Abortion "God is the only one who knows how many children we should have, and we should be ready to accept them.
One can't decide for oneself who comes into this world and who doesn't.
That decision doesn't belong to us.
" (Mel Gibson interviewed by Barbara Walters 1990) "I was stunned when I saw on the ultrasound a tiny, living creature spinning around in my womb.
Tap-dancing, I think.
Waving its tiny arms around and trying to suck its thumb.
I could have sworn I heard it laughing.
" (Madonna who is actually pro-choice in World Magazine 1996) What do we believe about abortion? In our culture the laws we live under reflect our collective moral beliefs.
But to resolve the question of abortion it cannot be approached as a legal argument but as a moral law.
But our morals are a private affair based on religion, philosophy or ethics.
So we decide for ourselves and respect another opinion at the same time because we are a nation of individuals.
Therefore each person decides when a life begins based on his or her personal moral convictions.
This would validate the time-honored Constitution of keeping Church and State separate (generally traced to an 1802 letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists), or does it? If I decide stealing for my family to eat is permissible does it affect the person I am stealing from? Even if I lie about something does it affect someone else? No matter how much we want it - it's impossible to have a moral system that does not rely on collective morals.
By this standard we agree that murder is wrong and have laws against it.
Rape, kidnapping and stealing are other laws.
But the abortion issue falls outside this pattern into 'for the greater good' because it does not rely on collective morals and it keeps State and Church separate.
However, this method allows me to cheat on my wife because what she does not know will not hurt her (I have not cheated or I would have something in common with Bobby Bobbitt).
It allows me to cheat on taxes because the loss in IRS funds compared to my gain is for the greater good (I have not cheated them either).
It allowed a former South African government to oppress the blacks for the greater good of that country (apartheid 1948-1994).
It allowed Hitler to oppress the Jews for the greater good of his regime (1938-1945).
This principle of 'greater good' also allows the IRA and other terrorist groups to blow people and places up, like a bunch of cowards (1969-2005).
In the same way our culture states abortion is for the greater good.
It prevents over crowding, unwanted children, neglect and abuse of children, or families having to live below poverty lines and it allows teenagers to pursue a future.
The Declaration of Independence in 1776 was the expressed collective mind and conviction of the people to be set before the King of England as a grievance "...
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and happiness...
" The second declaration was made by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 stating similar truths that agreed with the Declaration.
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...
" Both statements emphasize that all men are created.
My value as a person is not determined by your opinion of what quality life is but by a simple and intrinsic fact that a Creator created me (Genesis 1:26-27).
The pursuit of life, liberty and happiness was never meant to surpass the Creator (Colossians 1:15).
The Bible speaks emphatically about the value of life (John 1:4) not the quality of life or we begin to follow a pattern not of created and Creator but 'for the greater good.
' The Bible is committed to the sanctity of life (Exodus 20:13).
Man is made in the image of God and to take a life is to kill the effigy of God.
The Commandment 'You shall not commit murder' is the bottom line with two exceptions of capitol punishment and a just war that the Bible does condone where a life can be taken.
(See article on the Church and War).
The debate comes down to two issues: the rights of a fetus and the rights of the mother.
Pro-abortionists are for the mother and anti-abortionists for the fetus.
Both are wrong because to bring a resolution, both sides must focus on the same issue: personhood.
The mother is a real person but is the fetus? If you say no, the mother's body is the only issue.
If you say yes, then it's a matter of choice between mother and fetus, so when does that choice end? Can a mother have that choice over a two year old? (January 22nd 1973 U.
S.
Supreme Court, Roe v.
Wade decision to abort but the baby had already been born).
I am not talking judicial law but moral law.
It can be proved that the mother and embryo are two separate lives because the mother's womb may reject the fertilized egg from the lining of her womb recognizing something that is not her own body.
The embryo can be implanted into another womb and still develop into the child it was meant to be despite the womb.
