Is Abortion Murder?

Let's go at this thing logically:

Is it human?
Yes. There is human DNA. It is not an ostrich or a fern.

Is it separate from the mother?
Yes. As evidenced by different blood types and certainly by the fact that about half of them are of a different sex from the mother.

Is it alive?
Yes. The cells are replicating and respirating. (They are making more cells and using nourishment)

So far we have established this is a unique and living human being.

What is murder?

Is it the taking of a life?
Yes.

It is the taking of a life with forethought and planning?
Yes. That is murder in the first degree.

Is it provoked?
No, it is not provoked. The child has done nothing to earn the death penalty.

Conclusion: by every possible definition it is murder. Not only that, but since it is the premeditated murder of a baby, it would be considered in many states (if the baby were visible and not hidden) to be murder with special circumstances and deserving of the death penalty.

The only thing that makes it not murder legally is actually that we have not seen it yet. This is evidenced by the fact that if a 6 month old baby is delivered early, the hospitals will fight like mad to save it, but if the abortion is scheduled for that time of gestation, the child is murdered without thought of penalty.

 

Let's go at this thing MORE logically:

Is it human?
Yes. There is human DNA. It is not an ostrich or a fern. Just as a heart or lung is human

Is it separate from the mother?
No. It can have different blood types and about half of them are of a different sex from the mother. Yet like a lung which is also separate from the mother as it can be removed and given to someone else to use, it can't survive on its own. Therefore, it until about 6 months, it is just a part of a woman.

Is it alive?
Yes. The cells are replicating and respirating. (They are making more cells and using nourishment)
Just as a lung is alive and replicating cells.

So far we have not established this is a unique and living human being, but rather a body part of a woman until about 6 months.

Is having an abortion, murder?

Is it the taking of a life?
No, just as removing a lung is not taking a life.

Is it the taking of a life with forethought and planning?
No, previous reasons

Is it provoked?
not applicable

Conclusion: by every possible definition it can't be murder.

[ August 18, 2002, 12:30 AM: Message edited by: post-it ]

 

Hey Murph,

I've posted this link before btu I think it bears repeating. The following is from former Extreme and Van Halen (sort of) lead singer and born again Christian, Gary Cherone:

http://www.l4l.org/gary

I think the "six month" argument fails for two reasons.

One is that we know that babies can survive much earlier than that.

Two is that one could say that a baby six months post birth would die if left on his own, too, but hopefully, we would consider that murder.

I think the real question isn't "is an unborn child alive" but "does an unborn child have life".

Mike

[ August 18, 2002, 12:42 AM: Message edited by: Smoke_Eater ]

 

If the mother knows it is a human life, then it may be murder. If the mother does not know it is a human life, then it is manslaughter.

It's the same thing as if someone is out hunting and they think they see a deer and shoot a person -- they are not guilty of murder. But if they see someone on the street and pull the trigger, they know it is a person and they have murdered.

 

Smoke_Eater, I'll agree with your point to this degree.

The law should not allow abortions at whatever month medicine would normally try to save a premature birthed baby, but rather go ahead and deliver the baby and try to bring it to life. Once a baby can survive on its own (with medical help)it should be considered a human life with rights of a human being. If that is 5 months or whatever, so be it. It is at that point an individual.

But this doesn't kill that argument in defense for abortion, it just steps it back to the proper month for what medicine can bring a baby to sole survival.

 

While my stance on Abortion is that is not murder or a sin and will fight to keep abortion a choice for women... I still don't agree with it. I wish that no woman ever had to face such a decision much less make it. I personally would never have an abortion (if men could get pregnant.) But scripture does not give us any basis for claiming that abortion is murder or even the killing of a human. It doesn't recognize a fetus as a life and no one has provided any scripture so far to the contrary.

Therefore, this is not a Biblical matter but rather a personal one. To call this murder is to hang guilt on a person that they can never get rid of. And it never should have been put there in the first place since THERE IS NO BIBLICAL SUPPORT THAT IT DESERVES GUILT OR A CHARGE OF MURDER.

[ August 18, 2002, 01:09 AM: Message edited by: post-it ]

 

Right, but that's precisely why I don't believe that argument works.

First we say, "We'll tear the baby apart and suck it out at six months. No, wait, five months. Yeah, that's it! Five months. Well, maybe four months."

As medicine progresses, you would just keep throwing out these arbitrary dates for execution.

Deciding whether or not a baby can live outside the womb is a sink or swim affair.

In other words, you can't know to any degree of certainty until the baby's been delivered one way or the other.

Because of that, date setting is unnecessarily arbitrary.

