Is Abortion Murder?

[post-it]

Originally posted by Scott J:

27 'When he has made her drink the water, then it shall come about, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, that the water which brings a curse will go into her and cause bitterness, and her abdomen will swell and her thigh will waste away, and the woman will become a curse among her people.

These verses are not written in code. They say what they say. You demand scripture that explicitly rather than implicitly disproves your position... then you allow yourself to write between the lines.

Indeed they are not, but I wanted to see how the Theologians view this manner.

Given the above verse, if the women had become pregnant, and her stomach swelled, and her thighs rotted, do you think she would miscarry like most texts on the subject agree would occur, or do you think this was an oversight on God's part? Or do you think the author erred in writing the details? Or do you think that each time a woman was pregnant, that her stomach would swell, her thighs would rot, and she would still give birth to a healthy baby to prove some miracle had happened, but then be barren by another miracle right after the birth.

Are there any other possibilities I left out? The only one that sounds reasonable is that this was a way to prove the woman was with child. Because then the child would die inside her and start to rot, it would then be expelled between her thighs. It would also be a clear sign that she had sex with someone else. And a way to kill the "love" child at the same time. Since a fetus this young could not take a first breath, it is not murder and well within the rest of scripture to abort.

Another argument could be made that even if the fetus is a person, it isn't murder because of the classification of the person. For example a serial killer is a person, but to kill him is not murder. The reason it is not murder, is because the Bible tells us it is ok to kill this person.

The extended argument would be that because the person in the womb is not yet born, it could be killed without being murder. The reason it is not murder, is because the Bible tells us it is ok to kill this person before the first breath.


The compound argument is that, is it right to kill the person just because the Bible says it is all right to kill this person? We can't say that it is wrong to kill this type of person because God says it is wrong. No, it is clear that God gives us permission to kill this person; we have then applied secular laws to determine more clearly under what conditions etc. I see no problem with doing that same thing with abortion. BUT YOU CAN'T SAY GOD IS AGAINST KILLING PEOPLE UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS. This applies to serial killers and to fetuses under the 5-month mark.

 

[Gina B]

Post it, I looked up Numbers 5 and will continue looking at other sources of information that explain it, but so far what I've read is this.

The water used in and of itself contained nothing harmful. Holy water, dust, and scraped parchment of the written curse. It would not harm an innocent person, in fact it would be beneficial to them, but to the guilty it would cause the said symptoms. Not only that, but the male with which she had committed adultery with would get the exact same symptoms and die on the same day.
And since men don't get pregnant, it certainly can't be referring to pregnancy lost. Also, it was for suspected adultery, it says nothing of suspected different father, just adultery.
Gina

 

[post-it]

Originally posted by Scott J:
Psalm 104:29
When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. Dealing with death again- not relevant by any stretch of reasoning to defining when life begins. We can agree that life ends when breathing stops but that still doesn't define the beginning.

Yes, they do, it shows and implies that without the breath, life doesn't exist. Implications of "opposites" hold true. If you want more proof here is a fairly popular one. But for the first time, listen to the words.

Ecclesiastes 3:1
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die.

Again, the opposites are very plainly laid out to see. Being born is when life begins (a season of coming to life) and a "time to die" (as season of death) They are the opposites. They peg the exact start of life on earth (born) and the exact time we leave earth (die).

 

[post-it]

Originally posted by Chrysoprasus:
[QB]Post it, I looked up Numbers 5 and will continue looking at other sources of information that explain it, but so far what I've read is this.

The water used in and of itself contained nothing harmful. Holy water, dust, and scraped parchment of the written curse. It would not harm an innocent person, in fact it would be beneficial to them, but to the guilty it would cause the said symptoms.

Which if the woman had become pregnant during the adultry, she would miscarry the baby because of those symptoms. Right?

This appears to be Abortion sanctioned by the church.

Thanks for your research. Let me know if you come up with anything else.

[ August 27, 2002, 01:07 AM: Message edited by: post-it ]

 

[DHK]

Mat.1:20-25
20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
24 Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:
25 And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.

If you believe in the virgin birth and deity of Christ, which I hope everyone here does, then would not this passage shed some pertinent light on this subject. "A virgin shall be with child." How? "That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." When Christ left the glories of heaven, clothed upon himself humanity, "was made in the likeness of man," did not that also include the time that He was in the womb? Was Christ God when He was in the womb? Or was He simply a fetus that could have been disposed of at any time? Does the Scripture treat the unborn Christ as a person, or a fetus without any rights? The moment "conception" took place, of the Holy Spirit, was Christ still God? Was He then also in human form? Did He have life or not? If he did not have life, he must have of necessity or logically ceased from being God. My God lives! He always has, before the conception of Christ, between the conception and the birth of Christ, after the birth of Christ, after the death of Christ: My God lives! My God is Jesus Christ.

