Abortion

[DaQo'tah]

As a Christian Im very pro-life...

It does not matter the cause behind the history of a Child,,,all children are the same in God's eyes, all need our protection...for all are helpless.

A child is guilty of nothing,,,a child has commited no crime...

A child has the very same right to life as I enjoy...The right to life is given by God, and is not subject to hight nor age,,,

(I dont have more right to life just because I might be taller than another person, nor if I am older)

a person is a person 100% no matter how small...

We shall never start to kill off sick people just because that are a burden on our pocketbook, or are just hard for some of us to look at...

Let it not be said that I have more rights than the unborn child just because I have a voice...

Shame on us all if we think that the children without a voice has less Right to life compared to we who are so clever...

 

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

I (an orthodox Jew) quote from a book I have on the (orthodox!) Jewish approach to various medical issues by Rabbi Dr. J. David Bleich:

"Judaism regards the killing of an unborn child to be a serious moral offense. An abortion may be performed only for the gravest of reasons, and even then, only subsequent to consultation with a competent [orthodox] rabbinic authority...The life of the mother takes precedence over that of the unborn child. Thus, when 'hard travail' of labor endangers the life of the mother, an embryotomy may be performed in order to save her...The fetus' right to life is subordinate to that of the mother, and hence the life of the unborn fetus may be sacrificed in order to save her...The performance of an abortion may be warranted for purposes of preserving maternal health as well as maternal life. No [orthodox rabbinic] authority permits an abortion which is non-therapeutic in nature. There are early rabbinic authorities who expressly declare that ritual laws such as Sabbath observance and fasting on Yom Kippur are suspended in order to preserve the life of the fetus. Suspension of such significant religious observances is clearly incompatible with indiscriminate license to destroy fetal life. Both the argument that a prospective mother may seek an abortion for any reason because denial of this right would interfere with her 'right to privacy' as well as the argument that the decision to abort is entirely a matter between a woman and her physician must be rejected as incompatible with Jewish teaching...Judaism teaches that man does not enjoy unrestricted proprietary rights with regard to his own body, much less so with regard to the body of an unborn child...The Talmud teaches that embryo is endowed with a soul at conception. Moreover, the Sages taught: 'There are 3 partners in the generation of man - the father, the mother and God.' Accordingly, a decision to terminate pregnancy is not one which is within the exclusive domain of the mother...It is well established that the quality of life to be anticipated if the fetus is carried to term is not, in itself, a sufficient reason for the performance of an abortion...Physical or mental abnormalities do not affect the human status of the individual or his right to life...Most authorities rule that termination of pregnancy resulting from rape is not permissible. However, the immediate post-coital contraceptive measures undertaken prior to fertilization of the ovum present a different but complex Jewish-law question. Immediate removal of the sperm by means of a suction device...would be warranted."

Thus, normative (i.e. orthodox) Judaism absolutely rejects abortion as a means of birth control. I certainly object to government funding for abortions that are non-therapeutic in nature.

However, we would completely reject vigilante violence against doctors, nurses, etc. who are involved in abortions (as well as inciting to violence against them) & to bombing clinics. Opposition to non-therapeutic abortions must be carried out within the bounds of the law.

Questions?

Be well!

ssv

 

[emerald Dragon]

Judaism regards the killing of an unborn child to be a serious moral offense. An abortion may be performed only for the gravest of reasons, and even then, only subsequent to consultation with a competent [orthodox] rabbinic authority...The life of the mother takes precedence over that of the unborn child. Thus, when 'hard travail' of labor endangers the life of the mother, an embryotomy may be performed in order to save her...The fetus' right to life is subordinate to that of the mother, and hence the life of the unborn fetus may be sacrificed in order to save her...The performance of an abortion may be warranted for purposes of preserving maternal health as well as maternal life.

I agree. This is what my church says.

I thank you all for your comment, though I did not intend this to be a free-for-all.

I feel that the life of a fetus is prescious, and the mother cannot just decide that she "doesn't want it", but that is can only be disposed of, as mentioned above.

God Bless

 

[jayem]

My issue in this is the role of government. I don't disagree that a fetus is alive, is biologically human, and may have at some point sufficient brain development to feel pain. And abortions purely for "convenience" (how often does this really occur?) are morally questionable. But should government be the enforcer? No. The pro-life movement should concentrate on using their arguments to educate and enlighten women to voluntarily reject abortion, and expand their pre-natal support programs. And they need to embrace conscientious use of birth control, including methods in addition to abstinence. Abortions are decreasing in the US, at least in part due to women voluntarily choosing not to have abortions. Lower rates of abortion can exist without police state laws. Most western European countries have non-restrictive abortion policies, yet have half the rate of abortion in the US. I just don't trust the government, and, however well-meaning, criminalizing abortion (at least before viability) is an excessive and destructive intrusion into people's private lives.

 

[Havoc]

I agree Jayem. Education, combined with the removal of the social stigma that unwed mothers are burdened with, combined with real concern for children rather than imposed false morality, will make abortion a non-issue.

