Why Abortion is Immoral

redleghunter · Dec 31, 2015

Flashlight said:
What we must remember is that God aborts babies quite regularly and God is perfect. Calling abortion wrong is calling God a sinner. We are called to be holy because He is holy so we should be asking what percentage of pregnancies should be aborted to achieve the holiness that God requires. Being against abortion is completely incompatible with being a Christian.

Do you wear a helmet?

Paul of Eugene OR · Jan 1, 2016

redleghunter said:
They also lack humanity.

Gabriel lacks humanity, and he has personhood. Lucifer lacks humanity and he has personhood. Let's define why humans are persons and pigs are not. If you say it is because they are humans, that is begging the question. Perhaps it has something to do with being made in the image of God, for example.

redleghunter · Jan 1, 2016

Paul of Eugene OR said:
Gabriel lacks humanity, and he has personhood. Lucifer lacks humanity and he has personhood. Let's define why humans are persons and pigs are not. If you say it is because they are humans, that is begging the question. Perhaps it has something to do with being made in the image of God, for example.

Yes it has to do with humans created in the image of God.

The Portuguese Baptist · Jan 1, 2016

ChurchStumblingBlock said:
There is no place other than Exodus 21:22-25 by which we can determine God's definition of HUMAN life and when it begins.

Psalms 139:13-16 suggests otherwise.

ChurchStumblingBlock said:
You think the Old Testament is now no longer relevant simply because of Jesus' crucifixion??

No, I think the Old Testament law is no longer binding because of Jesus' crucifixion. The Old Testament is entirely relevant — because we need it to understand a number of things in the New Testament, and because the apostles used it to show how the many dozens of Old Testament prophecies had been completed with the coming of Jesus and to teach doctrines like salvation by faith alone —, but its law is no longer binding. The Old Testament is still part of the inspired Word of God, but its law served a temporary purpose for the Israelites.

ChurchStumblingBlock said:
So, under your version of reality, we can thrown out all the Ten Commandments, is that right?

Yes and no, depending on what exactly you mean. We can throw them out as old law that no longer applies; but we cannot throw them out as totally irrelevant today, because they are part of the Israelite history, because they are still part of the inspired Word of God, and because they contain good principles — even though they are no longer binding.

ChurchStumblingBlock said:
Wow! Good news, people: there is now no longer any sin because our Portuguese friend has declared the Ten Commandments null and void. Wooohooooo!!!

The fact that the Ten Commandments are null and void does not mean that there is no more sin. We have a new law, which sums up, in two commandments, everything we need to know, which is written in Matthew 22:37-40: ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’ Breaking any of these two commandments is sinning. Paul clarifies, in Romans 13:8-10, saying: ‘Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery”, “You shall not murder”, “You shall not steal”, “You shall not covet”, and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.’

ChurchStumblingBlock said:
Science defines life as when cell division is taking place. Even by scientific terms, that definition is wrong. We know, for instance, that hair and fingernails are composed of cells and that they continue to grow for years after we die.

Then, what do you consider life?

ChurchStumblingBlock said:
I will remind you of this: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."- Jesus the Christ, Matt.5:17.

That verse is correct, but it nowhere tells us to obey the Old Testament law. Indeed, we are not supposed to destroy the Ten Commandments, as I have said. They are like a country's law that has been revoked: you are not supposed to destroy it, because there is general interest in archiving it and preserving it for historical reasons; however, you are no longer supposed to abide by it. Similarly, we must not abide by the Ten Commandments, because their purpose has been fulfilled by Jesus (as I have shown, Paul clarifies in Romans 13:8-10), but they are not to be discarded or destroyed.

patricius79 · Jan 1, 2016

Paul of Eugene OR said:
I am a Christian and of course God sets our moral compass. I also believe that in the sermon on the mount Jesus revealed to us that God's morality is very much higher than ours and we are still playing catch up on what morality truly is. Now having said that, pigs, as intelligent as they are, never rise to the level of personhood. So . . . what do they lack?

a) They lack language.
b) They lack moral responsibility
c) They cannot contemplate eternity

But . . . is this list definitive?

