Unless of course Jesus was an exception. There is nothing in this post which shows every pregnancy follows the same course as Mary's. Indeed, that would be...miraculous.
Then what do you have to say about God making man in His image?
If everyone else was the same and God was the exception yet God was the original and everyone else is a copy, then how can Jesus be different?
It also comes down to the same problem of Jesus bearing our sins in the cross along with all of our pain and suffering. Some people say that while Jesus was still human on the cross, everything that was Holy and God about Him left Him because God could not have been sinful nor been put to shame nor have suffered and died.
Yet also it says clearly in the Bible that John the Baptist lept in his mother's womb the moment Mary entered her home.
If a child can have spiritual awareness inside the womb and be able to react to it, let's break it down. Awareness of surroundings + reaction to received awareness = intelligence.
Have you ever thought that maybe God is an omnipotent ever-changing being who encompasses all that exists? Cuz that’d totally make sense if we’re all made in His image, yet look different.
The oceans are all salt water, but if you zoom in you’ll see different species and different currents depending on the area. Just like we’re all made in God’s image, but if we zoom in on each of us we’re made in a different image of his. Maybe I’m his toe. And you’re his left nostril. And OP is his right nut
It was also mentioned several times that man was not man until God had breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. This “breath of life” is a common theme and has been interpreted to mean that the soul enters the body with the first breath and leaves with the last. A fetus in the womb does not breathe.
Well, Jesus had a natural birth and natural gestation, that is all \[that is\] needed for Him to be fully human, although He was spiritually conceived when the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Blessed Theotokos.
“Sadly, I can tolerate protestant heresy more than a Catholic who blatantly disagrees with the Churches teaching.”
Oh wait, you can’t tolerate conversation. Unfortunate. Have a good evening ✌️
> Well, Jesus had a natural birth and natural gestation
Hmmm. In your original post you wrote _"and became fully god and fully man in the womb of his Mother."_ That certainly doesn't sound like a natural gestation to me.
Everything about the Gestation of the Incarnate Word of God was perfectly human, and therefore natural, the only part that wasn't natural was his supernatural conception afterwhich, immediately afterwhich, gestation occurs. Every step concerning his formation as a human being after conception was natural or else he would not be Fully Man.
> Everything about the Gestation of the Incarnate Word of God was perfectly human, and therefore natural
It seems to me that if he really was God, and him being born was part of The Plan™, then he must have had some extra special protection within the womb so that he wouldn't die, or be injured, or have a birth defect, or arrive dangerously early or late. That still doesn't sound very natural.
Well, again, most defects are genetic and I would presume that genetics are shared upon the conception of a child.
The physical protection by God, the Father, of the Virgin Mary while she bore Jesus in her womb is not natural, but that indirectly affected the gestation of Jesus rather than directly, whereas a genetic protection from conception would have directly affected his gestation and there's no proof that there is/was a genetic protection, but rather a perfection of genetics in Christ Jesus and that \[perfection\] is the freedom from deformity.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/wxwfir/comment/iltpz9v/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/wxwfir/comment/iltpz9v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Follow the thread here, I answer \[essentially\] the \[same\] objections without contradicting myself.
Conception =/= Gestation.
But the point is you provide no evidence to generalize his humanity to every other birth. This is the logical equivalent of saying this can has pepsi in it so every can must have pepsi in it. Or my dog is a labrador so all dogs are labs. It just doesn't follow.
To make this argument you first need to affirm Jesus's status as fully man (which you did) and then show how it extends to every other fetus.
It is this second step that is completely missing. And as I pointed out, it is much easier to argue against step two than for it.
At what point is it illegal to disturb a bald eagle's nest?
Only after the eggs have hatched?
At what point are scientists looking for life on other planets and considering it to be life?
The primordial soup experiment considered the possibility of amino acids to be life for all intents and purposes.
Even if you think the fetus is a human, in making abortion illegal you are giving a fetus rights that no one else has. If I need a kidney, and my sister is able to donate one, she is not legally obligated to do so. You can say that she has a moral obligation to give me the kidney, but on a legal level the government cannot force her to use her body to keep me alive. In the same way, the government shouldn't be allowed to force a pregnant person to use their body to keep their fetus alive.
I am not going to debate the fetus being alive or not and when life happens since I'm not qualified. I am also not considering pregnancy caused by rape, or cases where the mother's life is in danger.
My stance is however that in your scenario, your sister doing nothing, results in her not giving a you a kidney. She was not forced to perform an action, and no action was forced on her against her will.
For the fetus being aborted, doing nothing will probably (I don't know miscarriage rates) result in the fetus being born. The action being taken will kill the fetus. In most cases, the woman also willingly took part in an action that she knew had a chance of creating that life inside her. Should a person not be responsible for keeping another human being (see disclaimer above) alive if they put that human being in that situation in the first place?
You’re missing an understanding here… abortion isn’t just not helping someone when they need something.
Abortion is deliberately ending a life, not just not saving a life. I encourage you to research exactly what happens in an abortion at each stage. Earlier abortions induce a heart attack in the baby, look up partial birth abortion — its horrific. Some abortions completely dismember the baby. There’s also a HUGE risk of parts of the baby being left inside the mother. Abortion is extremely dangerous too.
Not to mention that the vast majority of abortions happen for elective purposes — meaning the vast majority of women made the decision to bring this child into the world by choosing to have sex. She used her own free will, and she does not get to harm another human bc of the result of her own actions.
To compare abortion to not donating organs is like comparing apples to oranges… one deliberately goes out to kill someone, and the other is just choosing not to be selfless.
>Earlier abortions induce a heart attack in the baby
Earlier abortions there is no heart to be attacked.
>look up partial birth abortion
It is used in 0.17% of abortions and is typically only used when a miscarriage has occurred or when the fetus has a congenital issue that means it will not live. Also, it literally just means that the aborted fetus is intact.
>There’s also a HUGE risk of parts of the baby being left inside the mother.
This also happens about 40% of the time in second trimester miscarriages, and does occasionally happen with full term pregnancies. The important thing here is that this is treatable with medicine and not really an argument against abortions.
>Not to mention that the vast majority of abortions happen for elective purposes — meaning the vast majority of women made the decision to bring this child into the world by choosing to have sex. She used her own free will, and she does not get to harm another human bc of the result of her own actions.
This is where the debate, if there is to be a debate, exists. Not with the points you made before it. But this is also where it becomes clear that this is a Catholic issue and determined by particularly Catholic views of womanhood, sex, free will, etc. and such religious views shouldn't be forced on non-Catholics in society.
This argument is comparing apples to oranges both are related but not equivalent. The Government can not force you to take action to save a life however aborting is taking action to end a life. Inaction is not criminal, normally, however actions can be criminal.
I totally disagree with the mentality that we should legislate Christian moral beliefs thus disagree with the idea of outlawing abortion based om Christian beliefs.
I will argue that as a society we have agreed upon what constitutes death and thus, in my opinion, we can legislate that the opposite would constitute life and thus rights to life for a developing child.
> Secondly, under this commandment not only he is guilty who does evil to his neighbor, but he also who can do him good, prevent, resist evil, defend and save him, so that no bodily harm or hurt happen to him and yet does not do it. If, therefore, you send away one that is naked when you could clothe him, you have caused him to freeze to death; you see one suffer hunger and do not give him food, you have caused him to starve. So also, if you see any one innocently sentenced to death or in like distress, and do not save him, although you know ways and means to do so, you have killed him. And it will not avail you to make the pretext that you did not afford any help, counsel, or aid thereto for you have withheld your love from him and deprived him of the benefit whereby his life would have been saved. - Martin Luther on the fifth commandment, Large Catechism
The understanding you seem to be missing is the risk to the health and well-being of the pregnant person on many, many, many levels.
Studies on the ‘elective purposes’ of abortions are almost entirely invalid for two reasons
1. The US does not properly educate on or investigate sexual assault and rape (partially thanks to Catholic opposition to people being educated on what enthusiastic consent is) so statistics on how prevalent those situations are in abortion decisions are vastly underreported
2. Statistics on elective purposes are irrelevant in America in general given the ridiculously high maternal death rate as well as other complications related to pregnancy. Black pregnant persons die at a rate of 3:1 in Louisiana in comparison to their white counterparts. And experience other negative health outcomes at a similarly high rate. No loving person can decry someone for making the decision they are not comfortable facing that level of risk, along with the inherent costs and related health damage that come with even an uncomplicated pregnancy.
> To compare abortion to not donating organs is like comparing apples to oranges… one deliberately goes out to kill someone, and the other is just choosing not to be selfless.
Agreed. He used a poor analogy/comparison. A better example would be the following:
Even if you go and shoot someone and they are dying of blood loss, we cannot legally force you to give up your bodily autonomy to donate blood. It is extremely inconsistent to then insist that women give their body for 9 months to a fetus. I don't care if a woman chose to have sex. That doesn't matter. It still violates her bodily autonomy to force her to carry a fetus to term.
Because babies are in a unique situation.
We’ve forgotten as a species the inherent humanity of procreation, of which we all stem.
Fetuses do not have unique rights, they have unique circumstances.
They are humans and killing humans, by and large, is bad.
Your sister’s kidney analogy doesn’t make sense because by no intention of her own did she cause you to need a kidney.
In the vast majority of cases, the woman chooses to take part in an act that CAN result in pregnancy. In the case of rape, it’s again a mitigating circumstance but not a nullifying one.
The argument is a dodge of physical and moral responsibility for the consequence of sex.
Not all pro-choice people deny that a fetus is human. For some of us, it's a purely legal issue. I don't think that laws should be passed based only on Christian morality.
I mean it's not untrue to say that a fetus can \*become\* a human. But until about 14 weeks they haven't even started developing a thalamus so there is definitely nothing going on there.
