In another example of apostatic theological interpretation, the prominent and progressive group “the Christian Left” has just used the Bible to endorse abortion in all its forms starting with elective first trimester curettage, all the way to the horrific partial birth abortions! Unbelievable! This is the counterfeit church practicing counterfeit christianity!
As if endorsing open homosexuality, gay marriage, ordination of gay ministers, legalization of drugs such as marijuana was not enough for their altar of idolatry, these so-called progressive christians had to endorse the modern-day Holocaust, the murderous spirit of Herod the Great and of Cain, known as abortion.
This is the theological basis of their false argument: life begins with the first breath… therefore an unborn baby is not alive! It is stunning to see how Satan has blinded these people. Here is the Scripture they quote to support the position that life begins only after birth when the baby has the ability to breathe:
Genesis 2:7 “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and it was then that the man became a living being”
Job 33:4 “The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
Ezekiel 37:5-6 “Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.”
All these references are taken out their proper context and are twisted to say something that they do not say. According to this position a baby who has a heartbeat, blood flowing through her veins, an intact neurological system that dictates pain, the ability to suck his thumb and comfort himself, etc… is not alive! During fetal surgery for spina bifida for example, the baby interacts with the surgeon squeezing his hand (see photo below), grabbing surgical instruments, and withdrawing from any painful stimulus before being anesthetized. But according to the Christian Left and the Democratic party platform, this person is not alive.
Let’s review the biblical texts which confirm that life begins at conception:
Jer 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart”
Psalm 139:13 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
Psalm 139:16 “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
Of all the horrors in the so-called “Romans 1 platform” of self worship and appeasement, I find abortion to be the most severe sin because it involves an innocent third-party who is murdered. “It’s my body and I do whatever I want with it” has become the motto self idolatry. They wear t-shirts with “I had an abortion and I do not regret it,” and “Someone you love had an abortion.”
Let’s face it, we live in days of apostasy, but the real church of Jesus needs to speak out publicly against groups like the Christian Left who pervert and suppress biblical truth, and exchange it for idolatry.
Delight in Truth 
absolutely ghastly. Talk about exchanging the truth for a lie. What kind of science are they using to back up their claim?
Rodi… They are using the Word of God to back it up. And they do the same with all the other issues they stand for. If you google the christian left, their website is the first to come up. Check it out and be shocked!
The Christian Left follow the values of Christ! Unlike the right that twist Gods word! Then look at their fruit, under republicans abortion goes up, and poor get poorer, they forget all the preaching in the Bible to take care of poor. And manufacturing problems, like how you couldn’t ever pray in school? My kids said they could pray whenever they wanted in public schools. Another mark of satin is the lies the religious right tells and forces doctors to tell the lie abortion causes cancer. True believers in Christ tell the truth and trust God.
Ex 21:22-23 makes it quite clear that the death of fetus is not murder. When in the course of a brawl, a man knocks against a pregnant women so that she has a miscarriage but suffers no further harm (other than the death of the fetus), then the offender must pay whatever fine the woman’s husband demands after assessment.”
Cherokee S. — Actually, it doesn’t, since the passage you cite isn’t about abortion. It’s about someone accidentally causing a woman to miscarry. Abortion isn’t about the mere fact of a preborn dying. According to Merriam-Webster, the standard for courts of law in the U.S., abortion is “a medical procedure used to end a pregnancy and cause the death of the fetus” (my emphasis). If the preborn doesn’t die, there has been no abortion.
The passage in Exodus is really an ancient acknowledgement that causing a woman to miscarry is to subject her to considerable loss. Note that the offender “must pay whatever the woman’s husband demands and and the court allows” (NIV).
If preborns are merely nonhuman or subhuman nonentities as prochoicers keep telling us today, why would there ever be any penalty at all? The crime of “fetal homicide” is recognized in 38 states. How could there be such a crime and why would it ever be called “homicide” if no “homo” (L., human being or man) is involved?
Four centuries before Christ, even the pagan, polytheistic Greeks were civilized enough to recognize the bright-line distinction between healing and killing, which is why those who the traditional Hippocratic Oath forswore the use of abortifacients. Yes, “you’ve come a long way, Baby,” but I’m afraid it’s in the wrong direction.
Thank you for taking the time to answer Cherokee. The accidental death is a critical modifier in this passage. Most progressives leave out the fact that the passage mentions the premature birth with “no harm.” But the next verse (23) mentions “if there is harm than you shall pay life for life”
The moral weight which is put on the death of a fetus is the same across the bible. Accidental or intentional. It’s about the loss of a mans wealth not the life of the unborn.
