Why Abortion Should Be Allowed in the Early Stages

Calminian · May 25, 2019

ChristianForCats said:
Mississippi has already lost its first round . . . TWICE. Kentucky and Iowa had their heartbeat bills blocked and North Dakota's law is dead.

Very sad. I hope you're not rejoicing. We'll see what happens in the long run.

hedrick · May 25, 2019

Calminian said:
You hope, but I do believe you are wrong. I think the tide of public opinion is finally turning (I hope).

There's not much change. Trimesters Still Key to U.S. Abortion Views.

The "heartbeat" bills have gotten more acceptance than you'd expect, but I suspect that's because people don't understand that there's something that can be interpreted as a heart beat at an earlier stage than they imagine. See Is a 'Fetal Heartbeat' Really a Heartbeat at 6 Weeks?. But when you ask other questions, it doesn't look like there's a change.

dqhall · May 25, 2019

hedrick said:
Remember, through much of Christian history, it was regarded as a sin even though it was dubious that it was murder. Views varied, with the Didache considering it murder. But Aquinas didn't think there was a real soul present from the beginning, but still considered it wrong.

It was considered a sin even by people who didn't think it was murder because it resulted in non-procreative sex. It was part of a larger picture of sexual ethics that I disagree with but many accept.

It is better for two to be celibate unless they are married and wanting to raise a child or twins.

As the taking of innocent life is considered sin or murder, the nations of the world spent hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons of war; some capable of leveling cities. Many Christians do not raise as many objections to such as they do against abortion.

His student · May 25, 2019

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
terminating a fetus in the early trimesters does not kill a living human being. Therefore, it is not murder. I agree with that principle.

It is my considered opinion that anyone who can't determine from the scriptures in which trimester Jesus Christ became fully human as well as fully God - may as well turn in his or her Bible and read something else.

GodLovesCats · May 25, 2019

Calminian said:
Very sad. I hope you're not rejoicing. We'll see what happens.

I don't know much about the laws that have already failed in courts, only that they were hearbeat laws. if an abortion law is struck down just because women want the right to choose, no, I will not rejoice it.

andy b · May 25, 2019

On a Christian forum nine

GodLovesCats · May 25, 2019

Nine what?

chevyontheriver · May 25, 2019

ChristianForCats said:
What is the lost battle? Democrats are going to defeat every state that passed a heartbeat law.

The 'lost battle' is the fight to be able to be pro-life and a Democrat. The Democratic party may still be willing to accept the vote of a pro-life person, but they are soundly and clearly an anti-life party. Representative Dan Lapinski is probably the last pro-life Democrat in the House of Representatives, and he is facing the Democratic Party as his opponent in the primary in 2020. They hate him. They want anybody but him. Once they get rid of him, no Democrat in Senate or House will be pro-life. That IS by design. They don't want pro-life people in their party. Or at least having any say in their party.

Democrats do want to defeat the states that pass heartbeat laws, or any laws that restrict abortion at all. They also want to defeat the people in those states. They want hegemony and they want all restrictions lifted on abortion. Some of them want infanticide too, to leave the baby on the table until a discussion is completed as to whether to revive the just born baby.

Democrats are an anti-life party. Not that Republicans are all that great, but that the Democrats, who used to be pro-life as recently as the days of Hubert Humphrey, are a very different party now. They are the main party of death today.

SPF · May 25, 2019

It’s worth mentioning that in the Genesis passage that people somehow keep thinking its evidence that a new human being doesn’t exist until HE/SHE takes their first breath, that the passage doesn’t even say that itself

It says that God breathed life INTO Adam. Meaning, if we picture what actually happened, Adam came to life when God gave Him life, and then he would have taken his first breath.

Adam actually breathing has nothing to do with him coming to life.

And as for Augustine, personally, I think he, and any other theologian from before 100 years ago can be excused as they didn’t have the benefit of the scientific knowledge we have today.

Due to the basic biological fact that a new human being comes into existence at fertilization, I think the only realistic position a Christian can take is that any abortion for non-life threatening emergencies is most likely immoral and killing an innocent person.

NothingIsImpossible · May 25, 2019

There is one problem with the "It's my body" thing. That baby in you is not actually part of your body. It's not a body part. It's another "life form" that happens to be inside of you. So how can one have control over another life form that isn't part of their body? I mean yes, it may gettings its stuff it needs to grow from you, but it is by all definitions not part of you as it is a separate life form.

Toro · May 25, 2019

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
I'm an evangelical Christian who believes that although abortion is sinful, it isn't murder, at least in the early trimesters before fetal viability, and that it should be permitted until the unborn child can survive on its own, as the mother is a living human being with her own rights and autonomy over her body.

I consider it to be murder post-viability in the third trimester, and would oppose it except for the life health of the mother.

