Reducing abortions

[Ken]

First of all, I disagree with the idea that life begins at conception. I don’t think that idea is supported biblically. And it certainly isn’t supported biologically. Biologically speaking, life is actually a continual cycle with no actual beginning. And, if you go up to any of the official Mennonite or Baptist position statements on abortion from the 1970s you will not actually find that idea expressed.

The Assembly 75 Statement
Because we believe the Bible teaches that persons are created in God's image, that human life is a gift from God to be held in high esteem, and that God's interest in individuals begins before their birth with His desire that they develop into knowledge of and faith in Him:

We believe that--

1. Abortion violates the biblical principles of the sanctity and value of human life.

2. In the light of the spiritual and ethical erosion in our society we need to accept our responsibility to recognize and protect the sanctity of human life.

3. While we do not legislate morality for society we should work toward making counsel concerning alternatives available to each person who seeks an abortion.

4. In those rare situations when very difficult decisions must be made about the life of the mother or unborn child, Christians should prayerfully seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit with a group of believers committed to discerning the Lord's leading.

5. The Scriptures teach us not to look with punitive judgment on those who differ but to be sensitive toward their situation and surround them with care and compassion.

I should say that I agree with the Mennonite Church statement on abortion from 1975. While it makes no definitive statements about "when life begins" or "at what point a fetus becomes a person or is invested with a soul" it nevertheless leans into the conviction that life, prior to birth, is precious, a gift and ought to be protected. That is it say that it opposes the idea of abortion-on-demand (though not abortion in extreme circumstances) and does so on grounds that the fetus is something special deserving of life...even if it has gills.

I tend to think it is at the point when it is capable for self-awareness and viability.

When would you say that occurs?

From the Commentary section of the link you provided:

Prior to these court decisions abortion was illegal in both countries[Canada & the U.S.]; a position that would have been affirmed by the Mennonite Church.

Notice that all the 1975 Mennonite Statement could come up with was that “God’s interest begins before birth” which doesn’t answer the question at all.

Like I said. I don’t know the answer and it isn’t really something I have spent time studying because I would not have an abortion and would be opposed to any discretionary abortions within my own family (although not necessary opposed to any that were medically necessary). In the grand scheme of things, abortion is just not an issue that I have spent a lot of time on. I would be comfortable with laws that become increasingly restrictive as we move from the first to third trimesters as is the case in a lot of countries. But frankly, I’m more engaged in issues of war and peace, environmental protection, education, criminal justice, etc. I realize for a lot of people abortion is the one seminal issue above all others. It simply isn’t for me other than the fact that I don’t think abortion is something that is properly addressed through criminal law.

I do think the church has evolved on this issue over time. I recently spoke with a long-time religion and society professor at a Mennonite college. He said that when he started teaching in the 1970s most of his Mennonite students were very engaged in the idea of pacifism and non-resistance but somewhat vague on where they stood on abortion. But that has almost entirely flipped today where he has many students of Mennonite background who are virulently pro-life on abortion, but vague and uncertain of where they stand on pacifism and non-resistance.

[Josh]

Why would any of us care what the Southern Baptists think?

[Ken]

Why would any of us care what the Southern Baptists think?

We’ve had whole long threads on the topic of Southern Baptists where you were an active participant. So apparently you care. I can’t answer for anyone else.

[Josh]

Why would any of us care what the Southern Baptists think?

We’ve had whole long threads on the topic of Southern Baptists where you were an active participant. So apparently you care. I can’t answer for anyone else.

No, I really don’t care about their perspective on most things. You seem to inject Southern Baptist practices into many discussions as if it has anything to do with Mennonites. I’m saying that Southern Baptists are completely irrelevant.

[Ken]

Why would any of us care what the Southern Baptists think?

We’ve had whole long threads on the topic of Southern Baptists where you were an active participant. So apparently you care. I can’t answer for anyone else.

No, I really don’t care about their perspective on most things. You seem to inject Southern Baptist practices into many discussions as if it has anything to do with Mennonites. I’m saying that Southern Baptists are completely irrelevant.

I listed them here because they and the Mennonite Church were two of the only churches to actually have official stated positions on abortion in the 1970s, at least that I could find. And the Southern Baptists are only interesting because they went from basically being nominally pro-choice to being virulently anti-abortion over the past several decades. Which to me is simply an indication that the theology around abortion is not nearly as cut and dried as some would think. I can't think of another fundamental theological issue over which a church as changed so much over time as that.