You are greatly mistaken. Why was John the Baptist’s worth shown as he was filled with the Holy Spirit from when he was a fetus?
That’s a stretch of the imagination to imply that the author actually knew what was happening inside a woman’s womb before ultrasound technology. I think you must be a fundamentalist.
I have just disproven your “across the bible” comment above… you must be a left wing liberal.
THE SEPTUAGINT HAS THE CORRECT TRANSLATION OF EXODUS 21:22-23 You are misguided by your emotional investment in defending a position you have attributed to God, a position which God has never stated …quite the contrary–God & ancient folk looked upon a pregnancy and the fetus involved as PROPERTY until it took its first breath. If you HONESTLY want to KNOW “God’s position” on abortion, read the Septuagint. Josephus is also tasked in this SCHOLARLY, REFERENCED article from a Seminarian as support for the ORIGINAL, CORRECT TRANSLATION of this passage:
“If men quarrel, and one strike a woman with child and she
miscarry indeed, but live herself he shall be answerable for so
much damage as the woman’s husband shall require, and as
arbiters shall award. But if her death ensue thereupon, he shall
render life for life.”
Josephus (37 A.D. to 101 A.D.), in Antiquities 4: 278,7
also made
the MT !Asa’ hy apply to the mother, stating:
“He that kicks a pregnant woman, if the woman miscarry,
shall be fined by the judges for having, by the destruction of
the fruit of her womb, diminished the population, and a
further sum shall be presented by him to the woman’s
husband. If she die by the blow, he shall also die, the law
claiming sacrifice of life for life.8″
I look forward to your rebuttal, as I suspect the only thing that will change your mind is not the evidence that is so unequivocally clear as to the value of the unborn in ancient times, but a visit from God to you personally to inform you that the Septuagint was not mistranslated.
Please be so kind as to read the article and check its sourcing before you respond, please–I am loathe to argue with emotionality in lieu of Reason and Evidence. Cheers! http://tmcdaniel.palmerseminary.edu/LXX_EXO_%2021_22-23.pdf
Funny how all of a sudden you jump on the soap box of relevance!
NONE of the passages YOU have cited have ANYTHING to do with abortion either.
The bald-faced hypocrisy of you pseudoChristians is astounding.
Cherokee S. – You are incorrect please re-read it properly and all the way through to the end fo verse 24
“22 “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely[e] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”
Re-read it yourself. The passage clearly refers to injury to the WOMAN, NOT the fetus. There would be no way to assess “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise” as regards to a fetus that might not be born for months in the future.
Re-read it yourself. The passage clearly refers to the woman, not the fetus. There would be no way to assess an “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise” in a fetus that might not be born for many months in the future.
The fetus is property.
The article states that the “life begins at first breath” passages are taken out of context and twisted. I have read the passages surrounding these quotes and I don’t see what has been twisted. Could you offer some insight as to what they were intended to say? Also, you have left out Exodus 21:22 where there is clearly a different punishment from a forced miscarriage (abortion) compared with loss of the mother’s life. I don’t see any mention of conception in the latter quotes, for that matter. In fact, Jer 1:5 seems to indicate that the child is known to God before conception even happens. It does not make a statement on when life begins, which is obviously a separate thing.
Lets take the three verses one by one:
Gen 2:7 – The verse is not applicable to a baby developing in-utero because it describes the creation of the first human being. As Adam was being made he was not alive until he “became a living creature” after God “breathed into his nostrils” (ESV). The key here is that Adam was lifeless prior to the breath of God whereas a baby is not lifeless prior to his/her breath. A prenatal ultrasound will prove my assertion.
Job 33:4 – this is direct reference to the work of the Holy Spirit of sustaining life. The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament is described by the world ‘ruah’ which means breath. The breath of the Almighty here is the Holy Spirit. It is in no way indicative of the first breath that a baby takes when they are born. No mention to anything physical here. It is all spiritual.
Ez 37:5 – this is a vision regarding apostatic Israel receiving SPIRITUAL life at God’s initiative. Nothing to do with physical birth or the first breath of a baby.
We know full well that a baby is alive before his/her first breath.
I think we’re endeavoring to understand what constitutes “lifeless”, and I certainly haven’t seen any prenatal ultrasound devices claim to verify what constitutes “life”. I think we can agree that the unborn baby’s heart beats and it moves and so on, but this same is true of a wristwatch, and we don’t call that “alive”.