Murder can best be defined as the unjustified killing of a living human being.

And contrary to what many people say, the Bible does not say that life begins at conception, but at ensoulment.

Genesis 2:7 - And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Adam didn't become a living being until he was fully formed, until God created and infused a soul in him, not when he was still a collection of dust that God placed in the garden.

Obviously, this was a special case though, every human being alive now spent nine months as a fetus in their mother's womb, but the question is when was the fetus ensouled?

St. Augustine said that "
The law does not provide that the act abortion pertains to homicide,
for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation."

Thomas Aquinas said that "the intellective soul [true person] is created by God
at the completion of man's coming into being."

Jacques Martin said that to "admit that the human fetus receives the intellectual soul from the moment of its conception,when matter is in no way ready for it, sounds to me like a philosophical absurdity. It is as absurd as to call a fertilized ovum a baby."

Indeed. Just like it is absurd to call a planted acorn a tree.

You see, while Augustine felt abortion at any stage was sinful, he did not believe that early abortion —the first three months—was murder because the fetus had not been animated by a God-given soul yet. Likewise, Thomas Aquinas, and Popes Innocent III and Gregory XIV also believed that early abortion was not murder, while later ones were, after quickening, when the fetus starts moving and kicking.

As such, terminating a fetus in the early trimesters does not kill a living human being. Therefore, it is not murder. I agree with that principle.

Imagine if a woman, in a fit of jealously, rammed her car into her cheating boyfriend, grievously injuring him and irreparably damaging one of his vital organs. As a result, if he doesn't get an organ transplant he will likely die or be dead in two yearsfrom complications.

His girlfriend happens to be a perfect match; can the state force her to donate her organ to save her? No, they can't, and neither should they be able to, for she has bodily autonomy over her person, and no state can take that away from her.

The state can and should charge her with aggravated assault and, if he dies, vehicular manslaughter. But they should not be able to forcibly strap her to a medical exam room and extract a kidney from her, relegating her from womanhood to being a simple incubator.

The same logic applies with abortion, women are allowed to get abortions before viability because she has bodily autonomy, and she can't be forced to live as a human incubator.

If you believe it sin, but not murder how do you justify that it should "be okay"?

Sin is sin.

If you look at a woman with lust you are guilty of adultry.... IF a thought is equal to an act... how can ending life be justified as not murder? (even if arguably it has yet to become life but WOULD be if left alone, it is at BEST would be the prevention of life. If I kill someone, do I not prevent them from living from one moment to the next? So arguably at best the act of abortion if not murder is similar)

I'm not saying abortion should be banned, as I believe free will and banning it wont stop it because if we humans obeyed that which was banned above our own will we would still be in the garden.

All I'm getting at is questioning your logic.

You are free to believe what you want, but you can find yourself in agreement with God or with the world.

If you side with the world, you oppose God.

Let God be true and every man a liar.

Being born of Adam we can easily justify our free will to do wrong, but it doesnt change what it is in the eyes of God, even if the darkness of man's eyes can decorate it to look justified and "okay".

GodLovesCats · May 25, 2019

NothingIsImpossible said:
There is one problem with the "It's my body" thing. That baby in you is not actually part of your body. It's not a body part. It's another "life form" that happens to be inside of you. So how can one have control over another life form that isn't part of their body? I mean yes, it may gettings its stuff it needs to grow from you, but it is by all definitions not part of you as it is a separate life form.

The placenta, unbilical cord, and amniotic sac are parts of the mother's body. So is the endometrium that lines her uterus during pregnancy to protect the baby.

chevyontheriver · May 25, 2019

ChristianForCats said:
The placenta, umbilical cord, and amniotic sac are parts of the mother's body. So is the endometrium that lines her uterus during pregnancy to protect the baby.

The umbilical cord has the DNA of the child, as does all the blood in it. It is not at all part of the mother.

The placenta is the nutrient interface between the mother and child, and the outer membrane is maternal while inner membrane of the placenta are fetal. The amniotic sac is similarly an outer maternal membrane and an inner fetal membrane. They are not strictly either maternal nor fetal. They are shared.

The baby herself is not the mother.

Davidnic · May 25, 2019

And the baby's stem cells stay in the mother creating a micro chimerical situation.

Recent studies indicate those cells heal the mother throughout her whole life. Just the chimerical situation shows that there are two distinction a human's there.

Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith · May 25, 2019

However, now we know that the quickening means nothing in regards to whether or not the fetus is alive. Biologically speaking, it's alive before that. Furthermore, the moment we get into the question of, "Yes, they're human, but are they actually a person with a soul?", we fall into dangerous territory.

As for your scenario...

