Originally posted by KinkGuy@Jan 25 2005, 11:11 PM
Would abortion as birth control be such an issue if we educated and provided adequate birth control methods to the populace? Simple minded aren't I?
My mother supported BOTH Planned Parenthood and condom/public school sex education. Her silly theory was that "if these kids know how to NOT wind up pregnant, they wouldn't need abortions." Knowledge is power, unless you are a neocon in which case, you just make up your mind not to be horny. sigh.
[post=277449]Quoted post[/post]
Been gone a few days. Abortion an extremely emotiionally charged issue. Let's look at the basic facts as they are now. But before we really look at the facts we must acknowledge that it is the religious right with is one wing of Christianity that is driving the antiabortion group. So, yes, I will spend much time on the fallacy of some of their doctrines. I shouldn't have to. The religious part of this shouldn't even be a factor. But it is. Too ignore this is too totally misunderstand the dynamics of the saga of should we or should we not allow abortion.
First, the United States Constitution gives rights to those BORN as citizens or those who have been naturalized as adults who come from other countries. The basis of our allowing abortions has been on this part of the Consitution. Historicaly, rights and acknowledgement that the fetus is citizen has not been given until the baby is BORN. When still bornbabies are delivered, legally nothing has to be done. The stillborn can just be put in the incinerator and destroyed. Historically they have not ben listed as born citizens who have then died. That is until the last 20 years when a few judges have suddenly given rights to fetuses. I will digress here, but if we have an unfit mother are we going to take the fetus away and put in in a foster home? Or maybe we should put the mother in shackles and lock her up in a special home for unfit expectant mothers until the baby is born. This could apply to every woman who is carrying a baby. Any judge could decide that a woman is smoking, not eating the right kind of food, not the correct type of excercise. not enough sleep and I am sure I left something out. Because once we have established that the festus is a human being and a citizen of the United States we will have to change birthdays to the conception date. Fetuses can then become wards of the state and the women carrying them held hostage until the birth.
The point here is that legally, there is no unboirn fetus in the womb who has the rights of citizenship according to the United States Constitution.
All the above is to establish why abortion is legal here in the United States. If this were not so then Roe vs, Wade might not ever have happened.
Now to the issue of religion and whether the fetus is a human being or not. I am of the opinion that the soul enters the body when life is "breathed" into it. I can talk about this from another angle then abortion, My wife and I had a miscarriage at 12 weeks. There was no funeral or obituary. We don't know the gender. I don't believe that what to become a baby for us has a soul in heaven. I don't believe that the soul is given until the baby breathes. And the fact that no funerals were held throughout the ages supports this belief as customary throughout Christianity and other religions as well throughout history until suddenly now here in the United States.
I understand that some people believe that the soul is given at conception. As far as the Christian religion goes, we must go back to what people believed during Biblical times. During those times people believed that the seed came from the man only. The woman was the place of incubation. An analogy here is the seed for a plant is put in the flower pot. to grow and develop. There was no doctrine of conception. The seed just started growing after being planted in the women. This concept of sperm and egg uniting to make a human being is a scientific concept that was discovered in recent times. Now if abortion were very wrong, the Bible would have condemned it. It was not mentioned.
So I believe that threre is no extra child that I will see in heaven. But I know Christians who believe that since the soul is given at conception there will be a soul in heaven. while I don't agree with them, I understand their viewpoint. The problem is that if you believe that the fetus is a complete human being with a soul that will live eternally, then how can you say that abortions would ever be a valid procedure except when the choice is to save the life of the mother and the other choice is to lose the life of the mother and the fetus as well. If the fetus is human then it has all the rights of all other humans and we don't decide when we can murder or not murder the developing human.
This gets into a whole new area of human selection and when do the parents get to decide that there is enough wrong with the baby to abort it. Should the government have standards for this or should the parents have control of this? There are cases where it is clear that the baby will not develop at all and I know of doctors who recommend to abort the fetus.
The case for saving the life of one human and letting one human die is well documented. Car wrecks and the decision has to be made which one to save first. And the medics know that the one not saved first will probably die. So the case for either losing both mother and unborn child OR just losing the child through abortion makes it OK to have abortions if you believe that the fetus already has a soul because the choicee is save just mother or lose both.
My point is that the position of most antiabortion people is flawed. To allow for abortions for cases of incest, rape, or defects in the fetus just can't be argued successfully if the fetus is a human being with a soul. We would have to treat it like a born human being and I don't think we can go and murder a three year old because we have a confession that yes the baby was conceived through a rape.
So in in conclusion of considering this as a Christian decision, one must either be totally against abortion except to save the life of the mother or Bibically there is no prohibition against abortion period as the fetus does not have a soul until life is breathed into it at birth.
But legallly, this is more than just a Chrsitian doctrine decision. And to make a change, an amendment to the U.S Constitution willl be needed.
Again, according to my religious beliefs, I don't expect to see a baby in heaven. And the fetus that was aborted in Jana's case; I don't expect Jana will see a baby in heaven either. But I do understand how those who expect to see that baby in heaven feel. I have talked to other people who have lost a baby through a miscarriage and they really believe that they will see a baby in heaven. I understand why they would be against abortion.
But we have to look at it from a historical prespective as well as our present knowledge of conception. The whoe, doctirne of human life with a soul begins at conception is based on moern scientific discovery, not the Bible. The Biblical people had no conept of conception. All seed were the same whether spilt out as in withdrawing the penis just as orgasm was about to happen to prevent a pregnancv or planted in a women.
There are very valid arguments about when a feus become a human being and abortion should be wrong, but using the Bible is not one of them.
Yes, I know the Scripture about "how I knew you before you were in the womb." To use that concept would give a soul to all seed since the man carried 100 % of the seed and the woman only was the "soil" for the seed to grow. That would give a soul to every sperm that ever was produced. That would give me millions of children. Surely, no one believes that is true.
In conclusion, we will have to use our modern knowledge about conception and when we want to start counting fetuses as a human being. The Bible's concept of the birth of babies will not give much help. And according to our U.S. Constitution the only way to outlaw abortions contitutionally is to add an amendment to the U. S. Consitution.
Jana, I have a relative who also got pregnant under very similar circumstances. The father was crazy with documented mental conditions. The girl in question was not well and her doctor had warnd her not to get pregnant for health reasons. Yes, I was instrumental in arranging an abortion for her. I regret the action was necessary. But it was no one else's business. The miscarriage still bothers my wife and me. But she is still pro choice on abortion.
The pain of miscarriages and having to deal with whether to go through an abortion or not is painful enough without the U S Constitution getting involved. Only the mother, doctor and the woman's god as she understands him to be should be involved, period. The rest of us need to gracefully butt out.
. Finding myself pregnant by the worst person I could think of, and in terrible mental health myself, I chose to abort. I am not proud of this, it is just a fact of my life. I don't grieve that loss or question my choice, but I do use it as a safeguard and a reminder of why I awlays took this issue so seriously, and why I can't let down my guard on it, even occasionally. I desperately wish I had not allowed that to occur in the first place, I did not have ignorance as an excuse, but many people would have been negatively impacted by any other decision. I wish I had not put myself in a situation where all the options were bad, and I had to choose anyway. Pro-choice? Yes. But I do not herald this as a thing to celebrate.
