Transcription
11/24/12
ABORTION
I believe very strongly in the wall of separation between church and state, if only because I do not want the government to impose the rules of my own church on me. I would like to maintain the liberty to be a bad Catholic if and when I please.
As an anarchist, I fully support a woman's right to get an abortion. Conservatives love to brag about how much they believe in personal liberty and small government, yet they want to overturn federal judicial restraints on state power and make new laws to restrict women's freedom of choice. In doing so, they expose the hypocrisy of their position. Conservatives love big government and they want more of it.
The evangelicals claim that they only follow the Bible. Yet the Bible does not contain a single explicit prohibition of abortion, nor does it authorize Christians to engage in political activism to impose their beliefs on the rest of society by force. The case against abortion is wholly inferential. So the evangelicals are seeking to impose on women a man-made tradition not found in the pages of Holy Writ.
Christians ought to consider that the government uses force and violence to enforce its laws. Jesus Christ forbade the use of force in the Scriptures. In Matthew, chapter 5, verse 39, Jesus said: "But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well". Likewise, in chapter 26, verse 52, he said: "Put your sword back in its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword".
Christians like to infer from the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill", that one is also forbidden to kill a fetus in the womb. Yet the Bible does not say exactly when life begins, and rarely do fundamentalists infer from the commandment that one is also forbidden to eat meat, execute criminals, or fight in wars. But consider the words of Exodus, chapter 21, verses 22 to 25:
When men have a fight and hurt a pregnant woman, so that she suffers a miscarriage, but no further injury, the guilty one shall be fined as much as the woman's husband demands of him, and he shall pay in the presence of the judges. But if injury ensures, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
One can infer from this passage that the life of the fetus is not equal in value to the life of the mother. For God herein demands only that when the fetus is lost, that a fine be paid to the child's father. Yet when the mother is injured, the lex talionis comes into play, and one must pay the proverbial "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth".
In Genesis, chapter 9, verse 6, God told Noah: "If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has man been made". If the fetus were truly considered a full person in God's sight, it would stand to reason that he should have demanded the blood of those who caused the miscarriage, rather than a mere fine.
Lastly, consider the words of Genesis, chapter 2, verse 7: "The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being". It seems here that life begins when one draws his first breath. The Hebrew word for soul, nephesh, means "breath". Just as Adam's body was formed before he received his soul, it may be that a child's body is formed before he receives his soul too.
I do not maintain the foregoing to be absolutely certain, but I find no warrant in Scripture for the man-made dogmas that life begins at conception, or that anyone who seeks or performs an abortion is guilty of murder. It can at least be defended with equal plausibility that life begins at birth, that the fetus is not a full person, and that the prohibition of murder does not apply to procured abortions.
Those Christians who protest loudly against abortion, target abortion clinics for terrorist attacks or murder abortion providers in cold blood, and seek to make repressive laws against abortion which can only be enforced by asking Caesar to wield his sword on their behalf, are like those Pharisees of old, who "tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people's shoulders, but will not lift a finger to move them". (Mt 23:4). The same hypocrites will turn around and bewail any government spending on children after they're born. They will force a woman to give birth to an unwanted child, and then refuse to help her raise him. I can only imagine that if Jesus came back today, he would be ashamed of his followers.
Kyle De Wolf 14966-052
LSCI Allenwood
P.O. Box 1000
White Deer, PA 17887
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Replies (3)
In the KJV, it says:
22 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.
23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
What if "yet no mischief follow" means that the baby did not die, only that the birth was premature? And if the birth was premature, but no other harm was done, then a fine was still levied.
But if the baby died, then "life for life."
It doesn't make much sense to repeat the "eye for eye" command as a special case for a pregnant woman. Eye for eye would have applied to any woman, not just a pregnant one. But it does make sense to have a special case in law to clarify the case of a premature birth, and have it apply to the baby.
Do we not also condemn (however mildly) the use of drugs and alcohol by pregnant women in our own society? And we condemn that, or at least warn against it, because of the future harm it could cause to the baby, either in physical or mental deformities. If something happened during pregnancy that directly affected the physical or mental abilities of the newborn child, wouldn't we naturally think there would be some kind of liability?
If two men were fighting, and by their carelessness struck my pregnant wife, then even if there were no premature birth, nor lasting harm, I'd still feel wronged enough to think a fine was just, simply for the fact that they struck my wife, even if I might ultimately forgive them in the end. But if my unborn son was dead because of the carelessness of two random thugs, I'd want more than just a fine.
Would you not feel the same about your wife and son?
This is an excellent point, and I think that those folks, such as myself, who are against abortion, should look toward ways of helping and supporting those mothers who need it, both before birth and after.
If there were a multitude of standing offers from willing families around the world to adopt any "unwanted child" instead of aborting it, no-questions-asked, that would be a greater witness against abortion than all the laws that could be written against it.
We should be running to the adoption agencies with empty cradles to be filled, rather than running to the abortion clinics with pitchforks.
Here are some links, maybe useful in the future:
http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/blog/2012/05/18/tong-phuoc-phuc-father-vietnam
http://eyedrd.org/2012/06/tong-phuoc-phuc-a-man-with-a-golden-heart-has-taken-care-of-more-than-100-abandoned-babies.html
Tong Phuoc Phuc, of Vietnam, was struck with the number of abortions that appeared to happen just during the time of his own wife's delivery in the hospital. "I was wondering, where are the babies?" he said, watching women enter the delivery room and return alone. 'Then I realized they had abortions.'
Because his wife had a difficult delivery, he made a promise with God that if his wife survived, he would find some way to help. At first, he simply bought a piece of land where he could give each fetus a proper burial. He would pick up the remains from hospitals and abortion clinics. He has buried over 10,000 such fetuses.
Women who had gone through an abortion themselves, heard of this small cemetery and came there to pray. Soon, women who were only considering abortions came to him, and he welcomed them into his own home.
He has been adopting unwanted children and from the counts I have seen, has adopted 19 as his own, giving them his own surname, but he has helped over 100, his goal being to reunite the babies with their mothers if possible.
He was not a rich man by any means, being a construction worker, and his wife running a small stall (I'm assuming in the market). From the video I've seen, it's a pretty cramped little apartment, full of babies. Sometimes he has had to borrow money to pay for food. But people have helped him, and donations have come from as far away as the US.
"No matter how good I am, it would not be as good as real mother’s love. So every time a mother came back, I would be very glad," he said.
When I first saw the video, I was awestruck. This is an example that has stayed with me, and points to a better way, in my opinion, of handling the abortion issue.