They aren't persons.

patricius79 · Jan 1, 2016

Flashlight said:
What we must remember is that God aborts babies quite regularly and God is perfect. Calling abortion wrong is calling God a sinner. We are called to be holy because He is holy so we should be asking what percentage of pregnancies should be aborted to achieve the holiness that God requires. Being against abortion is completely incompatible with being a Christian.

God doesn't abort any babies. Being in favor abortion at any stage or for any rationalization is completely incompatible with being a Christian.

patricius79 · Jan 1, 2016

Belk said:
I see. Then explain to me the process by which you can determine objective morality.

By the intuitive-rationality of human personhood, which knows through insight that rape and abortion, for example, are gravely contrary to human dignity.

Belk · Jan 1, 2016

patricius79 said:
By the intuitive-rationality of human personhood, which knows through insight that rape and abortion, for example, are gravely contrary to human dignity.

That is a lot of words to just say "because it feels right". Not really anything that has worked for us in the past.

Paul of Eugene OR · Jan 1, 2016

patricius79 said:
They aren't persons.

(sigh)

An answer like this doesn't get us any closer to understanding and defining what a person is.

patricius79 · Jan 1, 2016

Belk said:
That is a lot of words to just say "because it feels right".

How so?

patricius79 · Jan 1, 2016

Paul of Eugene OR said:
(sigh)

An answer like this doesn't get us any closer to understanding and defining what a person is.

I already did that through Peter Kreeft:

How is a person to be defined? The crucial point for our argument is not which acts are to count as defining a person (is it speaking, or reasoning, or loving?) but the relation of these personal acts to the person-actor. Is a person:

One who is consciously performing personal acts? If so, people who are asleep are not people, and we may kill them.
One with a present capacity to perform personal acts? That would include sleepers, but not people in coma.
One with a history of performing personal acts? That would mean that a 17-year-old who was born in a coma 17 years ago and is just now coming out of it is not a person. Also, by this definition there can be no first personal act, no personal acts without a history of past personal acts.
One with a future capacity for performing personal acts? That would mean that dying persons are not persons.

Surely the correct answer is that a person is one with a natural, inherent capacity for performing personal acts. Why is one able to perform personal acts under proper conditions? Only because one is a person. One grows into the ability to perform personal acts only because one already is the kind of thing that grows into the ability to perform personal acts, i.e., a person.
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/personhood.htm

quatona · Jan 1, 2016

patricius79 said:
I already did that through Peter Kreeft:

How is a person to be defined? The crucial point for our argument is not which acts are to count as defining a person (is it speaking, or reasoning, or loving?) but the relation of these personal acts to the person-actor. Is a person:

One who is consciously performing personal acts? If so, people who are asleep are not people, and we may kill them.

One with a present capacity to perform personal acts? That would include sleepers, but not people in coma.

One with a history of performing personal acts? That would mean that a 17-year-old who was born in a coma 17 years ago and is just now coming out of it is not a person. Also, by this definition there can be no first personal act, no personal acts without a history of past personal acts.

One with a future capacity for performing personal acts? That would mean that dying persons are not persons.

Surely the correct answer is that a person is one with a natural, inherent capacity for performing personal acts. Why is one able to perform personal acts under proper conditions? Only because one is a person. One grows into the ability to perform personal acts only because one already is the kind of thing that grows into the ability to perform personal acts, i.e., a person.
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/personhood.htm

A sperm is a person now?

redleghunter · Jan 1, 2016

quatona said:
A sperm is a person now?

Not without a fertilized egg.

That's the biological distinction.

quatona · Jan 1, 2016

redleghunter said:
Not without a fertilized egg.

That isn´t a criteria mentioned in the argument I was addressing.

That's the biological distinction.

There´s no such biological distinction defining a "person".

redleghunter · Jan 1, 2016

quatona said:
That isn´t a criteria mentioned in the argument I was addressing.

