Is abortion ever acceptable?

Jon Osterman said:

Genesis 1:27
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

A foetus without a functioning brain is not in His own image.

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That verse does not support brain function as the beginning of human life. It’s quite a stretch as other than Adam and Eve we were all procreated.

When did God reveal we become a human life with regards to procreation? It is the begetting the begat the fathering of the child. Not the birth or brain activity:

Genesis 5: KJV
6And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos: 7And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters: 8And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.

9And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan: 10And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters: 11And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died.

Just a small sampling of the pages and pages of genealogy we have in the Bible. A person was determined by the fathering (begat) of the child. Yes YHWH establishes a patriarchal form of procreation. Just had to warn the readers of potential “triggers.”

I hope we all know the fathers very short important involvement in procreation. And the mothers very long involvement which we honor. Yet there is no magical happenings in the womb to determine if and when a human life becomes a person. According to Genesis, it is determined by the begat or fathering.

We see again here God stating human life begins by the fathering:

Genesis 35: KJV
10And God said unto him, Thy name isJacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel.

11And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;

Jon Osterman said:

A foetus without a functioning brain is not in His own image.

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Are you advocating YHWH had a human body at the time of creating Adam and Eve and this body had a brain?

Or are we more theologically correct to believe Jesus when He told the woman at the well that God is Spirit and that is how we worship Him? (John 4:24). And as such being created in His Image and according to His likeness is in spirit contrasted to the material bodies He just created in Adam and Eve.

redleghunter said:

Are you advocating YHWH had a human body at the time of creating Adam and Eve and this body had a brain?

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Jesus has a body and a brain, and possibly more importantly a consciousness. We are made in God's image so we share his moral and rational nature - that is not possible for an early foetus.

Or are we more theologically correct to believe Jesus when He told the woman at the well that God is Spirit and that is how we worship Him? (John 4:24). And as such being created in His Image and according to His likeness is in spirit contrasted to the material bodies He just created in Adam and Eve.

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Ah, so you are one of those who likes to separate our body and spirit? Sorry, but that is an entirely unbiblical heresy that originates with the Greeks. John 4:24 is talking about how we should worship God - he is not reserved for the Jews because he is the spirit all around us and everyone can access Him. The woman is a Samaritan and her tradition is that her god is restricted to the mountain, and the Jew's god is restricted to Jerusalem. Jesus mention of God being spirit is to point out that He has no such restriction.

Tutorman said:

So because this happened to a women you want her to be a murderer. Two wrongs do not make a right, all abortions are murder

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I want to spare her more suffering.

redleghunter said:

Is the child made in the image and likeness of God or not? When do you think you personally became so?

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We don't know if the unborn child has a soul, yet.

dreadnought said:

We don't know if the unborn child has a soul, yet.

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You're just being disingenuous at this point.

Luke 1:15 - "For he [John] will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's womb.

Luke 1:41,44 - When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. "For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy.

For you to read the above and simply shrug your shoulders and suggest that John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit AND leaped for joy in his mother's womb at the recognition of the woman carrying Jesus did somehow NOT have a soul, is honestly absurd, and shows you don't actually want to have an honest and genuine conversation.

redleghunter said:

Complete sophistry. Your toe belongs to you and has the same DNA as you. If you cut it off and send it to the lab it will have the exact same 46 chromosomes as the rest of your body. When you cut it off you did not make a new distinct human life as what happens at conception.

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Its still a human toe. Now please get busy on your actual explanation of what a person is besides being human. A severed toe is human but not a person. But you won't even say what the difference is! (Hint: it has to do with ability to recognize one's own self and ability to engage in abstract thinking . . . ) Its ok to copy a good answer when you see one, but EVEN YOU will have to concede that being a person is not merely a consequence of being human

redleghunter said:

Your entire premise is false to begin with.

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Your mere assertion does not make it so, and so far that is all you have ever presented.

dreadnought said:

We don't know if the unborn child has a soul, yet.

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Ok you keep saying this without considering what people are responding with.

Paul of Eugene OR said:

Its still a human toe. Now please get busy on your actual explanation of what a person is besides being human. A severed toe is human but not a person. But you won't even say what the difference is! (Hint: it has to do with ability to recognize one's own self and ability to engage in abstract thinking . . . ) Its ok to copy a good answer when you see one, but EVEN YOU will have to concede that being a person is not merely a consequence of being human

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Lol another piece of sophistry.

Paul of Eugene OR said:

Your mere assertion does not make it so, and so far that is all you have ever presented.

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Well the toe meme was entertaining at best. Now that it is exposed for pure sophistry I can’t wait for the next false equivalencies.

Paul of Eugene OR said:

it has to do with ability to recognize one's own self and ability to engage in abstract thinkin

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A newborn neither recognizes itself nor engages in abstract thinking. If this is your standard, then we ought to be able to drown a 2 month old because they keep us up all night and we miss sleep.

Also, there is a good case to be made that if I were to die today that until Christ returns I would probably essentially be a disembodied spirit. A physical brain is not required for the presence of a soul.

redleghunter said:

Actually no one on this thread has advocated forcing a woman who was raped to have a child.

