An alliance of 13 clergy members from various faiths are coming together to wage a legal battle against abortion restrictions in Missouri.
Their target? The 2019 “trigger law” which automatically became law when Roe v. Wade was legally overturned by the Supreme Court last year. Missouri’s trigger law only allows women to have an abortion in the case of an extreme medical emergency, and there’s no legal exemption for cases of rape or incest. The law makes performing an abortion a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
The plaintiffs in the case contend that not only is the right to an abortion a part of their faith, but that Christian lawmakers illegally used the legal system to enshrine their own particular religious beliefs into law.
Do they have a case?
See You in Court
“The Missouri Constitution ensures a strict separation of church and state,” explains plaintiff Reverend Traci Blackmon of the United Church of Christ. “Our elected officials have violated their oath to uphold that constitution by weaponizing religious beliefs to deny abortion access in a state where studies prove these actions are not the will of the majority of the people.”
She represents one of several religious traditions in the lawsuit who either say abortion isn’t against their religion, or is even required in some situations- including Orthodox, Episcopal, Unitarian Universalist, and Reform Judaism traditions.
Last year, some Jewish congregations filed lawsuits against several states over similar abortion restrictions, arguing that abortion is religiously required for Jewish women under certain circumstances.
This latest suit argues that the anti-abortion law was always grounded in evangelical Christianity, and that lawmakers blatantly enshrined their own particular faith into law when penning the law.
But don’t take their word for it, the plaintiffs say. You can hear it straight from the horse’s mouth:
Citing all of the quotes in the video above, the lawsuit argues that “state officials have weaponized their religious beliefs to control the bodies and deny the autonomy of women and all who can become pregnant, jeopardizing their health, lives, and futures.”
“The true purpose and effect of [this law is] to enshrine certain religious beliefs in law.”
Imposing Christianity?
The lawmakers who argued for the bill say that the bill has nothing to do with faith, however.
“Legislators were acting on the belief that life is precious and should be treated as such,” argues Missouri Senate President Pro-tem Caleb Rowden. “I don’t think that’s a religious belief. I think people need to understand what the separation of church and state is, most people don’t.”
Many of the bill’s sponsors and signers say they were inspired by their faith, but that the bill itself is not a violation of separation of church and state. It’s an important distinction, they argue.
Nonetheless, the plaintiffs in the case intend to fight the case tooth and nail, using lawmakers’ own words about their motivations in passing the bill to fight what they believe to be an unconstitutional imposition of evangelical Christianity on Missourians. Only time will tell who the courts agree with.
What do you think? Were state lawmakers enshrining a particular Christian view of conception into law when they enacted the abortion ban? If so, does the legislation run afoul of the separation of church and state?
73 comments
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Chris
It's amazing how many people don't seem to understand you can be opposed to abortion yet be in favor of allowing people to chose for themselves. I don't agree with abortion, yet I don't believe for one second I have the right to tell anyone else what they can or cannot do since I am not involved with it.
These clergy are not saying they agree with abortion. They are saying they believe women should have the right to choose for themselves whether or not to get one. It's really that simple.
If these legislators really honestly cared about both women and unborn fetus they would improve social programs and health programs to help them. They would pass legislation requiring parental support at conception. They would allow tax credit for pregnancy rather than waiting until after birth. The fact they don't bother with any of this if not flat out oppose any suggestions of it proves they are full of crap and only politically posturing.
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John D. Partin
Saying that you "oppose abortion", while saying that you also support women's rights to get abortions is like saying that you are against murder, but if someone wants to go out and kill people, that's "okay and their own business"!! Especially so, since abortion is murder. If murder is wrong, it can't then be right and "none of your or anyone else's business" if some people decide to do it, which is a contradiction in terms!!!
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Chris
You assume much, John. I oppose abortion because it can be a dangerous medical procedure. But if someone wants to take that risk, it's up to them. It's their life, not mine. I'm not involved in it.
Since the fetus isn't born yet, it isn't "murder." If the fetus were truly alive I would imagine "Conservatives" and "Christians" would not be so vehemently opposed to social aid for the fetus and the mother, and then the mother and child once it's born. Since any attempt at aid is in fact denounced by those two groups I find it hard to believe anyone who claims to be Pro-Life.
So take your sanctimonious attitude and go away. You don't have any right to tell anyone else what to do with their own body. If you believe otherwise, then by all means let me know and I'll be happy to advise you on potential changes you should make.
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John D. Partin
Standing up for the unborn and defending those who can't defend themselves isn't sanctimonious at all in a society that is indifferent and deliberately hostile to their living, but just what all people with any reasonable conscience will do, and only seems "sanctimonious" to those who don't have that conscience. So, we know now where you are and why you "think" the way that you do. You must have already had those changes made on yourself that you want to suggest to me because you are speaking here in the same way as all self-centered women do about abortion. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations (Jeremiah 1:5). This and other Scriptures prove that God knows that the unborn are alive and people. The Silent Scream movie proves that the unborn are alive and people by its showing babies in the womb moving away from implements placed in the womb to kill them and screaming silently in pain and terror because of the implements stabbing into them, which just "tissue" isn't going to do. Defining people out of being humans to ease whatever conscience those doing so have left to them about killing or doing anything else to those people, as the Nazis and slave traders and owners did to the Jews and others and black people and you do to the unborn, didn't and doesn't actually make them "not human". God decides who is alive and human, not human beings deciding that about other human beings because of just such bigoted conclusions as these that they will come to when they are the definer of who is or isn't human and alive. Again, people don't have the right to decide for themselves to murder someone else or himself or herself, in defiance of the human or Divine law against murdering other people or themselves, since that would be anarchy and chaos and no actual or effective law at all!! Your or anyone else's not being personally involved in a woman's decision to murder her child because it is inconvenient to her or a reminder of her rape or incest on her (even or especially if it will cause her health problems, too!!) doesn't relieve any of you of even the responsibility of speaking out against that murder and recommending to the woman her giving the child to a woman who would love and care for the child or, at least, giving the child a chance to live in a foster care home. No more than people are relieved of the responsibility to speak out against someone being beaten to death or stabbed or shot right in front of them or even do something to stop it, if they can, without becoming a victim, too. The unborn deserve no less and really deserve far more than we would do for some grown people being attacked in front of us and to speak out against that and stop it, as people there spoke out against the cops who killed George Floyd. All pro-choice people wouldn't be here if their mothers had had the same attitude that they have and aborted them. So, their very existence is due to a contradiction of their position. This doesn't just involve the woman's body because a body inside her body isn't her body. If the legislators or churches aren't doing enough to suit you and others for child care, help them to do more by donating to them, since those services require funding and aren't free, and be part of the solution, instead of part of the problem.
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Marcella J Schieffelin
John Partin, I hear you completely and that is YOUR belief and how YOU understand your religous convictions. The whole point is that we live in a pluralistic society with many beliefs, incuding different religious beliefs. Jewish law is clear that personhood is NOT defined at beginning at conception. Also, many factors in determining the "rights of a mother" vs the "rights of a fetus." I invite you to have a better understanding of the reasons why women have abortions which in many cases is a MEDICAL issue, not a religious issue. I had an abortion to save my life! My baby was going to die regardless. It just turned into a MEDICAL emergency. If I didn't have that life saving procedure, I would not be here today for my two children, one born from me and the other adopted. I hear you that you believe abortion is MURDER but not all religions or people have that perspective.