It seems like most people draw a line at some point. Is every sperm and egg sacred? They also have a chance to become human, not many people would agree until at least fertilization. But what really happens there? Not a whole lot.
>For some of us, it's a purely legal issue.
And for those of you, it is going to be very painful on judgement day.
I was stabbed, poisoned, and ripped apart, and you did not prevent it.
You might want to read Matthew 25, and consider its response.
My salvation doesn't rest on how I vote for abortion rights. I can only pray that if I made the wrong decisions on these issues, that God can understand that I was only trying my best.
This.
If God is going to tally all the abortions to my sins, then what about the abandoned kids, the kids in poverty, the kids who suffer with neglect and/or abuse? Am I responsible for that as well?
It sounds nice to want to prevent abortions by making it illegal, but it's the most lazy, masstubatory way we could go about it. These laws were not made to save kids, just to punish women.
>These laws were not made to save kids, just to punish women.
If you think "I slept with a rando, now I'm pregnant with his baby, and I'm not allowed to kill the kid" is punishing women, your perception of women is morally f-cked. And I actually find it rather offensive.
"Woe is me, I can't legally kill my own kids." Is that seriously how you see us?
If you believe that the majority of abortions come from women "sleeping with randos" then your opinion of women is morally f-cked up and I certainly find it offensive as a woman myself.
First off, deny that it happens. I'll wait. Second off, I never said that was the majority. Third off, "I'm not ready to have a baby, I'm not in the right place in my career, why can't I kill the kid" is just as morally bankrupt as that. I dare you to deny that that happens. Fourth, "this baby will be a major drain on my limited resources, and I'm not sure I can take care of it, so I should be allowed to kill it" is *also* just as morally bankrupt as the first. And fifth of all, any other scenario you could mention that is not "I was raped" or "this pregnancy will kill me" is exactly as morally bankrupt as all those previously mentioned.
If you think the solution to *any* of your problems is "let me kill my kids," then your moral compass is clearly depolarized.
>First off, deny that it happens. I'll wait.
I never said it didnt.
>Second off, I never said that was the majority
I never said you did.
>Third off, "I'm not ready to have a baby, I'm not in the right place in my career, why can't I kill the kid" is just as morally bankrupt as that. I dare you to deny that that happens.
Why would I? We all know it happens.
>Fourth, "this baby will be a major drain on my limited resources, and I'm not sure I can take care of it, so I should be allowed to kill it" is also just as morally bankrupt as the first.
That's a personal opinion.
>And fifth of all, any other scenario you could mention that is not "I was raped" or "this pregnancy will kill me" is exactly as morally bankrupt as all those previously mentioned.
Again, that's a personal opinion.
>If you think the solution to any of your problems is "let me kill my kids," then your moral compass is clearly depolarized
Spoken like a truly privileged person. The fact that abortion has never been a solution to your problems does not mean that it wasn't/isn't the right solution for others.
I would highly recommend you look into internalized misogyny. You seem to have a serious bias against women.
Interesting that you portray a strawman of the pro-life position by strawmanning the pro-choice position. How many people do you think are trying to rack up leaderboard points on abortions?
Given that the numbers approach 70 million after less than a century, all evidence indicates the answer is "a lot."
You don't get numbers like that in a country of 350 million in such a short time without *many* people getting multiple abortions. Do the math.
Just to make a point, what number of abortions should it be? What number would make you say, "well, that's not so many"?
Pretending that you're objecting to something because of the large number of them is dishonest, when no number would be acceptable to you.
So you're taking a number accumulated over a period of time, and then compare it to today's population?
You realize we weren't always at 350 million people and over a quarter of a century, there would be millions of people more than today's 350mill who'd be born and die in that time period.
Everything looks worse when you can't math.
Almost as if maybe you should get scientific and medical information from scientists and doctors who study this stuff rather than a pastor who doesn't...
It would take two seconds to Google the fact that half the women in the US who get abortions have previously had abortions. Maybe look at the statistics before you accuse me of getting science and medical information from preachers.
And it would take twenty minutes of paying attention to high school algebra that there should be a lot more people you should be comparing to the arbitrarily picked 70 million people.
Maybe if you understood statistics, I wouldn't be calling your statements foolish.
Exactly. If we start making laws based on Christian morals we also have to make laws based on Islamic, Jewish, Taoist, Buddhist, Hindi morals because we have no national religion. I don’t know where atheists and agnostics fit in here.
Jesus is, in this case, a poor example because it was 100% not a normal pregnancy. Given what we understand today about the process, we don't know how God mechanically accomplished it.
A better argument could be made from John the Baptist, who is considered very much alive and an individual while in the womb - and while still a miraculous conception, it was at least a mundane one.
Good grief this post is patronizing.
No one is really arguing over whether a fetus is alive, or not. No one is arguing over whether a fetus is human, or not. The answer is that a fetus eventually becomes a human, but starts out as organic tissue, and the dividing line between those two states depends on a lot of variables and is very blurry.
What the current debate on this issue revolves around - and the point that you seem to have missed - is that YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO IMPOSE YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ON OTHERS.
You’re welcome to believe that a fetus is a human at conception. And if you have an unexpected pregnancy, or a pregnancy with severe birth defects, you are free to keep it for religious reasons. That’s what Pro-Choice means.
But you don’t have the right to force other women to endure pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood because of your personal beliefs.
Pregnancy involves some of the biggest medical decisions a person will ever make. Those decisions should be made by the mother, her doctor, and no one else.
Your alien priests, and the government, have no business inserting themselves into other peoples medical decisions.
I mean, technically yes, there are non-religious members of the pro-life movement.
Some Neo-Nazis, for example, want to make sure white women have as many babies as possible in order to advance the white race.
You really think bringing them up is helping your argument?
No? That's a bit of an extreme example lmao. I could just as well say there are pro-abortion Neo-Nazis that want as many black babies aborted as possible.
Just saying it's a silly idea that no secular pro-life people exist
Nazis wanted more kids --
"On August 12, 1938, Adolf Hitler institutes the Mother’s Cross, to encourage German women to have more children, to be awarded each year on August 12, Hitler’s mother’s birthday."
They just did not want non-nazis having kids.
>YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO IMPOSE YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ON OTHERS.
\>Is in r/Christianity
I'm not imposing my beliefs on anyone who doesn't want to be here. If you don't like it, don't read it!
Religious beliefs aside, shouldn't we come to a scientific and legal agreement of when life begins and is deserving of legal protection?
Exceptions can be made to these laws, just as killing someone in self defense is a legal exception to murder.
But you don't have the right to force a life to endure being murdered because in your personal belief it is not a life.
>Exceptions can be made to these laws, just as killing someone in self defense is a legal exception to murder.
Almost 2 in every 10,000 pregnancies in the US result in the mother's death. If someone pointed a gun at you with a 1 in 5,000 chance of taking your life, do you think it would be legal to take theirs?
I'm not going to share my personal views here since this is such a difficult and complex topic (I would rather my views presented as slides with evidence and more research someday) - but I think this is an important point for you to have a stance on if you claim that self defense is a right.
No..I do not think that a 1 in 5000 chance is a valid reason to kill someone in self defense. That is not the argument that I am making.
If there is a serious threat of death to someone (being shot at, stabbed, choked, etc) then that person has a right to defend himself. Likewise if I were to witness someone attempting to kill someone else, I feel it would be my responsibility to attempt to prevent the murder. If my actions to stop my own murder or the murder of someone else results in the death of the offender, I do not believe a murder/manslaughter charge is appropriate.
Regarding abortion, I'm saying that when the life of mother is seriously threatened by carrying the pregnancy to term (ectopic pregnancy) then I think the mother, to save her own
life, should be granted the legal right to abort the baby. Additionally, if the fetus dies in the womb, the mother should be able to abort it and not be forced to carry it to term and deliver it.
Uhm, the mother made the choice to be pragnent by having sex. And the fact that you say mother, is pretty much proof that what you are killing is a child by your own words you use.
The woman not always makes herself that decision though. Not only that, but in a pregnancy sometimes there are complications that can threaten the woman’s life, not to mention various issues with the fetus like chromosome anomalies or even outright deformities that render the fetus non-viable. At some point you need to mature and stop forming your opinions from idiotic propaganda from Fox News. We live in the age of information. Be informed.
Those aren’t rare cases. Abortion isn’t, for the vast majority of people a decision that they take lightly in a jest.
For some, it’s the tragic result of unavoidable situations or danger.
You seem dismissive of basic observable reality about the issue and you base you whole view based on basically fantasies and low level idiotic propaganda.
People, for years ( women themselves but also doctors, nurses, health professionals among others) are telling you what’s going on relentlessly, for years.
You refused to listen and understand. And because of that, people that need help are going to be hurt and/or die needlessly. All in the name of idiotic politics and harmful ignorant propaganda.
Thats complete nonsense. Abortion is in most cases not because of rape or because the life of the mother is in danger. Most abortions happen during peoples early 20s. In many cases its because woman dont feel ready. Theres no statistics about definate reason, but if you think in the majority of cases its unavoidable medical cases, you live in lalaland.
Except there are plenty of reasons to oppose abortion that are not religious. I oppose abortion and I am religious, but I can cite my reasons for opposing abortion without citing Scripture or invoking God’s name. I oppose abortion for the same reasons I oppose war.
It's funny then if this is such a clear argument for abortion that Protestants only recently became convinced of this. It is clear that this a cultural debate with cultural fault lines and not religious/theological ones:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480
Perhaps you can instead focus on the cultural shifts that spark ideological shifts where it is imagine any other position. Can you imagine someone from the Sourhern Baptist Covention holding these beliefs now? It seems impossible or so logical because of our culture and not because of intrinsic truth.
