Guide to Informed Choices
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something has value or is worth life, he treated others with the same respect that he hoped to receive. 163
His line of thinking was more like this:
To the man who is truly ethical all life is sacred, including that which from the human point of view seems lower in the scale. 164
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A man is really ethical only when he… does not ask how far this or that life deserves sympathy as valuable in itself, nor how far it is capable of feeling. To him life as such is sacred. 165
Choose life instead and you won‘t have to defend infanticide. Honor all life as sacred and peace will make its home in you.
Inconsistency! A woman can be charged with causing harm to her unborn child if she takes drugs while pregnant, but if she aborts him at the same age, then it‘s okay. She can kill him but she can‘t slightly harm him! 166
Some doctors who perform corrective surgery and abortions perform these on the very same conditions and the same age fetuses! Whether they heal a condition or simply take life of the child depends on the parents preference. 167
Reason #11 ―Unborn babies are people too!‖ Reason #12 Abortion in the physical sense is also abortion in the spiritual sense
Personhood is based on a Godless worldview e just looked at the personhood theory where some people believe that your intrinsic worth is connected to certain outer qualities. They think that until a fetus has what they perceive as ‗consciousnesses‘ and ‗thinking‘ that somehow it‘s okay to abort. They reject any idea of a Higher Power or Creator of the Universe (i.e., God) behind it all. To them, the human mind with all of its imperfections is all that matters. The entire argument about the fetus not being a person yet is based on a humanistic worldview. A worldview that has no God behind it. A worldview that believes that life is accidental and mankind just accidentally evolved from amoebas with eyes and ears and feet, conveniently in the right places (and of course, no miracles remember, no angels, no healings, no life W
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after death, no prayers answered — just one lonesome planet.) Remember, in this view, there is no Universal Intelligence of any sort or name. Just gases and empty spaces and little amoebas floating around. And, speaking of that, who put those things there in the first place!
You mean more to God than you do to the world he personhood argument says that if you have such and such feature or ability you‘re a person. And if you are a person, well, we‘ll give you a place at the table. At least as long as you have more ‗personhood‘ than "other animals." Some people say that being a human does not mean you are necessarily a person. Fortunately for us, however, God makes no such distinctions.
It does not matter to God what stage of development we have passed
As His children we are all lovable and valuable, no matter what our age, talents, social status, physical beauty or family dysfunction. It does not matter to God what stage of development we have passed or how much we have experienced. God loves us simply because we are His children and because He is pure Love.
Our true worth comes from our spiritual nature, not our humanity Quotable Quote ―What the Christian denies is that his consciousness, his personality, derives from his body. Rather, the body depends upon his consciousness, for the Personal Creator God in whose image man is made was and is a Spirit before he ever made a body.‖ 168
Thou Shalt Not Kill
e are, I believe, made in the image and likeness of God (Gn. 1:27 , 5:1, 9:6). The worth of the fetus is not so much that she is human life with human DNA but that she is human bearing God‘s spirit within. We are from God (1 Jn. 4:6). We are children of the One God, created in the image of God. If God is Love (1 Jn. 4:8), then our true nature is also Love. In fact, that means our true nature is Love, not human intellect as some philosophers insist. If you think about it, our lives are a journey in self-development, or at least T W
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they are meant to be. None of us can honestly say that we are perfect, yet Jesus said, be ye therefore perfect as your father in heaven (Mt. 5:48). So we still have a long way to go! We, who have not "grown up" spiritually should not pick on those who have not "grown up" physically. Our spiritual growth is more important than our physical growth. You can be an old man and have learned nothing, or you can be a child and have the most beautiful soul. Truly, it‘s what‘s inside us that counts.
Can abortion kill anyone‘s true nature? If there was anything there growing inside me, it was a soul. And a soul is energy, and you can‘t destroy energy. 169
t might seem that if there is more to us than just this body, isn‘t abortion okay? I mean, can‘t the soul just keep living? We may be spiritual beings, but abortion is still
killing a person. Scientifically and spiritually we are just energy — if you really examine it — but we are conscious energy. This energy has personality and individuality. A soul. A mind. Emotions. Just because we are energy doesn‘t mean murder is acceptable. Yes, you won‘t kill energy, but you will kill the person that belongs in that body. The same with abortion. God gave us bodies and that‘s how we experience the world, grow, make choices and express ourselves — through our physical body. You can‘t kill the soul of your baby by aborting her, but just because she continues to exist doesn‘t mean it‘s spiritually lawful. After all, if you killed an adult they would also keep living, since their true essence is also spirit. But of course, we know such killing is wrong. We know that God is a Spirit and that we should worship Him in spirit and in truth (Jn. 4:24). We also know that we are made in the image of God, who is spirit. At death our bodies return to the earth from where they came and our spirit returns to God, from where it came. (Eccl. 12:7) The part of us that dies at death is just the body, not the spirit of a person.