It seems that spiritual life begins with spiritual breath. Should we take that as evidence that physical life does not begin with physical breath?
Also, you haven’t responded to my question about why the latter passages “prove” anything to do with conception.
Jason, how about fact that the baby plays with the umbilical cord prior to birth. He sleeps, he wakes up. He sucks his thumb. He REACTS to sound. He withdraws to pain, ie when the forceps of the abortionist are tearing his limbs.
Are these the mechanical movements of a wristwatch?
I think not.
These are all reactions to emotion, not scripture. To be honest, I agree with you that the child is alive before the point where it exits the mother. I was just pointing out that the scripture doesn’t support this stance. I think the clearest indicator of that is Exodus 21:22 which decrees a punishment for forcing a miscarriage that is vastly different from the “life for a life” bit that follows.
A more correct statement on my part would have been “Let’s review the biblical texts which confirm that life begins before birth/first breath (instead of conception)” with respect to the later verses in question. So Scripture does support the position that the baby is alive before delivery (John’s filling with the Holy Spirit).
I believe life begins at conception, but I cannot prove this fact using the Bible. It can only be inferred.
On Exodus 21:22… I reviewed some commentaries, and there is some controversy on the meaning of the word ‘harm’
If the induced (accidentally by a brawl) miscarriage does not cause injury to the mom and the baby, one can interpret that there was no harm. A fine is imposed.
However if death or debilitating injury occurs, and here the text I believe allows us to apply this to mom and baby, then v. 23 indeed applies the term ‘life’ to the baby and ‘life for life’ punishment in case of death.
Ezekiel 37 is about the Bodily Physical Resurrection.
You did not provide any context, you’re simply reading your isegesis into them.
But in addition to verses on when Life Begins, how about when it ends. NT references to Physical Death repeatedly say “Gave up the Ghost” but the Greek word Translated Ghost also means Spirit. Believers never truly Die, so verses like the Death of Stephen are only defining Physical Death.
its the very same scriptures that judism uses to allow for abortions that delight in truth is trying to say is false. id believe a person of jewish faith over that of a christian
What you’re conveniently ignoring, as you do repeatedly and conveniently through your diatribes, is that the important facet here is not WHO makes the fetus alive, but WHAT. And the Bible is quite clear and consistent throughout. It is BREATH. Breath given by God, prior to which there is no life, only value as property.
There are a few reasons it’s twisted. For one thing, Adam was never a fetus- he was a pile of dirt. The point of the “first breath” is that God created him (and thus all humans) and gave him life.
Breathing is life, and the baby does in fact breathe. It uses the umbilical cord. After all, a fish breathes. It does it in a different way, but it does breathe.
For all the people claiming that “breath” includes things like the umbilical cord or fish, how do you explain Genesis 6:17 where God tells Noah he’s going to kill everything on earth with the breath of life. Clearly, the writers of the Bible didn’t consider aquatic respiration to be breath.
I do not get your answer to the Exodus question! The passage clearly states in most translations the death is only reckless homicide or something akin regarding the Mom, not the baby! The brawlers are held liable for the loss of economic value of the pregnancy loss for the expecting family’s invested economic human capital along with all else the expecting family lost caused by the death of the baby body! Obviously the baby body, must have all the living functions, like your arm does, if you are expecting to get your arm reattached from an accident, if it can be caught in time to get sewed back to life, in case it was amputated! There is no perfect example, because obviously, it is a total physical baby at birth, as well as genetically, in order to become animated, by it’s own vital windpipe, pneumatology! But ,till the baby has self ownership, private individual property rights, over it’s own vital wind pipe filled,with it’s own individual life breath, it does not count as an individual living breathing spirit! Exodus calls it killing, only if the Mom is killed, because respiratory, wind pipe, life breath in the baby, does not function till after birth! Of course, that does not defeat the value of life, human capital argument, to encourage birth as an investment! If we had the total opposite of our current anti human system, we could let capitalism blossom and revalue all human capital, including every baby in every womb! God breathed life into Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Judah and all of them, till they breathed their last, at death! The right to life, is entirely independent of the value of social individual lives! Socialism denies our individuality! Socialism sees all as one social anthill or beehive, animated by one continuum! Individualist social life, sees all social bodies, as constituted by vital social individuals!
