Why Abortion Should Be Allowed in the Early Stages

Albion · May 26, 2019

genez said:
That means? Before there was any body the real Jeremiah was already known by God.

It says that...but it also says that God formed in him the womb, so the fetus is not just a mass of cells or an organ of the mother, etc. And it also says that while he was not yet delivered/born, God consecrated him--again, him, as opposed to something not a human.

GenemZ · May 26, 2019

Semper-Fi said:
Just The Facts

Day 1: The sperm penetrates the egg and a cell is
formed containing 46 chromosomes (23 from the
father and 23 from the mother) with about 30,000
genes that shape the genetic blueprint of the baby.

From the moment of conception, physical characteristics such as the sex, facial features, body type and color of hair, eyes and skin are determined.

Even aspects of intelligence and personality are conveyed through this genetic code!

Yet? Where is the soul? Are you saying the parents create the soul? Or, God?

The human body is the physical biological "vehicle" for the immaterial soul to navigate through our material world.

If you were placed in a sporty BMW to drive? Your ability to drive would be enhanced. Yet? You would be the same person who may drive a Chevy Cruze.

The genius formation of a body is God simply placing a soul inside a "vehicle" which enables that soul the power to do more. The soul adapts to the body God places it in. That is why when we all are given our resurrection bodies? Even those who now appear weak and slow amongst us? Are all going to make Einstein appear to be quite simple minded.

dstamps · May 26, 2019

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
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.

The Bible is unified Scripture toward a single Purpose. Therefore, giving one verse a purpose that is contradicted by another is a sign of incorrect interpretation. Instead an interpretation that unifies the Scripture is necessary. This will result in an interpretation that applies primarily to the Spiritual State of Man.

I believe the following verses contradict your interpretation and given purpose of Genesis 2:7. Luke 1:26-42 has an unborn 6 month old baby recognize the recently conceived baby Jesus. This is very early in pregnancy that Scripture tells us a recently conceived baby is a living Soul recognized by the Holy Spirit in an unborn 6 months old baby.

Abortion is not the best way to prevent unwanted children. The best way is chastity before marriage. We hear little about this because the self-serving nature of Man wants immorality without consequences.

Servant of Yeshua · May 26, 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.

Colossians 3:17 "And whatever you do,in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,giving thanks to God the Father through Him." Abortion cannot ever be done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Where there is life, there is hope. Abortion hurts the woman spiritually, emotionally and physically. There is no way anyone can know how killing a part of oneself will change a woman spiritually, emotionally or physically. Our laws are to protect. Half of the country ( and most of our world) once thought it was one's legal right to own slaves. There was such horrible fighting and death as people disagreed. Many tried to use the bible to justify it and say that it was ok. Now we can agree that it was an abomination to the Lord. It was disgusting and horrendous offense against God in every way and to all humanity and our country and world is still damaged by this. Abortion is killing our country and eventually God will say enough, as He did with ancient Israel. Do a search of Jonathan Cahn New York Gruesome Law of Baal. It is only 12 minutes. And remember Colossians 3:17. We have the responsibility to shine Jesus to the world. If we are like chameleons just trying to blend into a society that has mostly rejected God, reflecting the thoughts of the day, then we will also be like those during the times of slavery that were for slavery, or could care less and just let everyone decide for themselves. People are not property.

Albion · May 26, 2019

genez said:
Yet? Where is the soul? Are you saying the parents create the soul? Or, God?

There is nothing in that passage which separates the soul of the new human from the body.

Semper-Fi · May 26, 2019

genez said:
Yet? Where is the soul? Are you saying the parents
create the soul? Or, God?

see Post #169

The word “soul” is translated from Hebrew,
the word nephesh, which means a living creature,
man and animals are called living creatures "soul"

Now if you refer to [the spirit in man] - first this is
not Gods holy spirit it's mans, every human has this.

This God gives to the new creation in the womb, after
the seed of man and woman conceive, but before birth.

1 The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth
the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.

- science calls it your conscience, they can't see,
or feel, or touch it, calling it human nature.

8 But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of
the Almighty giveth them understanding.

- this it what imparts thought, it separates mans brain and thoughts from animals instincts, but science cant understand it.

