The abortion debate

[Steve]

I decided to split this into another thread, because it was becoming less about a third party and more about abortion. The original thread is here.

And abortion is murder in all cases.

Danny, I am vehemently anti-abortion, as you are, but let's examine your statement that "...abortion is murder in all cases."

The scriptures teach that "But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." (1st Timothy 5:8 ) and we know that passage is not limited to financial provision -- it also extends to men providing safety and protection, because Jesus, himself, said in Mark 3:37 "No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house."

So it is clear, at least to me, that as the husband/head of my household, I have a responsibility to work to provide for the needs of my family, and I have a responsibility to protect as best I can against harm.

So -- and you'll find a lot of this thinking in historic Jewish literature -- let's take a scenario:

You are in your home and have a weapon in hand. An intruder enters and threatens the life of your wife. You know that if you do not use the weapon at your disposal, your wife is about to die. Now, Biblically, what is the right thing to do, stand and watch your wife die, or take action as the strong man of the house, bound to a responsibility to provide and protect?

I can't answer for you, but, for me, the threat will be neutralized or eliminated by any means at my disposal, because I believe that is my Biblically mandated role.

Now, imagine that the intruder is one of your children, who has come in and threatened to kill your wife. A much harder choice, but the Biblical mandate doesn't change at all.

Now imagine the "intruder" is a 28-week in utero unborn child, and the continued presence of that little unborn threatens to kill your wife. As hard as that decision may be, it falls, for me, under the same Biblical mandate: I will protect the life of my wife (and that is the primary scriptural role of the husband, even more than protecting his children) over anything or anyone who poses a threat.

PG, I have never heard this line of reasoning before. It is semantics, but I can't imagine a situation where a 28 week old "suddenly" becoming a threat to the life of the mother. A tubal or something is known way before that, is it not? The principle is still the same, I know, but I believe your example would be better if the child was 8-10 weeks or something.

Turning that around argument around a little, if a third party came in your house and demanded you kill your 16 year old daughter or else they would kill your wife, would you still be justified in doing it?

What if a doctor came in and said that your 16 year old had a disease, and unless you killed her, it would kill your wife. Then what? Sticky business. Either God is sovereign or He is not.

[Pastor Gary]

Steve, I am trying to tread softly here, because I know some Jude2'ers have faced this scenario in real life and have been forced to make horribly difficult decisions. I would never want our discussion to add to thir pain.

(And, as an aside, it is far more than semantics: it is a thousands of years old theological debate, and if you have never heard that line of reasoning, let me suggest you might be reading only those views that support your own.)

[Steve]

Steve, I am trying to tread softly here, because I know some Jude2'ers have faced this scenario in real life and have been forced to make horribly difficult decisions. I would never want our discussion to add to thir pain.

(And, as an aside, it is far more than semantics: it is a thousands of years old theological debate, and if you have never heard that line of reasoning, let me suggest you might be reading only those views that support your own.)

I agree. I would never want to add to anyones pain. God is faithful to us, and does not want past sins to hang on to us. We are forgiven.

I must ask, however, are you suggesting that the debate about the Biblical rightness or wrongness of ending a pregnancy is thousands of years old? Were there scholars thousands (or even hundreds?) of years ago debating that to end a pregnancy was a Biblically sound practice? If so, could you please cite some references?

[Pastor Gary]

I must ask, however, are you suggesting that the debate about the Biblical rightness or wrongness of ending a pregnancy is thousands of years old? Were there scholars thousands (or even hundreds?) of years ago debating that to end a pregnancy was a Biblically sound practice? If so, could you please cite some references?

Of course that is what I am saying, because it is true. You don't really believe abortion is a modern-day invention, do you?

"A passage from the Mishna quotes a Jewish legal text from the second century CE. It describes the situation in which a woman's life is endangered during childbirth. A D&X procedure (often called Partial Birth Abortion in recent years) might be used under these conditions today. However, this technique was unknown in ancient times. The legal text states that the fetus must be dismembered and removed limb by limb. However, if "the greater part" of the fetus had already been delivered, then the fetus could not be killed. This is based on the belief that the fetus only becomes a person after most of its body emerges from the birth canal. Before personhood has been reached, it may be necessary to "sacrifice a potential life in order to save a fully existent human life, i.e. the pregnant woman in labor." 1 After the forehead emerges from the birth canal, the fetus is regarded as a person. Neither the baby nor the mother can be killed to save the life of the other.

