Abortion Is Murder

The above isn't your only erroneous position. You still refuse to accept the known scientific fact that a new human being comes into existence at fertilization.

A human being takes roughly 25 years to fully develop, yet at no point in their development are they not a human being.

“Fertilization is the process by which male and female haploid gametes (sperm and egg) unite to produce a genetically distinct individual.”Signorelli et al., Kinases, phosphatases and proteases during sperm capacitation, CELL TISSUE RES. 349(3):765 (Mar. 20, 2012)

“The zygote and early embryo are living human organisms.” Keith L. Moore & T.V.N. Persaud Before We Are Born – Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects (W.B. Saunders Company, 1998. Fifth edition.) Page 500

“In that fraction of a second when the chromosomes form pairs, the sex of the new child will be determined, hereditary characteristics received from each parent will be set, and a new life will have begun.” Kaluger, G., and Kaluger, M., Human Development: The Span of Life, page 28-29, The C.V. Mosby Co., St. Louis, 1974

“Thus a new cell is formed from the union of a male and a female gamete. [sperm and egg cells] The cell, referred to as the zygote, contains a new combination of genetic material, resulting in an individual different from either parent and from anyone else in the world.” Sally B Olds, et al., Obstetric Nursing (Menlo Park, California: Addison – Wesley publishing, 1980) P 136

Again, thanks to advancements in science, we can literally see what happens now when fertilization takes place. It's not a matter of debate or speculation. We biologically know that a new human being comes into existence at fertilization.

The question of course is what are the implications of this apparent reality. For Christians, this shouldn't really be all that contested anymore. For Christians, we know that all human beings are created in the image of God and possess inherent moral worth and value.

Finally, your third erroneous position worth mentioning again is your complete inability to actually provide an argument for when ensoulment occurs. The best you've been able to come up with is that it occurs sometime in the womb after fertilization, but before they were the same age as John the Baptist was in the womb from Luke 1.

That's pretty vague. In fact, it's so vague that I would suggest you're being reckless by still supporting abortion when you yourself readily admit you're incapable of knowing when a human being gets their soul. So if you're incapable of pinpointing that time, why would you ever support abortion knowing that it may be possible you're supporting abortions during a time in which they have already received their soul?

Thankfully the rest of us don't have to live in such a reckless state of belief. Scripture makes no distinction between living humans without souls and living humans with souls. All human beings are created as both physical and spiritual beings. If you're a living human being, you have a soul. Period.

In fact, while I don't like using Adam as an analogy, he works in the sense that the moment his body came alive was also the moment that he had a soul. God breathed life into Adam, and he became a living soul. Adam's physical living physical life coincided when his receiving a soul.

Again, if you're a living human being, you have a soul, and you are inherently morally valuable as created in the image of God.

New human beings come into existence at fertilization. You do the math.

SPF said:

I recommend you spend some time reading this: What Exodus 21:22 Says about Abortion | Stand to Reason

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That long article you quoted just shows the ambiguity of Exodus 21, and in fact goes nowhere near proving that the author meant "gives birth prematurely" to a healthy baby, rather than miscarriage.

The author makes much of the fact that the author of Exodus 21 didn't use the word for miscarriage.

What he fails to acknowledge, however, is that there is also a common idiom for child birth, which is not used here. it uses ילד as a verb (it is the noun/object here). so the passage doesn't use either common convention for either live birth or miscarriage. it only says, literally, ויצאו ילדיה, "so her child leaves". That could mean either.

If anything, the ambiguity here comes down on the side of not valuing the life of the fetus. if that was the relevant factor, it would have spelled it out more clearly. instead, all that matters is that the child "departs". the injuring party is fined regardless of whether the child is alive or dead.

SPF said:

Finally, your third erroneous position worth mentioning again is your complete inability to actually provide an argument for when ensoulment occurs. The best you've been able to come up with is that it occurs sometime in the womb after fertilization, but before they were the same age as John the Baptist was in the womb from Luke 1.

That's pretty vague. In fact, it's so vague that I would suggest you're being reckless by still supporting abortion when you yourself readily admit you're incapable of knowing when a human being gets their soul. So if you're incapable of pinpointing that time, why would you ever support abortion knowing that it may be possible you're supporting abortions during a time in which they have already received their soul?

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I think I am, in fact, capable of knowing. I would say that life begins at the capability to breathe, which is at the end of six months, which is the same time when viability also begins.