Actually I found another church statement. The American Lutheran Church came out with a similar statement on abortion in 1974 that was even more pro-choice than the Mennonite or Southern Baptist one. It is basically similar to my own views which are that abortions should be opposed and discouraged but that abortion should not be criminalized. It is kind of hidden away online but you can find it here: https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resour ... nALC74.PDF It is a .pdf so I can't copy and paste but the relevant text is here.

[Josh]

Killing babies used to be universal understood as wrong.

You won’t find church statements on things like trans sexuality or gay marriage either if you go back a few decades.

[temporal1]

I'm to busy to engage in a long new thread on abortion. ..

promises, promises.

(i think) it’s absurd to suggest there would be an automatic return to 1970’s, or other period, regarding response to reversing RvW.
Nonsense.

Without involving faith or common sense, just the advances in medical science since the 1970’s graphically reflect that human life begins at conception.

Upon conception, human life begins at a high rate of speed, and continues, nonstop, resulting in a full term human infant in just 9 months. It is fascinating. This high speed intense development continues for the first year, and many years beyond. Humans may be the slowest maturing of all God’s creation, but we are convinced we have the most potential.

From the Christian faith perspective, as found in scriptures, God designs us as humans BEFORE conception, i believe it.
Always human, never anything else.

i don’t anticipate this Truth to be recognized in the USSC: Human BEFORE conception.

As Josh is saying, recognition that pregnancies result in human infants has been universal, all continents, cultures, faiths ..
RvW messed with that, the results have been STAGGERING numbers of sacrificed lives, this is another reality not known when RvW passed, but imminently well documented by now.

So. 2 major changes since RvW that definitely point to a USSC revisit of RvW.
1) New medical science.
2) Documented proof that the promised “safe, legal, RARE” FAILED miserably.

As well, many cheap/free alternatives to PREVENT unwanted pregnancies. This has got to be a no-brainer.
Don’t allow profiteers to do this to you, or your loved ones. Don’t fall for it. It is about corporate profits. $$$

[Ken]

I'm to busy to engage in a long new thread on abortion. ..

promises, promises.

(i think) it’s absurd to suggest there would be an automatic return to 1970’s, or other period, regarding response to reversing RvW.
Nonsense.

Without involving faith or common sense, just the advances in medical science since the 1970’s graphically reflect that human life begins at conception.

Upon conception, human life begins at a high rate of speed, and continues, nonstop, resulting in a full term human infant in just 9 months. It is fascinating. This high speed intense development continues for the first year, and many years beyond. Humans may be the slowest maturing of all God’s creation, but we are convinced we have the most potential.

From the Christian faith perspective, as found in scriptures, God designs us as humans BEFORE conception, i believe it.
Always human, never anything else.

i don’t anticipate this Truth to be recognized in the USSC: Human BEFORE conception.

As Josh is saying, recognition that pregnancies result in human infants has been universal, all continents, cultures, faiths ..
RvW messed with that, the results have been STAGGERING numbers of sacrificed lives, this is another reality not known when RvW passed, but imminently well documented by now.

So. 2 major changes since RvW that definitely point to a USSC revisit of RvW.
1) New medical science.
2) Documented proof that the promised “safe, legal, RARE” FAILED miserably.

As well, many cheap/free alternatives to PREVENT unwanted pregnancies. This has got to be a no-brainer.
Don’t allow profiteers to do this to you, or your loved ones. Don’t fall for it. It is about corporate profits. $$$

That was two days ago when I was busy. I'm just answering the questions that are put to me directly. I have no interest in arguing with anyone here about abortion. I doubt anyone is going to have their opinions swayed on that topic here.

[HondurasKeiser]

Catholic scholar, George Weigel has this to say with respect to when life begins. It's noticeably lacking in its mystical appeals to the circular, and therefore nebulous, nature of the origin of new life.

Do Catholics “believe that human life begins at conception”—a formulation that’s become ubiquitous in recent weeks?

Well, yes, in precisely the same sense that Catholics “believe” that the Earth is spherical, not flat; that Venus is the second planet in the solar system; that a water molecule is composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom; that blood circulates through the body; that the human heart has four chambers; and so forth and so on.

Catholics, as they say, “believe the science.”

Catholics do not “believe” that human life begins at conception in the same sense in which Catholics “believe” in the Incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, or in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or in the remission of sins through the sacrament of Penance, or in the Real Presence of Christ—body, blood, soul, and divinity—in the Eucharist. To “believe” in these truths is, for Catholics, a matter of the assent of faith.

