The Great Evil of Abortion

redleghunter · Jun 2, 2018

Paul of Eugene OR said:
As a protestant, I go for scripture evidence for my religion, and this topic is not addressed in scripture. As a catholic, you have papal decree on your side, and that is sufficient for you. Not for me.

I'm not Catholic.

There is ample Biblical support for not killing an unborn Human being. The first objective moral standard is the Decalogue:

Exodus 20:13

Procreation is communicated by YHWH as the fathering of the child or begetting or begat.

For example:

Genesis 5: KJV
3And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: 4And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: 5And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

I'm sure I don't need to explain the father's involvement in procreation.

However, a video does help:

redleghunter · Jun 2, 2018

Paul of Eugene OR said:
No, it would be denying your assertions. A human person is not finished at conception; that is the continuation of a process that can result in a perso

Person is not a scientific term. Care to define what you mean by "person?"

Paul of Eugene OR said:
Here's an interesting fact. Fertilization of a human egg does NOT determine how many people are going to come out of that fertilization. For example, a single fertilized egg may divide once and those two cells completely seperate . . . low, twins are born. Happens often. Two fertilized eggs might be near enough so as to combine and form, together, a single human being, and in rare cases even different sperm from different fathers have been involved.

Rare, of course, but an interesting oddity difficult to explain from your assertion that a fertilized egg is a new human being.

Interesting but refutes the notion that a cell from my finger is the same as a fertilized egg. It's not.

SkyWriting · Jun 3, 2018

St_Worm2 said:
1 Does Mom have the right to take her 5 yr old and jump off a building, killing them both?
2 Does she have the right to kill her 5 yr old for any reason?
3 Will Mom be let off the hook if she takes illegal drugs and her 5 yr old ends up being harmed somehow because she did?
4 Does Mom have the right to simply abandon her 5 yr old if she wants to?

Quite frankly, if Mom chose to do any of these sins she would certainly be held accountable for them by God (and by us as well).

My daughter works in the juvenile detention center in our county system, so I can answer each of your questions. 1 yes. 2 no, but people very rarely pay any attention or intervene till too late. So yes, she has the option at any time. 3 Developing babies rarely are considered. Babies alive might be relocated or just given to any living relative. 4, yes, we have one grandchild in that situation with the mother gone. And all of "my" 4 kids, wife, and grandchildren are left after dad left the country.

SkyWriting · Jun 3, 2018

redleghunter said:
Person is not a scientific term. Care to define what you mean by "person?"

The world population numbers only count the number of people living in a household.
Babies still in the hospital may be counted.

HypnoToad · Jun 3, 2018

Paul of Eugene OR said:
Your stance partly depends on conflating alternate meanings of the word "human". My blood cells are human. When I submit to a blood test, blood cells are drawn out of my body and tested, and then they are thrown away. Those human cells die.

You wouldn't want to accuse the lab technician of murder for taking a human life, would you?

So lets be clear. We want to find that a person is present in what is killed before calling it murder.

You think a person can be found in a single cell. I don't. Why should all your talk about the cell being "human" bear on that argument?

Are blood cells human cells? Sure.

Are blood cells human beings? Nope.

By the medical/scientific definition of "human being", the unborn are "human beings" at the moment of conception.

SkyWriting said:
So you really feel that an abortion would devalue the baby? Should we give you the decision then?

No, let's let reason & logic decide. The unborn - are they human beings? Medically/scientifically they certainly are. Does the characteristic of having passed through a birth canal determine inherent value? I haven't seen any compelling argument as to why that would be the case. Based on that, there's your decision.

SkyWriting said:
Mom has the right to die taking the baby with. Mom has the right to take drugs while the baby is developing. Mom has the right to abandon the child. Mom has many rights, all given by God.

Given by God? Where? God allowing a person the ability to do something does not equate to God giving a person the right to do something. God gave us the ability to commit murder. God certainly does not give us the right to commit murder.

Paul of Eugene OR said:
A human person is not finished at conception; that is the continuation of a process that can result in a person.

Just because a human being is at a different stage of development does NOT make them less human. Otherwise, we can kill teenagers since, by that logic, they're less of a person than adults.

Here's an interesting fact. Fertilization of a human egg does NOT determine how many people are going to come out of that fertilization. For example, a single fertilized egg may divide once and those two cells completely seperate . . . low, twins are born. Happens often. Two fertilized eggs might be near enough so as to combine and form, together, a single human being, and in rare cases even different sperm from different fathers have been involved.

Rare, of course, but an interesting oddity difficult to explain from your assertion that a fertilized egg is a new human being.

The only issue that raises is the number of human beings, not if what is present is a human being.

redleghunter · Jun 3, 2018

SkyWriting said:
The world population numbers only count the number of people living in a household.
Babies still in the hospital may be counted.

Therefore your argument stems from government census data defining a person?

SkyWriting · Jun 3, 2018

redleghunter said:
Therefore your argument stems from government census data defining a person?