Mike

[ August 18, 2002, 09:07 AM: Message edited by: Smoke_Eater ]

 

Good point smoke_eater except now you have just made a great argument for cloning. If man can keep an egg alive then they should. If man can fertize an egg to complete its purpose, then he should. Well... a different argument for a different thread...

But the reality is that medicine has a youngest ever recorded birth that resulted in a living baby. That should be the date until technique changes. Then yes, we start going back. Nothing wrong with that!

 

I'm not sure that it follows that just because we can, we should or that being able to do something makes it morally right.

So then someone who doesn't deserve personhood today, you'll confer personhood on tomorrow?

Again, it's completely arbtitrary.

Like I said before, the point isn't whether or not a baby can survive in a petri dish but whether or not the baby is a person.

 

Unfortunately, there really are some Christians who think this. This thought process is horrid and ignorant. "It can't survive on its own" is probably the most commonly quoted phrase to describe a baby in the womb when dealing with the rather weak arguments used to defend abortion. Technically, a baby can't survive on its own for about 8-10 years after it is born! Sure, its body is is ready for the world, but it can't defend itself, find food and make shelter. Hey...it can't do much with out its parents, we should have a right to kill it! How pathetic.

No. Different DNA nessitates a different being. Do you know someone who has had an organ transplant or some other medical procedure to put someone elses body part in/on them? Well, my brother lost two fingers in a automobile accident and doctors told him he could get two new ones put on. These would be donated from somebody who just recently died or some other means. You know what? He would have to take medication for the rest of his life to supress his immune system as his body would think those new fingers were a disease or infection as they were not part of him, they did not have his unique DNA signature. Different DNA means a different being. ChildInWomb != PartOfParent.

The point of the above was to simply to show that the unique DNA is what is life. The 'Not being able to fend for yourself' type of attitudes is almost nazish (think: Mentally retarded/handicapped, autistic people. What would you do with them?). I hope and pray you would reconsider you position. Abortion is murder, plain and simple.

As shown above, these conclusions are erroneous and without merit (not to mention, poorly thought out).

In Christ,
jason

 

Thank you to Jason, and here's a little more. Post-it, your knowledge of anatomy and gestation really need some help here!

You are mixing terms, actually, in order to confuse the argument. It's call a red herring approach.

A heart or a lung is PART of a human being. Both are organs made of tissues and which are part of the circulatory and respiratory systems respectively. They are, however, not Human BEINGS in and of themselves, which is what is being discussed here. No matter how they mature, they will never become capable of "living on their own" which, as Jason mentioned, is a favorite phrase of pro-abortionists.

I stared at that and could not believe it came from an educated adult. The mother's body treats the 'product of conception' as a foreign body the entire time! Biologically, the child is a parasite, taking nourishment from the mother, upsetting her hormone balance, causing many enormous sickness during all or part of the pregnancy, and finally, eventually, being expelled. There is NEVER one single moment when the fertilized egg is recognized by the mother's body as being part of it. It requires immediate chemical release on the part of that developing embryo to stop the mother's body from expelling it immediately. That is part of what 'morning sickness' is.

Do you really believe this nonsense you are presenting as an argument? If you can show me a lung or any other organ which has different DNA (let alone a different sex!) from the body it is originally found in, PLEASE let the entire scientific world know! How on earth do you think we can use DNA to identify human remains if different parts of the person are, like an embryo, different from the other parts of the person via DNA???

All due respect, all that has been established is your incredible ignorance of this subject!

Red herring.

The child was alive and now it is dead. It was developing and maturing, and now the little body is starting to rot. This is called killing the baby, post-it. By 12 weeks, that child has every physical feature it will have at birth; it is exhibiting dream and waking patterns (separate from the mother) on EEG's, and reacts to noise, pain, and music, as well as the mother's voice. That is a child, knit together by God Himself in the womb.

If you are discussing murder, and we are, it is most certainly applicable.

You know something? An enormous number of times anyone who is promoting the arguments you are promoting, aside from having swallowed the planned ignorance of PP etc., has had part, one way or another, in an abortion and is trying to cover up or excuse their guilt.

If that applies to you, then instead of arguing here, you need to go to the Lord and get this issue straightened out with HIM, not us!

 

You are presenting a slippery slope argument here so it doesn't help your argument.

 

You are presenting a slippery slope argument here so it doesn't help your argument. </font>[/QUOTE]I'm not sure I understand what you mean, post-it. Please explain.

And how did we come to this conclusion?

How does it follow that just because something occurs in nature, that we have to replicate it in a lab?

You, yourself, said that cloning was an entirely different issue best left to another thread and you were right.

They're different on several different levels.

Mike

 

And from this you conclude that killing a parasite is murder. Ok, next...

 

And from this you conclude that killing a parasite is murder. Ok, next...</font>[/QUOTE]You are hanging yourself so completely here, post-it, that I'm not sure you need any help! As far as the mother's biological system goes, the child is a parasite. This does not make him or her any less of a child.