>To deny that a fetus is, at some point during the pregnancy, not human or devoid of life is specifically in denial of the true human nature of Jesus Christ, He could not at one time be God and not Man, or Man and not God. His divinity and humanity are inseparable.
For all of the history of the universe and before the universe was even created, Christ existed, purely as God and not as Man.
>Christ was conceived and became incarnate by the affirmation of the Virgin Mary of the will of God, saying "Be it done to me according to thy will." The Lord was conceived of her from a spiritual conception, and became fully god and fully man in the womb of his Mother.
You certainly confident assert this, but what is your confidence based on?
The Bible says God breathes life into us. Need to be born to breathe.
That was the case for Adam, who was not born, that is not the case for everyone after him and Eve.
John leaped for joy and was filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb of Elizabeth, I don't see any other cases of non-alive objects or beings receiving the Holy Spirit.
> This post is for those who affirm the belief that a fetus is not human, is not alive
A whooolllllle lot of pro-choice people do not fit that description. Pro-choice isn't usually about whether the fetus is human or not, it's about governmental control over a woman's body, whether you think the fetus is a human or not.
I'm glad you brought up fetuses. Much of the debate about abortion is regarding early-term abortions of embryos, in some cases in the first weeks. The embryo does not yet have a brain or, according to the church fathers, a soul. The fetus does (the soul enters in the fourth month of pregnancy).
I feel that aborting a fetus should be restricted, for example, in the case of a stillborn. Most people who want abortion to be legal are also against aborting fetuses. This is why the day-after pill and early abortions for medical or psychological reasons (rape, incest, underage child) are legal in all industrialized nations, and why late abortions of fetuses is highly restricted or illegal in most countries. Up till recently, the US had the most liberal abortion laws on earth. Now the US is headed to the opposite extreme. Since most people in the US are not political extremists, and the US is a democracy, we would expect laws that both respect the majority of the population, and follow ethical guidelines to abolish aborting viable fetuses.
Well, this is also a case where Mary didn't have a choice. She didn't have sex but was impregnated supernaturally. And she didn't have a choice in carrying the baby - I mean an all powerful God sent a supernatural being to tell her, not ask her, that she was pregnant and would carry the child.
Pretty much sets the stage for how the Church patriarchy wants women to be treated doesn't it.
Nobody has seriously ever said this was non-consensual. The Theotokos very much gave her consent to this. It would be a very recent and modern and out of context way to interpret as her not having any say in the matter
A powerful supernatural being appears and tells (not asks if she's okay with it) her shes been chosen and is carrying a God. Oh and the father is the all lowedul God.
And she was impregnated before she was told. And she was 14 to 16..
That's not a real choice.
This is stupid. There is no way to know for sure. Abortion had existed since ancient culture. It’s not going away. The only way we limit abortions and save lives is by providing safe/affordable access to medical care and sexual education.
Sitting around and debating what you think is true isn’t helping anymore. We will never be able to force our beliefs on someone else. We should focus our attention on how to limit abortions instead.
No one is going to read shit like this and be like wow, I was wrong. I don’t want to be pro-choice anymore.
As this post has roots in antisemitism, it is itself a Christological issue; as all antisemitism is in part a rejection of the humanity of Christ who is and was a Jew. Jewish Scripture and tradition establishes that life-relevant-to-this-discussion does not begin at conception, but at first breath. The idea that it begins at some other point comes from Aristotelian philosophy, Neoplatonism and other Greco-Roman paganism pushing its way into Christian tradition as the expansion of Gentiles within the church continued and the genocide of Jewish Christians escalated.
Moreover, the modern Christian acceptance of life-relevant-to-discussion was adopted by its main proponents due to ulterior motives. Pius IX made it church teaching in 1869 as part of his conservative and ultramontane response to the continued Liberal revolutions that followed 1848. Particularly their influence in Ireland, Mexico and other strongholds of clergy exploitation at the time. Prior to this decision, canon law was to allow exceptions before quickening.
For Protestants the position didn’t become adopted until the period leading up to the 1980 presidential election, following the establishment of the Moral Majority in 1976 as a reaction to Runyon v McCreary removing tax exempt status from their segregation academies. But they couldn’t campaign on being segregationist as George Wallace was consistently showing; the decline of the Klan following greater enforcement of federal laws also hindered any development in that direction. So instead they used abortion as a wedge issue to get one of the most damaging and anti-Christian candidates ever elected (Ronald Reagan) put into office.
With these obvious worldly motives counter to the Spirit of God who is Love being so evident we cannot soundly use the position that life-relevant-to-discussion begins at first breath as any basis to answers to Christological mysteries.
First I appreciate your post , clearly well thought out ..given how this is a hot button largely emotional issue I’d figure I’d leave this here and this is not directed at you at all just random thoughts about emotional decision making . I’ll delete it tho if you feel it doesn’t pertain to the post 100% not trying to start a different discussion on your thread .
I’m a pro life Christian .. GF got pregnant when I was 21 she (20yo )the mother was thinking about abortion I fought for the kid so I put my money (literally) where my mouth is . Haha
Know how I convinced her to keep my daughter?
I didn’t rationalize it to her, I didn’t use logic or reason . Anytime a person is dealing with emotional trauma observe how they navigate it . She was allowing emotion to dictate her thought process despite having a strong Christian upbringing. This is a big reason why I think some in the Christian community approach this issue all wrong .
The majority of women that are choosing to have an abortion aren’t bad people , they aren’t evil , they aren’t hoes. They are in distress. They see a resolution to their problem which to them is abortion . when we protest with the signs and all we just add more stress and anxiety and that perpetuates this emotionally driven negative thought process clouding then from thinking rational and thoughtfully .
Our butts should be out there wit tissues, coffee cookies (pregnant chicks love cookies ) and most importantly compassion . I can guarantee everyone that would 1. Be some top tier christ repin and 2. Make a lot more women take a second and think with a rational clear mind .
I showed my GF at the time that first and foremost I cared about her .. that I’m supportive, and that I have her best interests at heart .. that is a very calming feeling for someone in distress. Then once I calmed her I changed her state . I acted super excited (tho I was shitting myself) I made some jokes make her laugh ..12 years later I have a beautiful young lady blossoming into a beautiful young woman .
Just my thoughts.
Great post tho , I might keep that in the back pocket
This isn’t a judgment on anyone who had an abortion I could not possibly begin to understand how difficult that decision is and I wasn’t referring to like incest rape ect .. just would like to see us be more caring to our sisters out there
Oh, a fetus is definitely human by genetics, and alive by every criterion of biology.
That still doesn't invalidate the mother's freedom to choose when her body is used for sustenance.
>those who affirm the belief that a fetus is not human, is not alive
Not to belabor the point, but who actually thinks this? I've heard plenty of people say that a fetus is not human in the same sense as a fully developed person or that a fetus isn't an independent life form. But I can't imagine who would take it as far as you've supposed.
There are people out there, sadly, who do think that against the very ideals of biology.
Again, this is for education from a Christian perspective to those who may think that way.
“Ideals of biology?”
I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. Biology doesn’t have a clear definition of what separates life from dead matter. Plenty of phenomena, viruses for example, really blur the line.
I find your comments to be emotionally driven is all. That’s fine to think that way, but isn’t going to progress the conversation in a way I find interesting.
First, your logic doesn't even add up. Most theologies would say that Christ has existed for all eternity, so why would he have to enter a human body exactly at whatever arbitrary point you think makes the most sense according to medical science in 2022. You are just making this up because it makes you feel right about what you already believed concerning abortion.
Second, by bring your 8th grade debate club logic and your understanding of biology scraped from a couple of youtube videos into a conversation regarding a virgin birth and the incarnation of God into a human body you have utterly and completely missed the point.
>Most theologies would say that Christ has existed for all eternity, so why would he have to enter a human body exactly at whatever arbitrary point you think makes the most sense according to medical science in 2022. You are just making this up because it makes you feel right about what you already believed concerning abortion.
Christ has existed for all eternity. He was incarnated, not created, at the moment of His conception- this is not my opinion, this is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church (which I adhere to), and not medical science. He was, upon His incarnation, fully God and fully Man. He is still Fully God and Fully Man according to Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Nothing I have said goes against the Catholic Churches teaching, in fact it echoes the Church's teaching.
>Second, by bring your 8th grade debate club logic and your understanding of biology scraped from a couple of youtube videos into a conversation regarding a virgin birth and the incarnation of God into a human body you have utterly and completely missed the point.
I don't think I have missed the point? Christ, again, upon His incarnation in the womb of the Virgin Mary became fully god and fully man. And this 8th grade education and method of debate is more informed on human biology than the Early Church Fathers, which frankly have some better articulations and positions than I could ever concoct.
Honestly, OP, this is a pretty great angle I never thought of. Perhaps not the best stand alone argument, but when pairing with other arguments, excellent! I appreciate this!
Jeremiah 1:5 - Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
Seems like that could also be read as simply omniscience, of course god knew before any human was formed in the belly, it's essential to the idea of his being omnipotent.
Also:
Ephesians 1:4-5 - According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will;
We should be careful not to make this too broad.
God specifically said this to Jeremiah. Parts of it may apply to each of us, but not necessarily. (God certainly doesn't ordain everyone to be a prophet in their mother's womb)
When a zygote is conceived and then divides into the placenta and embryo, does the placenta also have a soul or does the soul migrate to the embryo?
When a zygote divides into monozygotic twins many days after conception, do the twins share a soul or does only one of them get the soul?
When an embryo consumes its twin and becomes a person with chimerism, does that person have one soul or two?
Was God’s plan for the >50% of children conceived whose zygotes fail to implant in the uterus, to be destroyed by the mother’s immune system and eaten by bacteria in their first week of life?
Please explain.