Medically speaking, you have been misinformed regarding Silent Scream and the fetus' ability to perceive pain. Leading pediatric neurologists and neuroembryologists agree that until the third trimester of fetal development (24-36 weeks), the spinal cord is not far enough developed to pass messages to the brain, and the brain itself does not develop until then the cognitive structure needed to perceive pain or aggression or to perform "purposeful action." It is especially irresponsible for the narrator of the movie to assert that a 12-week fetus could experience pain. Dr. Edwin Myer, chairman of the department of pediatric neurology at the Medical Colege of Virginia, says "that the fetus feels pain is a totally ridiculous statement. Pain implies cognition. There is no brain to receive the information."
The fetal movements shown on the ultrasound are thus not reactions to perceptions of pain, aggression, or "imminent destruction," as the film's-narrator asserts. They are simple avoidance reactions, like the reflex of a knee when the doctor taps it. Contrary to the intentionally misleading implications of the film, there is no "silent scream."https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1985/3/11/manipulative-silent-scream-pbto-the-editors/
There are other qualified medical persons to assert the same.
I do commend you on caring for ALL people and having our human needs met with compassion, knowledge, and deep understanding. I wholeheartedly agree with you that legislators and churches aren't doing enough for the women, children, and families who need more support with the ones who are already alive!
BTW, LEGAL abortions are less risky than illegal abortions. Abortions are also less riskier than many other medical procedures. Abortion is a common health intervention. It is safe when carried out using a method recommended by WHO, appropriate to the pregnancy duration and by someone with the necessary skills. Six out of 10 of all unintended pregnancies end in an induced abortion. Around 45% of all abortions are unsafe, of which 97% take place in developing countries. Unsafe abortion is a leading – but preventable – cause of maternal deaths and morbidities. It can lead to physical and mental health complications and social and financial burdens for women, communities and health systems. Lack of access to safe, timely, affordable and respectful abortion care is a critical public health and human rights issue. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion
If you truly are for life, consider that time and again statistics show that banning abortions is NOT SAFE and will NOT PREVENT abortions; just prevent SAFE abortions.
Let's work TOGETHER on this issue, not have it tear us apart!
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John D. Partin
You know or should know as well as I do that the Catholic Church and other Christian churches don't require a woman to die to save the life of her child. I know that you know all of the "pro-choice"=pro-abortion and pro-death arguments and have read much of their literature, but have you also, to be fair, read the pro-choice arguments and points of the Catholic Church and other churches in order to balance out your thinking on this matter and not keep it so lopsidedly or entirely "pro-choice"? Or would you just never read them because it would shake up your thinking too much and interfere with your set views that you don't want to question at all or only tokenly? Here are some of those pro-choice arguments against your positions to see if you will read and fairly consider them at all. Rape, Incest, Fetal Abnormality (https://www.cathilicnewsagency.com), Exception: To Save the Life of the Mother (https://www.ewtn.com), Catholic Answers: Must a Catholic Woman Sacrifice Her Life for Her Unborn Baby? (https://www.catholic.com), Catholic Answers: Abortion and Double Effect (https://www.catholic.com), and Direct Abortion or Legitimate Medical Procedure Double Effect? by John W. Seeds, M.D. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). So, who do you think should be standing up for the rights of the unborn to live, when even many of their own mothers won't do that for them, or should just nobody be standing up for their rights and be defending the defenseless and be a voice for the voiceless, and we should all just go along with the flood and herd thinking of the world and not caring anything about them?!! And what next will we all be going along with in this slippery slope down into immorality and depravity, so that we will be accepted by the world and not be different than the herd? You are, maybe, only focused on your one issue of "pro-choice" and don't see its relation to other issues beyond that and so long as your issue isn't interfered with, you couldn't care less about these other issues. But your and other people's indifference to those issues don't stop your issue from being related to and leading to those issues, in Satan's (even if you don't believe that he exists and who couldn't care less if you believe in him and even works better and more unobstructedly when you and other people don't believe in his existence) leading us down the garden path and pushing the envelope to our harm and destruction. It is more evidence of the double standard against the unborn that we don't follow the "logic" applied to them against born and adult people and issues, and say "murder, rape, child molestation, and all other crimes are going to happen, anyway, no matter how many or strong laws there are against them, and so why keep them illegal and not just give people safe ways of murdering people and raping women and molesting children and doing all of these other crimes, instead of the present unsafe and messy ways of doing that?". We don't follow suit in all of these other areas because the unborn aren't considered "real human beings" and so it doesn't matter what anyone does to them. What if nobody had ever spoken up for women's rights when women weren't considered the equals of men or really full human beings? What if nobody had ever spoken out against slavery for black people or for their full civil rights? Would women or black people have all of their rights today or only have them with very much more troubles to get them? Women's and black people's being thought of as "less than human" for so long didn't actually make them less than human and the unborn's being thought of by so many as "less than human" doesn't actually make them less than human, either! Your saying "Let's work TOGETHER on this issue, not have it tear us apart!" sounds like what one person living in Nazi Germany or among the Hutus and the Tutsis or any genocidal country might say to another person there: "Look, this genocide is going to go on, anyway, even if you don't like it, and so why not just go along with it and let's work together on it?". Medical need to abort a child is very rare and "medical need" can be extended to just psychological or economic problems or just anyone's whim that they need to abort for their own feeling good about it and self-interest, which I hope that you don't go along with, too. I'm very happy that you didn't die and survived for your own and children's sake, but this is a much bigger issue than just your and other women's not dying to save a child.
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Paul Edward Nunis
Death in labor is a leading cause of death in young girls.
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John D. Partin
Marcella J. Schieffelin, you talk as though our living in a pluralistic society and world is a brand new thing, but Christianity started in the world surrounded by other beliefs because Satan was going to keep as many contradictions of Christianity in the world as he could and not let it be here by itself, to keep people away from Christianity and being saved by it. Lot kept his faith even in the midst of the city of Sodom. So, many other religions have never lessened the truth of Christianity. Martyrs died for the truth of the faith in our earliest history and all through it, until among many people today, who compromise and deny Christ just so that they will be accepted by other people and not be thought "strange" or "crazy". This should cause all of us the greatest shame and sadness. Jesus said "If you deny me before men, I will deny you before our Father in Heaven". Denying Christ is exactly what this compromising with other religions and New Age philosophies and saying that everyone has his or her own truth is. When truth is what everyone makes up for himself or herself to suit themselves, there is no truth, the same as if everyone made up their own definitions of measurements of time, distance, weight, height, depth or anything else, which would be confusion and madness and make communication and understanding of each other impossible. There is one truth for people, not ten thousand or ten million ways. As for Jewish law stating that "life doesn't begin at conception", the Jews were and are entitled to be wrong, and often were and are, or else Jesus couldn't have rightfully called them whited sepulchres and a brood of vipers or said to them "How shall you escape damnation?". Their view that "life didn't begin at conception" was just one more thing that they were wrong about and why we needed the New Testament and revelation and dispensation of Christ to overrule their human error in the continuing revelation from God.