Everywhere where the Bible mentions it the soul that animates living creatures, nephesh, is associated with breath

Job 33:4 - The Spirit of God has made me,
and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

Ezekiel 37:5-6 - Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.”

I already mentioned Genesis 2. Humans breathe with both their noses and their mouths, and God breathed into Adam's nostrils the "breath of life", and he became a living soul, a living creature.

“Thus a new cell is formed from the union of a male and a female gamete. [sperm and egg cells said:

The cell, referred to as the zygote, contains a new combination of genetic material, resulting in an individual different from either parent and from anyone else in the world.” Sally B Olds, et al., Obstetric Nursing (Menlo Park, California: Addison – Wesley publishing, 1980) P 136

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This quote goes against your point.

Zygotes come into existence at conception, yes, and if all goes smoothly, it will result in an individual different from either parent and from anyone else in the world.

However, zygotes are not human beings — they are cells, like the quote says — just as acorns are not trees, but will be trees if planted and cared for diligently.

Frozen embryos in a medical clinic are not living, breathing, human beings, but if a couple pays for IVF, they will be if the procedure successfully implants them into a woman.


I have repeatedly said that I do not support abortion, I support abortion being legal, but wouldn't get one for a future girlfriend or wife.

I am not pro-abortion, I am pro-choice.

It's kind of like how I don't want to bring back Prohibition; I want alcohol to be legal with the allowance for people to drink as they wish, as long as there are reasonable regulations on drinking and driving, a limit on how much they are allowed to drink before they can't get into the car, and laws against public intoxication. I also don't want people drinking excessively for the damage it can do to their liver, but banning alcohol would be going too far.

That does not make me pro-alcohol, it makes me pro-legalized alcohol.

The fact of the matter is, that if anyone can look at Jesus and His character and think that, if He were on Earth today, He would support forcing a 15-year-old female rape victims to bear her attacker's child with no say on the matter, thus relegating her status from an autonomous human to a broodmare with less rights than a corpse, you are really just proving that you don't know Jesus at all.

As Jennifer Wright pointed out: "You can’t take organs from a corpse without the deceased’s written permission, even if it will save lives. When you outlaw abortion, you’re allowing women less bodily autonomy than the dead."

I honestly have to question your basic comprehension abilities if you think this quote goes against my point:

The cell, referred to as the zygote, contains a new combination of genetic material, resulting in an individual different from either parent and from anyone else in the world.” Sally B Olds, et al., Obstetric Nursing (Menlo Park, California: Addison – Wesley publishing, 1980) P 136"

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:

Zygotes come into existence at conception, yes, and if all goes smoothly, it will result in an individual different from either parent and from anyone else in the world.

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I'm glad you put the word "will" in italics, because you added it to the quote, thus changing the meaning and plain teaching.

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:

However, zygotes are not human beings — they are cells, like the quote says — just as acorns are not trees, but will be trees if planted and cared for diligently.

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Zygotes most certainly are human beings. They contain a new combination of genetic material which results in an individual different from either parent and from anyone else in the world. I'll reply with a more detailed peer reviewed article for you to help you with this basic scientific concept.

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:

That long article you quoted just shows the ambiguity of Exodus 21,

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I would encourage you to spend some more time in the long article then as it spells out quite clearly how the word miscarriage is nowhere to be found in the text, and that if Moses wanted to get that point across he would have used the words available to him to do so.

The question of when human life begins has been answered in a variety of ways by different religious and philosophical traditions throughout the ages, leading many to conclude the question cannot be definitively answered. Yet what does science tell us about when life begins?[1] One of the basic insights of modern biology is that life is continuous, with living cells giving rise to new types of cells and, ultimately, to new individuals. Therefore, in considering the question of when a new human life begins, we must first address the more fundamental question of when a new cell, distinct from sperm and egg, comes into existence.

The scientific basis for distinguishing one cell type from another rests on two criteria: differences in what something is made of (its molecular composition) and differences in how the cell behaves. These two criteria are universally agreed upon and employed throughout the scientific enterprise. They are not “religious” beliefs or matters of personal opinion. They are objective, verifiable scientific criteria that determine precisely when a new cell type is formed.

Based on these criteria, the joining (or fusion) of sperm and egg clearly produces a new cell type, the zygote or one-cell embryo. Cell fusion is a well studied and very rapid event, occurring in less than a second. Because the zygote arises from the fusion of two different cells, it contains all the components of both sperm and egg, and therefore this new cell has a unique molecular composition that is distinct from either gamete. Thus the zygote that comes into existence at the moment of sperm-egg fusion meets the first scientific criterion for being a new cell type: its molecular make-up is clearly different from that of the cells that gave rise to it.

