I understand why people find the very notion of abortion repugnant. I really really do.
I really especially doubly and quadruply understand because I’m very close to popping out a child I really really want. Third and final. The end of the trilogy. The finale of my baby-making career.
But at the same time, as I consider the wonder that is childbirth and feel the joy of the impending life that I will bring into the world I am reminded of something very very important.
It’s MY damn body!!!!!!!
Sorry if I was a little loud there. There’s a truck I see pretty frequently that is festooned with bumper stickers and signs and placards telling everyone how evil abortion is. Now I’m not saying it’s great and I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s not MY thing. But I’m sick of every person who wants to get into the face of every woman and tell her that she is an evil hellspawned twisted bitch for ever having considered or used an abortion.
I know alot of chick who have done the D&C thang thank you very much. I have yet to find one who used abortion as a “convenience” or as a “lazy form of birth control” (thinking oh if I get pregnant no biggie I’ll just go to the doctor and get my problem fixed) and I’ve never met a single woman who enjoyed doing it. I’ve known more than a few who felt relieved afterward but that doesn’t mean they felt good or didn’t wonder if they made the right choice.
Those who cry that it’s live at the moment of conception, well you might be right and you might not. God ain’t really clear on the status ya know. If it’s just a collection of cells with no brain, no organs to speak of and not a chance in hell of living outside of of a womb, it just might not be a full life yet. You can disagree with me that this is a gray area but I have to tell ya, it’s pretty darn gray.
Too many people are making voting decisions based on this one thing. Oh my god he supports a woman’s right to choose? He must LIKE abortion! He’s a heathen. So I’ll vote for the other guy who doesn’t have any of my best interests at heart and will make life worse for me and my children.
Wether right or wrong and whether God thinks life starts in the first trimester or the second trimester, I need you all to understand someting if you’re in the finger pointing crowd:
IT ISN’T YOUR BODY. IT ISN’T YOUR DECISION. AND GOD DOESN’T GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO JUDGE!
You want to try to talk women out of abortion, fine. Do it gently and respectfully. And walk away peacefully if you can’t convince her.
And please don’t start on the “well, the other thing is that the man has a say in this too”
No he doesn’t.
I don’t mean to sound mean about it, but he doesn’t. In theory he should and in theory I’d like every father to have a say. But the dude has the easy job in making the baby. He doesn’t have to carry it, he doesn’t have to face the risks to health and life that come with the job and he doesn’t have to squeeze it out in the end. Asking a women to go through 9 months of something she doesn’t feel she can do because the guy says he’ll be there at the end to take the kid himself is asking a lot, particulalry if she couldn’t trust him enough to stay with him or have a kid with him to begin with.
Pro-choice is just that: Standing up for a woman’s right to make her own decision during a time when the life inside her is still at a stage where it’s ability to live on its own is nil. That don’t mean pro-abortion. I’ve yet to meet anyone who is pro-abortion. It’s pro-choice.
And if you call yourself pro-life, I sure hope you’re against killing someone in self defence and agaisnt capital punishment too or you are a damn hypocrite. If you’re pro-life, it’s your job to convince women not to choose abortion. Not your job to bomb clinics or threaten doctors or get Roe vs. Wade overturned. It isn’t your job to take choice away.
Miz Pink, A powerful discussion of a woman’s right to choose. Science understands so little about when life begins. And I’m pretty sure I’ve posted this here before: Life predates the birth of the human body, and Life will continue long after the dust is returned to dust.
The soul that surrounds the body at birth never enters the vessel. It does connect to it using an umbilical-like cord which the Bible references only once:
Eccl 12:6 “…because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:
6 or ever the [silver cord be loosed], or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”
This is an excellent description of the cord. It is silver in color. Death occurs when the cord
separates from the physical body. It separates from the body (is loosed) when the body can no longer sustain life.
At some point, the soul assuming the physical form will connect to it, either before birth or shortly thereafter. The newborn cannot live outside the mother’s womb on its own. If the soul refuses to connect for some reason, the child dies.
I’ve written about this elsewhere under the heading, “The Truth About Your Body” [http://undergodsshadow.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-heal-yourself.html]. There I explain the significance and purpose of the “golden bowl,” the “pitcher,” and the “wheel”.
For me, pro-life is pro-life. You don’t show your respect for Life by taking a life to save a life. In this country alone, many children are malnourished, and many (far too many) go to bed hungry.
Around the world, hundreds of thousands of children die annually because of malnutrition, or malnutrition-related diseases. These children can be saved. But their plight doesn’t always command the attention of those who say they are pro-life; they say they are pro-life, but many will do little to stop these atrocities from occurring.
Namaste
That depends what you mean. Life, as science defines it, is found from bacteria to plants to kittens to whales. Sperm are alive. Ova are alive. Conception is when two living cells merge to form one living cell, which then divides into more living cells. Life doesn’t begin at conception, because life doesn’t stop during reproduction – it just keeps going.
Now, perhaps you are trying to say that science knows little about when a person begins. And you’d be right, because that is not a scientific question. There is no evidence one can gather to determine what constitutes a person, and there are no ways to test whether something is a person or not. It’s not a question for science, but for ethics, philosophy, or maybe theology.
A scientific definition of life–although it serves science–is limited both in scope, and definition. Life (as a human body, all that cell division you referred to) begins at conception, true. Life (vital force or energy), as I said, predates the birth of the human body.
Science believes, in addition, that although Life (as conception) has a beginning, it also has an end. When said human body expires, Life expires.
I’m afraid that nothing you have said invalidates my statement: “Science understands so little about when life begins”, regardless of definition, because, as yet, no one has ever seen Life. Frankly, we haven’t seen it start up, and we haven’t seen it shut down. Sure, after a time, we see a certain entropy take place in the human body that we call death–the supposed end of life–but Life, as energy, could be said to be merely changing form. You yourself have said: “Life doesn’t begin at conception….” Indeed it doesn’t.
What we see around us is the manifestation of Life, not that elusive force, or energy, we call Life that animates our world. My position is this: Life has no beginning and it has no end. Science can choose to seek evidence to support this or not. I have no preference one way or the other.
I have no quarrel with science. I trust it has no quarrel with me. I do not turn to it to substantiate either my existence, or my approach to Life. I recognizes its limitations. And as long as science tolerates my position to stand unreservedly upon my own proof, I will not speak derisively of its limitations. I’ll just point them out from time to time.
If, indeed, science is expending so much time and energy studying Life–that which it has never seen, and is hopelessly at a loss to determine when a person begins–thank God we have philosophy, theology, and divine inspiration to fill in the blanks.