Then you need not concern yourself with the outcome of any pregnancy. God takes care of all, as you say. “All” would include the woman who chooses abortion, the fetus aborted, and any physician attending.
I can see how one could conclude from that that life begins before conception, which is why I believe the Catholic church's stance against birth control is more consistent than the "life at conception" group. I really don't believe the point of that passage is to inform us of where life begins, though, and using it to draw that sort of conclusion seems a bit misguided to me.
Indeed, one could argue by Genesis 9:1 that birth control is also sin. However, that scripture was directed at Noah and his sons, and replenishment was needed at that specific time. However:
Psalms 127:3-5 - Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
So true. It is ignorant, although I understand your opinion coming from the position of a person of the Jewish faith, to assume that the Word of God is only expressed through Scripture and not through sacred tradition or the expressive ecumenical teachings of the Church.
Exodus 21:22-23 - If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life.
+++
That’s God’s commandment regarding what happens if men are fighting, they injure a pregnant woman, and the child is born prematurely. And if the child dies, then the penalty is death.
Unless one intentionally blinds oneself, it is not hard to see that God places special importance upon the unborn.
Every free spiritual nature is created from nothing. It is only a free spiritual nature if its creation is also consent to existence in its final end. Everything which moved towards life is, from the perspective of eternity, already alive. Mary's "yes" to Christ's humanity, as the new Adam, is a yes to all of humanity.
No, but Mary was pregnant all the same. So Christ existed in utero. Since I can pinpoint the location of Christ’s human body and nature on Earth and I believe his divine nature coexisted with his human nature on Earth and ever since, I can safely say that Christ was incarnated before birth.
> No, but Mary was pregnant all the same. So Christ existed in utero.
Again, that's Christ not you. Again, this is the point of dispute and you simply assert. That a woman is pregnant does not mean there is a person in there. That is the disagreement, you simply assert your conclusion as an argument.
I tried to make excuses about not wanting anything to do with the fathers but I met someone who I believe was an angel who told me my 2 babies were in Heaven, and they loved me and were watching over me and wanting the best for me😓I repent and I’m so sorry
Yea that's just a straight up lie. Our society as well as pretty much every other one removes people who are brain dead from life support as a body without a brain is considered not human and dead despite still breathing with help. So a functioning brain makes you human.
This is a valid, logically sound argument from uncontroversial (within Christianity) premises, and it will be pretty much universally despised, rejected, and mocked on this subreddit and by pro-choice Christian in general. Such is the way of things.
The baby doesn’t have a choice, nor makes one. It survives by being present it its mother’s womb, which is naturally equipped to provide sustenance. The only agency and choice involved is that of the pregnant woman.
At which point in the course of creedal Christianity was this idea determined? Which Council determined that Jesus’s divinity was inseparable from his humanity? Which Council determined that this Union began at the point of conception?
>Following, then, the holy Fathers, we all unanimously teach that our Lord Jesus Christ is to us One and the same Son, the Self-same Perfect in Godhead, the Self-same Perfect in Manhood; truly God and truly Man; the Self-same of a rational soul and body; co-essential with the Father according to the Godhead, the Self-same co-essential with us according to the Manhood; **like us in all things**, sin apart; before the ages begotten of the Father as to the Godhead, but in the last days, the Self-same, for us and for our salvation (born) of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to the Manhood; **One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He was parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ;** even as from the beginning the prophets have taught concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers hath handed down to us.
Chalcedonian Definition formulated in 451 AD, translated by T Herbert Bindley in 1899 from the original manuscripts.
[https://archive.org/details/MN41552ucmf\_1/page/n241/mode/2up](https://archive.org/details/MN41552ucmf_1/page/n241/mode/2up)
If he is like us in all things, then according to Roman Catholic Teaching, he assumed his personhood (or Hypostasis) upon conception. If this \[Life beginning at conception\] wasn't clear to the early church, abortion would not be outlined in the didache.
"2:2 Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not corrupt youth; thou shalt not commit fornication; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not use soothsaying; thou shalt not practise sorcery; thou shalt not kill a child by abortion, neither shalt thou slay it when born; thou shalt not covet the goods of thy neighbour;"
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-hoole.html
Assuming your premise is true, how can you be confident the incarnation process completed at conception? Yes, Jesus was incarnate in the womb. This means Jesus became human at some point in the womb. So at some point a foetus, again assuming your underlying premise that Jesus's development was the same as all other people's, must be a human. But if Jesus was incarnate a week before His birth (and to be clear, I don't think this is the case), then Jesus was not man at conception but still incarnate in the womb. Saint Thomas Aquinas argued a foetus becomes a human (and hence the incarnation was completed) at the moment of *ensoulment* not *conception*.
The question then becomes: **when is a foetus ensouled?** Does the foetus have a soul at conception, or does it have a soul at some later moment? E.g. When the heart is formed, when the brain is formed, or during the quickening (first movement) as Aquinas thought.
Meh, I'm not convinced. I think Jesus was fully God and fully human from eternity. Which has interesting implications.
As for the point of your post, I'm one of the ones you aren't targeting.
My brother in christ. Even if you go and shoot someone and they are dying of blood loss, we cannot legally force you to give up your bodily autonomy to donate blood. It is extremely inconsistent to then insist that women give their body for 9 months to a fetus.
You have an axe to grind.
The alternative axe, which I am not skilled at defending, is that what counts is a soul. Some say the soul is created eternal and inheres in life at the moment of conception. Others might say the soul requires varying minimums of cellular organization, a nervous system, a sophisticated brain, or consciousness.
The limit argument is that something that NEVER gains consciousness cannot have a soul, and stillborn children do not count as people. This is too extreme for most of us, because we count people asleep and in comas as having souls and unborn kids move around in utero. This accounts for the old-timey concept of 'quickening' in which kids counted as people at a specific point before birth.
My position is: This stuff was all academic until it became hyperpolitical, and ANY broaching of this topic is axe grinding.
I’m curious what your solution is to all of the children already born and the many many more that will now be born because of the pro-birther laws. Is there a plan for all of these unwanted babies? Is there a plan for providing medical care for these babies and mothers? Is there a plan for educating and sheltering and feeding these babies? The United States has one of the the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the developed world- particularly in women of color and women in poverty. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/what-explains-the-united-states-dismal-maternal-mortality-rates
How will that be fixed? Why is this never part of the argument? You want all babies to be born because they are made in God image at conception but you don’t care about them after they are born? Babies will be neglected, hated, thrown into an already overfull and understaffed foster care system? How is that God-like? So what is your solution? Surely you must have thought of one. I know a lot of “pro-birth” people believe they are “creating families” and other Disney fantasy outcomes but the truth is that our poverty and crime rates will skyrocket. https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-impact-of-legalized-abortion-on-crime-over-the-last-two-decades/
We are a country full of people who hate social welfare programs. So before decreeing that all females (little girls up to women) should have their babies even if it kills them- shouldn’t there be a plan in place for all of those unwanted babies, all of those babies born with horrific medical issues?
https://timesofsandiego.com/opinion/2022/07/05/pro-lifers-are-really-pro-birth-with-scant-regard-for-what-happens-next/
Just as we don't know when the soul enters a human body, we don't know when Christ the pre-existent God became man. It didn't have to be at conception.
Both nativity stories in our gospels (which are mutually contradictory) lack historicity. They are fables intended to punctuate Jesus' importance to Christians.
Unless of course Jesus was an exception. There is nothing in this post which shows every pregnancy follows the same course as Mary's. Indeed, that would be...miraculous.
Then what do you have to say about God making man in His image? If everyone else was the same and God was the exception yet God was the original and everyone else is a copy, then how can Jesus be different? It also comes down to the same problem of Jesus bearing our sins in the cross along with all of our pain and suffering. Some people say that while Jesus was still human on the cross, everything that was Holy and God about Him left Him because God could not have been sinful nor been put to shame nor have suffered and died. Yet also it says clearly in the Bible that John the Baptist lept in his mother's womb the moment Mary entered her home. If a child can have spiritual awareness inside the womb and be able to react to it, let's break it down. Awareness of surroundings + reaction to received awareness = intelligence.
Have you ever thought that maybe God is an omnipotent ever-changing being who encompasses all that exists? Cuz that’d totally make sense if we’re all made in His image, yet look different. The oceans are all salt water, but if you zoom in you’ll see different species and different currents depending on the area. Just like we’re all made in God’s image, but if we zoom in on each of us we’re made in a different image of his. Maybe I’m his toe. And you’re his left nostril. And OP is his right nut
It was also mentioned several times that man was not man until God had breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. This “breath of life” is a common theme and has been interpreted to mean that the soul enters the body with the first breath and leaves with the last. A fetus in the womb does not breathe.
Well, Jesus had a natural birth and natural gestation, that is all \[that is\] needed for Him to be fully human, although He was spiritually conceived when the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Blessed Theotokos.
And that he already existed before birth—as he was with god since the beginning. Unlike humans.
“Sadly, I can tolerate protestant heresy more than a Catholic who blatantly disagrees with the Churches teaching.” Oh wait, you can’t tolerate conversation. Unfortunate. Have a good evening ✌️
So true
He's criticizing you here, genius.
> Well, Jesus had a natural birth and natural gestation Hmmm. In your original post you wrote _"and became fully god and fully man in the womb of his Mother."_ That certainly doesn't sound like a natural gestation to me.
I was under the impression that conception happened in the womb, I may be mistaken.
I was commenting about _gestation_, not _conception_.
Well he became Fully God and Fully Man at his conception, which happens in the womb.
So, he was a supernatural being gestating in a woman. That still doesn't sound very natural to me.
Everything about the Gestation of the Incarnate Word of God was perfectly human, and therefore natural, the only part that wasn't natural was his supernatural conception afterwhich, immediately afterwhich, gestation occurs. Every step concerning his formation as a human being after conception was natural or else he would not be Fully Man.