The purpose of the census is to allocate money, and this ties in to the O.P. directly.
So yes, this is one method to value the breathing people over the unborn.
Thanks for the question.

SkyWriting · Jun 3, 2018

HypnoToad said:
Given by God? Where? God allowing a person the ability to do something does not equate to God giving a person the right to do something. God gave us the ability to commit murder. God certainly does not give us the right to commit murder.

What Does the Bible Say About Stoning To Death? - OpenBible.info

redleghunter · Jun 3, 2018

SkyWriting said:
The purpose of the census is to allocate money, and this ties in to the O.P. directly.
So yes, this is one method to value the breathing people over the unborn.
Thanks for the question.

Maybe I missed it but how did the OP deal with money?

HypnoToad · Jun 3, 2018

SkyWriting said:
What Does the Bible Say About Stoning To Death? - OpenBible.info

You seem to be confusing "murder" with "killing". While all murder is killing, not all killing is murder.

SkyWriting · Jun 3, 2018

redleghunter said:
Maybe I missed it but how did the OP deal with money?

So, read it again then.

St_Worm2 · Jun 3, 2018

St_Worm2 said:
Does Mom have the right to take her 5 yr old and jump off a building, killing them both?
Does she have the right to kill her 5 yr old for any reason?
Will Mom be let off the hook if she takes illegal drugs and her 5 yr old ends up being harmed somehow because she did?
Does Mom have the right to simply abandon her 5 yr old if she wants to?

Quite frankly, if Mom chose to do any of these sins she would certainly be held accountable for them by God (and by us as well).

SkyWriting said:
My daughter works in the juvenile detention center in our county system, so I can answer each of your questions. 1 yes. 2 no, but people very rarely pay any attention or intervene till too late. So yes, she has the option at any time. 3 Developing babies rarely are considered. Babies alive might be relocated or just given to any living relative. 4, yes, we have one grandchild in that situation with the mother gone. And all of "my" 4 kids, wife, and grandchildren are left after dad left the country.

I think we have a different understanding of the word "right". My understanding of "right" refers to something that is legal to do, both before God and before men. While it may be possible for her to do so, no mother has the "right" to kill her child while attempting to kill herself. In fact, if she lived and her child died while attempting to do so, she would be found guilty of murder.

As far as abandonment goes, again, while it is "possible" for a mother to abandon her children, she does not have the legal "right" to do so, as her children as her responsibility until they are adults.

SkyWriting · Jun 3, 2018

St_Worm2 said:
I think we have a different understanding of the word "right". My understanding of "right" refers to something that is legal to do, both before God and before men. While it may be possible for her to do so, no mother has the "right" to kill her child while attempting to kill herself. In fact, if she lived and her child died while attempting to do so, she would be found guilty of murder.

As far as abandonment goes, again, while it is "possible" for a mother to abandon her children, she does not have the legal "right" to do so, as her children as her responsibility until they are adults.

Becasue humans are born in sin, they have the right to instantly die.
That's the only right God offers.

Paul of Eugene OR · Jun 3, 2018

HypnoToad said:
Are blood cells human cells? Sure.

Are blood cells human beings? Nope.

By the medical/scientific definition of "human being", the unborn are "human beings" at the moment of conception.

No, let's let reason & logic decide. The unborn - are they human beings? Medically/scientifically they certainly are. Does the characteristic of having passed through a birth canal determine inherent value? I haven't seen any compelling argument as to why that would be the case. Based on that, there's your decision.

Given by God? Where? God allowing a person the ability to do something does not equate to God giving a person the right to do something. God gave us the ability to commit murder. God certainly does not give us the right to commit murder.

Just because a human being is at a different stage of development does NOT make them less human. Otherwise, we can kill teenagers since, by that logic, they're less of a person than adults.

The only issue that raises is the number of human beings, not if what is present is a human being.

So when a sperm fertilizes an egg, it is not yet certain how many human persons exist yet. That's one point against your theological position that it is already a human person.

St_Worm2 · Jun 3, 2018

SkyWriting said:
Becasue humans are born in sin, they have the right to instantly die.
That's the only right God offers.

We are allowed to sin (which includes committing suicide), but that doesn't mean that we have the "right" to sin. We don't.

Likewise, the Lord never gives us the "right" to murder someone else, and that's what's in view in this thread. Again, what we have the right to do may have nothing to do with some of the things that God "allows" us to do. For instance, a student NEVER has the 'right' to march into his school and murder his fellow classmates, either before God or before men, though clearly, God has 'allowed' it to happen.

HypnoToad · Jun 3, 2018

Paul of Eugene OR said:
So when a sperm fertilizes an egg, it is not yet certain how many human persons exist yet. That's one point against your theological position that it is already a human person.

Nonsense.

Suppose we come across a closed room that you can't see inside. We know there's people inside, but not how many people. Does the fact that there's an unknown number mean there are no human beings inside? Of course not. As long as we know there's at least one, the exact quantity has no bearing at all on the occupants' state as human beings.