And that’s why it’s an unforced error for Catholics—including bishops, priests, religious, and laity—to use the language of “belief” in regard to the beginning of human life. The correct answer to the question of when human life begins is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of scientific fact. The product of human conception, an embryo with a unique genetic character, is “a whole living member of the species Homo sapiens in the earliest stage of his or her natural development” (to quote Robert George and Christopher Tollefson). One learns this, or used to, in high school biology. The human being who begins at conception develops through various life stages—embryo, fetus, child, adolescent, adult—through its own internally directed functioning, which begins immediately at conception. That is not, to repeat, a matter of faith or “belief.” It’s an empirical fact: a human life, and nothing other than a human life, begins at conception.

Big Abortion, its cultural allies, and its political water-carriers have muddied these linguistic waters for decades, arguing that the “Catholic belief” that life begins at conception is a sectarian claim with no scientific foundation. That is objectively, demonstrably false, and to make that argument is to traffic in a lie....

The real question in the abortion debate is, was, and always will be this: What does a just society owe the indisputably human life that indisputably begins at conception?

...Serious and coherent Catholics know when life begins. Not because they’re Catholics, but because they know the science.

[temporal1]

Catholic scholar, George Weigel has this to say with respect to when life begins. It's noticeably lacking in its mystical appeals to the circular, and therefore nebulous, nature of the origin of new life.

Do Catholics “believe that human life begins at conception”—a formulation that’s become ubiquitous in recent weeks?

Well, yes, in precisely the same sense that Catholics “believe” that the Earth is spherical, not flat; that Venus is the second planet in the solar system; that a water molecule is composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom; that blood circulates through the body; that the human heart has four chambers; and so forth and so on.

Catholics, as they say, “believe the science.”

Catholics do not “believe” that human life begins at conception in the same sense in which Catholics “believe” in the Incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, or in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or in the remission of sins through the sacrament of Penance, or in the Real Presence of Christ—body, blood, soul, and divinity—in the Eucharist. To “believe” in these truths is, for Catholics, a matter of the assent of faith.

And that’s why it’s an unforced error for Catholics—including bishops, priests, religious, and laity—to use the language of “belief” in regard to the beginning of human life. The correct answer to the question of when human life begins is not a matter of faith;
it is a matter of scientific fact.
The product of human conception, an embryo with a unique genetic character, is “a whole living member of the species Homo sapiens in the earliest stage of his or her natural development” (to quote Robert George and Christopher Tollefson).

One learns this, or used to, in high school biology.
The human being who begins at conception develops through various life stages—embryo, fetus, child, adolescent, adult—through its own internally directed functioning, which begins immediately at conception. That is not, to repeat, a matter of faith or “belief.”

It’s an empirical fact: a human life, and nothing other than a human life, begins at conception.

Big Abortion, its cultural allies, and its political water-carriers have muddied these linguistic waters for decades, arguing that the “Catholic belief” that life begins at conception is a sectarian claim with no scientific foundation. That is objectively, demonstrably false, and to make that argument is to traffic in a lie....

The real question in the abortion debate is, was, and always will be this:
What does a just society owe the indisputably human life that indisputably begins at conception?

...Serious and coherent Catholics know when life begins. Not because they’re Catholics, but because they know the science.

i see it as a long established matter of faith, AND, observable common sense that WAS universal, until RvW.
following (nearly coinciding with RvW) SCIENCE caught up with universal common sense.

profiteers have been waging a gruesome, emotional, non-scientific, double-speaking war ever since. $$$$
at magnificent cost to humanity.

i agree, the SCIENCE of human life deserves to be addressed in the USSC.
it should not be necessary. profiteers have pushed it to this.

it can be really hard to face it when you’ve been had. i’m sorry this has become such a widespread failure.

HK,
i plan to share this with my adult family AND my young grdaughter, who, unfortunately, is swimming in seas of public school “teachers” who will NOT so much as admit they could be in error.

in my view, youngsters should not be faced with adult topics and decisions.
but they are forced into it by adults too lazy and self-serving to respect their boundaries.
instead of adults respecting+protecting children, today, every adult problem is “litigated by children,” because those problems have been forced upon them. shameful.

their church IS pro life.
but, upon attending public school, visiting public libraries, engaging in outside activities, the messages of the fallen world highly outweigh messages received in pews.

a person must pray for the POWER OF TRUTH to prevail in this unholy ditch.

this article is not intended for 13 year olds. they for sure need it.

she and i began a form of this discussion this summer.
enough for me to understand what grave confusion there is forced on these young people. no one is exempt. no matter how young. again, i’m thankful she has pro life church. many do not have even that much.