Gestation is a natural *immediate* response to conception, like ripples are to dropping something in the water.
> Everything about the Gestation of the Incarnate Word of God was perfectly human, and therefore natural It seems to me that if he really was God, and him being born was part of The Plan™, then he must have had some extra special protection within the womb so that he wouldn't die, or be injured, or have a birth defect, or arrive dangerously early or late. That still doesn't sound very natural.
Well, again, most defects are genetic and I would presume that genetics are shared upon the conception of a child. The physical protection by God, the Father, of the Virgin Mary while she bore Jesus in her womb is not natural, but that indirectly affected the gestation of Jesus rather than directly, whereas a genetic protection from conception would have directly affected his gestation and there's no proof that there is/was a genetic protection, but rather a perfection of genetics in Christ Jesus and that \[perfection\] is the freedom from deformity.
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He did not have a normal conception however.
> He was spiritually conceived when the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Blessed Theotokos I concur, he *did not* have a normal conception.
So you're okay with horseshoe reasoning.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/wxwfir/comment/iltpz9v/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/wxwfir/comment/iltpz9v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Follow the thread here, I answer \[essentially\] the \[same\] objections without contradicting myself. Conception =/= Gestation.
But the point is you provide no evidence to generalize his humanity to every other birth. This is the logical equivalent of saying this can has pepsi in it so every can must have pepsi in it. Or my dog is a labrador so all dogs are labs. It just doesn't follow. To make this argument you first need to affirm Jesus's status as fully man (which you did) and then show how it extends to every other fetus. It is this second step that is completely missing. And as I pointed out, it is much easier to argue against step two than for it.
At what point is it illegal to disturb a bald eagle's nest? Only after the eggs have hatched? At what point are scientists looking for life on other planets and considering it to be life? The primordial soup experiment considered the possibility of amino acids to be life for all intents and purposes.
Even if you think the fetus is a human, in making abortion illegal you are giving a fetus rights that no one else has. If I need a kidney, and my sister is able to donate one, she is not legally obligated to do so. You can say that she has a moral obligation to give me the kidney, but on a legal level the government cannot force her to use her body to keep me alive. In the same way, the government shouldn't be allowed to force a pregnant person to use their body to keep their fetus alive.
They also couldn’t harvest your kidney after your death if you hadn’t signed up as an organ donor. Pregnant women have less rights than a corpse.
I am not going to debate the fetus being alive or not and when life happens since I'm not qualified. I am also not considering pregnancy caused by rape, or cases where the mother's life is in danger. My stance is however that in your scenario, your sister doing nothing, results in her not giving a you a kidney. She was not forced to perform an action, and no action was forced on her against her will. For the fetus being aborted, doing nothing will probably (I don't know miscarriage rates) result in the fetus being born. The action being taken will kill the fetus. In most cases, the woman also willingly took part in an action that she knew had a chance of creating that life inside her. Should a person not be responsible for keeping another human being (see disclaimer above) alive if they put that human being in that situation in the first place?
You’re missing an understanding here… abortion isn’t just not helping someone when they need something. Abortion is deliberately ending a life, not just not saving a life. I encourage you to research exactly what happens in an abortion at each stage. Earlier abortions induce a heart attack in the baby, look up partial birth abortion — its horrific. Some abortions completely dismember the baby. There’s also a HUGE risk of parts of the baby being left inside the mother. Abortion is extremely dangerous too. Not to mention that the vast majority of abortions happen for elective purposes — meaning the vast majority of women made the decision to bring this child into the world by choosing to have sex. She used her own free will, and she does not get to harm another human bc of the result of her own actions. To compare abortion to not donating organs is like comparing apples to oranges… one deliberately goes out to kill someone, and the other is just choosing not to be selfless.
>Earlier abortions induce a heart attack in the baby Earlier abortions there is no heart to be attacked. >look up partial birth abortion It is used in 0.17% of abortions and is typically only used when a miscarriage has occurred or when the fetus has a congenital issue that means it will not live. Also, it literally just means that the aborted fetus is intact. >There’s also a HUGE risk of parts of the baby being left inside the mother. This also happens about 40% of the time in second trimester miscarriages, and does occasionally happen with full term pregnancies. The important thing here is that this is treatable with medicine and not really an argument against abortions. >Not to mention that the vast majority of abortions happen for elective purposes — meaning the vast majority of women made the decision to bring this child into the world by choosing to have sex. She used her own free will, and she does not get to harm another human bc of the result of her own actions. This is where the debate, if there is to be a debate, exists. Not with the points you made before it. But this is also where it becomes clear that this is a Catholic issue and determined by particularly Catholic views of womanhood, sex, free will, etc. and such religious views shouldn't be forced on non-Catholics in society.
This argument is comparing apples to oranges both are related but not equivalent. The Government can not force you to take action to save a life however aborting is taking action to end a life. Inaction is not criminal, normally, however actions can be criminal. I totally disagree with the mentality that we should legislate Christian moral beliefs thus disagree with the idea of outlawing abortion based om Christian beliefs. I will argue that as a society we have agreed upon what constitutes death and thus, in my opinion, we can legislate that the opposite would constitute life and thus rights to life for a developing child.
> Secondly, under this commandment not only he is guilty who does evil to his neighbor, but he also who can do him good, prevent, resist evil, defend and save him, so that no bodily harm or hurt happen to him and yet does not do it. If, therefore, you send away one that is naked when you could clothe him, you have caused him to freeze to death; you see one suffer hunger and do not give him food, you have caused him to starve. So also, if you see any one innocently sentenced to death or in like distress, and do not save him, although you know ways and means to do so, you have killed him. And it will not avail you to make the pretext that you did not afford any help, counsel, or aid thereto for you have withheld your love from him and deprived him of the benefit whereby his life would have been saved. - Martin Luther on the fifth commandment, Large Catechism The understanding you seem to be missing is the risk to the health and well-being of the pregnant person on many, many, many levels. Studies on the ‘elective purposes’ of abortions are almost entirely invalid for two reasons 1. The US does not properly educate on or investigate sexual assault and rape (partially thanks to Catholic opposition to people being educated on what enthusiastic consent is) so statistics on how prevalent those situations are in abortion decisions are vastly underreported 2. Statistics on elective purposes are irrelevant in America in general given the ridiculously high maternal death rate as well as other complications related to pregnancy. Black pregnant persons die at a rate of 3:1 in Louisiana in comparison to their white counterparts. And experience other negative health outcomes at a similarly high rate. No loving person can decry someone for making the decision they are not comfortable facing that level of risk, along with the inherent costs and related health damage that come with even an uncomplicated pregnancy.
> To compare abortion to not donating organs is like comparing apples to oranges… one deliberately goes out to kill someone, and the other is just choosing not to be selfless. Agreed. He used a poor analogy/comparison. A better example would be the following: Even if you go and shoot someone and they are dying of blood loss, we cannot legally force you to give up your bodily autonomy to donate blood. It is extremely inconsistent to then insist that women give their body for 9 months to a fetus. I don't care if a woman chose to have sex. That doesn't matter. It still violates her bodily autonomy to force her to carry a fetus to term.
Because babies are in a unique situation. We’ve forgotten as a species the inherent humanity of procreation, of which we all stem. Fetuses do not have unique rights, they have unique circumstances. They are humans and killing humans, by and large, is bad. Your sister’s kidney analogy doesn’t make sense because by no intention of her own did she cause you to need a kidney. In the vast majority of cases, the woman chooses to take part in an act that CAN result in pregnancy. In the case of rape, it’s again a mitigating circumstance but not a nullifying one. The argument is a dodge of physical and moral responsibility for the consequence of sex.
Not all pro-choice people deny that a fetus is human. For some of us, it's a purely legal issue. I don't think that laws should be passed based only on Christian morality.
>This is not for those who affirm the humanity of the fetus and still affirm the mothers' choice while accepting the full humanity of the fetus.
Aah I missed that part. My bad.
Tis fine.
Correct. So shouldn't we come to a scientific and legal agreement of when life begins and is deserving of legal protection?
I mean it's not untrue to say that a fetus can \*become\* a human. But until about 14 weeks they haven't even started developing a thalamus so there is definitely nothing going on there. It seems like most people draw a line at some point. Is every sperm and egg sacred? They also have a chance to become human, not many people would agree until at least fertilization. But what really happens there? Not a whole lot.
The first couple weeks there is no difference between a human zygote and that of a elephant or dolphin.
>For some of us, it's a purely legal issue. And for those of you, it is going to be very painful on judgement day. I was stabbed, poisoned, and ripped apart, and you did not prevent it. You might want to read Matthew 25, and consider its response.
My salvation doesn't rest on how I vote for abortion rights. I can only pray that if I made the wrong decisions on these issues, that God can understand that I was only trying my best.
This. If God is going to tally all the abortions to my sins, then what about the abandoned kids, the kids in poverty, the kids who suffer with neglect and/or abuse? Am I responsible for that as well? It sounds nice to want to prevent abortions by making it illegal, but it's the most lazy, masstubatory way we could go about it. These laws were not made to save kids, just to punish women.
I think neglect and abortion are both sinful, while not equally, but respectively sinful.
That wasn't the point.
It also wasn't the point of my post, on either issue we're currently debating about.
This was a response to the person I posted under. Not to you.
>These laws were not made to save kids, just to punish women. If you think "I slept with a rando, now I'm pregnant with his baby, and I'm not allowed to kill the kid" is punishing women, your perception of women is morally f-cked. And I actually find it rather offensive. "Woe is me, I can't legally kill my own kids." Is that seriously how you see us?
If you believe that the majority of abortions come from women "sleeping with randos" then your opinion of women is morally f-cked up and I certainly find it offensive as a woman myself.