Conception can take place outside the womb rejecting the fact that embryo and mother are the same life.
Looking through the scope of pure biology, mother and fetus are two separate and individual lives.
Let me give you some hard-line facts about abortion in the United States.
Only 4% of abortions are because of rape, incest, and danger to mother's life or fetal abnormalities.
96% of abortions are because it would inconvenience the mother's life.
C.
Everett Koop former Surgeon General stated after 35 years in medicine, 'Never did a case come across my practice where abortion was necessary to save a mothers life.
' There are 1.
6 million abortions a year in America.
4383 a day, 183 an hour, 3 a minute or one every 20 seconds.
A person is medically considered alive when a heartbeat or brain wave is detected.
After 18 days a heartbeat is found and 40 days for brainwave.
But most abortions are after 49 days (Focus on the Family Analysts 2010).
So what does the Bible say about abortion? From first observations the Bible is silent on this issue.
From Moses to Jesus all the way to the Apostle Paul.
But both Old and New Testaments in Greek and Hebrew use the same word for fetus, newborn and child in the same way a mother refers to the fetus in her womb as her 'baby.
' (Thomson Chain Reference Bible).
(Jeremiah 1:5) "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart...
" (Psalm 139:13-16) "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made...
your eyes saw my unformed body.
" These verses do not state a human life begins at conception but they paint a picture of every embryo, fetus and newborn being a creation of God.
So it is not a question of deciding when human life begins but understanding that life comes from God.
The Hebrew expression 'I knew you'(Vine's Expository Dictionary of the Old & New Testament Words 2003) is not academic head knowledge but dynamic heart knowledge, the kind that comes from firsthand contact between two people.
For instance, my wife 'knows' I like 80's music.
You would not have 'known' that because you have no firsthand contact with me.
God knows things that do not exist yet and creates from what he knows.
God is intimately aware of, has thoughts about and cares for a life before it is conceived.
The 'knowing' is the same concept as knowing tomorrow is Saturday and in sixteen weeks it will be Christmas (at the time of this article).
But Saturday and Christmas have not 'happened' yet.
Through the Supreme Court Martin Klein obtained the right to abort his child from his comatose wife.
He argued it would bring her back and it did.
But later he divorced his wife.
(Credenda, Agenda, Volume 4/Number 3, p.
15).
Think about a father who has syphilis, a mother with TB and four kids.
One of the children is blind, the second died, the third is deaf and fourth has TB.
She is pregnant again.
If you conclude based on the evidence of parents and four children, that abortion would be the right thing, you would have destroyed Beethoven.
(Ann Landers columnist) Another question presents itself, if a human life is aborted, does the child go to heaven? If baptism is the only way to confirm the salvation of a believer then all miscarriages, stillbirths and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) are lost for eternity along with abortions.
A miscarriage, stillbirth or sudden infant death syndrome is not the choice of the parent but an abortion is a certain choice.
There are two answers to two questions.
Do aborted babies go to heaven? Yes.
(Psalm 27:10) "Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.
" It still leaves many questions unanswered but we are never promised all the answers before eternity.
This is not a position that encourages abortion.
Do miscarriages, stillbirths and infant deaths go to heaven? Again, yes.
In Exodus chapter twenty-one we read that if a pregnant woman is hit, whatever the consequences there was a penalty to pay because God acknowledged the unborn child in her.
Also, David stated when his son died the child would not return to him but he would go to his son, acknowledging his child's assured eternity.
(2 Samuel 12:23) "I will go to him, but he will not return to me.
" John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from birth (Luke 1:15) proving that regeneration for the innocent is at the Sovereign hands of God.
The only evidence missing is that there is no evidence.
Here is a final thought; the parade of martyrs is not being led by men of the Protestant Reformation but of infant boys under the age of two.
They were murdered toddlers by Pharaoh in the Old Testament (Exodus 1:22) and by Herod in the New Testament (Matthew 2:16-18).