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
Imagine if a woman, in a fit of jealously, rammed her car into her cheating boyfriend, grievously injuring him and irreparably damaging one of his vital organs. As a result, if he doesn't get an organ transplant he will likely die or be dead in two yearsfrom complications.

His girlfriend happens to be a perfect match; can the state force her to donate her organ to save her? No, they can't, and neither should they be able to, for she has bodily autonomy over her person, and no state can take that away from her.

The state can and should charge her with aggravated assault and, if he dies, vehicular manslaughter. But they should not be able to forcibly strap her to a medical exam room and extract a kidney from her, relegating her from womanhood to being a simple incubator.

The same logic applies with abortion, women are allowed to get abortions before viability because she has bodily autonomy, and she can't be forced to live as a human incubator.

The man does not necessarily have to die. Someone else, such as one of the man's relatives, may be a match for an organ transplant. A fetus, by contrast, is pretty dependent on its mother for a certain amount of time in the pregnancy.

Also, I think it's rather dehumanizing to refer to a woman's natural ability to carry a child as being a "human incubator".

Daniel9v9 said:
It may be interesting to know that the early church believed abortion was murder. From the Didache - a very early catechesis: "thou shalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide"

This is also a rather good point.

Alithis · May 25, 2019

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
as the mother is a living human being with her own rights and autonomy over her body.

....major problem with this statement..
The baby...is the babies body Not hers.

JerseyChristianSuperstar · May 25, 2019

topher694 said:
This is an incorrect application of the scripture. You cannot cherry-pick one scripture to make it fit a narrative while ignoring others and context.

Man here = mankind. Adam was the embodiment of all mankind at this moment. When God breathed a part of His Spirit into Adam not only did he breath live into Adam, but into all of mankind, including you and me. Meaning God put into Adam everything that was needed for all of mankind to propagate. So, when a baby is conceived it's spirit is propagated at that moment as well.

THIS lines up with other scriptures that say, "I knew you BEFORE you were in you're mother's womb" and other's commonly used.

At this point I can already hear the rebuttals, but consider this as further evidence: God formed Adam's body (and thus mankind) out of the dust. We don't look at people and say they aren't biological people because God didn't come to earth and personally form them out of some dust. We recognize the biological process to create a human that bibilcally started in the garden with Adam & dust. So why in the world would we apply two different standards of interpretation to the biological process and the spiritual process to the very same scripture? The same sentence even!

MANKIND didn't have life until it was fully biological formed by God to reproduce and then God infused a part of His Spirit into mankind via Adam. We all were biologically formed in the Garden, and spiritually formed in eternity.

Abortion is murder no matter what trimester. It is astonishing the lengths Christians will go to rationalize and justify otherwise. We shouldn't be surprised that the world does these things, it always has, but this should not be an issue for Christianity.

God knows us before we are in our mother's wombs, yes. So what.

He is omniscient, meaning that He is all-knowing, and knows everything past, present and future. That does not mean that are unborns are living human beings from the moment of conception; there is no evidence they have a soul at that point, as Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas aptly pointed out, as babies can not even feel anything, least of all pain, in the first trimester.

topher694 said:
Man here = mankind. Adam was the embodiment of all mankind at this moment. When God breathed a part of His Spirit into Adam not only did he breath live into Adam, but into all of mankind, including you and me. Meaning God put into Adam everything that was needed for all of mankind to propagate. So, when a baby is conceived it's spirit is propagated at that moment as well.

You appear to be espousing the position of traducianism, the notion that all human beings obtain their souls biologically from their parents, with only Adam's soul being specifically created by God. You should know that this contradicts the notion of the indivisibility of the soul, and is widely rejected by modern Christian theologians as well as the medieval ones, who held that God creates a soul for each body that is generated. see here

Early abortion cannot be said to be murder, as murder is the unjustifiable killing of a living human being, and an early fetus has not been ensouled yet, is not viable to survive on its own outside the womb, and as such, it isn't murder.

SPF · May 25, 2019

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
Early abortion cannot be said to be murder, as murder is the unjustifiable killing of a living human being, and an early fetus has not been ensouled yet

Your opinion is unsupported by Scripture. Strange you’re so adamant about something as meaningful and important as this with virtually no Biblical support.

Biologically, we know that a new human being comes into existence at fertilization.

Lost4words · May 25, 2019

For me, at the moment of conception, a new human life is conceived. God places a soul immediately into that new life.

How dare anyone destroy what God has created.

chevyontheriver · May 25, 2019

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
... as Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas aptly pointed out ...

You have been referred back to Augustine and Thomas. I hope you actually read both them rather than relying on what the abortionists claim they had in mind. As a Catholic I have seen people who try to mine the Fathers for sympathetic quotes, but they fall apart on close examination. It gets old. Please do yourself a favor and read a whole book by each of these Catholic greats before telling us what they believed. Please.

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