Do you support tax funded abortion?

Infanticide and genocide are not abortion unless it is performed after the age of viability.

 

I agree we need to provide proper education but not in the sense you do. We need to provide education about birth control and sex ed and stop promoting having sex at every turn in our society. Do I believe that women who seek an abortion should be given information about other options? Absolutely! But if after being given that information they make the decision to have an abortion and feel that it is right for them that is their decision not mine, not yours and certainly not the government.

 

So was I and so am I but if she would have choose to have an abortion that would have been her decision obviously not mine.

 

That is an attempt to justify the killing of innocent humans without due process. Even criminals get due process in the United States.

 

No! No! No!

 

You are right e.g. there is a religious component. God said, "Let us make man in our own image" (Genesis 1:26) and "Thou shalt not murder" (Exodus 20:13). God will also hold a special courtroom hearing to judge all those men and women who don't repent of killing His unborn children (Revelation 20:11-15). When abortionists repent of killing the unborn, in conjunction with accepting the Lord Jesus Christ, they are completely forgiven (Acts 2:38 and Romans 10:9).

 

Because criminals are living, breathing humans capable of surviving life outside of being attached or inside a womb. Again this issue comes back to when a fertilized egg is actually considered a life and that really is not a topic that could be discussed on this board.

 

Hm, where are our biology majors?

 

Worth a read:

THE PRO-CHOICE ACTION NETWORK

 

This comes back to a religious component. At what point does God put a living soul into a zygote? Do abortionists even believe that there is a God that is the Father of spirits who puts souls into human babies? Do you?

 

Thou shall not kill yet people were to be murdered for various aspects in the bible including adultery, being gay and the list goes on. If you believe that God will hold a special hearing for all those who kill his unborn children wouldn't he also hold a courtroom for those who pass judgement to others? Didn't God say To love others and not to pass judgement on your neighbors?

 

Your right it does come down to a religious component which is exactly the problem. It is up to each individual person to make decisions for their own religious beliefs or lack there of and the decisions that they make according to those who are religious they will have to deal with when they meet their maker correct? This gets into a whole other area than what this topic was. You also have to remember that not everyone is religious or has the same beliefs as you do so those who are not religious are they supposed to follow along with your beliefs just because? Would you want to follow theirs?

But to answer your question I do believe that there are MANY MANY MANY people who have abortions that feel they are religious, maybe not up to your standards but they feel they have done right for their own religious beliefs and purpose. Again it is not my place nor yours to judge that person for their actions or beliefs and if you throw it back to religion you should believe that even more. It is up to God to pass the judgement on those people not you, I, or the person walking down the street.

For your other question on if I am religious, no. I am agnostic however I do believe there is something greater than myself.

 

I'm totally in favor of people being able to hold whatever religious beliefs they want, or lack thereof. However, most would agree that freedom of religious belief has limits, such as when Joe X's religious beliefs tell him that killing so-and-so person is quite acceptable. In that case, the right of the latter person to live trumps the former's right to religious belief. If anyone's thinking, "But this is different, the unborn isn't a person!" then this just refocuses the issue again on "What is the unborn?"

In order to say that the unborn becomes a person at some point during its existence within the womb, we would need to determine a specific, measurable, non-arbitrary point in time (or criteria) at which the unborn goes from non-personhood to personhood. As far as I know, there is no such moment (ie, at time X, it is not a person, but at X + 1 second it is.) The problem with "viability" as a determiner is at least twofold. First, it's rather difficult to say when an unborn child is viable. One of my former professors has an identical twin. They were born 50+ years ago, and they were born extremely prematurely. At the time, no one thought that either would survive, but today both have earned PhDs, one is a graduate teacher, the other is a clinical psychiatrist. A second problem is that if viability is the criteria for life, then anyone who is on life support systems in hospitals should be concerned for their well-being ...

 

That is reminiscent of when the Nazis made lampshades out of Jewish human skin. Those who forget the atrocities of the past are doomed to repeat them, as is demonstrated with the devaluation of human life in state sanctioned abortion mills.

 

Hi ellia05, hopefully you find time to read my post among the others. To your guess that I am a religious person, well not particularly but I am a Christian (not the same as being religious), that said I have purposefully kept my arguments religion free as abortion is fundamentally not a religious issue, it is simply a legal issue, albeit a highly controversial one.