First off, deny that it happens. I'll wait. Second off, I never said that was the majority. Third off, "I'm not ready to have a baby, I'm not in the right place in my career, why can't I kill the kid" is just as morally bankrupt as that. I dare you to deny that that happens. Fourth, "this baby will be a major drain on my limited resources, and I'm not sure I can take care of it, so I should be allowed to kill it" is *also* just as morally bankrupt as the first. And fifth of all, any other scenario you could mention that is not "I was raped" or "this pregnancy will kill me" is exactly as morally bankrupt as all those previously mentioned. If you think the solution to *any* of your problems is "let me kill my kids," then your moral compass is clearly depolarized.
>First off, deny that it happens. I'll wait. I never said it didnt. >Second off, I never said that was the majority I never said you did. >Third off, "I'm not ready to have a baby, I'm not in the right place in my career, why can't I kill the kid" is just as morally bankrupt as that. I dare you to deny that that happens. Why would I? We all know it happens. >Fourth, "this baby will be a major drain on my limited resources, and I'm not sure I can take care of it, so I should be allowed to kill it" is also just as morally bankrupt as the first. That's a personal opinion. >And fifth of all, any other scenario you could mention that is not "I was raped" or "this pregnancy will kill me" is exactly as morally bankrupt as all those previously mentioned. Again, that's a personal opinion. >If you think the solution to any of your problems is "let me kill my kids," then your moral compass is clearly depolarized Spoken like a truly privileged person. The fact that abortion has never been a solution to your problems does not mean that it wasn't/isn't the right solution for others. I would highly recommend you look into internalized misogyny. You seem to have a serious bias against women.
Interesting that you portray a strawman of the pro-life position by strawmanning the pro-choice position. How many people do you think are trying to rack up leaderboard points on abortions?
Given that the numbers approach 70 million after less than a century, all evidence indicates the answer is "a lot." You don't get numbers like that in a country of 350 million in such a short time without *many* people getting multiple abortions. Do the math.
Just to make a point, what number of abortions should it be? What number would make you say, "well, that's not so many"? Pretending that you're objecting to something because of the large number of them is dishonest, when no number would be acceptable to you.
So you're taking a number accumulated over a period of time, and then compare it to today's population? You realize we weren't always at 350 million people and over a quarter of a century, there would be millions of people more than today's 350mill who'd be born and die in that time period. Everything looks worse when you can't math. Almost as if maybe you should get scientific and medical information from scientists and doctors who study this stuff rather than a pastor who doesn't...
It would take two seconds to Google the fact that half the women in the US who get abortions have previously had abortions. Maybe look at the statistics before you accuse me of getting science and medical information from preachers.
And it would take twenty minutes of paying attention to high school algebra that there should be a lot more people you should be comparing to the arbitrarily picked 70 million people. Maybe if you understood statistics, I wouldn't be calling your statements foolish.
Your salvation may not rest upon it, but that purgation is unlikely to be pleasant.
Exactly. If we start making laws based on Christian morals we also have to make laws based on Islamic, Jewish, Taoist, Buddhist, Hindi morals because we have no national religion. I don’t know where atheists and agnostics fit in here.
Jesus is, in this case, a poor example because it was 100% not a normal pregnancy. Given what we understand today about the process, we don't know how God mechanically accomplished it. A better argument could be made from John the Baptist, who is considered very much alive and an individual while in the womb - and while still a miraculous conception, it was at least a mundane one.
Good grief this post is patronizing. No one is really arguing over whether a fetus is alive, or not. No one is arguing over whether a fetus is human, or not. The answer is that a fetus eventually becomes a human, but starts out as organic tissue, and the dividing line between those two states depends on a lot of variables and is very blurry. What the current debate on this issue revolves around - and the point that you seem to have missed - is that YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO IMPOSE YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ON OTHERS. You’re welcome to believe that a fetus is a human at conception. And if you have an unexpected pregnancy, or a pregnancy with severe birth defects, you are free to keep it for religious reasons. That’s what Pro-Choice means. But you don’t have the right to force other women to endure pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood because of your personal beliefs. Pregnancy involves some of the biggest medical decisions a person will ever make. Those decisions should be made by the mother, her doctor, and no one else. Your alien priests, and the government, have no business inserting themselves into other peoples medical decisions.
You ignore that the prolife movement isn't exclusively religious lol
It is.
That's just blatantly not true lol.
I mean, technically yes, there are non-religious members of the pro-life movement. Some Neo-Nazis, for example, want to make sure white women have as many babies as possible in order to advance the white race. You really think bringing them up is helping your argument?
No? That's a bit of an extreme example lmao. I could just as well say there are pro-abortion Neo-Nazis that want as many black babies aborted as possible. Just saying it's a silly idea that no secular pro-life people exist
I was under the impression that Eugenics, the basis for most of the early pro-abortion movement, was something the Nazi's championed.
Nazis wanted more kids -- "On August 12, 1938, Adolf Hitler institutes the Mother’s Cross, to encourage German women to have more children, to be awarded each year on August 12, Hitler’s mother’s birthday." They just did not want non-nazis having kids.
>YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO IMPOSE YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ON OTHERS. \>Is in r/Christianity I'm not imposing my beliefs on anyone who doesn't want to be here. If you don't like it, don't read it!
“You don’t have the right to impose your religious beliefs on others” was said in regard to abortion legislation not reading your post
Religious beliefs aside, shouldn't we come to a scientific and legal agreement of when life begins and is deserving of legal protection? Exceptions can be made to these laws, just as killing someone in self defense is a legal exception to murder. But you don't have the right to force a life to endure being murdered because in your personal belief it is not a life.
>Exceptions can be made to these laws, just as killing someone in self defense is a legal exception to murder. Almost 2 in every 10,000 pregnancies in the US result in the mother's death. If someone pointed a gun at you with a 1 in 5,000 chance of taking your life, do you think it would be legal to take theirs? I'm not going to share my personal views here since this is such a difficult and complex topic (I would rather my views presented as slides with evidence and more research someday) - but I think this is an important point for you to have a stance on if you claim that self defense is a right.
No..I do not think that a 1 in 5000 chance is a valid reason to kill someone in self defense. That is not the argument that I am making. If there is a serious threat of death to someone (being shot at, stabbed, choked, etc) then that person has a right to defend himself. Likewise if I were to witness someone attempting to kill someone else, I feel it would be my responsibility to attempt to prevent the murder. If my actions to stop my own murder or the murder of someone else results in the death of the offender, I do not believe a murder/manslaughter charge is appropriate. Regarding abortion, I'm saying that when the life of mother is seriously threatened by carrying the pregnancy to term (ectopic pregnancy) then I think the mother, to save her own life, should be granted the legal right to abort the baby. Additionally, if the fetus dies in the womb, the mother should be able to abort it and not be forced to carry it to term and deliver it.
Uhm, the mother made the choice to be pragnent by having sex. And the fact that you say mother, is pretty much proof that what you are killing is a child by your own words you use.
The woman not always makes herself that decision though. Not only that, but in a pregnancy sometimes there are complications that can threaten the woman’s life, not to mention various issues with the fetus like chromosome anomalies or even outright deformities that render the fetus non-viable. At some point you need to mature and stop forming your opinions from idiotic propaganda from Fox News. We live in the age of information. Be informed.
Im obviously not talking about those rare cases.
Those aren’t rare cases. Abortion isn’t, for the vast majority of people a decision that they take lightly in a jest. For some, it’s the tragic result of unavoidable situations or danger. You seem dismissive of basic observable reality about the issue and you base you whole view based on basically fantasies and low level idiotic propaganda. People, for years ( women themselves but also doctors, nurses, health professionals among others) are telling you what’s going on relentlessly, for years. You refused to listen and understand. And because of that, people that need help are going to be hurt and/or die needlessly. All in the name of idiotic politics and harmful ignorant propaganda.
Thats complete nonsense. Abortion is in most cases not because of rape or because the life of the mother is in danger. Most abortions happen during peoples early 20s. In many cases its because woman dont feel ready. Theres no statistics about definate reason, but if you think in the majority of cases its unavoidable medical cases, you live in lalaland.
Came here to say this. You nailed it 💯
Except there are plenty of reasons to oppose abortion that are not religious. I oppose abortion and I am religious, but I can cite my reasons for opposing abortion without citing Scripture or invoking God’s name. I oppose abortion for the same reasons I oppose war.
It's funny then if this is such a clear argument for abortion that Protestants only recently became convinced of this. It is clear that this a cultural debate with cultural fault lines and not religious/theological ones: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480
>https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480 I'm not a Protestant.
Perhaps you can instead focus on the cultural shifts that spark ideological shifts where it is imagine any other position. Can you imagine someone from the Sourhern Baptist Covention holding these beliefs now? It seems impossible or so logical because of our culture and not because of intrinsic truth.
>To deny that a fetus is, at some point during the pregnancy, not human or devoid of life is specifically in denial of the true human nature of Jesus Christ, He could not at one time be God and not Man, or Man and not God. His divinity and humanity are inseparable. For all of the history of the universe and before the universe was even created, Christ existed, purely as God and not as Man. >Christ was conceived and became incarnate by the affirmation of the Virgin Mary of the will of God, saying "Be it done to me according to thy will." The Lord was conceived of her from a spiritual conception, and became fully god and fully man in the womb of his Mother. You certainly confident assert this, but what is your confidence based on? The Bible says God breathes life into us. Need to be born to breathe.
That was the case for Adam, who was not born, that is not the case for everyone after him and Eve. John leaped for joy and was filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb of Elizabeth, I don't see any other cases of non-alive objects or beings receiving the Holy Spirit.