Subsequent to sperm-egg fusion, events rapidly occur in the zygote that do not normally occur in either sperm or egg. Within minutes, the zygote initiates a change in its internal state that will, over the next 30 minutes, block additional sperm from binding to the cell surface. Thus, the zygote acts immediately to oppose the function of the gametes from which it is derived; while the “goal” of both sperm and egg is to find each other and to fuse, the first act of the zygote is to prevent any further binding of sperm to the cell surface. Clearly, the zygote has entered into a new pattern of behavior, and therefore meets the second scientific criterion for being a new cell type.

What is the nature of the new cell that comes into existence upon sperm-egg fusion? Most importantly, is the zygote merely another human cell (like a liver cell or a skin cell) or is it something else? Just as science distinguishes between different types of cells, it also makes clear distinctions between cells and organisms. Both cells and organisms are alive, yet organisms exhibit unique characteristics that can reliably distinguish them from mere cells.[2]

An organism is defined as “(1) a complex structure of interdependent and subordinate elements whose relations and properties are largely determined by their function in the whole and (2) an individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of organs separate in function but mutually dependent: a living being.” (Merriam-Webster) This definition stresses the interaction of parts in the context of a coordinated whole as the distinguishing feature of an organism. Organisms are “living beings.” Therefore, another name for a human organism is a “human being”; an entity that is a complete human, rather than a part of a human.

Human beings can be distinguished from human cells using the same kind of criteria scientists use to distinguish different cell types. A human being (i.e., a human organism) is composed of human parts (cells, proteins, RNA, DNA), yet it is different from a mere collection of cells because it has the characteristic molecular composition and behavior of an organism: it acts in an interdependent and coordinated manner to “carry on the activities of life.”

Human embryos from the one-cell (zygote) stage forward show uniquely integrated, organismal behavior that is unlike the behavior of mere human cells. The zygote produces increasingly complex tissues, structures and organs that work together in a coordinated way. Importantly, the cells, tissues and organs produced during development do not somehow “generate” the embryo (as if there were some unseen, mysterious “manufacturer” directing this process), they are produced by the embryo as it directs its own development to more mature stages of human life. This organized, coordinated behavior of the embryo is the defining characteristic of a human organism.

In contrast to human embryos, human cells are alive and, under some circumstances, they can assemble into primitive tissues and structures. Yet under no circumstances do mere human cells produce the kind of coordinated interactions necessary for building a fully integrated human body. They do not produce tissues in a coherent manner and do not organize them so as to sustain the life of the entity as a whole. They produce tumors; i.e., parts of the human body in a chaotic, disorganized manner. They behave like cells, not like organisms.

The conclusion that human life begins at sperm-egg fusion is uncontested, objective, based on the universally accepted scientific method of distinguishing different cell types from each other and on ample scientific evidence (thousands of independent, peer-reviewed publications)."

Dr. Condic is Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She is also Director of Human Embryology instruction for the Medical School and of Human Neuroanatomy for the Dental School.

You've made it very clear that you are a misogynistic control-freak who thinks women are nothing but broodmares who should be relegated to a status as baby-making machines.

Condic's conclusion to her article, that human life begins at sperm-egg fusion and that it is "uncontested" is clearly false, as this article clearly shows. It demolishes her credibility to state her case as stronger than it is.

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:

You've made it very clear that you are a misogynistic control-freak who thinks women are nothing but broodmares who should be relegated to a status as baby-making machines.

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Often the uneducated will resort to name calling and ad hominem attacks when they can no longer defend their position.

My wife and I have spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars through fostering hundreds of children and supporting their parents (95% of the time single moms) and our foster agency as a whole. What have you done that’s of any kingdom value?

JerseyChristianSuperstar said:

Condic's conclusion to her article, that human life begins at sperm-egg fusion and that it is "uncontested" is clearly false, as this article clearly shows. It demolishes her credibility to state her case as stronger than it is.

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First off, the article you posted is nothing more than an opinion piece by some magazine editor. An article on wired.com no less which isn’t exactly a reputable scientific outlet.

Second off your articles author makes the same error that many pro-abortion advocates do and they are arguing not about when a new human being comes into existence, but when a human being becomes a person, which as I’ve already outlined, is a made up and fabricated term that doesn’t reflect any sort of reality.