7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was:
and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

-you could say a recording of your life returns to God,
but without you're body it knows nothing and it's not immortal or alive by itself - having no body means it has no ears or mouth or eyes to see, or physical brain.
-

God can also impart the power of the Holy Spirit to anyone. They too will become a new creation, [begotten] now heir, and born into the kingdom
when Christ returns.

All4Christ · May 26, 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.

Augustine proposed ensoulment, but that certainly was not the opinion of the early church. His contemporary St Basil vehemently opposed ensoulment and taught that it was murder at all stages of a pregnancy from the moment of conception. Augustine also considered it to be wrong to abort before the mother felt the movement of the child. He was proposing a different form of punishment between the two. Again, even that distinction was considered to be wrong. St Justin Martyr, for example, from the second century taught the teaching of the church from the apostolic times. There is a vast amount of historical evidence to display the opinion of the early Church - considering abortion at all stages to be murder.

To use a few select quotes from church fathers, while ignoring the vast amount of writings calling abortion murder from conception is a prime example of cherry picking quotes from Church history.

JerseyChristianSuperstar · May 26, 2019

dstamps said:
The Bible is unified Scripture toward a single Purpose. Therefore, giving one verse a purpose that is contradicted by another is a sign of incorrect interpretation. Instead an interpretation that unifies the Scripture is necessary. This will result in an interpretation that applies primarily to the Spiritual State of Man.

I believe the following verses contradict your interpretation and given purpose of Genesis 2:7. Luke 1:26-42 has an unborn 6 month old baby recognize the recently conceived baby Jesus. This is very early in pregnancy that Scripture tells us a recently conceived baby is a living Soul recognized by the Holy Spirit in an unborn 6 months old baby.

Abortion is not the best way to prevent unwanted children. The best way is chastity before marriage. We hear little about this because the self-serving nature of Man wants immorality without consequences.

Six months is at the end of the second trimester and into the third trimester, at which point the majority of pro-choice people, myself included, are opposed to abortion as murder, because the unborn child is clearly viable at that point.

ChicanaRose · May 26, 2019

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
Jeremiah 1:5 does not prove we have souls at conception, just that God predestined the life of Jeremiah to be a prophet, which as a Calvinist I have no problem with.

So you assert hermeneutical autonomy despite what Calvin himself taught?

"For the fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, (homo,) and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy..."

Exodus 21 Commentary - John Calvin's Commentaries on the Bible

Your revelation of Genesis 2:7 is not quoted by anyone else in history. Are you not at least a bit concerned about the source of such unique and individual inspiration that even your own church has neither approved nor supported? Have you checked with your pastor yet regarding your perspective?

messianist · May 26, 2019

The wage of sin is death.

ChicanaRose · May 26, 2019

SPF said:
There you go again ignoring all the posts that deal with those points. You clearly are not here to do anything but pontificate and repeat.

I was wondering myself if it is time to shake the dust off my feet metaphorically (Ref. Matt. 10:14).

Albion · May 26, 2019

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
Six months is at the end of the second trimester and into the third trimester, at which point the majority of pro-choice people, myself included, are opposed to abortion as murder, because the unborn child is clearly viable at that point.

How do you know that to be so? Whenever any modification in abortion laws is proposed or legislation introduced to that effect at the state or federal level, the opponents instantly do everything possible in those legislatures to ridicule the idea and defeat it--even when it is abortion after the baby is delivered. And they usually have enough power to defeat it.

Those elected officials must think they are representing someone, and they are answerable to their constitutents. So why would we think that most people who favor abortion are against second trimester abortions?

All4Christ · May 26, 2019

I’m curious as to why you even include quotes from St Augustine and Thomas Acquinas when you reject so much of the other things they taught. If the idea is to show that the early church didn’t consider it to be murder, then take a look at the other writings of the Church. The writings and teachings of the early Church will soundly refute that proposition. Otherwise, I don’t see the point of including small sections of what they wrote.

GenemZ · May 26, 2019

dstamps said:
I believe the following verses contradict your interpretation and given purpose of Genesis 2:7. Luke 1:26-42 has an unborn 6 month old baby recognize the recently conceived baby Jesus.

That's not true. It was because of Elizabeth's great joy in the Spirit in which the fetus reflected and demonstrated its intensity by leaping. Its was a hormonal reaction in sympathy with the intensity of Elizabeth's experience. If a mother is in fear? Adrenalin is being pumped an a fetus will become agitated as well. The same fetus that after birth must first learn to fear things.