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Chris
John, I was going to make a comment regarding your rant, but I think I'll leave it with what Marcella said. She phrased it much nicer than I would have.
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Dr. Zerpersande, NSC
Religion is dying off. Slowly but surely. And coming to a correct conclusion on a matter such as this, which is not going to go down with the obsessively delusional crowd, is a step in the right direction.
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Matthew Mastrogiovanni
This is a spiritual website. If you're an atheist, why are you here?
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Dr. Zerpersande, NSC
You may consider this a spiritual website. IMO the main purpose of this website is to provide documentation that will allow anyone to perform marriages. This has always been the domain of churches and this site takes that away from them in about 3 minutes. It’s also an easy way for the lazy and uneducated to manage clerical training and get their very own shiny, but plastic, Sheriff’s badge.
And the majority of the articles could be titled ‘Yet Something Else That Will Piss Off Christians”. Here we have a group of clergy that don’t agree with the restrictive abortion law in their State. Many posts about the LGBT+ crowd and their effort to battle bigotry.
And I’m not the only one on this forum that forces the religiously delusional to face the facts that not only are their beliefs illogical, irrational and not supported by scientific fact but also that these beliefs result in them being considered to be backward, ignorant, silly throw-backs to the Bronze Age. I’m simply demonstrating to them their freedom of speech to spout nonsense can be met with counterpoints.
So rather than whine to me, why don’t you post one of your long, bible quoting missives?
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Lionheart
What determines “spiritual” in your eyes, Mathew?
I think it’s true to say that most of us are humanists that cares for mankind. That doesn’t include mentally indoctrinating children, or adults, with mythical rubbish that can psychologically damage them, and in some cases causing religious trauma syndrome.
Thank you for your comment. Enjoy the Monastery blog.
🦁❤️
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Clay Serenbetz
The legislators sure did enshrine their religious beliefs into law.
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Rev Ned
Great to hear.
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Val Jester
Abortion laws are not based in evangelical Christianity. These laws are based on science and biology. Follow the science. It is a life. It is the roll of government to protect the innocent. These Womens ignorance is glaring.
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Colleen McAllister
Val Jester you are completely wrong. Science does not decide when life begins. Scientists can't even decide what life is. Science tells us that there is no separate life in the womb. Science tells us that the fetus is a parasite or symbiote living off of a host. And why do you day these women are ignorant? I read nothing in the article about it being a group of women.
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John P Maher
NO ITs THE ROLE of GOVERNMENT to RULE AS the PEOPLE DECIDE, NOT SOME FAT CORRUPT POLITICO or JUDGE of ANY COURT, WHY NOT BAN CORRUPTION in POLITICS ??? NO DARK MONEY or ANY MONEY !!!
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John P Maher
NO ITs THE ROLE of GOVERNMENT to RULE AS the PEOPLE DECIDE, NOT SOME FAT CORRUPT POLITICO or JUDGE of ANY COURT, WHY NOT BAN CORRUPTION in POLITICS ??? NO DARK MONEY or ANY MONEY !!!
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Wallace da Silva Santiago
Are the churches in favor of abortion?!
I didn't understand the matter well...
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Dr. Zerpersande, NSC
No, they are generally vehemently opposed. Especially the believers that have been infected with the more virulent forms of their religion.
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Marcella J Schieffelin
If you believe abortion is not allowed because of your faith, then don't have one. (although most of the people who pass these laws are not pregnant people and cannot become pregnant).
To impose your own beliefs on lives that will be forever changed if forced to keep a unwanted pregnancy (for whatever reason) is not freedom or self-determination.
It's arrogance and wanting to control others in thinking falsely you know better than the pregnant person.
I could easily judge you and declare there are ways you are living your life that I don't agree with and can try to pass new laws: what if we were to pass laws stating that pregnant people are required to pass a set of criteria to become a parent, and if one doesn't meet all of the criteria, they can't keep their baby? Sounds ludicrous, right?
Additionally, I have known many pregnant people through the years who came from communities who didn't believe in abortions (no matter what) and the women have indeed had an abortion without telling their partner (that is, if they knew who the partner was who got them pregnant to begin with). Why remain silent? Fear of ostraciizing from their own communities and family members, as well as physical retaliation (interpersonal violence). For those of you who think its not happening in your communities, get your head out of the sand.
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Marcella J Schieffelin
If you believe abortion is not allowed because of your faith, don't have one. (although most people who pass these laws are not pregnant and cannot become pregnant).
Imposing your beliefs on lives that will be forever changed if forced to keep an unwanted pregnancy (for whatever reason) is not freedom or self-determination.
It's arrogance and wanting to control others in thinking falsely that you know better than the pregnant person.
I could easily judge you and declare there are ways you are living your life that I disagree with and can try to pass new laws: what if we were to pass laws stating that pregnant people are required to pass a set of criteria to become a parent? If one doesn't meet all the criteria, they can't keep their baby. Sounds ludicrous, right?
Additionally, I have known many pregnant people through the years who came from communities that didn't believe in abortions (no matter what), and the women have indeed had an abortion without telling their partner (that is, if they knew who the partner was who got them pregnant, to begin with). Why remain silent? Fear of ostracizing from their communities and family members, as well as physical retaliation (interpersonal violence). For those who think it’s not happening in your communities, get your head out of the sand.
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John D. Partin
Abortion isn't only the woman's decision about her own body because a body inside her body isn't her body and that body is affected by that decision, too. You're imposing your beliefs on those lives of the unborn and forever denying them the right to live and doing the same thing to them that you don't want to have done to you and violating Jesus' teaching to do unto others as you would have others do unto you. As long as you and/or other women are doing that, you deserve to have that done right back at you and to have people speak out against your violation of the rights of the unborn to live. Freedom isn't doing anything that you or others want to do, since that is license and licentiousness, but is doing what you should be doing, and speaking up for the unborn, who can't speak up for themselves, is what we should all be doing, the same as we would want people to do that for us. I'm not and nobody else is judging you by saying that the unborn don't deserve to die because of how they were conceived (through rape or incest or irresponsible sex). We do know better than the pregnant woman that abortion is wrong when she isn't considering the rights of the body inside her and that isn't her own body, and that isn't arrogant at all, but just factual and logical. Apart from abortion, a woman still can't do with her own body whatever she wants to do because suicide, involving only her body, is still illegal, as is illegal drug use, and prostitution, and being involved in terrorism and strapping bombs to herself to blow up others and herself, and many other crimes. So, if all of these crimes aren't just the woman's business and involving only her body, since they affect the larger society, the abortion of a child is even less just her business. She can't do whatever she wants to do with a body Inside of her just because it is dependent on her to live because, then, she would have the right to do to children outside of her body, who are dependent on her for life, whatever she wants to do to them, too, including killing them, as a woman in Texas did to her born children by driving them into a lake and drowning them, while escaping herself and blaming "a black man who abducted her children" for the crime. People in the womb don't actually stop being people because other people try to define them out of humanity to ease whatever consciences they have left to them about killing them, since that is what the Nazis did to the Jews and other people. Watch the movie The Silent Scream and you will see clearly that the unborn are alive and people by their moving away from implements placed in the womb to kill them and screaming in pain and terror at being stabbed by those implements. Jeremiah 1:5 and other Scriptures will also show you that God knows that the unborn are alive and people.