SPF · Jun 4, 2018

Paul, we know scientifically at this point that a new human being comes into existence at fertilization. That's not even debated any more. I'll provide some reference material for you on that if you're still stuck in the past on that one at the bottom of my post.

So what you must then be attempting to say is that there is a distinction between a human being and a human person, and that only human person's have moral worth and value, right? If so, can you please provide an objectively based argument on why that distinction is actually real and when a human being becomes a human person with moral worth and value?

“The life cycle of mammals begins when a sperm enters an egg.” Okada et al., A role for the elongator complex in zygotic paternal genome demethylation, NATURE 463:554 (Jan. 28, 2010)

“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)

“Fertilization – the fusion of gametes to produce a new organism – is the culmination of a multitude of intricately regulated cellular processes.” Marcello et al., Fertilization, ADV. EXP. BIOL. 757:321 (2013)

“Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo developmentn) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).” Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.

“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

An embryology textbook describes how birth is just an event in the development of a baby, not the beginning of his/her life:

“It should always be remembered that many organs are still not completely developed by full-term and birth should be regarded only as an incident in the whole developmental process.” F Beck Human Embryology, Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1985 page vi

“It is the penetration of the ovum by a sperm and the resulting mingling of nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the initiation of the life of a new individual.” Clark Edward and Corliss Patten’s Human Embryology, McGraw – Hill Inc., 30

“Although it is customary to divide human development into prenatal and postnatal periods, it is important to realize that birth is merely a dramatic event during development resulting in a change in environment.” The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology fifth edition, Moore and Persaud, 1993, Saunders Company, page 1

“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

“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

Inkfingers · Jun 4, 2018

We cannot actually say that God is not willing to see children killed, because, well, the Amalekites disprove that.

Part of me does wonder if abortion is a curse on the unbeliever that God allows to happen...

tulipbee · Jun 4, 2018

Up Quark said:
Hi. I would like to preface this by saying that I am a pro-life Catholic, and I always have been.

I want to discuss the evil of abortion. I notice that many pro-lifers get hung up arguing about the evil of murdering babies, whether or not a fetus is a human, etc., and they fail to see the greatest evil of it all: the idea that one human life has more intrinsic value than another. This idea has manifested itself through all of human history: as slavery/racism, Nazism, and today, abortion. Slavery in pre-Civil War America was rooted in the idea that a white person's life was more valuable than a black person's life. Once this idea had been accepted, whites (not all whites) could then attack and dehumanize blacks to the point where they would consider them as property, not people. And once they did this, once they reached this point, they could justify the rape, beating, and enslavement of black people "because they're only property, after all."

Similarly, as you most likely already know, Hitler had the idea that the life of an "Aryan" was naturally more valuable than the life of a Jew. (Of course, if you were to ask the Internet why Hitler hated Jews, it would tell you that he believed "Jews were a destructive influence in any society." That comes from the aforementioned idea.) When Hitler came to power, he gradually passed laws restricting the rights of Jews. He eventually began to treat them like cattle, marking them with the Star of David (and numbers at concentration camps).
Hitler felt justified in killing millions of Jews because he had dehumanized them to the point where they were barely more than cattle.

Abortion today is akin to a "sibling" of racism and Nazism. All three are manifestations of the same horrible idea. In order to justify abortion, you must first accept that the life of the mother has more intrinsic value than the life of the baby. Once you accept this, you can dehumanize the baby to the point where you can justify its murder by saying that it is "only a cluster of cells." Furthermore, you can then divert the argument away from the root of the evil and point it elsewhere, wasting time arguing about whether or not a fetus is a human.

In retrospect, we know how evil such things as slavery and the Holocaust were. We look back on these evils and we swear to never let something so horrible happen again: and yet it continues, right before our very eyes. Why do we never learn?

my sister had an abortion and it RUINED my family for 40 years so far

Paul of Eugene OR · Jun 4, 2018

SPF said:
Paul, we know scientifically at this point that a new human being comes into existence at fertilization. That's not even debated any more. I'll provide some reference material for you on that if you're still stuck in the past on that one at the bottom of my post.

So what you must then be attempting to say is that there is a distinction between a human being and a human person, and that only human person's have moral worth and value, right? If so, can you please provide an objectively based argument on why that distinction is actually real and when a human being becomes a human person with moral worth and value?
. . . .

Sure, we can do that. We can look at the other end of life, at the time we pass away.

Say John Doe has a sister, Jane, and John is her only living relative. Jane is shot in the head, brain damaged and so much brain tissue is destroyed she is declared brain dead. The hospital is keeping her alive on machines and ask John for permission to harvest the organs and take the body off the respirator.

All your arguments in favor of personhood for Jane are present. She has been fertilized; indeed, the cells have even gone ahead and made a body! She has a full complement of DNA. And she has that beating heart so many attempt to use as a criterion. Everything one could possibly define in a single fertilized egg is present. Except, of course, we all know Jane is dead, really, and the moral choice to harvest her organs for the lives of others and allow the heart to stop is entirely appropriate.

There is your objectively based argument on why the distinction is real.

The Great Evil of Abortion

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