There´s no such biological distinction defining a "person".

Then your criteria was flawed.

And yes a conceived homosapien is its own life. A sperm cell belongs to its owner and not distinct. The original OP has it about right.

Paul of Eugene OR · Jan 1, 2016

patricius79 said:
I already did that through Peter Kreeft:. . . .
Surely the correct answer is that a person is one with a natural, inherent capacity for performing personal acts. Why is one able to perform personal acts under proper conditions? Only because one is a person. One grows into the ability to perform personal acts only because one already is the kind of thing that grows into the ability to perform personal acts, i.e., a person.
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/personhood.htm

Well this is a thought that is groping towards a good answer but it is not yet a rigorous definition. To say one grows into the ability to perform personal acts . . . . and call that a qualifying definition . . . allows one to accept a pair of sperm and egg, not yet conjoined, to be called a person. They could grow into one that performs personal acts, after all. And another thing . . this concept of "personal acts" is too vague to be used without definition of what a personal act is.

So this is not yet a good definition of a person.

To me, personhood requires ability to recognize self apart from others, ability to express oneself in language, ability to learn new things.

If you have a growth in your body that would have been a twin but failed to develop properly, and it is discovered and removed medically and has a few things like hair and teeth but nowhere near a regular body . . . it was human, it was a union of a sperm and an egg, but it was never a person.

If you have a fetus that develops only partially, lacking (tragically) a frontal cortex on the brain, it was never a person.

If you have an embryo of only a few cells that does not implant in the uterus but is cast aside by the mother's body, it was never a person.

If you have a man laying in the bed in the last stages of alzheimers, unable to express language, unable to recognize others, unable to learn new things . . . because he was able to do those things earlier in his life, and he is not just who he is now but the sum of his whole life, I would still count him as a person.

JesusReigns · Jan 1, 2016

redleghunter · Jan 1, 2016

Paul of Eugene OR said:
Well this is a thought that is groping towards a good answer but it is not yet a rigorous definition. To say one grows into the ability to perform personal acts . . . . and call that a qualifying definition . . . allows one to accept a pair of sperm and egg, not yet conjoined, to be called a person. They could grow into one that performs personal acts, after all. And another thing . . this concept of "personal acts" is too vague to be used without definition of what a personal act is.

I thought we visited the sperm and egg example earlier.

Both belong to the host and contain the DNA of the host and are not distinct. When the two join a natural miracle occurs creating a new and distinct human life.

From:

WHEN DO HUMAN BEINGS BEGIN?

"SCIENTIFIC" MYTHS AND SCIENTIFIC FACTS

Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D.

https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/wdhbb.html

Paul of Eugene OR · Jan 1, 2016

redleghunter said:
I thought we visited the sperm and egg example earlier.

Both belong to the host and contain the DNA of the host and are not distinct. When the two join a natural miracle occurs creating a new and distinct human life.

From:

WHEN DO HUMAN BEINGS BEGIN?

"SCIENTIFIC" MYTHS AND SCIENTIFIC FACTS

Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D.

https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/wdhbb.html

Yes we did talk about it earlier. That does not mean your logic is anything but assumption this time any more than the last time. It is merely an assumption that because the sperm and egg become one they are now a person. One does not have to make that assumption based on any known facts, not even scriptural verses. It is true one MAY make that assumption, but it is also true one NEED NOT make that assumption.

redleghunter · Jan 1, 2016

Paul of Eugene OR said:
Yes we did talk about it earlier. That does not mean your logic is anything but assumption this time any more than the last time. It is merely an assumption that because the sperm and egg become one they are now a person. One does not have to make that assumption based on any known facts, not even scriptural verses. It is true one MAY make that assumption, but it is also true one NEED NOT make that assumption.

I linked to a piece from an embryologist. I believe it supports my position on establishing at conception we have a new distinct human being.

Now whether you are debating that such is different from personhood is another matter. As science does not deal with unscientific terms as "personhood "

Why Abortion is Immoral

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