I noticed that you skirted my challenges earlier by stating “this depends on entirely when you consider an egg/sperm a life”. I would like to clarify one thing for the purpose of our discussion. The idea of a sperm/egg or fetus as being “life” was not and has never been in dispute. The Supreme Court did not dictate the definition of life. Even within the medical scientific community the “life” of a fetus is not in contention. For more information see: The Definition of Life . What is in contention and what the Supreme Court did dictate was the humanity or personhood of this life. This was and never will be a biological or scientific argument but instead a legal issue. Whether a fertilized egg is a “person” is the only issue at hand here and the viability criteria set forth by the Supreme Court to define what is a human is a legal definition not a scientific one. For example if viability sans host were criteria for the scientific definition of life than all parasitic life as we know it would have to become reclassified (viruses, etc.). So can we agree that the issue of “life” is not part of this argument and that a fertilized egg is in fact “life” has not been in dispute? I’ll even simplify things further and give you the Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s definition of life:“1. a : the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional plant or animal from a dead body b : a state of living characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction”. Does a fetus or fertilized egg meet this definition? Of course it does.

Since the personhood of life is in fact a legal argument, it can and very likely will change as most highly controversial legal definitions do. For example the definition of marriage (yet to be defined by the Supreme Court) defining the personhood of slaves (Scott v. Emerson) or the definition of “public use” (Kelo v. City of New London) and of course the infamous personhood of unborn babies (Roe v. Wade). So can we agree we are talking about a legal definition and not a scientific one?

Assuming we do agree that nobody is contending that a fetus is alive but instead we are contending as to whether a fetus is a person... Do you personally believe a fetus is a human being? I do.

The third and most importantly is the issue of your “not passing judgment” and wishing everyone would mind their own business. I hate cliché’s but in this instance I could never better articulate my feelings on this better than Edmund Burke when he said “The only thing required for evil to triumph is for good men (and women) to do nothing”.

Regardless of religion or dogma, the termination of human life is almost without question (globally) considered evil except in explicitly defined circumstances whereby some manner of an account of due process and/or justice is being served or if the termination of human life is necessary for the continuation of a civilization(for example the death penalty or wartime). Even these definitions are often controversial with ironically those who generally oppose war and the death penalty being pro-abortion. Suffice to say, killing a human being is not taken lightly anywhere in the world.

That said you feel that a fertilized egg is life, welcome to the world of empirical knowledge but do you feel that the fertilized egg is a human being? If not, then your belief of "everyone should mind their own business" is intellectually honest. If however you do believe that a fertilized egg or fetus prior to the viability definition (as defined by the Supreme Court) is in fact a human then I have to say you are not conducting yourself in an intellectually honest way. Either that or you are just an unethical person (which I personally do not believe) akin those in Germany who stood by idly allowing Jews to be collected for the gas chambers while shushing naysayers and turning dissenters over to their government (as that was the law of the day). Some philosophize that this behavior being ethical or immoral is entirely subjective, relative to the circumstances and beliefs of those involved. If that were true or if you believe this then you would have to say “there is no evil in the world” as evil or wrongdoing is entirely subjective or relative as well, defined beliefs and values of the actor. Do you believe in the existance of evil or is the morality or ethical conduct of a person entirely relative?

By the way please note that I am not referencing the Bible, Koran, Torah or any other religious document. This is not a religious debate despite what other posters here feel. Honestly this really isn't even a scientific debate as the science is well understood as is the scientific definition of life. The only time science really comes into play is in interpreting "viability". The definition of a "person" on the other hand has always been a legl issue.

 

Of course I personally believe that a fetus (not to be confused with an egg, zygote or any other stage before the term fetus is rightfully applied) is a human being. Asking if I feel PERSONALLY if a fertilized egg is a human being really has nothing to do with my whole point in this conversation. Just because you or anyone else on this board (or world) might believe that doesn't mean that everyone does and that is their right. You cannot believe that it is okay to force everyone else to believe as you do? So you believe that if you believe that slavery is okay then everyone else should to? The death penalty? War? Religious sacrifice? If you take that stance then those who are pro-choice would be able to force you to believe in abortion. My personal beliefs have nothing to do with my stance on this topic as my personal beliefs do not apply to the world as a whole but instead to my person only. I do believe that their are evil people in this world and Hitler was for sure one of them. I also believe that those who try try to push their religious and/or Christian views on the majority are also evil. That those who try to rule the lives of everyone around them by making choices that impact their personal lives are evil. So of course there is evil. You are wrong when you state that this is not a religious/Christian debate because that is exactly what it is if it was not then in all reality we would not be having this conversation.

By the way....I really do appreciate your thoughts on the subject and it is nice to be able to talk/debate about this in a civil manner

 

Not at all trying to force everyone else to believe as I do and I don't know where you got that impression???? If you or anyone want to believe that abortion is wrong and/or murder that is your choice and your choice for your own personal use is perfectly fine with me. What I don't like is when people try to force their own decisions/values/morals/religion etc upon another person. I have not once tried to force my belief in the right of a woman to choose on anyone else in this thread and if that is how it came across that was not my intention. My responses have been to questions directed at my posts on this thread and have been to debate/discuss the topic not to persuade anyone in one direction or another.