So we are spirit. But in this life, we are also physical. That‘s pretty obvious. We live in a physical world. We have physical bodies. We need a physical body to remain alive in this world. Therefore we have laws in society protecting our physical bodies. These laws prohibit physical murder. Can murder kill someone‘s spirit? No! But is murder still wrong? Yes!
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The spirit is interwoven into the fabric of life Bible Quote ―There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.‖ —1 Cor. 15:40
hen trying to understand how abortion is a spiritual and physical thing, you have to understand that we are both physical and spiritual beings. God‘s spirit animates our body and is a part of the life in every cell and atom. There‘s a really interesting verse in the Bible that says, ―As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.‖ (Eccl. 11:5)
The variation on this verse is, "As you do not know how life (or the spirit ) enters the body being formed,
so
you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.‖ I believe that from conception the spirit of the incoming child is infused into the fabric of the new body — into the blood, bones and tissue. Gradually, more and more of the spirit of the child is bonded into the body until the assimilation is complete. Did you ever stop to think that each and every cell of your body is alive? Yet when you die these cells all die. Scientists continually say that they cannot find God in the human body yet they are only examining dead people! Hypnotherapy also seems to indicate that the child‘s soul comes and goes during pregnancy until the moment when he or she is locked into this new body and merges with it fully. 170
In any case, the soul isn‘t a last-minute addition that God stuffs into the fetus during delivery.
For more on how abortion might affect the soul‘s plan see Reason
#20: There is a plan
Denying God? As well as the soul of the fetus being part of the body, there is also God‘s presence. The heart has long been the focus of love and God‘s presence in our human bodies. (2 Cor. 1:21-22; 4:6, Gal. 4:6) Since God is alive in every fetus, abortion denies God in that baby.
Reason #12 ―The unborn child is valuable spiritually, not just as a human‖ W
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Reason #13 At what point is it too late to abort?
When does abortion become immoral? know that none of us wants to kill a baby, and we all have our own timeline of where we believe abortion becomes morally wrong, right? We all have our point where we say, ―Alright, that‘s a baby now. Killing it is wrong now.‖ So, my question to you is, where is your line…and how would an abortion be different an hour, a day or a week before? Not sure where you draw the line? Let‘s look at some possible dates.
At Conception For me, that point is conception. After that it‘s no longer birth control because it‘s no longer a sperm and egg — it's a new individual — life is present, existing, alive and developing from that point onward. No longer just a body cell of the mother or father, a baby is growing — yes, isn‘t it amazing?
For more on this see Reason #2: We know when life begins.
Before implantation occurs After conception the fertilized egg (i.e., new life) floats downwards and finds itself a place on the lining of the uterus. The fertilized egg sends out cells that become the placenta — the point of exchange between mother and baby. Perhaps some people believe that abortions should be permitted until this time, as scientists routinely create multiple embryos for IVF and only implant a few of them. Yet, just because it has been done doesn‘t mean it should be. Implantation as a line to abort doesn‘t make much sense, because the ball of cells has already started becoming a baby — the only difference is, now she is settled in.
Before the heart starts The reasoning for this point is that since at death the heart stops, so when the heart starts does life begin? However, it is a little more complex, since it‘s impossible for the heart to begin instantly because the heart hasn‘t developed yet. Also, what does the heart really do? It pumps blood! Yes, it doesn‘t make you human, it doesn‘t make you a child of God — it pumps blood!
For more information on how the heart begins beating — a mystery in itself — see
Reason #9: It‘s not just a bunch of cells.
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Before Quickening In nineteenth century English common law, abortion was considered moral up until quickening, which meant when the mother noticed her baby moving. The reasosn for this was that it was thought the baby became alive at that time. It was in the days before pregnancy tests, and feeling movement was the first indicator of life they had. Quickening should not be confused with when a baby actually
moves (see Reason
#24 ). Until his movements are strong enough and he is big enough, his mother won‘t feel a thing! I should also note that different women feel fetal movement at different times. Today some people point to this old belief as evidence that abortion used to be accepted, 171 but using it as a moral point is outdated and makes no sense at all.