But I bet you really knew that...

What does this have to do with the question? </font>[/QUOTE]Maybe just that the heart or lung is simply part of a person while a child is an individual person.

This could be a valid argument as I could say the same about you. But fails to support that abortion is murder either way. So I will stick to the argument and not launch ad hominem attacks.</font>[/QUOTE]That is not an ad hom; that is an observation about your knowledge of biology. Your argument promoting abortion is an argument from ignorance of the subject. Information about biology and biological systems leads to the inevitable conclusion that the child growing in the mother is a distinct person in and of its own right and not part of the mother; that the child is alive; and to stop the child's life intentionally is therefore murder.

In the meantime, a red herring is a name taken from the idea of dragging dead fish across a track to provide a distraction to the dogs while the animal or human being chased gets away. By equating a body part with a person and trying to argue from that perspective I credited you with red herring. If you would like to be credited with simple ignorance of what you are talking about or a lack of common sense, so be it.

They why can't it be delivered then? I would accept your argument if that would be possible. So obviously it doesn't have every physical feature needed.</font>[/QUOTE]There is a difference between no lung at all, an immature lung, and a mature lung, to give you an example. The 12 week old baby in the womb has a lung. It is there. However it has a membrane across the surface to protect it until it is more mature. This is why preemies used to die of hyaline membrane disease... But the lung is there.

Here is an outstanding site chronicling fetal development. The quote at the beginning is quite interesting, written by an M.D. who, presumably, has a bit more knowledge of biology than you do:

Years ago, while giving an anesthetic for a ruptured tubal pregnancy (at two months) I was handed what I believed to be the smallest human being ever seen. The embryo sac was intact and transparent. Within the sac was a tiny human male, swimming extremely vigorously in the amnionic fluid, while attached to the wall by the umbilical cord. The tiny human was perfectly developed, with long, tapering fingers, feet and toes. It was almost transparent as regards to the skin, and the delicate arteries and veins were prominent to the ends of the fingers. The baby was extremely alive and did not look at all like the photos and drawings of 'embryos' which I have seen. When the sac was opened, the tiny human immediately lost its life and took on what is accepted as the appearance of an embryo at this stage, blunt extremities, etc.
- Paul E. Rockwell, M.D.

from this site: http://www.w-cpc.org/fetal1.html

This is perhaps one of the weakest arguments I've heard you make, it doesn't apply to what scripture says or the argument itself.</font>[/QUOTE]It wasn't an argument. It was a message to you if it happened to apply.

No, it makes you a rebel against God's Word, though.

Actually, if you read my posts again, I have not mentioned the Bible in connection with abortion. I have only discussed biology.

I am.

I did not bring up lungs as though they were the same as a person. I did not bring up Bible. I did not promote the ignorant statement that a developing child is really part of the mother. I did not pretend to not understand about the biological concept of parasite.

I have stuck to the argument. You don't make it easy, but I have done a reasonable job, I think.

 

I have not read all the post just incase I duplicate another person's post's.

Post-it, you stated that it shouldn't be murder if the baby is past the age that the medical field would try to save its life. Well, then that would be conception. Women who use drugs, smoke or drink alcohol are constantly urged to stop when pregnant because of the effect on the child's health and possible death by the mothers actions. Mothers can not take certain prescriptions due to the possible harm to child or death. So your 6 month arguement doesn't work. The medical field urges all pregnant women to discontinue things at conception because of the risk of death of the child. Your arguement about the medical field is not valid.

Helen, I compliment you on your clear and accurate statement at the beginning of this thread.

We were created in God's image, destroying for our own conveniance is murder. If you don't want the child put the child up for adoption, or don't get pregnant to begin with. Poor actions reap poor outcomes.

 

Helen, if you aren't going to argue this point from scripture, then I will bow out as you have the wisdom that God / Bible isn't saying abortion is murder, but rather it is just your opinion. That, I can live with.

If anyone else feels that scripture is saying abortion is murder then I would like to see your case for that argument.

My 5-6 month argument is based on scripture of when life begins (at first breath).

[ August 18, 2002, 03:20 PM: Message edited by: post-it ]

 

5-6 month olds in the womb breathe?

 

"First breath"????

Where does it say that?

If you are referring to the term "breath of life", that is "nephesh" and is also translated "soul." The breath of life is the soul, the personality, the uniqueness of an individual -- and it is something we share with the animals that were taken on the ark. That uniqueness is there from the point of conception in every individual person as well. It will later be expressed through the body, but the person is there in full from the beginning.

If that is not what you are referring to, I'd sure like to know where you find that 'first breath' defines life in a human being!