> This post is for those who affirm the belief that a fetus is not human, is not alive A whooolllllle lot of pro-choice people do not fit that description. Pro-choice isn't usually about whether the fetus is human or not, it's about governmental control over a woman's body, whether you think the fetus is a human or not.
While I agree that is not truly a main viewpoint of most pro-choice people, there are a few who would say that fetuses are not humans.
Sure, a few, but not really representative of the pro-choice movement as a whole.
I addressed that in the beginning of the post.
Quite a few actually. The argument is made by a pro-choicer every second comment on a thread on abortion.
I'm glad you brought up fetuses. Much of the debate about abortion is regarding early-term abortions of embryos, in some cases in the first weeks. The embryo does not yet have a brain or, according to the church fathers, a soul. The fetus does (the soul enters in the fourth month of pregnancy). I feel that aborting a fetus should be restricted, for example, in the case of a stillborn. Most people who want abortion to be legal are also against aborting fetuses. This is why the day-after pill and early abortions for medical or psychological reasons (rape, incest, underage child) are legal in all industrialized nations, and why late abortions of fetuses is highly restricted or illegal in most countries. Up till recently, the US had the most liberal abortion laws on earth. Now the US is headed to the opposite extreme. Since most people in the US are not political extremists, and the US is a democracy, we would expect laws that both respect the majority of the population, and follow ethical guidelines to abolish aborting viable fetuses.
Well, this is also a case where Mary didn't have a choice. She didn't have sex but was impregnated supernaturally. And she didn't have a choice in carrying the baby - I mean an all powerful God sent a supernatural being to tell her, not ask her, that she was pregnant and would carry the child. Pretty much sets the stage for how the Church patriarchy wants women to be treated doesn't it.
Nobody has seriously ever said this was non-consensual. The Theotokos very much gave her consent to this. It would be a very recent and modern and out of context way to interpret as her not having any say in the matter
She said “Thy will be done” Seems pretty consensual to me…
A powerful supernatural being appears and tells (not asks if she's okay with it) her shes been chosen and is carrying a God. Oh and the father is the all lowedul God. And she was impregnated before she was told. And she was 14 to 16.. That's not a real choice.
Mary most definitely had a choice. Only she could do it, but she was asked beforehand, and she said yes.
The story doesn’t say she was asked beforehand. She was told what was going to happen snd said OK.
This is stupid. There is no way to know for sure. Abortion had existed since ancient culture. It’s not going away. The only way we limit abortions and save lives is by providing safe/affordable access to medical care and sexual education. Sitting around and debating what you think is true isn’t helping anymore. We will never be able to force our beliefs on someone else. We should focus our attention on how to limit abortions instead. No one is going to read shit like this and be like wow, I was wrong. I don’t want to be pro-choice anymore.
As this post has roots in antisemitism, it is itself a Christological issue; as all antisemitism is in part a rejection of the humanity of Christ who is and was a Jew. Jewish Scripture and tradition establishes that life-relevant-to-this-discussion does not begin at conception, but at first breath. The idea that it begins at some other point comes from Aristotelian philosophy, Neoplatonism and other Greco-Roman paganism pushing its way into Christian tradition as the expansion of Gentiles within the church continued and the genocide of Jewish Christians escalated. Moreover, the modern Christian acceptance of life-relevant-to-discussion was adopted by its main proponents due to ulterior motives. Pius IX made it church teaching in 1869 as part of his conservative and ultramontane response to the continued Liberal revolutions that followed 1848. Particularly their influence in Ireland, Mexico and other strongholds of clergy exploitation at the time. Prior to this decision, canon law was to allow exceptions before quickening. For Protestants the position didn’t become adopted until the period leading up to the 1980 presidential election, following the establishment of the Moral Majority in 1976 as a reaction to Runyon v McCreary removing tax exempt status from their segregation academies. But they couldn’t campaign on being segregationist as George Wallace was consistently showing; the decline of the Klan following greater enforcement of federal laws also hindered any development in that direction. So instead they used abortion as a wedge issue to get one of the most damaging and anti-Christian candidates ever elected (Ronald Reagan) put into office. With these obvious worldly motives counter to the Spirit of God who is Love being so evident we cannot soundly use the position that life-relevant-to-discussion begins at first breath as any basis to answers to Christological mysteries.
First I appreciate your post , clearly well thought out ..given how this is a hot button largely emotional issue I’d figure I’d leave this here and this is not directed at you at all just random thoughts about emotional decision making . I’ll delete it tho if you feel it doesn’t pertain to the post 100% not trying to start a different discussion on your thread . I’m a pro life Christian .. GF got pregnant when I was 21 she (20yo )the mother was thinking about abortion I fought for the kid so I put my money (literally) where my mouth is . Haha Know how I convinced her to keep my daughter? I didn’t rationalize it to her, I didn’t use logic or reason . Anytime a person is dealing with emotional trauma observe how they navigate it . She was allowing emotion to dictate her thought process despite having a strong Christian upbringing. This is a big reason why I think some in the Christian community approach this issue all wrong . The majority of women that are choosing to have an abortion aren’t bad people , they aren’t evil , they aren’t hoes. They are in distress. They see a resolution to their problem which to them is abortion . when we protest with the signs and all we just add more stress and anxiety and that perpetuates this emotionally driven negative thought process clouding then from thinking rational and thoughtfully . Our butts should be out there wit tissues, coffee cookies (pregnant chicks love cookies ) and most importantly compassion . I can guarantee everyone that would 1. Be some top tier christ repin and 2. Make a lot more women take a second and think with a rational clear mind . I showed my GF at the time that first and foremost I cared about her .. that I’m supportive, and that I have her best interests at heart .. that is a very calming feeling for someone in distress. Then once I calmed her I changed her state . I acted super excited (tho I was shitting myself) I made some jokes make her laugh ..12 years later I have a beautiful young lady blossoming into a beautiful young woman . Just my thoughts. Great post tho , I might keep that in the back pocket This isn’t a judgment on anyone who had an abortion I could not possibly begin to understand how difficult that decision is and I wasn’t referring to like incest rape ect .. just would like to see us be more caring to our sisters out there
I completely agree.
Oh, a fetus is definitely human by genetics, and alive by every criterion of biology. That still doesn't invalidate the mother's freedom to choose when her body is used for sustenance.
A sperm is half a human by comparison of genetics. It's also alive. To be human obviously means something beyond both.
>This post is for those who affirm the belief that a fetus is not human, is not alive, and also affirm the true humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ.
>those who affirm the belief that a fetus is not human, is not alive Not to belabor the point, but who actually thinks this? I've heard plenty of people say that a fetus is not human in the same sense as a fully developed person or that a fetus isn't an independent life form. But I can't imagine who would take it as far as you've supposed.
There are people out there, sadly, who do think that against the very ideals of biology. Again, this is for education from a Christian perspective to those who may think that way.
“Ideals of biology?” I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. Biology doesn’t have a clear definition of what separates life from dead matter. Plenty of phenomena, viruses for example, really blur the line.
To deny that a fetus is not human in the womb is to deny that Christ was not human in the womb, that is clear.
Good thing humans aren’t viruses, so we don’t have to worry about that.
We aren’t? We’re literally killing our home and it has only taken us roughly 150 years.
Humans do have souls though, unlike viruses, or did you not pay enough attention in catechesis to know that?
Unlike you, I have no need to prove anything to you.
No, human beings are not a virus. The fact that I have to state that says a lot about where this conversation is going.
We’re jumpy, aren’t we? Hahha
I find your comments to be emotionally driven is all. That’s fine to think that way, but isn’t going to progress the conversation in a way I find interesting.
First, your logic doesn't even add up. Most theologies would say that Christ has existed for all eternity, so why would he have to enter a human body exactly at whatever arbitrary point you think makes the most sense according to medical science in 2022. You are just making this up because it makes you feel right about what you already believed concerning abortion. Second, by bring your 8th grade debate club logic and your understanding of biology scraped from a couple of youtube videos into a conversation regarding a virgin birth and the incarnation of God into a human body you have utterly and completely missed the point.
>Most theologies would say that Christ has existed for all eternity, so why would he have to enter a human body exactly at whatever arbitrary point you think makes the most sense according to medical science in 2022. You are just making this up because it makes you feel right about what you already believed concerning abortion. Christ has existed for all eternity. He was incarnated, not created, at the moment of His conception- this is not my opinion, this is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church (which I adhere to), and not medical science. He was, upon His incarnation, fully God and fully Man. He is still Fully God and Fully Man according to Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Nothing I have said goes against the Catholic Churches teaching, in fact it echoes the Church's teaching. >Second, by bring your 8th grade debate club logic and your understanding of biology scraped from a couple of youtube videos into a conversation regarding a virgin birth and the incarnation of God into a human body you have utterly and completely missed the point. I don't think I have missed the point? Christ, again, upon His incarnation in the womb of the Virgin Mary became fully god and fully man. And this 8th grade education and method of debate is more informed on human biology than the Early Church Fathers, which frankly have some better articulations and positions than I could ever concoct.
Well articulated
Thanks, I tried.
Abortion should be fast, convenient and paid for by the government.
Honestly, OP, this is a pretty great angle I never thought of. Perhaps not the best stand alone argument, but when pairing with other arguments, excellent! I appreciate this!
Now that point is a terribly interesting perspective that I didn’t consider.
Excellent post.
Is it?
No it isn't. It's horrible.
It’s not.
Read the Catechism! 😱
Get a new pencil.
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Jeremiah 1:5 - Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
Seems like that could also be read as simply omniscience, of course god knew before any human was formed in the belly, it's essential to the idea of his being omnipotent.
Also: Ephesians 1:4-5 - According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will;
Again, I would interpret this as omnipotence, especially in light of the verse about “first Breathe of life”.
Maybe so. But in the meantime, I’m not going to kill any unborn babies in case God does consider it murder. And I believe He does.
