Why Aren't More Protestants Pro-Life?

[lux et lex]

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: 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?

It can be applied, but when it is, it is being misused.

 

[Epiphoskei]

Meaning is determined by use. If a term is used regularly in a manner, it isn't being misused.

 

[lux et lex]

Meaning is determined by use. If a term is used regularly in a manner, it isn't being misused.

I wish I went to whatever school you went to. "Hey kids, if some people incorrect use this term, it can mean whatever you want!"

 

[Epiphoskei]

Look, this is foundational linguistics. Meaning is arbitrary and is determined by use. When a subsection of speakers of any language develop a new meaning for a term, such a meaning is by definition not incorrect. "Fantastic" has come to mean anything great or amazing, no longer necessarily meaning "like something coming from a work of fantasy." I can say "I think it's fantastic that you got your job" without implying I believe jobs are a thing of myth and legend. This is not an incorrect use, this is just the natural evolution of language. Even so, I've established that the meaning of Murder was not such an innovation, being that from proto-German through the end of Old English, the term murder was generically applied to all unethical killing. From the OED again: "In Old English the word could be applied to any homicide that was strongly reprobated."

 

[Phaedros]

Reality is that a fetus isn't a person.

Prove it.

 

[Phaedros]

What dies during an abortion is not a human being.

Pray tell, what is it if not human? Please tell me what it is if it is not human? I've been reading through all of the arguments of the pro-choicers and all I see are people only thinking about themselves.

 

[Phaedros]

Is it a Legal or Illegal Killing?

Killing is killing. If we made killing legal would that make it right? NO of course it wouldn't.

 

[Phaedros]

Lies lies and more lies. This is what a fetus looks like at 7 weeks.

Hmm 3-d image of a baby vs. a 2-d drawing of it?

 

[Phaedros]

You are free to believe that if you so wish.

ANY line drawn that says "you are a person on this side of the line, but not on that side", will be inherently arbitrary.

Hmm...Which seems to entirely negate your entire argument based on the unborn child not being a "person" doesn't it? What definition of person are you using? Are you using a legal? Well that hardly applies in discussions of ethics and morality as law is based on morality and ethics and therefore of a necessarily lower standard.

 

[Phinehas2]

The repeated claim that a foetus isn’t a person is matched by the repeated claim that a foetus is a life.
Even if we accepted that a foetus isnt a person one would have to accept the reality that it is a life and a person in development.

For those who say they wouldnt have known if they were terminated as a foetus who would you react to the suggesting your life only exists because people missed the chance to abort you.

 

[wayseer]

I have stayed away from this thread for the very reasons that the whole debate eventually devolves into legalism.

It is also a ethical and emotional issue.

On those criteria alone one would be somewhat foolish to make any definitive statement on the matter. We are still having arguments about the wording of the creeds.

There are any number of issues which can needlessly inflame the debate without any success of resolution.

Abortion, like war, is an admission of failure. But who amongst us would cast the first stone?

 

[Phinehas2]

Abortion, like war, is an admission of failure. But who amongst us would cast the first stone?

I don’t think anyone wants to cast the first stone against anyone, but rather go and leave the sin of abortion.

 

[Phaedros]

"self-evident" = not supported by facts.

How's that? At conception there is a full complement of DNA which represents an entire human being. Thus it is already human life. Again, if not human life what kind of life is it?

 

[Phaedros]

But what about the others who are faithful Christians who rely on the Holy Spirit to guide them and get told the opposite? How are we supposed to reconcile this?

You heard what you wanted to hear.

 

[Phaedros]

In that culture, for a woman to have a child out of wedlock was for her to be sentenced to a lifetime of poverty and prostitution. I cannot see Christ wishing that on any woman.



It occurred at the same rate then that it does now.



In secret to males, but there's nothing to support the assertion they "lived in shame".



Actually, the same women in the villiages who served as midwives performed abortions and had considerable medical knowledge for the day.

If an induced miscarriage or abortion did not result in the woman's death it would have gone undetected also.

You quite simply contradict yourself. First you say they would have lived in poverty and prostitution then you say there's nothing to "support the assertion they "lived in shame".

 

[Phaedros]

So He's ultimately in control, but we can take that control away from him?

lux et lex- I am new to Christianity and even I know that you display an utter lack of knowledge of Christian theology. People have free-will because God gave it to us, he knows what will happen, but he does not determine it.

 

[Phaedros]

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.

I Timothy 6:3-5

3If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions 5and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

Thank you epiphoskei for pointing out sophistry. It is crucial in an argument such as this and that is all I can see from the pro-choice side.

 

[lux et lex]

Something can be human without being a human being. Those are words that are incorrectly used interchangeably. All the cells in my body are human, but the collective is a human being. A fetus may be human, but it is not a human being because it's dependent on someone else for many major life functions, and has no currently potential of not relying on this other person, nor has it ever not relied on this other person.

 

[Epiphoskei]

Human. Noun.
A human being, a person

You are using the fact that human may be used as an adjective to discredit it's use as a noun synonymous with human being. Simply because things which may be adjectivally called human are not themselves humans does not mean that a human is not a human being. The terms are used synonymously.

Fetuses are not simply human(adj), they are humans(noun). They are discrete and complete (though immature) human bodies. If the fact that they require support from another human being in order to live disqualifies them from being human beings, speaking as a babysitter, all children up to the age of fourteen aren't humans either.

 

[lux et lex]

When you babysit, do you breathe for the children you babysit? Do you feel them through a cord attached to you?