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Rev. MichaelRS
1st - I'm sure there are plenty of Missouri clergy united in their SUPPORT of those restrictions.
2nd - And if thhe Reverend Traci and friends there are so concerned about the strict separation of church and state in Missouri, what the heck are they doing getting involved?
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arawngraalrd
Molloch deserves no authority in Law. 13 is a good number for a coven, but these women are a poor choice to pursue The Sorceror's Stone. Does the State have any authority in Health Care? Abortion Law was originally passed to support the AMA, by abolishing competition, and ended to abolish The Jane Society; we now have choo-choo trains.
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Daniel Gray
Isnt it funny that if this was a pro abortion decision, then you would have people whining and crying about how religion should have helped in making a law. Yet when its anti abortion then you have the exact same people whining and crying about separation of church and state. Can you say hypocrites? I know I can
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John P Maher
GIT er DONE, CLERGY GO FER IT !!!
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John D. Partin
Rev. Kev, you say that "adoption isn't a very caring choice" as an option to abortion because of possible abuse in foster homes and "a significant number are more likely than not to end up in prison" and "a significant number of children who go through the system are aged out" and so adoption "is a coin toss as a solution". In short, abortion is "better than adoption" because the adopted person might very well have a rough life. But certainly it is much better to give people that coin toss and choice to be able to live than to give them no choice or chance at life and just abort them. Many people have come up out of far worse situations than any foster care home ever was, such as Nazi death camps or other genocidal mass attacks or Soviet gulags, and were still able to overcome all of that Hell and have good lives. That is just your "reasoning" to "justify" to yourselves your being anti-life and indifferent to people's right to life. If, following your logic of people who are going to have hard lives "would be better off not living", all of the Third World countries where there is mass starvation and lack of medicines or medical care and no clean water should be allowed to die, but that is why there is charitable ministering to these people by Joyce Meyer ministries and other Christian ministries, to try to help those people and the poor in this country as much as possible and balance this out. What is even done on such a large scale for these poor people should certainly be done for giving people a chance to live in foster care homes and even better with loving parents, and those in the foster care homes can be lifted up or lift themselves up out of bad situations. Where there is life, there is hope for something better than what people have now, but where there is no life, there is no hope for a chance at something better or overcoming bad circumstances if people aren't even given the chance to live. Better any chance than no chance. Convicts in prison would also have to be all executed with their very bad lives there and be "better off", following your "logic", than be allowed to live and possibly reform and rise above their circumstances and be free, someday, and have better lives. Children aren't responsible for how they were conceived, through rape or incest, and, least of all, through women's having promiscuous and irresponsible sex and then not wanting to take any responsibility for their own actions, but just get rid of the products of their self-centered concern only with their own desires and pleasure. Children shouldn't have to die because of being conceived in the wrong women's bodies and inconveniencing them!! Their convenience isn't more important than the children's right to even live, when they can just give their children after birth to people whom they won't inconvenience and who will love them or even to foster care, with all of its problems, and give them a chance, instead of no chance. That doesn't make women "captive incubators", but just taking responsibility for their own actions and being humane toward other people in their wombs. The movie The Silent Scream shows that the unborn are alive because of their moving away from implements placed into the womb to murder them and screaming in pain at being stabbed and dismembered by those implements, which unfeeling and mindless "tissue" isn't going to do. "Tissue", "fetuses", "zygotes", etc. are just dehumanizing terms that are applied to the unborn to ease or eliminate women's consciences about killing them, the same as the Nazis called the Jews and others "vermin" and "subhuman lice and rats" in order to "justify" to themselves and the German people their extermination. Any "pro-choice" women who, with open hearts, watch the movie The Silent Scream won't, hopefully, continue to believe that the "unborn aren't living beings". You talk about health risks to women from their carrying their pregnancies to term, but abortion also causes health problems in many women health problems, as well as severe regret and psychological problems over killing their children, no matter how much they try to deny that to themselves and beat it down. Women aren't the only ones to be considered here or their bodies the only bodies that are affected by their choice to abort their children because bodies inside of their bodies aren't just their bodies. Claiming that pro-life people are "really only pro-birth and don't care about or help people between birth and death" ignores St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital and other Catholic hospitals, and Catholic Charities, and The Salvation Army, and Joyce Meyer ministries and other Christian ministries, and Christian child care facilities. If they aren't doing as much as you think that they should be doing, help them to do more by donating more money to them.
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Rev. Kev
John, wow. That post was one interesting rant that went everywhere from Argument By Nazi to that silly "Silent Scream" movie. Sorry. No. Fetuses can't scream in the womb. Depending on how late in the pregnancy, they can't even feel pain until into the last trimester because the developing brain hasn't even fully connected to the spine (which has been doing all the autonomous heavy lifting up to that point). Yes. Forcing a woman under penalty by law IS making them a captive incubator. No matter how much you think they should feel the way you want them to feel about it.
You took the time to put such a swell spin on people living awful lives. I don't know how you're living now, but I wonder if you'd volunteer to live one of those other lives? (it's easy to type out you would, so just answer it honestly to yourself)
And, yes, women have felt regret over abortions. 1) Because it is such an important issue, and even when the best decision it's a big one. And, 2) Because they live in a society that degrades and harasses them and wants them to feel all the guilt possible for a decision they had a difficult time deciding in the first place. Again, not really a loving quality of life action. In fact, it seems to be all "love" (or is it some odd obsession?) for the fetus and absolutely zero for anyone else. Everyone else is almost disposable.
You put words in quotation marks that are not direct quotes. That's not very honest as you have intentionally misrepresented my words. Isn't that a sin in your belief system?
I have zero intention of changing your mind on the matter. Because I respect your right to hold your beliefs.
But I can at least ask you to consider giving others the same respect to hold beliefs different from your own in a multicultural society with diverse religious, and non-religious, philosophical positions. We should all find a way to coexist in peace.
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Teresa KC Golden
Hello,
I am a Goddess of Kundalini. Life begins with the breath and ends when the breath is taken away. Simple.
It is the woman who procures life within her body. It is the woman who nurtures life from her breasts after birth. It is the woman who is primarily responsible for raising that baby into adulthood and beyond. A woman and only a woman have the right to decide whether to bring another life into this world or not. It is the design of the Great Ineffable One God.
The extreme overreach of Christian views and values in American society is not reflective of every American's perspective. The interference by religion and government in a Woman's Right to Choose what happens to her body and her life is an abomination of a dysfunctional society.
