Well, their "moral equivalency" argument falls flat when it can be demonstrated that they hold the already born child as having less moral value and worth than the fetus.
Great Question. A woman is not pregnant at conception. She becomes pregnant at implantation. The zygote has zero ability to develop without implantation. Knowing this as we do, and believing that zygote has exactly the same moral worth as the implanted embryo, should the state step in (as some states have tried) to regulate the disposition of every embryo that fails to implant?
Should the State mandate a menstruation registry for all women of Child Bearing years and submit the menstruation tissue for microscopic examination for embryonic tissue every month? or do those embryos have less moral worth in your view?
Ought not our moral position be, yes the state should?
It is when the State is you and me, and we self govern, and pass laws regarding it.
I didn't say in General. That is a straw man you have created.
When someones position is that Abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, while they also hold the position that the ACA needs to be repealed and social services cut, they do not hold a consistent position on the inherent moral worth of the Human being.
Repeal the ACA and thousands will Die.
Cut social services such as food stamps, social security, WIC, etc.. thousands WILL die.
Meaning, pre born Human has a greater moral worth than the already born.
One can not hold such an unequal "moral worth" position in practice, yet claim equivalency of moral worth with their lips.
Exodus 21:22-25 describes a case where a pregnant woman jumps into a fight between her husband and another man and suffers injuries that cause her to miscarry. Injuries to the woman prompt the normal penalties for harming another human being: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Killing the woman is murder, a capital crime.
The miscarriage is treated differently, however — as property loss, not murder. The assailant must pay a fine to the husband. The law of a life for a life does not apply. In OT Law, The fetus is important, but it’s not human life in the same way the pregnant woman is.
The Bible places little to no value on fetuses or infants less than one month old.
And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver. --
Leviticus 27:6
Fetuses and infants less than one month old were not considered persons in the OT.
Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them. And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD. --
Numbers 3:15-16
Scripture also indicates that quality of life is a more worthwhile pursuit than simply life for the sake of life:
"If a man begets a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but he does not enjoy life's good things, and also has no burial, I say that an untimely birth is better off than he. For it comes into vanity and goes into darkness, and in darkness its name is covered; moreover it has not seen the sun or known anything; yet it finds rest rather than he." (Ecclesiastes 6:3-5)
"Or why was I not as a hidden untimely birth, as infants that never see the light? There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. There the prisoners are at ease together; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master." (Job 3:16-19)
"The wicked go astray from the womb, they err from their birth, speaking lies. They have venom like the venom of a serpent. ... Let them vanish like water that runs away, like grass let them be trodden down and wither. Let them be like the snail which dissolves into slime, like the untimely birth that never sees the sun." (Psalms 58:3-8)
"Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, 'A son is born to you', making him very glad. Let that man be like the cities which the Lord overthrew without pity; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb for ever great." (Jeremiah 20:14-17)
WOW... did you catch that one?
Jeremiah claims if he had been aborted His mothers womb would have been "Forever great"...
He concludes with an anguished cry...
"Why did I come forth from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?"
So you also believe that, "if humans possess inherent moral worth and value, then cutting social services, healthcare, etc.. is immoral. If we don't, then it's not."
Or is that different somehow?