 

[tcampen]

The problem with ciminalizing abortion is that it won't stop them. Before Roe v. Wade, abortions did occur in hospitals all over the country - even Catholic hospitals. The dividing line between who got them in the hospitals by doctors and who did not usually was generally based on money and access. Sure, there were far fewer abortions, but don't think for a minute they didn't happen, and wouldn't continue if new laws were passed.

We do need to reduce the desire to have an abortion, but not with tactics of shame and punishment. Rather with messages of abstinence, and repsonsible use of birth control. And if a child is conceived when unintended, we recognize the situation as perhaps something that should have been avoided, but now we should celebrate the child. Not point our finger at the 17 year old and say "This is what you get for being a sexual deviant." There need to be a whole paradigm shift by everyone in how we deal with this issue.

 

[DaQo'tah]

The abortion rate in my home town has really went down,,and guess why>...the Abortion mill was sold,,,and the doctors moved out of state....

so yes, protests, boycots, prayer meetings on the sidewalk actually do work!

Doctors who get away will killing babies can be run out of town...

I work with guys many younger than I am,,,,But when I was their age and working on different jobs and with crews of guys, I was always hearing about how this or that girlfriend had gotten another abortion..

Hearing that girls were getting abortions left and right was common,,,some girls didnt even try to use any abortion because it was easyer to just get the child aborted than hassel with the messy birthcontrol...

But now things are very different for kids...

But when the Abortion mill in my town was sold and closed it's doors for good, I have noticed a change in the way people are acting now...

For I still work with guys who still get a girl "In trouble", except now the baby is always born, and the guys have to pay child-support

over the last few years, none of the crews girlfriends has aborted a child ..

this is a good thing,,,.

 

[burrow_owl]

that sounds great - lots of unprepared mothers and bitter fathers that won't do anything for the kid except give money...if they feel like it.

sounds like a dream-town to me. and it should get even funnier as those kids grow up angry and confused.

 

[Sisyphus]

how is equating the potential with the actual going to solve a "moral problem" like this anyway?

 

[panterapat]

whoa fella i agree with you fully, but ease up on the gargantuan font

That wasn't intentional. It just carried over from the copy and paste of the posters name.

 

[567234ta]

all i know is my children will be born, what you want to do is not for me to judge. you want to kill your kids, i wont stop you. i think there's a bigger problem with people worried about what everyone else is doing.

 

[DaQo'tah]

burrow_owl...

The good thing I speak of is that the children are alive,,,,that abortion that was once so common, is just not heard of going on in the lives of the guys I work with anymore.

I used to see the sin of abortion being just another part of the way guys I work with live their lives,,,Abortion was no big deal to such guys...But then the place that did the abortions in my town was closed and the building sold...

Now there is over a 3 hour drive to the next big city,,,way too far for guys to go.,...so children are not killed just because they were "in the way"

If you just take your point of view away from the mothers, and the dads, and just look at this from the point of view of the child, you see what i mean when I call this a good thing.

The child is not seeking a "prepared mother"
The child is not seeking a dad that has a heart "Filled with joy"
All the child seeks is the "chance" to be born.

A "chance" to know the mother...
A "Chance" to know the father...

And you know what?, thats all we can give the child...


No Child comes into the world with a 100% promise that the mother is prepared. No child comes into the world with a 100% chance that the father will be in a good mood all the time...

No child comes into the world with a promise that there will always be enough money....nor a house with an extra room....nor a good school within walking....

But then again, the child is not seeking that stuff....



Birth is a casue of much pain,,,thats the way it has always been for us,,,Birth is a cause of much pain,,,,but it is the doorway for all our happyness as well,,,for the pain of birth is soon forgotten when the child is placed into the arms of the mother,,,

Yes, birth to "unprepared mothers" is a cause of much pain..

But , Yes, Birth is just as much painfull to the most Prepared as well..and, in the end, the joy is the same...

to sum up..

No matter what problems the mother and dad might be dealing with, they are and have always been the common human problems that have effected us humans for many many years going back into our great history of life on this world....Nothing "New" has popped up, nothing new to challenge the moms and soon-to-be dads over.

And the joys that come with a child are the same as well, and just as great...

Therefore there is no reason at all to start to kill unborn children over,,,,no reason at all,,,no "new" reasons,,,no un-beatable reasons,,

,,the child just wants a chance for life, and thats all we can grant them anyway....

 

[Havoc]

So your saying the Women are now deciding to go through 9 m onths of pregnancy because the three hour drive is just too inconvenient?

Riiiiiiiiiiggghhhhht

The women from your town are still getting their abortions if they want them. They're either driving the distance or they're using the underground clinic or the surgeons are doing it in the local hospital where they don't have to tell the populace they are performing abortions.

If you're not hearing about it anymore it may be because you desperatley want to believe closing down the clinic was a victory. Or maybe the guys aren't talking about it for fear of being persecuted by the religious people around them the way it happened to the clinic.

 

[Kaylynn]

I agree with you DaQo'tah. It always upsets me to here the women fighting for rights calling themselves Pro-choice. Because they aren't taking in account the fact that their child deserves a choice too!