I am not simply asserting the deity of Christ here; but the obvious: that the fetus before it takes that first breath is indeed a person, and therefore aborting it would be killing it.
DHK

 

[Gina B]

Yes Post it, it most likely would. But keep in mind that in those times even born children were killed along with the whole family for the sin of one person. It doesn't mean we're approved now to kill the 10 yr. old child of a murderer. Even if was speaking of abortion in the Numbers passage, however remotely, it doesn't give any weight to your argument in light of this.
Chrys

 

[just-want-peace]

post-it, Just for information, what is your PERSONAL experience with abortion?
And please, not what you think, not any scripture, not others opinions, just how you have been PERSONALLY involved and/or affected?

If no personal involvement, a simple "No personal involvement!" would be appreciated.
Thanks!

(edited to add comments)

[ August 27, 2002, 09:50 AM: Message edited by: just-want-peace ]

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by post-it:


Given the above verse, if the women had become pregnant...

The passage does not say nor imply that the woman was pregnant. Stop re-writing scripture. It says she may or may not have been unfaithful to her husband.

 

[Ransom]

post-it said:

You don't need me to tell you what I think about biology do you?

Look, get this straight. I could not care less what you think. I don't give a care what you feel. Your continued misrepresentation of the question I am asking is sheer intellectual dishonesty.

I don't want your opinion. I want you to give me a fact: what the fetus is, since you have claimed it is not a human person.

Got it yet?

 

[post-it]

Originally posted by just-want-peace:
post-it, Just for information, what is your PERSONAL experience with abortion?
And please, not what you think, not any scripture, not others opinions, just how you have been PERSONALLY involved and/or affected?

If no personal involvement, a simple "No personal involvement!" would be appreciated.
Thanks!

(edited to add comments)

"No personal involvement!"

 

[post-it]

Originally posted by Chrysoprasus:
Yes Post it, it most likely would. But keep in mind that in those times even born children were killed along with the whole family for the sin of one person. It doesn't mean we're approved now to kill the 10 yr. old child of a murderer. Even if was speaking of abortion in the Numbers passage, however remotely, it doesn't give any weight to your argument in light of this.
Chrys

Thank You Chrys, Your argument on the fact that it could be allowed due to the whole family. Is the strongest and best argument I have seen from anyone on the entire 24 pages of this thread. It nulls the entire abortion ritual which God allowed at one time.

I wish so of the others here could see and understand how to argue correctly without all the personal attacking.

Now the last points I would like to hear from you on are the first breath ideas and when life begins.

Due to my time factors and the fact I have finally found someone that understands how to "support" or "refute" arguments, I will only respond to your posts. Again, thanks for showing up here.

PS, Does your husband ever win any arguments with you at home?

 

[Daniel David]

Post-it, please answer my questions. You are only leading me to believe that you can't answer them.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by post-it:
It nulls the entire abortion ritual which God allowed at one time.

You have yet to establish by any logical means of interpretation how any passage in the Bible says that God allowed abortion.

I wish so of the others here could see and understand how to argue correctly without all the personal attacking.

Interesting. You couch an attack in a condemnation of others for personal attacks.

Due to my time factors and the fact I have finally found someone that understands how to "support" or "refute" arguments, I will only respond to your posts.

Please show where I have attacked you personally. I have certainly charged you with re-writing the text of scripture because that is what you are attempting to do. Should I accept your false premises or demand that you prove/discard them? Please show where I have used improper methods for supporting and refuting arguments.

You habitually change your rules to benefit your side. I refuse to play that game. Also, when a definition is in question, defining terms becomes primary.

[ August 27, 2002, 11:34 AM: Message edited by: Scott J ]

 

[post-it]

Originally posted by Scott J:
Please show where I have used improper methods for supporting and refuting arguments.

I didn't mean everybody was attacking me, nor you. But you are not arguing against my claim correctly so that I accept your claim.

You only believe A and I believe A or B could be a possibility. It does no good to argue that A is the only supported argument. Since I already could accept A as a possibility yet B could also be true which if so, would made A wrong. The Bible could support (A) life begins before birth, but it could also support the first breath (B) concept.