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Actually it was stated earlier in the thread that abortion for any reason is murder, which, if it were declared to be such would make it illegal which would mean forcing rape victims to carry the fetus to term. However you were not the one who said that so I will drop the point.

We have been exploring the moral justification(s) for the premeditated termination (intentional killing) of an unborn human life due to rape.

Your answer is one is justified in taking another’s life in the case of rape because pregnancy for rape victims is the very definition of slavery. The child must die to release the raped victim from a personal psychological enslavement.

Do I explain your reasoning correctly above?

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No, you did not.

SPF said:

Now that's interesting. For me, honestly the only reason that I think abortion is immoral is because I believe that humans beings are unique among God's creation and possess inherent moral worth and value. This inherent moral worth and value extends to all human beings, regardless of race, age, and gender - all of us are created in the image of God.

And as you obviously know, I place the beginning of a human being's life at fertilization. Therefore, in order to be consistent, I necessarily must hold the view that all abortions committed for non-life threatening reasons are immoral. I don't see another option for me.

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And you are entitled to your opinion just as I am entitled to my opinion.

For you, you are suggesting that a human being's life does not begin until birth. Can you explain a little more about what that means? Specifically, I'm asking if first off if you even agree with me that human beings possess inherent moral worth and value. If the answer to that is yes, can you explain when it happens that we gain this inherent moral worth and value? Is it at birth? Is it after fertilization but sometime before birth?

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You really need to try reading what I have written because I’ve already answered this (post 295).

AnnaDeborah said:

If life begins at birth, then presumably, abortion at any point up until birth is acceptable? Which then brings in the interesting point that babies can survive outside the womb months before their due date. I have a relative who was born 2.5 months early and survived. Presumably, at his point of birth, you would regard him as human. Yet if he had stayed in the womb another 2 weeks and then died, he would not have been human. Your humanity therefore becomes based on your place of residence.

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But that isn’t what I’m talking about here I’m talking about a rape victim having the choice to have an abortion so that she does not hav to carry the fetus if her attacker to term against her will.

redleghunter said:

Ok that is where the “carrying a child to term is slavery for a woman who chooses not to abort” leads to my comment.

If the human being developing in her womb has equal moral worth to her as made in the image and likeness of God, then there is no moral justification to end that life even for a serious moral evil imposed on her. The Christian response in this case is evil should not beget evil. Aborting in this case would be a moral evil considering both mother and child are equally morally valued in the eyes of God as His creation “Imago Dei.”

What your view suggests is the rape victim gets to decide the moral value of the child developing in her womb. That the human being growing there is in her womb and whatever she chooses becomes the correct moral decision. Therefore you are employing situational morals.

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I never claimed that a fetus lacks moral worth, but that the worth of the rape victim, a life in being, trumps that of a potential life.

To expose this further this means we as humans who are developed to the point of self sufficiency get to decide what we think defines, subjectively, which lives have moral value. It becomes an arbitrary subjective “sliding ruler” to justify our actions.

Needless to say history is quite full of examples of the subhuman treatment of various groups of unwanted and undesirable people who were viewed as inconvenient.

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Oh yes, now I’m being compared to the Nazis simply because I believe that rape victims must be allowed to choose to have an abortion. Again, I’m not suggesting that should be their choice—I’ve said that they certainly have the right to carry the fetus to term—but the choice has to remain with them.

redleghunter said:

What is a potential human life scientifically and theologically?

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A fetus.

Archivist said:

But that isn’t what I’m talking about here I’m talking about a rape victim having the choice to have an abortion so that she does not hav to carry the fetus if her attacker to term against her will.

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No, you were talking about the fact that you believed life did not begin until birth. You did not state 'life of a rapist's child' or 'life of a wanted baby' or 'life of an unwanted baby'. Just 'life'. So if life does not begin until birth, is it ok to destroy a foetus the day before it's due date because it isn't 'alive' yet? Logically, the answer would be yes. And yet if that baby were to be brought out from the womb whole, it would survive. So whether if is a human life or not depends purely on whether it resides in the womb or out of it.

(And at what point in the birth process does it become a life? I mean, if a woman decides halfway through labour that she doesn't want this baby after all, can she still have it destroyed? Does it become human once its head appears, or does it have to completely clear the birth canal before becoming 'alive'?

Annie Proclivite said:

Some pro-lifers say that abortion is okay in the case of rape or incest.

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Then they are not pro-life.

AnnaDeborah said:

No, you were talking about the fact that you believed life did not begin until birth. You did not state 'life of a rapist's child' or 'life of a wanted baby' or 'life of an unwanted baby'. Just 'life'. So if life does not begin until birth, is it ok to destroy a foetus the day before it's due date because it isn't 'alive' yet? Logically, the answer would be yes. And yet if that baby were to be brought out from the womb whole, it would survive. So whether if is a human life or not depends purely on whether it resides in the womb or out of it.

(And at what point in the birth process does it become a life? I mean, if a woman decides halfway through labour that she doesn't want this baby after all, can she still have it destroyed? Does it become human once its head appears, or does it have to completely clear the birth canal before becoming 'alive'?

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Perhaps you should read what I wrote. I specifically said that a fetus has moral worth even though it is a potential life not a life in being. However I believe that in cases of rape the rights of the rape victim trump those of the fetus.