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I’m sure my marriage would be greatly improved by being sexless from here on out as we’re not going to have children.btw, just found this documentary, about how even birth control pills can cause silent abortions:
All sex is meant for marriage only, and without contraception.
You are beautiful, Brother.The position of my Church is clear, as it has been since the Didache (1st century), through the Middle Ages, and down to today. Abortion is wrong and is a sin. While it won't win me many friends in this thread, I feel it prudent here to quote St. Pisentios, bishop of Qift in the 7th century, who in the first of his two extant letters warned us in plain language: "Any woman who aborts what she carries in her womb of the incomplete foetus the Lord shall throw her into the depth of the pit of Hades."
Clear enough, no? But for those who will not accept the council of the Church, though it is the Body of Christ and the Israel of God and the Pillar and Ground of Truth, perhaps you will listen to my story. I know it is 'anecdata', and can be dismissed just as easily, but it is from this that I formed my own view on this matter long before becoming Orthodox (rather, since I was born).
You see, I'm exactly the kind of person who is used as a scare tactic for younger or older possible parents, to make the point that abortion should be legal: I have a physical disability. I've always had it, I always will have it (there's no cure/surgery to fix it), it significantly impacts my life, etc., and I'm sure it has caused much stress on my family over the years (I'm 40; thanks be to God, it is not predicted to shorten a person's life span by much, though a lot of that of course depends on other factors, just as it would for able-bodied people).
So okay then. Knowing that my very existence would be a real challenge to ______ (my parents' happiness, their marriage, family cohesiveness more generally...whatever), and knowing in advance that if I was going to have any life it was going to be a very hard one (NB: starting off at 1 lb, 6 oz as I did is quite bad for the baby's prognosis even today, let alone in 1982, when I was born), the doctors who saw my mother through my premature birth very sensibly and humanely, with science on their side and no doubt the most compassionate of intentions (I know tone is hard to read online, but I am being completely serious here), told her that in their educated opinions it would be best if I were disconnected from the life-saving machines that I was hooked up to in the neonatal ICU, as I was almost guaranteed not to be able to survive on my own, so keeping me alive artificially was in some sense delaying the inevitable and just prolonging the pain and misery my family was experiencing in dealing with my traumatic entrance into the world.
My mother, who had been a committed Christian since her teens even as the rest of her family was then and is still now atheistic/agnostic, told them to keep me on the machines anyway, and if I was to live I would live long enough to get off of them, and then we'd see. When with time she was proven exactly right, and I did live without the machines and the little igloo thing they put neonatal ICU babies in, the doctors told her that it would be best for me if I could be placed in a state-run facility rather than taken home to raised by my parents (who had their own problems, and anyway already had a perfectly healthy child, my older brother). As my mother told it to me, every year around my birthday, they said something like "he'll never be able to adapt to society." I suppose the degree to which I've adapted to society can be questioned, but she did not listen to them in this, either. I was born in early September and didn't get to celebrate my first Christmas at home until I was over one year old, but I did eventually have that pleasure. They took me home and raised me as well as they could (though they'd divorce when I was three), and have since gone on to their rest, my mother 25 years ago and my father only about two and a half years ago. May God rest them in the paradise of joy, if it be according to His good will.
My point in typing all this out about my background (which I don't really like to share online to begin with, but I think is important to establish when this topic comes up) is to ask you all what I sincerely hope will be a rhetorical question, since I respect the OP's request that we try not to attack each other over this issue:
If my story were your story, how do you think you would feel about abortion?
To me it makes sense to say that if women's decisions regarding their own bodies ought to have pride of place in discussion of this issue (which is very sensible; they are the ones with all the wombs, after all), then there ought to also be a space, however small it may be, for people like me to also have our say, even as we are the boogiemen of pregnancy; the ones who are a priori not wanted (though thanks be to God my mother obviously wanted me!); the ones who are after all used in these rhetorical fights by people on all sides, with the unspoken assumption that we cannot or ought not have a voice in this, even though we are marshalled as evidence for the necessity of abortion, because what if your child turned out to be like me?
I am a person too. Even if I scare everyone and inspire a million abortions, I am still a person. No rhetoric on any side can deny me what God has given me. I was born with it just like all of you.