So far, you and the others have only been saying that A is the only option. I don't have a problem seeing that your interpretation could be a possiblity. But so could mine (B). You have not attack B to show why it can't be a possibility. You have attempted at times to do so (explaining breath etc, but the arguments failed). Chryst, did attack B on the Numbers 5 issue and proved a vaild argument of why B in that case was not a possibility, it left us with her A argument as the only possibility. Her argument was valid and I accepted it.

Hope this helps, Scott you have been the 2nd best on the argument. At least you tried to attack B.

More on your attack of Breath, you presented more A type "possibilities", but failed to disprove B.
A in this case is what else breath could mean in thoses verses. B meaning that it could also mean life is equal to breath.

With this ammunition, I hope you can show me why I'm wrong on first breath.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by post-it:


Given the above verse, if the women had become pregnant, and her stomach swelled, and her thighs rotted, do you think she would miscarry like most texts on the subject agree would occur, or do you think this was an oversight on God's part?

No. I think it is an "insert" on your part. The scripture does not present this as a test for pregnancy. All that would be necessary for that would be to wait for it to show then punish her. This scripture deals with the specific case of when a husband suspects his wife WITHOUT proof. My personal opinion is that the "wife" is one of betrothal rather than consummation. If the marriage had been completed then her punishment for adultery would have been stoning.

Or do you think the author erred in writing the details?

He didn't write the details that you are implying.

Or do you think that each time a woman was pregnant....

I am sure that it frustrates you that the text does not say nor imply that the woman is pregnant... but it doesn't. In fact, the implications are that the husband needed to try his suspicions without physical proof.

Are there any other possibilities I left out?

Of course. I just gave you one that doesn't abuse the text and context of this passage.

The only one that sounds reasonable is that this was a way to prove the woman was with child.

It neither sounds reasonable nor is it. If the passage were addressing a pregnancy caused by adultery, we should expect it to explicitly say so. But since the whole exercise is to prove the wife's faithfulness WITHOUT other evidence, the context demands that the woman NOT be pregnant.

It would also be a clear sign that she had sex with someone else. And a way to kill the "love" child at the same time.

Why? If she were found pregnant and the husband KNEW that it was not his child, her guilt would be apparent. If it were possibly his then the water might kill a legitimate offspring of an innocent woman.

Since a fetus this young could not take a first breath, it is not murder and well within the rest of scripture to abort.

...assuming YOUR criteria of breathing is actually correct... which it isn't. (addressed in another post.)

Another argument could be made that even if the fetus is a person, it isn't murder because of the classification of the person. For example a serial killer is a person, but to kill him is not murder. The reason it is not murder, is because the Bible tells us it is ok to kill this person.

The Bible specifically condemns the taking of innocent blood. There is no way to assign guilt to the child for the sins of the mother and father.

BUT YOU CAN'T SAY GOD IS AGAINST KILLING PEOPLE UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS. This applies to serial killers and to fetuses under the 5-month mark.

Are you actually equating an unborn child with a killer? God does establish conditions under which we may kill. Numbers 5 does not do this.

 

[Gina B]

post-it: Now the last points I would like to hear from you on are the first breath ideas and when life begins.

Chrys: on the first breath idea, I don't believe it to be any part of the argument. My reasoning is that I cannot agree that all life-sustaining methods should be used in every case. For instance, I do not think that letting a child die that was born and could not breathe on it's own would be wrong in all situations, nor do I believe that it would be wrong to not use life-support or rescusitation on all people that would die without, or any other mechanical, unnatural means that would make them live when otherwise they would not. I am by no means saying they're WRONG to use, they're great, but there ARE instances when it's ok not to use them.
Following that train of thought (yeah, I know it's kinda hard with my poor usage of words) I'd have to say that when a person is capable of taking a first breath or continuing to take breath is when they "count" as human wouldn't work as an argument for me, I couldn't use it. If I did I'd have to say that if you can't continue to breathe on your own you don't count as life either. Make any sense?
As far as when life begins, I've struggled with that in the past, and finally decided I HAD to come to the conclusion that it was at conception. I cannot support that scripturally since the only verse usually used is "before I formed you in the womb...etc." and people tend to overlook "before" in that verse...it could mean thousands of years before, IMO.
So my reason for believing what I do is based on my own thoughts and morals drawn from a biblical background, which is this.
God created men and women to reproduce. That means to bear children. Pregnant women were said to BE with child, not "expecting" child or any other phrases. When fertilization occurs, you are with child. If I was to say abortion was ok in the very beginning of pregnancy, I'd have to say it was ok all the way through, because all of the conditions I'd have to give for why it was ok at that stage of development would be based on physical attributes, and many of those physical attributes can be given to adults to (heartbeat, or breath, or lung function).
I hope that makes sense and explains my thoughts well enough.
And before it comes up again I'll get this thought out of the way too. Some people may seen my strong stance against abortion and been confused by me also saying that I believe abortion in some instances is ok, such as a pregnancy threatening the mothers life, young children impregnanted by relatives, etc..
I still believe it's a child's life being lost, but in those cases where it's necessary a mother's life and well-being comes before that of a child, and I don't believe anybody is guilty of murder in those cases. Not everything is fair, but that's just the way it is.
Any questions or clarification on any of this feel free to ask, because I know the way I word things can be confusing.