Thank you.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Dear lady. At least you believe in something that is fairly good. But, you miss the point. By saying you are against abortion but believing it's a woman's right to take it is really hypocritical. Seriously, look at your statement compared to your beliefs. You truly don't believe in your faith if you go against it politically. Seriously, there is common ground in dialogue with Christianity and your religious beliefs. If God gives life and takes it then humanity doesn't have a choice but to uphold and defend it. You must uphold your own true religious beliefs. All religions teach the Breath of Life is very sacred. And it is so simple that if you don't want that life in you then carry it to full fruition and give it to someone who will raise, love it, and embrace it as wanted. God bless you.
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Ronaldo
People keep thinking that abortion, and the question of when life begins, is a religious one. The Bible doesn't mention abortion, even obliquely, so why would it be only a religious issue? Different religions, all using the same Bible, have different opinions as to when life begins. Since they also all have the same God, kind of, why is the beginning of life different? An old joke says, "Catholics believe life begins at conception, Jews believe life begins at birth, and Baptists believe life begins when the kids move out and the dog dies."
This issue should neither be a religious nor a political matter, but a science matter. The great majority of biologists say that life begins at conception for most of the other life forms on this planet, but they are strangely silent when it comes to their own species. Why is this? Doctors, all trained in human anatomy and how it functions, are too often vague about when a "random collection of cells" becomes a separate human life. Do these scientists and doctors avoid the question out of fear?-
Keith Allen Steele Eash
Yes. The Bible does mention abortion in no uncertain terms. It just doesn't use that word.Apparently you don't know the Bible very well. It upholds life and so do the many, many pseudipigraphical scriptural books of the Old and New Testaments not accepted into the canons. We still studied them in seminary. They still hold a secondary authority, altho not a sacred authority. The Talmud and the Coucil Documents of Christianity do as secondary texts. Please don't just speak when you don't know.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Then one seriously needs to argue that those who don't hold life as sacred then have basically rejected God. Pure and simple. People who don't like something go and create something that they can believe in. Mere Christianity or mere anything else. If you can't recognize God's Creation as sacred then you can't love God or your fellow humans. Funny how climate changers believe in their own agenda but are willing to kill off 6 billion people so their little elite circle can live and enslave and control the other remaining 2 billion. But, God forbid any member of the elite crowd begins to think differently they are cancelled as well. And, no these scientists and doctors avoid the question of when life begins out of stupidity to stand up to the fact that there is a relevant truth that succeeds and defends what is not true. But, one guesses they choose out of fear that they don't want to be cancelled.
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Rev. Kev
Biology doesn't question when life begins. The question for humans is when do we decide the fetus is a sentient human deserving of legal rights. It's not religious, It's political and legal.
That aside, I don't get the solid impression the God of the Bible is all about how every life is so very precious. The Bible is filled with God commanding genocides, or God commanding wars (in which every person except for the virgin girls were killed), or God killing off almost all of humanity (which included pregnant women carrying the unborn, and infants, and small children) in a massive flood. Then we have the book of Numbers detailing the test of bitter waters, which was designed as a test of fidelity in which the unfaithful suffered an induced abortion. Then we have a host of fun events like the Crusades, the Inquisition, umpteen witch burnings (which almost emptied entire villages in Europe at its height), and lengthy, bloody wars between Catholics and Protestants. Slavery and treating people inhumanely during the colonial periods (which i guess was OK because they were infidels, after all).
Nope. Not feeling the "I love all humanity. Their lives are precious" vibe anywhere in there.
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John D. Partin
For all other interested and open-minded people here, which leaves you out, because I'm not interested in talking to you or wasting my time on you, anymore than you want to talk with me and shake up your little world with truth and reason. Stories made up in the Bible about "God's commanding genocides, commanding wars or killing almost all of humanity in a massive flood" to scapegoat Him for natural events or to "justify" themselves and make God "support and agree with them" and impose their will on other people even easier don't make God actually responsible for any of those things. The terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, intending to hit the White House or the Capitol, on September 11, 2001, also thought that God, through His messenger Osama bin Laden, was "telling them to do that". So, why aren't you including them in your list of "God commanded atrocities", since it only takes someone's saying "God told me to do it" to convince you that it's "true"?!! If you will believe all of that because it "confirms" your bigotry against God and the Church, what else would you be a sucker for believing?!! I'm asking because I have some prime Florida real estate and a bridge that you might be interested in buying. People have been lying about God down through history and He isn't going to stop them because that would interfere with their free will and He wants them not to lie and tell the truth due to their deciding that for themselves and didn't want robots and because their lies don't actually make Him other than the loving Father that He is. God isn't responsible for the Inquisition or the Crusades or the witch burnings or the holy wars just because they also lied about Him that "God told us to do it" to "justify" themselves and make Him "support and agree with them". God is love, which is the realistic and reasonable definition of God, in the Bible, and so anything that isn't love isn't from God or commanded by Him, but is just people's making up "God" to suit themselves. The Nation of Islam today is making up "God" to suit themselves and after their own image, which is idolatry, the same as all of this lying down through history against Him is idolatry and making up "God" in man's image. They have made up a "God" who says that black and white people are "supposed to be enemies and separate from each other and that black people should take over part of this country to form their own nation, as a reparation for slavery and racism against them". Only if you have never been lied about by anyone should you have no sympathy for God's being lied about thousands of times more than you and other people have and only if we should all believe the lies about you can you even suggest that we should believe all of the lies against God, but we still won't believe those lies because He has been lied about far more and more unjustly than you and other people have.
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Valerie Sapienza
Here are my 2 cents....for what it's worth. For the record...I am Catholic. I personally do not believe in abortion. However....I totally believe in freedom of choice. Especially when it comes to rape, incest, and the health of the mother. (and unborn child) What I am totally against is late term abortion. There is no reason for it. Again....excluding the health of the mother and unborn child. What I will never understand is the fact that the mother is put to sleep for late term abortion...as if undergoing an operation....but when a baby dies in utero....labor is induced and the mother is required to deliver the baby the "natural" way!!! That is something I will NEVER understand. No one has the right to judge these women and make the choice for them. That choice is between them and their God.
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Rev. Kev
Late term abortions are among the rarest of procedures. They typically only occur to preserve the life and well-being of the mother. There are several diseases and malformations that can surface into the 3rd trimester that can be deadly or cause the mother to experience life-long pain or disability. These can also so badly affect the fetus that carrying it to term can be medically unviable. All of which are a medical decision between the parent(s) and the medical professional(s) involved.
They hype surrounding late-term abortions as if they are happening in abundance is really just political fiction.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
I'm Catjolic and a priest and there is no right to kill in any God given respect. You do not have a choice to kill unless you wish to condemn yourself to hell in the process. When one rejects life one rejects the Cross and everything it symbolizes and that is life. No one has a choice to kill a life of someone who can't even speak for itself. Please study up on ethics by the Great theologians Emil Bruner, Karl Barth, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer will argue that one has a right and an obligation which is a choice to take a life that threatens the existence of humanity. He wrestled with the idea of killing Hitler. He died for it. A great saint. Anyone who takes even one life is as evil as Hitler or any ofvthe tyrants in history and the elite at DAVOS. They have no respect for life. Not even their own. And sadly, I don't know if we can stop what is coming. Klaus Schwab wants to turn humanity into transhumans and kill 6 billion people as well. He talked of a great cybernetic attack on the electrical grid. You realize how many people would eventually die. No access to medicine, medical records, etc. People like that do need to be stopped. THEY ARE NOT GOD BUT SATANS SPAWN. God have mercy on what's coming. Evil must be wiped out when it threatens the existence of common humanity.
