2]

Lux et lex,

But there isn't anything morally wrong with abortion...so...

Well yes there is, it is terminating a life and if it is prochoice its murder.
Some of you pro-choice didnt like it when that abortion doctor was killed, yet we dont like it when pro-choice abortions occur, at least you know how we feel, so its a big arogant and ignorant to simply say there is nothing wrong with it.

 

[lux et lex]

Lux et lex,
Well yes there is, it is terminating a life and if it is prochoice its murder.
Some of you pro-choice didnt like it when that abortion doctor was killed, yet we dont like it when pro-choice abortions occur, at least you know how we feel, so its a big arogant and ignorant to simply say there is nothing wrong with it.

Murdering a doctor in church is a wholly different beast than having an abortion. For some people abortion may be a moral choice, but I don't believe it is one, and I'm not alone in this line of thinking.

 

[drstevej]

I know you are not alone in your line of thinking. Both the doctor and the baby have their life ended because someone else made a choice.

I have a 24 year old son who could have been liquidated in the womb. Fortunately the birth mom was willing to make what was a hard choice and an unselfish choice.

I am forever grateful to her for her choice.

Choices have consequences.

 

[Epiphoskei]

But there isn't anything morally wrong with abortion...so...

This is exactly the problem. You're demanding that we make our propositions with language that presumes that our propositions are wrong. We assert there most certainly something wrong with abortion, accordingly abortion falls under the category of murder, which has for centuries meant morally unacceptable killing. You are free to disagree with that assessment, but you cannot claim we are misusing that term; we are communicating exactly what we intend to communicate, according to established use for over a millennium. You are objecting, therefore, not because of the substance of our argument, but because we dare to communicate our argument with language which actually communicates our argument.

 

[lux et lex]

This is exactly the problem. You're demanding that we make our propositions with language that presumes that our propositions are wrong. We assert there most certainly something wrong with abortion, accordingly abortion falls under the category of murder, which has for centuries meant morally unacceptable killing. You are free to disagree with that assessment, but you cannot claim we are misusing that term; we are communicating exactly what we intend to communicate, according to established use for over a millennium. You are objecting, therefore, not because of the substance of our argument, but because we dare to communicate our argument with language which actually communicates our argument.

Show me.

 

[Epiphoskei]

Show you what?

 

[lux et lex]

That abortion falls under the category of murder. Please cite something that is not propagandistic in nature.

 

[Epiphoskei]

That isn't the topic at hand. It could have been, but instead of objecting to the substance of our propositions, people objected to the language we use to frame them, which has been the topic of this thread for as long as I have been posting here. Frankly, my only interest in this thread was to straighten out some sophistry I ran across, and I do not intend to get involved in any other disputes in this thread.

 

[lux et lex]

That isn't the topic at hand. It could have been, but instead of objecting to the substance of our propositions, people objected to the language we use to frame them, which has been the topic of this thread for as long as I have been posting here. Frankly, my only interest in this thread was to straighten out some sophistry I ran across, and I do not intend to get involved in any other disputes in this thread.

So in other words, you can't. Okay thanks.

 

[Phinehas2]

Lux et Lex,

Murdering a doctor in church is a wholly different beast than having an abortion.

No my point was if you know how you feel at the killing of the doctor, then you can know how it feels for me at the killing of the doctor and the pro-choice abortion.

 

[lux et lex]

Lux et Lex,
No my point was if you know how you feel at the killing of the doctor, then you can know how it feels for me at the killing of the doctor and the pro-choice abortion.

Apples and Oranges.

 

[Epiphoskei]

So in other words, you can't. Okay thanks.

In other words, I won't. I don't play games where people change the subject to something they think will be more favorable towards them. If you have something to add to the specific dispute that took place over the last five pages, add it. If you want to concede the dispute and move on to something else, I am under no obligation to get dragged along into a different discussion, particularly one that has been so thoroughly addressed by other writers over the last few decades that nothing written on an internet forum is going to matter.

 

[lux et lex]

In other words, I won't. I don't play games where people change the subject to something they think will be more favorable towards them. If you have something to add to the specific dispute that took place over the last five pages, add it. If you want to concede the dispute and move on to something else, I am under no obligation to get dragged along into a different discussion, particularly one that has been so thoroughly addressed by other writers over the last few decades that nothing written on an internet forum is going to matter.

Do what you wish. I am making no concessions, however.

 

[Servant of Jesus]

I think we need to be careful to preserve Christian unity- no difference of opinion should ever separate us from the love of Christ.

It is important, though, to recognize that eventually, there will be an answer to this vexing question; we will eventually know exactly what God thinks about abortion.

I also think it is important to keep an open mind on these controversial questions- there have been all too many examples in the history of our faith where our interpretations of the Bible radically changed. In this regard, it is worth quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson's sage advice: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

 

[Epiphoskei]

Do what you wish. I am making no concessions, however.

So you are not conceding to the definition given by the OED? On what grounds?

 

[lux et lex]

So you are not conceding to the definition given by the OED? On what grounds?

I asked for extra information with regard to the definition you gave and you failed to produce. Therefore, I will not concede. And I believe this is a moot point since you will not discuss it.

 

[Phinehas2]

Lux et Lex,

Apples and Oranges.

So you don’t care about the death of a doctor? I mean if you don’t say I will guess.

I asked for extra information with regard to the definition you gave

the definition he gave was the OED one. Why didn’t you refer to it?

And I believe this is a moot point since you will not discuss it.

Sounds like you know your view is exposed as faulty.

 

[Epiphoskei]

I asked for extra information with regard to the definition you gave and you failed to produce. Therefore, I will not concede. And I believe this is a moot point since you will not discuss it.

Your inquiry was irrelevant to the discussion. The point that you seem to be missing is that whether or not the sentence "abortion is murder" is true doesn't matter to the question of whether or not the sentence "abortion is murder" is properly using the term murder. The dispute in question addressed the question of whether the pro-life cause was misusing the term murder when we used it as a synonym for unethical killing. You and several others asserted that murder has a very specific use in English and is misused when used in contexts outside the law:

it doesn't make sense. Abortion is not murder because it is not an unlawful killing. I can't reconcile it any other way. Words mean what they mean. And murder means something specific.

I have given abundant evidence that that isn't true, and accordingly, the proposition that abortion is unethical killing may properly use the word "murder," because the definition of murder encompasses all unethical killing. Now do you concede or deny that the term murder may be applied to all unethical killing?