John did not hear anything. It says it was when the sound of Mary's voice reached Elizabeth's ears that the reaction was set into motion. A fetus can not see, not hear,nor know what a person outside the womb is saying. It does not even know vocabulary yet.

ChicanaRose · May 26, 2019

All4Christ said:
To use a few select quotes from church fathers, while ignoring the vast amount of writings calling abortion murder from conception is a prime example of cherry picking quotes from Church history.

Cherry picking is the beginning of cults and heresies.

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
Six months is at the end of the second trimester and into the third trimester, at which point the majority of pro-choice people, myself included, are opposed to abortion as murder, because the unborn child is clearly viable at that point.

"The imago Dei is the common element of all human beings—born and preborn...God creates an awe-inspiring and wonderful work of divine and living art—another human being who bears God’s image."

The Four Points of Proof for Life: Biblical - Human Coalition

So prior to 6 months, the fetus reflects an image of whom or what?

GenemZ · May 26, 2019

Semper-Fi said:
But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life”
(Exodus 21:22-23)

You cut too short on that passage. Its context was lost.

22 “If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

That speaks of a baby being delivered prematurely and outside of the womb. It becomes a body and soul at that point. If the baby is then killed? That would be the equivalent of a post birth abortion.

And, normally a delivery is not rapid and is a process that takes time. The baby does not simply pop out in the middle of a fight. The baby would most likely be born well after the fight is over. The issue was that the labor was induced by the blow received.

It also speaks of the mother's health. For a baby is born without teeth. No tooth for a tooth applies.

Yet? If the baby is killed after alive? Being outside of the womb? Then the person will be judged for murder. But if it comes out not alive? No judgement can be determined not knowing if it were stillborn.

The Bible is not always that simple. Its why God assigned judges over the people to be guided by the Word. Its also why liberals walk over dogmatic well intentioned believers who do not know their Bible in detail and depth. Frustration. No freedom.

ChicanaRose · May 26, 2019

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
Wrong. Jesus was Jesus in Mary's womb because, as the eternal Son of God, Second Person of the Trinity, He is eternal, with no beginning or end. As He said to the Father in John 17:4-5, "I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

"For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will--" (Ephesians 1:4-5)

I'm sure you know these verses well as a Calvinist. But you argue that God only chooses to give souls to fetuses who make it through the first five months, who would be viable outside of the womb.

So this is when God's sovereign choice begins? When the a person is 6 months old inside the womb?

You not only make extra-biblical arguments but also border on extra-apostolic (contrary to the church fathers) and extra-denominational ones, with extraordinary and individualistic interpretation of Genesis 2:7.

While you don't need to agree to everyone, it is concerning to me that you have not at least considered to look into the perspectives that others have provided.

dstamps · May 26, 2019

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
Six months is at the end of the second trimester and into the third trimester, at which point the majority of pro-choice people, myself included, are opposed to abortion as murder, because the unborn child is clearly viable at that point.

The point is that Jesus was conceived just a few days, at most, before Mary visited Elisabeth. That implies that life begins at conception--not birth or 6 months after conception.

SPF · May 26, 2019

genez said:
John did not hear anything. It says it was when the sound of Mary's voice reached Elizabeth's ears that the reaction was set into motion. A fetus can not see not hear know what a person outside the womb is saying. It does not even know vocabulary yet.

Actually, given the text and context, it makes more sense that we have John, being filled with the Holy Spirit, leaping for HIS joy at the sound of Mary’s voice - because Mary was carrying Jesus. It’s a testimony to Jesus is what it is. The Spirit inside John knew Jesus was in the womb of Mary.

Strong in Him · May 26, 2019

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:
Six months is at the end of the second trimester and into the third trimester, at which point the majority of pro-choice people, myself included, are opposed to abortion as murder, because the unborn child is clearly viable at that point.

I don't agree with you.
But since you have already said that abortion is a sin, why worry about what we call it? Why do you think it a sin if you don't believe that the embryo that is destroyed is alive?
Sin is sin. In God's eyes the sin of murder is just as bad as the sin of manslaughter, or the sin of lying, gossiping, cheating etc. You say that abortion is sin; that is the important bit.

Why Abortion Should Be Allowed in the Early Stages

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