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Valerie Sapienza
Please don't preach to me. I can only speak for my body....myself....and was actually faced with that decision with my first child. I found out I was pregnant AFTER I was given medication that could harm the baby. I went through genetic testing as well as a stream of tests to determine if in fact the baby was harmed. Inconclusive. That was the result. I was almost 20 weeks pregnant....almost 5 months.... and my Dr asked what I wanted to do. I had to make the decision before the 5 month mark. I put it into God's hands....and told the Dr I am keeping the baby. If God chose me to have a special needs child so be it. My daughter just turned 36 in December and is perfectly healthy!!! I stated in my original post that I am against abortion. I am. ME!! But everyone else should be free to make the decision that fits them!! Who am I to judge them??? Only God can do that. "He shall come to judge the living and the dead. And his Kingdom will have no end." So you see....that is between them and their God. NOT you or I. Your job as a priest is to tend to His flock. Show them His way. NOT judge them!!!
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Who said I was preaching to you. Don't get your panties in an uproar. We're made in the image of God. If you choose an abortion then you are nailing another nail into Christ's Cross. You reject God. Afraid I wouldn't want to be in that situation. I see each human as an image of God altho some choose to reject their very image. Their are certain things where you don't have a right to commit evil without paying the consequences. Taking a life whether in defense or abortion is something a person lives with who makes thar decision, even in war . There is a right one holds to defend life and take a life threatening it, but you do not have a right to terminate a life just to please yourself. That's very selfish. Carry the baby to term and put it up for adoption. That's a courageous act. An abortion is selfishness and putting yourself first and not considering the little person forming who didn't choose to become a life. God chose that.
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Ilmenheru Terikson
Your posts only indicate you are mentally ill or actually evil. Either way nothing you say has any semblance of validity.
You are not even worthy of discourse or debate as your posts are all acts of self dehumanization stripping yourself of all privileges granted humans in formal debate.
Remember any claim your faith is true removes you in any theological debate. Ray comfort and c.s. lewis would spit on your face for such bad faith tripe spewed in defense of the faith.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Your opinion but you lack logic and reasoning. Like I said don't get your undies in an uproar. Please don't have kids. They might turn out like you.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Your opinion but you lack logic and reasoning. Like I said don't get your undies in an uproar. Please don't have kids. They might turn out like you.
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Ilmenheru Terikson
You keep proving you are not even a human. To be human requires you engage in good faith debate and civil discourse. Your posts all fail to do that. So you are naughty but troll.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Hey you guessed it. I come from another planet, landed on Earth and live under a bridge. When people talk of ending life for any reason I no longer consider civil discourse, good manners, or good faith debate. Because in those situations you've removed yourself from any form of or semblance of humanity. You argue simply from the mindset of emotion. That my dear is what liberals do because they are liberal and retarded in their thought. They can claim faith but don't show it in their cry for abortion, argue for abolishment of the death penalty then release the person so they can kill again, and then get on their podiums and play GOD AT DAVOS and say that 6 billion people are too many and 4 billion need to die and enslave the other two billion while they live their elite dehumanizing lives. No, I therefore do not argue with anyone who is just plain STUPID. My respect for life begins in the mothers ability to procreate with her eggs and embracing a person of the other sex to receive his sperm to share in the making of another human being. That is the essence of the power God gave us to share in the ability to create life. He knows that life before it forms in the mother's womb. Before conception. So please don't respond any more. I will just have to place you once again on the bottom of humanity along with all the other scumbags that existed who denie the existence and sacredness of life, aka Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Biden, Obama. And so.many other scumbags that think they are above the rest of humanity.
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Rev Ned
Taliban “Christianity” has no place in our country.
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P. Keith Benefiel
Your body is none of my business.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Your opinion but you lack logic and reasoning. Like I said don't get your undies in an uproar. Please don't have kids. They might turn out like you.
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Stephen Mohlaloga Makgoathane
I am much opposed to this ugly term called: ABORTION" Do you believe in GOD all Mighty? Do you believe in the Holy Bible? God said to the Apostle Paul" I KNEW YOU WHEN YOU WERE IN YOUR MOTHER'S WOMB,I BLESSED YOU,I CHOSE YOU etc' And it wasn't just Apostle Paul alone,i know having got this knowledge from my Holy Scriptures that Prophet Samuel was also one of that trent where GOD ALL MIGHTY had to Bless, after having Heard all Hannah's prayers,God Blessed Hannah's WOMB for the birth of her son SAMUEL. If you do not base your argument or your reasoning and align your thinking with the HOLY-SCRIPTURES, you are down and out. I will never compare Science and HOLY-BIBLE. God the almighty is OMNISCIENTand the Creator of all living-beings. Forget about these ABORTION stuff, it's Evil. Starting from a WOMB" THE LORD GOD MADE THEM ALL. GOD is OMNIPOTENT, also GOD , I believe in LIVING BY FAITH. God is UNIQUE just like how UNIQUE WOMB/ LIFE IS. DO NOT KILL reference to The Book of Genesis. Thank you. REVEREND STEPHEN TREVOR MOHLALOGA MAKGOATHANE ( S.A)
This entire thing is political gaming to use a hot button topic to grab people by their emotions and get them to the voting booth in their favor. I have no reason to think these legislators who claim life as so "precious" believe that for a second. Their views begin and end at the womb. They don't even care about the person with the womb. They certainly don't care about quality of life for anyone involved. That's why most of these so-called "pro-life" (really anti-abortion) legislators don't support things like free or low-cost prenatal care, or school lunch programs, or affordable daycare programs, or social security, or Medicare, or inexpensive higher education, or a host of other programs that could help the young, the sick, the disabled, and the elderly (basically anyone no longer in the womb). All those lives aren't precious. They seem to be pretty meaningless to these same, wealthy men and women in high political offices, from where I stand.
It simply masquerades as religion in a religion based on Holy Scriptures that never once even say abortion is wrong. Quite the opposite, the Bible has plenty of wars and Godly smitings that take out pregnant women, along with the rest of the populations. The book of Numbers has the test of bitter waters, which is used to induce what amounts to a chemical abortion. So, yeah. This whole, holier-than-thou "precious life" stuff sounds pretty hollow and hypocritical to me. I'll believe it when all lives are given the same treatment.
you mention war. That is a different situation and scenario. The 10 Commandments also state "Thou Shall not kill" but war occurs.
Actually, the commandment is to not murder. The same laws make it clear that things like warfare and capital punishment are allowed. Hence, not murder under their code of law.
The point being that the Bible in no ways indicates any life in the womb has any special place or characteristics. It is equally disposable. In fact, under Jewish law, a fetus isn't even alive until it takes its first breath after birth. 'The breath of life.'