How about (since the whole pro-choice debate) centres around a woman's right to her own body, what if individual women actually took responsibility for their bodies and stopped having unprotected sex? As the statistics prove, a large majority do abort from reasoning that it's "not the appropriate time" in their life to have a baby. I agree with others here who say such a thing is a matter of convenience.So far no abortion opponents are willing to accept the extremely obvious, repeatedly proven fact that the federal and 50 state governments must step in to help pregnant girls and women get all of the help they need to drastically reduce the number of abortions.
Are abortion opponents deliberately being hypocrites or really unaware of verifiable facts about this?
No mother who is ten minutes away from giving birth isn't going to decide to have an abortion because they don't feel like having a child.What if the baby ten minutes before birth isn't in the birth canal but still in the womb? It can be aborted then without any guilt right?
You do realise that no birth control is 100% effective, right? Even when used properly. And that doesn't even include cases of rape.How about (since the whole pro-choice debate) centres around a woman's right to her own body, what if individual women actually took responsibility for their bodies and stopped having unprotected sex? As the statistics prove, a large majority do abort from reasoning that it's "not the appropriate time" in their life to have a baby. I agree with others here who say such a thing is a matter of convenience.
The government or state is not responsible for women who have unprotected sex. If anyone ever had any sex education in school (which in western countries they have), then the consequences of such actions has been taught.
are you saying you use birth control in marriage?I’m sure my marriage would be greatly improved by being sexless from here on out as we’re not going to have children.
Yes.are you saying you use birth control in marriage?
It cannot be avoided. If a person believes the unborn child is a human being, he must be 100% against it, say so, and act like it is believed. If your neighbor were slaughtering children in his back yard what would you do? Would be be kind and gentle and try to reason with him and not be offensive? One reason pro-life people are not taken seriously is that they do not act like they really believe what they are saying. If they really believed this nation has murdered 60 million babies, how should they act? Those who support abortion will never take pro-life more seriously than pro-life takes themselves. This is not stupid name calling. It is believing what you claim you believe and acting according. If Jews were being murdered in death camps how would you expect people to act. Friendly discussions? I don't think that would happen.I never want to debate abortion with people who disagree with me on the issue because it just goes around in circles, with "pro-lifers" wrongly accusing pro-choicers of murdering babies (which is obviously a lie) and pro-choicers calling pro-lifers misogynists who only care about controlling girls and women. In rape and incest cases, the latter is true, but most claims I read from both sides of the issue are incorrect unless people are just talking about Psalms 139, Job 10, and child development. I want to know if there is any way people can just agree to disagree on when abortion is only for convenience, when fetuses in the womb are viable, and how women should get rid of unwanted babies they can't take care of. There is no reason to doubt someone is a Christian just because he or she disagrees on this one issue, whatever the opinion differences are. I want to be able to trade views about a Christian issue without a fear that someone will deny my faith in God. I know everyone who reads God's Word would feel the same way, whether the issue is abortion or something else.
So instead of debating whether abortion is right or wrong and on what basis, I want to see if people are able to have a friendly discussion on the topic that does not devolve into crap such as, "You are not a Christian," or stupid name-calling.
Yes.
well just know it can cause silent abortions.I know I do.
Also, many woman use birth control for reasons other than avoiding pregnancy.
Duly noted.well just know it can cause silent abortions.
Western democracies initially built their foundations on Christian values. I do wonder though, why the U.S. slogan is still "in God we trust", when his laws and ways serm to be no longer relevant to law makers?The alleged views of Jesus carry zero weight in US law.
Do you know when "In God we trust" was adopted?Western democracies initially built their foundations on Christian values. I do wonder though, why the U.S. slogan is still "in God we trust", when his laws and ways serm to be no longer relevant to law makers?
Because we changed from our much better original motto in the 50s and haven’t changed back.do wonder though, why the U.S. slogan is still "in God we trust", when his laws and ways serm to be no longer relevant to law makers?
Birth control has another use than avoiding pregnancy?birth control
Yet they just forgot to write that part down in the constitution.Western democracies initially built their foundations on Christian values.
Yes.Birth control has another use than avoiding pregnancy?
So where was I wrong? You support a woman's right to terminate a class of human being for any reason.
You personally believing a healthy baby shouldn't be aborted doesn't mean you wouldn't support and allow the woman to terminate its life. What is the Christian justification for this belief?
That Includes fetuses.Jesus said, "Do to others what you would have them do to you." Not "other Christians" or "other righteous people." Just "others"
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