A second consideration is the principle of self-defense. Some Jewish authorities have asserted that if the fetus placed its mother's life at risk, then the mother should be permitted to kill the fetus to save herself, even if the "greater portion [of its body] had already emerged" from the birth canal."

http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_abor.htm


Just a starting point. I have the Tanakh and other Jewish resources in my personal library.

[TW]

Steve, you might want to check out the Wikipedia article on the history of abortion law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... ortion_law

And this from Popular Issues:

http://www.allaboutpopularissues.org/hi ... on-faq.htm

Abortion is not a recent phenomena, they have been preformed for centuries.


TW

[Steve]

Thank you gentlemen for the references.

I don't at all question that the "practice" of abortion has taken place for years any more than I would question the practice of prostitution has taken place. Obviously it has. The question I had was in regard to the theological debate statement you made.

Peoples and governments have "made legal" many acts throughout the centuries. Many religions, even Jewish law, may have favored the practice, as they have adultery, prostitution or whatever.

This does not change my belief that it is a Biblically indefensible position to hold that abortion could be sanctioned by God. I think the adultery debate has a strong parallel. It is sin, it can be forgiven by God, and is if one is repentant, but to say that one is JUSTIFIED in the act is too much of a stretch for me.

We will have to agree to disagree on this one. I know this may be a hurtful topic for some, and if I have offended, I apologize. Don't feel the need to comment further. I am willing to let the discussion end here.

[Mike Vande]

The thing about this debate, regarding the termination of an ectopic pregnancy, is that it is it wouldn't even be a debate if the "pro life" side of it were sufficient informed as to the medical situation attendant to an ectopic pregnancy.

There is no medical possibility of an ectopic pregancy being carried even halfway to term. By the time an ectopic pregnancy can be detected by the pain and bleeding that signals the condition, the baby has been crushed between the placenta and the fallopian tube wall, and the placenta has ruptured, which is what is bleeding. In short, the baby is dead. If the corpse is left in the fallopian tube, the partially detached placenta will allow the mother to bleed out, and/or cause an infection due to it's decay. Removing it amounts to the same thing as removing an infected appendix to prevent fatal peritonitis. Anyone who says differently simply doesn't know what they are talking about.

God gave us intelligence to use. The medical sciences are one result of that gift. When a doctor says that an ectopic pregnancy is not able to live, and that to wait until the partially detached corpse and placenta either rots off or finally stops bleeding because there is no more blood left in the body of the woman who is carrying it, it behooves us to take advantage of that gift.

God, in His Sovereignity allows a lot of things to exist and/or happen that wouldn't if this were a world undefiled by Original Sin; wars, terrorism, all infections, genetic deformaties, ectopic pregnancies, even democrats. A person ought to very carefully consider what they are really saying before they claim we shouldn't our God-given intelligence to do whatever we can about any of those things because God allows them to exist.

[pastorables]

genetic deformaties,

These rare conditions of malformations, genetic or otherwise, is one of the very reasons that I can't simply make a blanket statement regarding abortion.

It isn't my stance that the baby in these instances doesn't have the right to live, but rather the question of should doctors ever kill the mother which is in effect what would be happening in some specific circumstances.

I am thankful to God that I've never had to make a critical decision regarding life and death, i.e., a decision to unplug medical machinery keeping one alive, a decision related to abortion, a decision in a capital murder trial, or a decision concerning which one to save if both my wife and son were in peril for their lives...

pa

[Full Quiver]

As Mike pointed out the baby, fetus, embryo is dead or crushed by the time anyone even notices their is a "pregnancy". When the medical professionals get involved here they are not performing an abortion but a dnc to flush out the dead baby. No one killed the baby but it was an inviable life to begin with as the mother's body did not sufficiently protect it.
I have head of God moving and correcting such a pregnancy however as we are all aware He can do such if He wills.
An abortion would be the killing of a living baby. That's what the political, social, and religious debate is over. No one is fussing about cleansing the woman's body of dead tissue. My wife had a miscarriage when we were very young and the docs performed a dnc because the baby was still inside her. Of course she miscarried at a very early time in the pregnancy but nevertheless the docs had to get the dead baby out.
There is a big difference here. Likening this to a theoretical situation where one must choose their wife over their kid is silly and Steve made an excellent point in his scenario that should end such silliness.