Rev. Kev, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. --- Jeremiah 1:5. The Jews not understanding what God was saying about when life begins, as they didn't understand about so many other things, with this verse and many other verses right in front of them trying to tell them all the time, was just par for the course for them. Their not understanding or choosing not to understand, as many people do today, doesn't make life not begin at conception, as God states in the verse above and in many other verses, that they didn't or wouldn't let themselves understand, either. And then they could and you can go on being conveniently "confused" about all of that, to your hearts' content, and the truth go on being the truth, despite their and your "confusion"!
John, that verse refers to one person, specifically. It also doesn't say anything about life. Only that God preordained him as a prophet.
Isn't it a tad arrogant to assert that generations of religious scholars don't understand their own scriptures? On what basis, other than your own, chosen interpretation of a verse do you claim so many others are confused?
That aside, not too many people argue that even a blastocyst is made of living cells. It really has nothing to do with when the actual, biochemical processes of life begin. If that were the case, we would all be guilty of killing humans anytime we had a severe scratch or injury, or even had a appendectomy. Because that's killing of a whole host of living cells.
For the Jews, it goes back to Genesis and God breathing life into the first man. They generally adhere to the teaching that what separates "living/sentient" and "not living/not sentient" is the nephesh. Which comes with the first breath of life. You not agreeing with that doesn't change it nor refute it in any way.
In America, we have a more nuanced set of issues. Because we live in a multicultural society where everyone doesn't adhere to the same religion, nor the same sect of the same religion. There are legal clarifications in deciding when a living organism is classified as a person with certain rights or not. Where do the rights of the living, sentient, independent woman end and the non-sentient, dependent fetus begin?
You have a right to hold your beliefs in America as a part of freedom of religion. But freedom to practise your faith ends when it comes to imposing religious tenets on those who don't hold to the same beliefs since it imposes on their equal rights. Which is why the best answer in such a culture is to have the right to choose. Those who are against abortion are absolutely free to never get one. And those who are not against it are free to obtain safe, medical treatment. Neither party should be harassed or impeded in the exercise of their respective rights. People should not be coerced nor given the Guilt Trip for something so personal and important.
Rev. Kev, what applies to Jeremiah applies to everyone else, too, because God doesn't treat one person differently than another (Acts 10:34) and so knows all of us before He forms us in the womb, and sets us all apart, and we are prophets to the nations, even if not as great as Jeremiah or Isaiah, and are here to bring the truth of Christ to all the nations, collectively, and individually to those around us where we are and here online. It isn't arrogant to doubt that the "scholars" are right when they say that "life doesn't begin at conception" and misunderstand God's saying that it does and go along with worldly "thinking", since He couldn't appoint someone who doesn't exist as a prophet to the nations or know someone who didn't exist before they were put in the womb or were born into their earthly life. Scholarship or usually "scholarship" isn't a guarantee of right thinking or there could never be any wrong thinking among scholars, as there, quite obviously, is very often. More scholars or generations of scholars saying the same wrong thing doesn't make it the right thing because truth isn't decided by popularity polls or numbers of people saying something. Jesus couldn't have said, as he did, that the path to life is narrow and few there are who find it, if all worldly scholars and people will be on that narrow path, where they wouldn't all fit, anyway. Jesus couldn't have condemned the religious scholars in his time and place if scholars were or are always right. Scholars are like everyone else and get out of anything that they study what they bring to it in the first place, and if they come with preconceived ideas, just make their "research" support those conclusions. We tell the difference between true scholars and apostles and false scholars and apostles by true ones agreeing with God that life begins at conception and false ones disagreeing with that and God's other truths. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. --- Colossians 2:8. The wise men shall be put to shame, they shall be dismayed and taken, behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, so what wisdom is in them? --- Jeremiah 8:9. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness" --- 1 Corinthians 3:18-19. At that time Jesus declared, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children" --- Matthew 11:25. And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" --- Matthew 18:3. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart". Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe --- 1 Corinthians 11:18-21.
John, LOL. So you dismiss religious scholars with a wave of your hand and assert your own, personal interpretations are true.
Alrighty then.
It is God who dismisses them because they are going along with worldly "thinking" and are whited sepulchres and wolves in sheep's clothing and false apostles. All of the so-called "scholars" in the world saying that "life doesn't begin at conception" don't even come close to overruling God, Who says that it does. You are overly impressed by letters after people's names and doctorates and degrees and other egotistical embellishments of them, but none of that can actually transform a fool into anything other than a fool and only superficial people are convinced otherwise by that.Your own so-called "intellectualism" and "knowledge" have you dismissing The Silent Scream as "silly" because it disproves your bigotry that "the unborn children aren't human beings or alive", so as to "justify" their murders, when all unbiased people can readily see from a child's screaming at being stabbed and moving away from the implement doing that to them that "they must be human and alive, since non-living tissue wouldn't do that". Read about the unborn sucking their thumbs, just as they do after birth, and yawning, and showing signs of dreaming, and doing other things that born children do, which just tissue wouldn't be doing.
The only one I see dismissing them is you, John. Right here in black and white text. Not God.
You may be under the impression you are speaking for God, but that's nothing you can demonstrate to be true.
In fact, your characterization of me and what impresses me leads me to conclude you are not in direct contact with the Almighty. Because, to put it bluntly, you're wrong. Are you going to try to save face by saying God wouldn't know any better?
It's apparent you have little else to offer for a constructive discussion. Your salvo of beliefs and interpretations foisted off as infallible and from God, Himself are a smidge underwhelming and make it clear you have no desire to consider other viewpoints. Not to necessarily agree with them. But as a point of compassion for others.
So I think I'm going to end this exchange here, for my part. I won't be responding to any more of your posts directed my way.
Thank you for your time. Have a pleasant rest of the week.
Well, you better do more research. The Talmud states otherwise and it holds the same authority as Scripture.
But that's the thing ... the Talmud nor the Bible (nor any religious text) hold ANY authority over any of us. You (and others) choose to believe, choose to allow the words in a book to have authority over you. And that's great! Except you don't have the right to impose your personal beliefs on anyone else. That is the problem.
The Bible is even less pro-life or pro-baby than you've said.
If you read Numbers 26:62, where they are taking a census, they are told to count babies over one month old. So, after they are born and take their first breath, they do not count for an entire month!
Then there is Psalms 137:9 (KJV), "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones"
Beth, the whole thought that you only quote one line of and take out of context is: Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, "Raze it, raze it! Down to its foundations!" O daughter of Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock! --- Psalm 137:7-9. The Jews in concentration camps and who survived could easily be forgiven for wishing the same devastation on the Nazis who did that to their families and people, without that being taken as their usual attitude when they aren't under such extreme duress and suffering!! Even the most pro-life people might say, in the heat and anger of the moment, if their families or cities had been destroyed, as happened to Jerusalem, that those who did that to their families or cities should have that also done to them, but that wouldn't indicate their actual thinking about children or their right to life. You would even wish that evil on those who harmed or killed your family or people in your city without that being your opinion when not under duress. As for babies in the census only being counted after they are one month old, that could have been done for the practical consideration of making sure that they were probably going to be around long enough to make it sensible for them to be counted in a census, since common early infant mortality rates, in those times, might have had them dead before a month old and then they would be counted as alive, only to have them dead before they reached a month old. Then dead people would be falsely counted as living and censuses always needing to be revised, which they were far less capable of doing or inclined to do than we are today, with the result of inaccurate counts. If they survived at least a month, chances could have been much better for them to stay alive and the count to stay right. That again doesn't prove that they were anti-life or uncaring about children.