One can't decide for oneself who comes into this world and who doesn't.
That decision doesn't belong to us.
" (Mel Gibson interviewed by Barbara Walters 1990) "I was stunned when I saw on the ultrasound a tiny, living creature spinning around in my womb.
Tap-dancing, I think.
Waving its tiny arms around and trying to suck its thumb.
I could have sworn I heard it laughing.
" (Madonna who is actually pro-choice in World Magazine 1996) What do we believe about abortion? In our culture the laws we live under reflect our collective moral beliefs.
But to resolve the question of abortion it cannot be approached as a legal argument but as a moral law.
But our morals are a private affair based on religion, philosophy or ethics.
So we decide for ourselves and respect another opinion at the same time because we are a nation of individuals.
Therefore each person decides when a life begins based on his or her personal moral convictions.
This would validate the time-honored Constitution of keeping Church and State separate (generally traced to an 1802 letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists), or does it? If I decide stealing for my family to eat is permissible does it affect the person I am stealing from? Even if I lie about something does it affect someone else? No matter how much we want it - it's impossible to have a moral system that does not rely on collective morals.
By this standard we agree that murder is wrong and have laws against it.
Rape, kidnapping and stealing are other laws.
But the abortion issue falls outside this pattern into 'for the greater good' because it does not rely on collective morals and it keeps State and Church separate.
However, this method allows me to cheat on my wife because what she does not know will not hurt her (I have not cheated or I would have something in common with Bobby Bobbitt).
It allows me to cheat on taxes because the loss in IRS funds compared to my gain is for the greater good (I have not cheated them either).
It allowed a former South African government to oppress the blacks for the greater good of that country (apartheid 1948-1994).
It allowed Hitler to oppress the Jews for the greater good of his regime (1938-1945).
This principle of 'greater good' also allows the IRA and other terrorist groups to blow people and places up, like a bunch of cowards (1969-2005).
In the same way our culture states abortion is for the greater good.
It prevents over crowding, unwanted children, neglect and abuse of children, or families having to live below poverty lines and it allows teenagers to pursue a future.
The Declaration of Independence in 1776 was the expressed collective mind and conviction of the people to be set before the King of England as a grievance "...
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and happiness...
" The second declaration was made by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 stating similar truths that agreed with the Declaration.
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...
" Both statements emphasize that all men are created.
My value as a person is not determined by your opinion of what quality life is but by a simple and intrinsic fact that a Creator created me (Genesis 1:26-27).
The pursuit of life, liberty and happiness was never meant to surpass the Creator (Colossians 1:15).
The Bible speaks emphatically about the value of life (John 1:4) not the quality of life or we begin to follow a pattern not of created and Creator but 'for the greater good.
' The Bible is committed to the sanctity of life (Exodus 20:13).
Man is made in the image of God and to take a life is to kill the effigy of God.
The Commandment 'You shall not commit murder' is the bottom line with two exceptions of capitol punishment and a just war that the Bible does condone where a life can be taken.
(See article on the Church and War).
The debate comes down to two issues: the rights of a fetus and the rights of the mother.
Pro-abortionists are for the mother and anti-abortionists for the fetus.
Both are wrong because to bring a resolution, both sides must focus on the same issue: personhood.
The mother is a real person but is the fetus? If you say no, the mother's body is the only issue.
If you say yes, then it's a matter of choice between mother and fetus, so when does that choice end? Can a mother have that choice over a two year old? (January 22nd 1973 U.
S.
Supreme Court, Roe v.
Wade decision to abort but the baby had already been born).
I am not talking judicial law but moral law.
It can be proved that the mother and embryo are two separate lives because the mother's womb may reject the fertilized egg from the lining of her womb recognizing something that is not her own body.
The embryo can be implanted into another womb and still develop into the child it was meant to be despite the womb.