As for what was done in Bible times or Jewish customs... I could care less. They practiced all kinds of sinful and disgusting things to which God held them accountable for. We must pattern our lives after the Word of god not the actions of some men and women which were written about in the Word of God or who happened to live during the period that the Word was written.

[Pastor Gary]

I may not have all the answers on this or other difficult subjects, but I do know I will not intentionally inflict emotional pain on another. I tried to be subtle. Guys, please drop this out of common decency. [size=0][size=18]There are people here who have made these choices in real life and they don't need to hear this ri[/size]ght now. [/size]

(Did you notice this became a bunch of people who have no ability to get pregnant debating this?)

[Mike Vande]

I am gonna add one more thing and I am done. I just remembered something I read a few years back; It was a news item from the late 50's, put out by some wire service like Reuters or AP. A former Miss America took prescribed Thalidomide during her pregnancy just before it was discovered to cause birth defects. It quoted her as saying that, after careful prayer and counsel with her pastor, she believed the correct thing to do, for the baby's sake, was to terminate the pregnancy, and she did, legally. I do not know what denomination her pastor was with, but in the fifties, any one who won Miss America would have been with a fairly conservative protestant denomination.

Time changes things. There was no pro-abortion/anti-abortion debate back then, and folks viewed things a lot differently, obviously. We have learned more than we knew, and that has changed things. But even in the recent history of the USA, "Is it a life? Then it's murder" wasn't always the motto of the church.

We cannot afford to allow uneducated, jingoistic knee-jerk reactions to govern our beliefs or deeds. Anyone who reads the Psalm 137:8-9

(New International Version)
8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-

9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

will learn pretty quickly that God is not opposed to man killing babies in all situations.

I have voted pro-life in the last 6 presidential elections(the only ones I ever voted in), and I believe that one issue is enough to define the choice the between one bad candidate and another. But I do so from an informed position, one that says abortion on demand for the purpose of birth control is not only wrong theologically, it's a stupid, unnecessary, and potentially life-threatening medical risk for a woman, and refusing to chose to save a woman's life over letting both her and her infant die because a Sovereign God could save the woman if He wanted to is barbaric medically and anti-Christian theologically.

[Brian]

and refusing to chose to save a woman's life over letting both her and her infant die because a Sovereign God could save the woman if He wanted to is barbaric medically and anti-Christian theologically.

I wasn't going to touch this one with a ten foot pole! ([i]even though I wanted too)

But Mike, you have forced my hand.

My mother and father where faced with this very decision when she was only 16 years old. I was ready for the world at the ripe young age of 6 months! (her sixth month of pregancy) The doctors told my dad of the potential dangers to her life and mine. And that he was facing the real life danger of losing one of us. So he was asked to choose between his wife or his yet to be born son. My dad said he told the doctor to save us both, that he wasn't making the choice....it wasn't his to make.
A few days later my mom went home and a month later I followed.

Of course I am glad they chose what they did, but even more so to let the Giver and Taker of Life make His own decisions about His own creation.

I believe that personal, gut rentching, agonizing, decisions must be made sometimes (My wife and I have had to make some of our own concerning our disabled son) But I believe the decision my dad made was the right one. Not only because I am here and alive but because it was the right thing to do. It was right and good to let God work through the faith of my mother and father. To say otherwise would be disgracing my fathers good name.

[Mike Vande]

Brain, a fallopian tube is not sufficiently wide to contain a six month fetus. If you made to six months, you were not what is usually considered an ectopic pregnancy, which is what I am talking about. Your placenta may have attached higher in the uterus than normal, but still inside the uterus rather than completely inside the fallopian tube. That would have allowed you to reach six months without complications. An ectopic pregnancy usually won't get past 4 months.