When the child gets a soul Quickening and when a child gets a soul are related arguments. Superstition said that when the mother started feeling her baby‘s movements he got his soul. Even today the Islamic tradition ties ―signs of life‖ (which in the days before ultrasounds meant movement) with ‗getting a soul‘. A newspaper article from the Iran Daily Newspaper reflected on the morality of abortion using criteria similar to quickening. According to the article, the concern is whether or not the fetus ―has a soul,‖ which they take to mean ―when signs of life can be seen in the fetus‖ or, in other words, he is ―infused with life.‖ 172 They
claim this doesn‘t happen until week 16 or 18 — which leaves me wondering exactly what life signs they are looking for, since Reason #8
shows the fetus is moving, kicking and thumb-sucking much, much earlier. Even looking at the logic behind it, how can one
prove that someone has a soul? You simply can‘t. It‘s a spiritual presence; not something you can isolate in a test tube to confirm. If you believe that a newborn baby or adult has a soul, but not a fetus, then you are also relying on a religious argument, so how can you prove that you are correct? Conversely, if you believe that no one has a soul, then how can killing a fetus be justified? After all, based on that line of reasoning, you could kill an adult also. 173
Since neither you nor I can prove the existence or absence of the soul, it seems a dangerous timeframe to guess. However, if you‘re interested in my belief about the soul see Reason #12 .
Before the fetus moves We have ultrasound records of the fetus making her very first movements when mom is only 6-8 weeks pregnant! (See Reason #8: If only you could see what she
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looked like . )
When the fetus becomes human Actually, she is created from human cells and is a separate human being from conception.
When the fetus looks like a baby For Deb Andrews, a nurse, an eight-week fetus wasn‘t a baby, and an abortion at that stage was no more disturbing to her than having teeth cleaned at the dentist. But a fifteen-week fetus had a nose and lips and ears, and Deb preferred to avoid the rooms where that fetus was being evacuated from its mother‘s womb. 174
I find this quote interesting, in that this clinic worker felt that early first trimester abortions were okay because of how the products of conception looked. She feels that 15-week abortions were unpleasant with the fetal parts identifiable but that there is nothing morally wrong with an 8- weeks abortion — because of how it looked. What I‘m wondering is, why she didn‘t see nose, lips or ears on an 8-week fetus. I say that because other sources (see Reason #9 ) show that a fetus has those features; and I‘m wondering whether they simply disintegrated into fragments of tissue or whether they were truly not distinguishable yet. In any case, it‘s interesting that some people seem to think that if a younger member of the human race — after being suctioned down a tube — does not look like what they think a newborn infant should look like, then he or she must not be a person. I would ask, instead of making the unborn child fit our definition of a person, how about changing our mindset of what a human being looks like?
And for the record, there is no one point that the fetus suddenly looks like the picture cute baby — it‘s a moment by moment process.
I.e., able to survive without his mother aka when his lungs mature.
We‘ve given this topic a whole section.
Turn to Reason #14: So what if the baby isn‘t viable yet .
When the brain begins to develop I‘m not going to go into this too much here, but you can turn to Reason #87:
Your
unborn baby is intelligent
for information on how and when the brain develops. Essentially, brainwaves have been detected as early as 6 weeks, which is much earlier than most abortions,…which means most abortions stop both a human brain wave and heartbeat. I would
actually question why
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awareness in the intellectual sense is so important. Why do we judge brain development to be more important than the development of the heart, which starts beating as early as 3 weeks? What message about priorities could our Creator be sending us here?
When the mother wants the baby I‘m sorry, that‘s just wishful thinking. Reality will not adjust for people‘s delusions.
When the baby breathes Only ignorant people could believe that the fetus is not a living, beating, and sentient human being. Breathing, as we do it, is not required in the womb because there is a fluid environment instead of air. Although the fetus breathes in fluid to practice, she extracts the needed oxygen from her mother‘s bloodstream via the umbilical cord. The mechanism for respiration (lungs) cannot justify a death sentence. So what if the baby is not independent of oxygen — we don‘t kill people on respirators because they can‘t survive without it! One pro-choicer suggests that since it was God‘s ‗breath of life‘ that made Adam alive that the fetus is not alive/ensouled until he breathes. 175
Yet the two are not related. Besides, how do you know it wasn‘t a spiritual infusion as opposed to a physical Yüklə 4,63 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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