Just because the mother gets pregnant then decides it's too much of a hassle, they punish the child. The mother needs to put herself in her child's shoes. What if her mother got pregnant out of an inconvenience. Would she want to be aborted? Why is it fair?

There are other alternatives to abortion. If the mother and father are not prepared and cannot support the child...there is ALWAYS adoption. There are a TON of people who are on 3 year or more waiting list just waiting to be able to adopt a child because they are physically unable to have their own.

I went to a conference a couple years ago, where we had a speaker whose mother had tried to abort her. Only the abortion did not work. When she was born, all the doctors said she wouldn't live but a couple weeks. The world had given up on her. After a couple months had passed...the doctor's said, 'no one will want her...she'll never be able to walk.'

She was taken in by a foster mother who worked with her every single day. Working the muscles in her legs. As for what those doctors said, when she came on stage, that woman walked out without the aid of a cane at all. And do you want to know what she said? She was upset, that her mother was unwilling to ever give her a chance at life! But God gave her that chance.

These women don't know how they will feel years down the road. They don't know that after they abort this child, something wrong may happen where...when they finally want to have children, they get put on that 3+ year long waiting list to adopt because they physically aren't able to do it. And if that ever happens to them, where they can't have a child...they are going to look back at that abortion and cry. Then they will look at today's generation of women who are getting abortions and beg them not to have one, to give their child a chance at life, give her a chance to have the child that she can't have.

I just think they need to stop and think about their child...stop and take some time to look 5-10 years down the road. Stop and take into consideration, that it could have been their parents who wanted to abort them. What would she have preferred? If she either had the choice to be aborted or be adopted...I think she as the child would have preferred to be adopted and given a chance at life, so why not give your child that choice as well?

 

[Ampmonster]

nice post and nice sig

 

[Gabrial]

My take on Abortion, is that it shouldent be nessary...because having children in the first place, i think, is wrong. Now of course i would like to see the human race continue to move on into time, but all you are doing when you give birth, is dooming someone to death. I think i would have been much happier if i hadent been born at all (now of course if i hadent been born, i wouldent know what life was like, therefore I really can make the assumption that I would be happy) But in frank terms, if one didnt exist, there would be no pain, or death....of course there wouldent be any love, or sex, or pleasure, but if you dont exist, then nothing of thoes mean anything.

So basically what im trying to say is that Birth, in a way, is putting a human on Death Row.

 

[Ampmonster]

I think you think too much.

 

[DaQo'tah]

actually,,,the answer is that there are just fewer abortions now after the place where they used to happen got closed down,,,

The answer is also yes,,,a 3 hour drive is enough to keep a child from being killed...I know some of us think that cant be true,,,but it is,,,perhaps some do start to make the trip,,,but perhaps after 3 hours, they just dont have the heart for killing a baby anymore?....could be...


As for not "hearing" about things,,,trust me,,,the guys I work with and have worked with all my life ( guys in their 20s)are the type that tell you "EVERYTHING"...getting them to shut-up is the hard part,,,LOL

so, the facts are,,,that working to close down a Abortion mill works!...You can save lives,,,you can run them killers out of town...

The abortion mill closed down when girls stopped going there due to the press the place was getting and the prayer meetings and the fact that the churches were taking turns going there to stand outside and pray for the babies sleeping in the young girls walking by....

so,,,I have to encourage anyone who sees Christians working to stamp out Abortionists in your city,,,"It can be done!"

You can also see it in the numbers of children in schools now too!....for a while during the 70s -80s and early 90s the number of kids entering our local school was always low,,,but now the number goes up every year as babies that would have earlyer been tossed into a dumpster behind an abortion mill, now are running in to class , passing notes to cute girls, and slideing into home-plate to win the game,,,,

 

[Dawn Marie]

Crystals grow.


And nobody said a fetus was dead. Cows are alive but we have no problem killing them. Chicken fetuses are eaten every day.

So it's not about whether the Fetus is alive, that's just anti-abortion rhetoric trying to show the other side as being foolish. The question is whether the Fetus is a human yet.

Of course it's a human.

You can't compare a human life with egg yolk and crystals...

 

[ByGrace]

Question:

What are your ideas on abortion. I know many people here will be pro-life, but what about extenuating circumstances?

For instance, my church does not allow abortion, except in the case of rape or incest, or if the pregnancy has complications where the mother's life is at risk, or if the child will not live after birth, or if the child has too many complications to make their life even profitable. All these cases must be approved by both doctors and the local church leader, after careful prayer.

I would like to know your opinions on this subject.

I always get in hot water for this but this is how I see it.

Abortion is ALWAYS murder. I do not care what the circumstances are. God is in control and if He wants the mother to die, she will. If He wants the baby to die, it will. We have no right to decide.

Abortion needs to be taken back to the dark alleys and damp corridors where all other murder takes place. We do not provide a sterile, fluffy, muzak filled room for those like John Wayne Gacey to commit his atrocities so why should we for this?