The reason they didn't count babies that young was the same reason they didn't even name them for up to 8 weeks after birth. In that day and age the infant mortality rate was extremely high. A family was more likely than not to lose a newborn to war, drought, famine, disease, or any other of the problems an ancient culture with no proper nutritional and medical care had to offer. Then there are the issues newborns face, like SIDS. The longer a baby survives and breastfeeds, the better its immune system becomes and the more likely it is to see its first birthday (all other factors aside). As heartless as it seems in our modern world, their practise was borne out of a sense of pure practicality.
But....yeah. They were a warlike people living in a brutal world. They had inhumane wars. Slavery. Painful punishments. Slow, public executions. Human sacrifices were not even out of the question.
Daughter of Bavel, you will be destroyed! A blessing on anyone who pays you back for the way you treated us!A blessing on anyone who seizes your babies and smashes them against a rock! - Psalm 137:8-9 (CJB)
Learn to read your Bible. Your opinion based on a single verse has no meaning or understanding. Do you know the mind of God? Opinions are flawed. They are either correct or incorrect. God is always correct.
I'm not Christian and I'm pro-life. There are many groups put in place all over that help women who have chosen to have the baby to give up for adoption or to keep. Many of the people involved in these groups have adopted. It doesn't take much to look them up. If you can't find them for some reason all you have to do is go on one of the pro-fife sites and ask. Accusing an entire group of people you don't know of not caring doesn't help your cause it just makes people think you make things up based on how you feel.
Adoption in this country has changed completely to what is used to be. That is why it is easier and cheaper for those who want it to go out of the country for a child. Our foster system is full of injustice and crime. You can look it up. Also those programs you are talking about normally do not take federal money to help. Rev. Ken is correct that there is no focus on the person with the womb. They don't care about the child after it has left the womb. If there was, there would be far more centers around the country to help women and children than there are abortion clinics. I don't like abortion. But I would never, EVER tell you or any other women to not have one.
Ann, if you read my post carefully, you will see my comments were directed to a specific group of people: legislators who support and make those laws.
Sure. Adoption is one option. And if someone chooses that, it's their personal choice. But let's have a deeper look at this whole "no abortion" issue. Adoption isn't necessarily a very caring choice. Children can be abused in foster care. The statistics show that a significant number of children who go through the system are aged out. A significant number are more likely than not to end up in prison. They will have psychological and drug abuse issues. I won't argue that there are loving couples looking to adopt, and will care for those children. But it's a coin toss as a solution.
Then there are the medical issues for women who are essentially forced to carry to term if some states have their way. Which makes a human a captive incubator (not very humane or caring at all). Pregnancy is easy for some women. But a great many women suffer a variety of diseases and syndromes from carrying to term. Some of which can be life-threatening or cause the woman to lose the ability to get pregnant again. Some women have been permanently disabled from a pregnancy. There is quite a list of issues that can be caused or surface in a person during the progression of a pregnancy.
Forcing women to carry to term is not caring at all. It treats the individual as a commodity and potentially risks their lives. If the mother and baby survive that, then there is the entire quality of life past that. People who are poor or have a job not conducive to having a child can suffer financially. Which is needless suffering for all concerned. Legislators want to force people to have babies, but aren't prepared to help the people for which they have made themselves responsible.
My position isn't simply based on feels. It's based on the hard facts of life. Life is complicated. There are no easy, pat answers. Which is why it needs to be a personal decision based on personal circumstances.
Forcing a woman to carry to term imbues the fetus with rights that no born person has.
For instance, if a person needs a kidney, and you have one which will match their tissues, you are not required to give them a kidney. They cannot force you! For that matter, if they need a pint of blood, will die without it, you are not required to donate them a pint of blood. Not even if you are the only other person around with an unusual blood type.
They cannot force you: If they did, that would be the crime of assault.
Yet, if a fetus needs the body and womb of a girl or woman - one who did not necessarily consent or voluntarily participate in creation of said fetus, some people say she should be forced to support this life - whereas the hypothetical adults or children who will die without her bodily support do not have a right to it.
On adoption: Yes, there is a higher demand than there is supply of perfectly healthy white infants. There are waiting lists to adopt such infants.
For non-white children, children with a deformity or injury (disability), or children older than infants, giving them up to adoption will likely have them languish in foster care until they age out - with all of the problems you noted. It's hardly a loving choice.
Beth, any chance for unborn children to be born and live in this world is better than no chance at all, even if they will be put in foster care homes where they won't be adopted because of being black or other non-white or disabled or deformed or for some other reason. People have risen above and/or gotten out of far worse situations than bad foster care homes, such as Nazi death camps or other genocidal centers or environments or Soviet gulags or enslavement of black people in the South or many other places, and still had happy and productive lives. So, what they can do in all of those situations, they can do in bad foster care, too, if they are given the chance to do it. People have come out of prison and been reformed. People have risen above and come out of poverty in Third World countries and here, where there wasn't enough food or clean water or medicine or medical care, and have been helped there, and are doing well and are happy now. Where there is life, there is hope, but without even life, there is no hope. The unborn children also didn't ask to be conceived in women who would want to get rid of them because they are an inconvenience or a reminder of their rape or incest and don't deserve to die, due to those women not being willing to wait to give them to women who would love and care for them. No children are responsible for how they were conceived, through rape or incest or irresponsible sex, and shouldn't have to pay with their lives over that!! We shouldn't only do good for or love people when we are forced to do it, but should do it out of love for them and God. Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan is about a man who took care of an injured man who he found lying on the road, after he was beaten by robbers, while the "good" people passed by him on either side and didn't want to get involved. You would want someone to help you if you were injured or in trouble and not ignore you and do nothing for you. Your and other people's not helping and standing up and being the voice for the unborn, who can't stand up for or defend themselves, is your passing by that injured man on the road and not helping him, as the Good Samaritan did, and not doing unto others as you would have others do unto you. Be the Good Samaritan for the unborn and a voice for the voiceless and a defender of the defenseless, and not just think of yourself and your convenience, as those people who passed by the injured man did, and fight for the right to life. There are Catholic and other Christian women's health centers that can help women with alternatives to abortion in nearly every city or close enough for women to get to, and not make the unborn pay for other people's wrongdoing or indifference. The Catholic Church and other churches do help people after birth and don't just care about birth, as children's cancer hospitals and Catholic Charities and other Christian ministries prove. If they aren't doing enough to suit you, help them to do more, by donations, since these services require funding and aren't totally free.
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Pro life should apply then to all life from a chicken s egg to all the animals slaughtered for food or fur, but those hypocrites wont even mention this, they enjoy their steaks and sunny side ups without the slightest remorse!
No because God gave us the animals for food and clothing. There is not a thing you wear that isn't from a dead animal. Polyester used in our clothing comes from petroleum. Those are dead animals, bugs, etc, not just dead plants.