I mean let’s be honest here, if you’re going to lend more credibility to an editor at wired magazine than actual medically educated people writing peer reviewed articles and actual textbooks, then you need to re-evaluate your thinking.

You’ve clearly come to a place where your false beliefs have been exposed. Instead of resorting to insults and empty articles, why not take a step back, pray, and ask the Lord to provide you with some clarity?

Jersey, did you even bother reading the articles SPF posted? If Dr. Condric was wrong about anything she would not have been allowed to enter medical school, much less work at one.

SPF, I realized there is a flaw in your logic that a new human being is created at conception. If the zygote splits, a new identical zygote is created. The result is one of two babies did not come from egg fertilzation directly.

ChristianForCats said:

SPF, I realized there is a flaw in your logic that a new human being is created at conception. If the zygote splits, a new identical zygote is created. The result is one of two babies did not come from egg fertilzation directly.

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It’s not a flaw, and I’ve addressed this in the past. The principle is simple. All living human beings are at all times inherently morally valuable because all human beings are created in the image of God. How a human being comes into existence has no bearing upon their moral worth and value.

The vast majority of all human beings come into existence at the moment of fertilization. Currently, the one exception is identical twins. In this case, one twin comes into existence at fertilization, and the other comes into existence shortly after.

But the principle is unaffected. And it’s amazing how even though both twins share in DNA, and physically look the same, they are still totally different people!

Erik Nelson said:

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I know I don't have time to watch an hour and ten minute video. Mind sharing what you found meaningful and worth discussing?

Robert6671 said:

I believe in a woman's choice but make no mistake abortion is murder. Here is picture of what a fetus looks like at 10 weeks...tell me that is not a human. Now I believe in a woman's right to chose because of the 10 year old girl raped and gets pregnant and a Christian politician believes she should be forced to carry it. Or the 18 year old. Or the mother who can not carry to term. But as for convenience sake...its murder. If you are not a victim of rape and can safely carry to term you can adopt your child out. Heck there are people who want a child and would pay your medical bills and everything for the child. And when you give birth if you still do not want the child just tell the hospital you do not have to take that child home. I am saying this now because some people I know think I am for abortion. Sorry not a chance...I understand its not black and white but again look at the picture if you can look at that and say that's not a human being then your either a liar, or delusional.

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One of my sister-in-laws triplets was stillborn.
Who shall we blame for the "murder"?

SkyWriting said:

One of my sister-in-laws triplets was stillborn.
Who shall we blame for the "murder"?

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More than likely nobody as most times something like that is not a person's fault. One of the consequences of the fall is death. Another set of consequences from the fall are sickness, abnormalities, and general malfunctions.

Stillbirth is a natural event, just like miscarriages are. For various reasons it just happens to some babies. Multiple births probably increase the risk, but I don't have any statistics.

Yes, babies in the womb suck their thumbs and smile. Abortion is indeed murder.

Messerve said:

As an odd side note... How young can a girl technically get pregnant?

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They are very young, 12 or 13 years old. I have picked abortion clinics and the girls are just barely teenagers. They are confused and do not understand what is going on and what is happening to them. I had someone tell me they decided not to get an abortion because of the people that picked the clinic. The clinic is there to kill her child and make that whole experience as comfortable for her as they can. They are NOT there to inform her that she has any sort of a choice because this could cause confusion for her.

ChristianForCats said:

Do you believe the government and private agencies failing to provide care for rape victims and their kids in utero is immoral? That is the question. How would you make sure the mom is being treated morally if a rapist impregnated her? Morality is not limited to the baby. If you mistreat the mom, that is immoral.

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We need to open up this can of worms and let Pandora out of her box. If we have a child that has been tested and found to have Downs Syndrome then the doctors are going to advise an abortion. If we think the child has the right to live that is fine but who wants to commit their life to taking care of that baby? If we are not willing to help her take care of her Downs Syndrome baby then are we as guilty as she is?

I have friends that were told their child had Downs Syndrome and they should get an abortion. They decided to give birth to that child and I could not detect any sign of Downs Syndrome. This is not something they talk about a lot. It just come out one day.

Life is always the right choice and we should always encourage people to make the right choice. The right choice is not the easy choice. The way to destruction is easy, the way to life is difficult.

Down syndrome has nothing to do with my question. I don't know where you got that from. It is about all of the solutions - making sure she has gynecological and obstetric care, professional counseling, etc. so if forced to carry her unwanted baby for nine months, she will at least be treated as a morally valuable part of society.