Conception can take place outside the womb rejecting the fact that embryo and mother are the same life.
Looking through the scope of pure biology, mother and fetus are two separate and individual lives.
Let me give you some hard-line facts about abortion in the United States.
Only 4% of abortions are because of rape, incest, and danger to mother's life or fetal abnormalities.
96% of abortions are because it would inconvenience the mother's life.
C.
Everett Koop former Surgeon General stated after 35 years in medicine, 'Never did a case come across my practice where abortion was necessary to save a mothers life.
' There are 1.
6 million abortions a year in America.
4383 a day, 183 an hour, 3 a minute or one every 20 seconds.
A person is medically considered alive when a heartbeat or brain wave is detected.
After 18 days a heartbeat is found and 40 days for brainwave.
But most abortions are after 49 days (Focus on the Family Analysts 2010).
So what does the Bible say about abortion? From first observations the Bible is silent on this issue.
From Moses to Jesus all the way to the Apostle Paul.
But both Old and New Testaments in Greek and Hebrew use the same word for fetus, newborn and child in the same way a mother refers to the fetus in her womb as her 'baby.
' (Thomson Chain Reference Bible).
(Jeremiah 1:5) "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart...
" (Psalm 139:13-16) "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made...
your eyes saw my unformed body.
" These verses do not state a human life begins at conception but they paint a picture of every embryo, fetus and newborn being a creation of God.
So it is not a question of deciding when human life begins but understanding that life comes from God.
The Hebrew expression 'I knew you'(Vine's Expository Dictionary of the Old & New Testament Words 2003) is not academic head knowledge but dynamic heart knowledge, the kind that comes from firsthand contact between two people.
For instance, my wife 'knows' I like 80's music.
You would not have 'known' that because you have no firsthand contact with me.
God knows things that do not exist yet and creates from what he knows.
God is intimately aware of, has thoughts about and cares for a life before it is conceived.
The 'knowing' is the same concept as knowing tomorrow is Saturday and in sixteen weeks it will be Christmas (at the time of this article).
But Saturday and Christmas have not 'happened' yet.
Through the Supreme Court Martin Klein obtained the right to abort his child from his comatose wife.
He argued it would bring her back and it did.
But later he divorced his wife.
(Credenda, Agenda, Volume 4/Number 3, p.
15).
Think about a father who has syphilis, a mother with TB and four kids.
One of the children is blind, the second died, the third is deaf and fourth has TB.
She is pregnant again.
If you conclude based on the evidence of parents and four children, that abortion would be the right thing, you would have destroyed Beethoven.
(Ann Landers columnist) Another question presents itself, if a human life is aborted, does the child go to heaven? If baptism is the only way to confirm the salvation of a believer then all miscarriages, stillbirths and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) are lost for eternity along with abortions.
A miscarriage, stillbirth or sudden infant death syndrome is not the choice of the parent but an abortion is a certain choice.
There are two answers to two questions.
Do aborted babies go to heaven? Yes.
(Psalm 27:10) "Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.
" It still leaves many questions unanswered but we are never promised all the answers before eternity.
This is not a position that encourages abortion.
Do miscarriages, stillbirths and infant deaths go to heaven? Again, yes.
In Exodus chapter twenty-one we read that if a pregnant woman is hit, whatever the consequences there was a penalty to pay because God acknowledged the unborn child in her.
Also, David stated when his son died the child would not return to him but he would go to his son, acknowledging his child's assured eternity.
(2 Samuel 12:23) "I will go to him, but he will not return to me.
" John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from birth (Luke 1:15) proving that regeneration for the innocent is at the Sovereign hands of God.
The only evidence missing is that there is no evidence.
Here is a final thought; the parade of martyrs is not being led by men of the Protestant Reformation but of infant boys under the age of two.
They were murdered toddlers by Pharaoh in the Old Testament (Exodus 1:22) and by Herod in the New Testament (Matthew 2:16-18).
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