post-it: PS, Does your husband ever win any arguments with you at home?

Chrys: Yes, he "won" every single one. We're divorced as of last May. Something tells me he'll realize one day that he actually lost that last one.

 

[jasonW*]

Originally posted by post-it:
Now the last points I would like to hear from you on are the first breath ideas and when life begins.

I have been away for a while...missing about 8 whole pages worth of stuff. That being said. I am done. I took the time to logically show how every idea you had was logically incorrect. I have shown scripture to support the fetus being a child while still in the womb. I have even taken the time to outline scenarios that would invalidate all your arguments. You refused listen, you refused to accept. Basically, you refused to acknowledge most of the arguments presented because they would put you into a corner. This is fine...one has every right to ignore obviously superior arguments just so they can life in their fantasy world.

My ultimate problem lies not with your style of argument(though, it leaves MUCH to be desired and I do have issues with your inability to argue your position logically and clearly), but your twisting of posts. It shows a complete lack of sophisticated thought and actual contempt for the original poster. You assume everyone is either intellectually inferior or logically inept. To me, this points to a person who has no leg to stand on and will build straw man after straw man to try and live in their fragile abode. I implore you to rethink your posting style, not to mention your means by which you contest another's arguments. Here are area's you need to work on, as I see it:

1. Selected argumentation. When a poster poses a series of questions, all should be answered as the series might be what is important, not just an answer to an individual question.

2. Straw man attack/twisting of scripure. You do this quite often throughout the posting. You build arguments around someone's ideas and shift the meaning of the orignal post hoping to move in another direction. This shows weak logical footing. Hoping to shift the argument to something which you feel might be more "winnable".

3. Rejection of arguments without explanation. How many times do you have to be corrected about the meaning of breath by Helen? How many times do you have to be corrected about Numbers? How many times do you have to be corrected about your logical position of breath being the definition of life?

All this being said, I will continue to pray for you. But for now, you have shown you will not address this topic reasonably so I am opting out. I will not continue to discuss a topic with someone who cannot discuss/debate in an intelligent and mature manner.

Good bye and God bless.

In Christ,
jason

 

[onevoice]

Originally posted by post-it:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by 2 Timothy 4:2:
Okay Post-it, would you like to answer my question? IF Mary had had an abortion, would she have been guilty of killing the Christ?

Obviously she didn't.

Invalid question. If Jesus had broken a bone, would he be the Christ?</font>[/QUOTE]He was crucified

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by post-it:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Scott J:
Psalm 104:29
When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. Dealing with death again- not relevant by any stretch of reasoning to defining when life begins. We can agree that life ends when breathing stops but that still doesn't define the beginning.

Yes, they do, it shows and implies that without the breath, life doesn't exist. Implications of "opposites" hold true.</font>[/QUOTE] No. Not always. The text shows that without breath life ends, not that it does not exist before the first breath. That is a clear and important distinction.

Without the sun, a tree will die. However, when a seed sprouts and the runner starts making its way toward the surface, it is very much alive... without the sun. In exactly the same way, a fertilized egg develops in an environment in which it could not live if it were grown. But it is none the less alive, developing for the next stage of life.

Out of time for now. I will continue later.

 

[onevoice]

Quote from Scott J:
Post-it, What does the phrase "with child" mean? It is used 26 times in the Bible by my count... always referring to a pregnant woman. It must have some significance, Don't you think? Is a pregnant woman ever referred to by something other than "with child" or a similar phrase?

Answer from Post it:
I've answered this before. What else are they going to call it?

----------------------------------------

Ewwww.. you messed up Post it. Seems like the Holy Spirit is trying to show you something after all. That's right. It is a baby before, and after birth.

The Numbers 5 thing. . you are twisting scripture again. Sorry, but you keep adding things that are NOT in there.

[ August 27, 2002, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: onevoice ]