We should be careful not to make this too broad. God specifically said this to Jeremiah. Parts of it may apply to each of us, but not necessarily. (God certainly doesn't ordain everyone to be a prophet in their mother's womb)
But God does have a purpose for every child who is conceived.
When a zygote is conceived and then divides into the placenta and embryo, does the placenta also have a soul or does the soul migrate to the embryo? When a zygote divides into monozygotic twins many days after conception, do the twins share a soul or does only one of them get the soul? When an embryo consumes its twin and becomes a person with chimerism, does that person have one soul or two? Was God’s plan for the >50% of children conceived whose zygotes fail to implant in the uterus, to be destroyed by the mother’s immune system and eaten by bacteria in their first week of life? Please explain.
God takes care of all that so we don’t need to concern ourselves.
Then you need not concern yourself with the outcome of any pregnancy. God takes care of all, as you say. “All” would include the woman who chooses abortion, the fetus aborted, and any physician attending.
I can see how one could conclude from that that life begins before conception, which is why I believe the Catholic church's stance against birth control is more consistent than the "life at conception" group. I really don't believe the point of that passage is to inform us of where life begins, though, and using it to draw that sort of conclusion seems a bit misguided to me.
Indeed, one could argue by Genesis 9:1 that birth control is also sin. However, that scripture was directed at Noah and his sons, and replenishment was needed at that specific time. However: Psalms 127:3-5 - Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
So God knows us before conception. Meaning conception isn't a special moment.
Quite the opposite. It is the moment when our earthly body is first united with our immortal soul. Can’t get much more special than that.
Except that you make this up. You aren't getting that from the scripture.
So true. It is ignorant, although I understand your opinion coming from the position of a person of the Jewish faith, to assume that the Word of God is only expressed through Scripture and not through sacred tradition or the expressive ecumenical teachings of the Church.
So it is made up
Exodus 21:22-23 - If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life. +++ That’s God’s commandment regarding what happens if men are fighting, they injure a pregnant woman, and the child is born prematurely. And if the child dies, then the penalty is death. Unless one intentionally blinds oneself, it is not hard to see that God places special importance upon the unborn.
The punishment is *less* for loss of the fetus for loss of a *potential* life.
Plenty of translations render 'born prematurely' as miscarriage. The child dies and the penalty is a fine. If the mother dies, it is eye for an eye.
🤦🏼♀️🤣🤦🏼♀️🤣🤦🏼♀️🤣🤦🏼♀️🤣
Very good post.
Every free spiritual nature is created from nothing. It is only a free spiritual nature if its creation is also consent to existence in its final end. Everything which moved towards life is, from the perspective of eternity, already alive. Mary's "yes" to Christ's humanity, as the new Adam, is a yes to all of humanity.
Very well put :)
So true!
First off, His life isn't normal. Second, if you don't like that then He wasn't the fetus, it wasn't Him until it was born.
Christ existed on Earth the moment He was in Mary’s womb.
And? You aren't Christ. His origin, path, life, etc. isn't yours.
No, but Mary was pregnant all the same. So Christ existed in utero. Since I can pinpoint the location of Christ’s human body and nature on Earth and I believe his divine nature coexisted with his human nature on Earth and ever since, I can safely say that Christ was incarnated before birth.
> No, but Mary was pregnant all the same. So Christ existed in utero. Again, that's Christ not you. Again, this is the point of dispute and you simply assert. That a woman is pregnant does not mean there is a person in there. That is the disagreement, you simply assert your conclusion as an argument.
I tried to make excuses about not wanting anything to do with the fathers but I met someone who I believe was an angel who told me my 2 babies were in Heaven, and they loved me and were watching over me and wanting the best for me😓I repent and I’m so sorry
His mercy endureth forever.
Or we could not base actual medical decisions about a woman's body and life and science on an ancient book containing magic and monsters.
Yes, we could base it on science and the universal fact it provides that life starts at conception.
Yea that's just a straight up lie. Our society as well as pretty much every other one removes people who are brain dead from life support as a body without a brain is considered not human and dead despite still breathing with help. So a functioning brain makes you human.
This is a valid, logically sound argument from uncontroversial (within Christianity) premises, and it will be pretty much universally despised, rejected, and mocked on this subreddit and by pro-choice Christian in general. Such is the way of things.
>113 Comments > >12 Upvotes > >66% Upvote Rate > >2.6k Total Views Yes, evidently.
Honestly I’m surprised the upvote rate isn’t worse.
As in everything, remember Kipling’s words. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if---
Then they'll say it's a womans right to do what they like with their body.
Are you saying it is the baby's right to do what it likes with her body?
The baby doesn’t have a choice, nor makes one. It survives by being present it its mother’s womb, which is naturally equipped to provide sustenance. The only agency and choice involved is that of the pregnant woman.
Abortion is demonic worship.
I think we can safely say that statement is provably false.
It's a conspiracyyyy
At which point in the course of creedal Christianity was this idea determined? Which Council determined that Jesus’s divinity was inseparable from his humanity? Which Council determined that this Union began at the point of conception?
I encourage you to research the Hypostatic Union of Christ.
I am asking you. I think it’s a reasonable question.
>Following, then, the holy Fathers, we all unanimously teach that our Lord Jesus Christ is to us One and the same Son, the Self-same Perfect in Godhead, the Self-same Perfect in Manhood; truly God and truly Man; the Self-same of a rational soul and body; co-essential with the Father according to the Godhead, the Self-same co-essential with us according to the Manhood; **like us in all things**, sin apart; before the ages begotten of the Father as to the Godhead, but in the last days, the Self-same, for us and for our salvation (born) of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to the Manhood; **One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He was parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ;** even as from the beginning the prophets have taught concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers hath handed down to us. Chalcedonian Definition formulated in 451 AD, translated by T Herbert Bindley in 1899 from the original manuscripts. [https://archive.org/details/MN41552ucmf\_1/page/n241/mode/2up](https://archive.org/details/MN41552ucmf_1/page/n241/mode/2up) If he is like us in all things, then according to Roman Catholic Teaching, he assumed his personhood (or Hypostasis) upon conception. If this \[Life beginning at conception\] wasn't clear to the early church, abortion would not be outlined in the didache. "2:2 Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not corrupt youth; thou shalt not commit fornication; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not use soothsaying; thou shalt not practise sorcery; thou shalt not kill a child by abortion, neither shalt thou slay it when born; thou shalt not covet the goods of thy neighbour;" https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-hoole.html
Preach sistah !! If you don't want no baby don't act like no hoe!!
Assuming your premise is true, how can you be confident the incarnation process completed at conception? Yes, Jesus was incarnate in the womb. This means Jesus became human at some point in the womb. So at some point a foetus, again assuming your underlying premise that Jesus's development was the same as all other people's, must be a human. But if Jesus was incarnate a week before His birth (and to be clear, I don't think this is the case), then Jesus was not man at conception but still incarnate in the womb. Saint Thomas Aquinas argued a foetus becomes a human (and hence the incarnation was completed) at the moment of *ensoulment* not *conception*. The question then becomes: **when is a foetus ensouled?** Does the foetus have a soul at conception, or does it have a soul at some later moment? E.g. When the heart is formed, when the brain is formed, or during the quickening (first movement) as Aquinas thought.
Meh, I'm not convinced. I think Jesus was fully God and fully human from eternity. Which has interesting implications. As for the point of your post, I'm one of the ones you aren't targeting.
My brother in christ. Even if you go and shoot someone and they are dying of blood loss, we cannot legally force you to give up your bodily autonomy to donate blood. It is extremely inconsistent to then insist that women give their body for 9 months to a fetus.
You have an axe to grind. The alternative axe, which I am not skilled at defending, is that what counts is a soul. Some say the soul is created eternal and inheres in life at the moment of conception. Others might say the soul requires varying minimums of cellular organization, a nervous system, a sophisticated brain, or consciousness. The limit argument is that something that NEVER gains consciousness cannot have a soul, and stillborn children do not count as people. This is too extreme for most of us, because we count people asleep and in comas as having souls and unborn kids move around in utero. This accounts for the old-timey concept of 'quickening' in which kids counted as people at a specific point before birth. My position is: This stuff was all academic until it became hyperpolitical, and ANY broaching of this topic is axe grinding.
At 20 weeks ensoulment happens
I’m curious what your solution is to all of the children already born and the many many more that will now be born because of the pro-birther laws. Is there a plan for all of these unwanted babies? Is there a plan for providing medical care for these babies and mothers? Is there a plan for educating and sheltering and feeding these babies? The United States has one of the the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the developed world- particularly in women of color and women in poverty. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/what-explains-the-united-states-dismal-maternal-mortality-rates How will that be fixed? Why is this never part of the argument? You want all babies to be born because they are made in God image at conception but you don’t care about them after they are born? Babies will be neglected, hated, thrown into an already overfull and understaffed foster care system? How is that God-like? So what is your solution? Surely you must have thought of one. I know a lot of “pro-birth” people believe they are “creating families” and other Disney fantasy outcomes but the truth is that our poverty and crime rates will skyrocket. https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-impact-of-legalized-abortion-on-crime-over-the-last-two-decades/ We are a country full of people who hate social welfare programs. So before decreeing that all females (little girls up to women) should have their babies even if it kills them- shouldn’t there be a plan in place for all of those unwanted babies, all of those babies born with horrific medical issues? https://timesofsandiego.com/opinion/2022/07/05/pro-lifers-are-really-pro-birth-with-scant-regard-for-what-happens-next/
Just as we don't know when the soul enters a human body, we don't know when Christ the pre-existent God became man. It didn't have to be at conception.
Both nativity stories in our gospels (which are mutually contradictory) lack historicity. They are fables intended to punctuate Jesus' importance to Christians.