Reblogged this on TheSocialCentre.WordPress.com and commented:
Social individual, vital breathing spirits, are the individual social constituents, from birth till their last breath
None of the verses you quote in support of your position actually say that the fetus is alive. A fetus does not need to be alive for God to know them, All the verses supporting breath bringing life actually say that breath brings life. I can see clearly the side that is twisting Scripture and it is not the liberals.
Luke 1: 41, 44 “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit… … As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”
Was John alive in the situation described above?
I’m curious, can something be alive but not have a soul? Do all animals and plants have souls? Because maybe that’s the point that is being missed here. Yes, a baby in utero is “alive,” but is it imbued with a soul yet? Perhaps, an all-knowing God would know that a baby was going to be aborted, and instead of that child being a souled being, it is just living tissue. We elevate ourselves above God when we assume that we have the power to define Him and His laws and intentions. There could be much more at play here than any of us could possibly understand, and yet we think we know what HE meant for us. How about you recognize the fact that people sin, and you can’t stop all of them from doing so, nor should you. Again, you are elevating yourself above God to try and prevent sin. Even HE doesn’t do that, but instead gives us free will to make mistakes, sin, and turn away from Him.
Is it possible for a being to filled with the Holy Spirit and not have a soul? See the Luke 1:41,44 passage. The answer is no.
You forgot this one! Psalms 137-9 How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones Against the rock.
Congratulations! You took a precatory psalm out of context.
Genesis is clear! An individual life, is given birth, period! The Life for a life, passage, in Exodus, could not have been more clearly stated! The passages that state in clear bright line terms, the life went in &/or out of the patriarch’s nostrils and their lives started/or ended are clear in their totality! There is no distorting these simple Bible terms! Obviously, the baby in the mother’s womb, is animated by her life breath! The baby blood stream & circulatory system, must be working to take in the new life breath of the new born! The baby pneumatic wind in the new first breath of the newly individualized living breathing soul, is the individual spirit & psyche!
You pro life folks,, are failing to get past the radical “Progressive” militants’ hate for the whole human race! That point should not blind you to the facts of individual souls equated with single individual animation, psyche, pneumatology,& spirit! Respiring is kin to spirit, which is kin to life breath & vital wind, in old Anglo-Saxon Germanic! Spirit, respiration, animation, pneumatology & psyche, are just Greek &/or Latin for vital wind & life breath of an individual soul!
I am pro social life! Socialism is anti social! Human capital is vital human value to human social progress! So we need more human life, not less! Social life choice = Social choice life! Human life is not anti human progress! Human life is not a price to be paid for the social life bonding process! We are social organism’s, pure & simple! New born babes are gold! Baby humans are our future of our whole human race! Baby human individuals are not a drain on wealth! Baby human beings are the future wealth of our whole human race! Killing a baby before it is born, is still killing, even if it is not yet fully an individual living breathing person, in the fullest sense of individual pneumatology! We want & need to find ways to incorporate our full social attention, to treat these little babies as little growing gold mines! That is babies must be appreciated as our future,rather than a price to be paid for our libertine dreams! The social human race must not let socialism destroy our social future! Social utility demands we do not waste our future! That instinct prolife folks feel, should not blind them to the special properties of individual animation, respiring spirits, psyches & pneumatology of vital wind, & life breath! It is precisely this individual social connection, that is just the vital constituent social individualizing, that is the vital social root of our social human race! Social life value of all social individuals, is the opposite of Socialist anti human race pro abortion “Progressive” suicide!
Abortion is social suicide not murder! It is castration of social succession!
This is a complicated issue, it’s very nuanced. I’ve been on the full begins at Conception spectrum before, but this issue needs further study.
First and foremost Birth is not when a Child begins Breathing, in fact Longs form and breathing starts at about 6 months after Conception. 6th months into her Pregnancy is how far along Elizabeth was at the Visitation, when John “Leaped for John” in her Womb.
Jer 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart”
Does not define the Beinging of Life at all, it’s just Demonstrating the Foreknowledge of God. We are latter told God spoke to Jeremiah in the Womb, how far along he was isn’t said.
Psalm 139:13 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
Psalm 139:16 “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
Again these about God being the Creator and his foreknowledge.
Apostacey is renouncing Jesus, not bad doctrine.
http://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-life-begins-at-first-breath-argument.html
By the time almost all abortions are performed, the baby has both a heartbeat and brainwaves. The presence of these bodily functions assures us life is present at the other extreme of our existence, when we’re near death. If a person has a heartbeat and brainwaves, she’s considered to be alive, even if she needs help with her breathing.
The suggestion a preborn child is not a person, because he hasn’t yet drawn a breath, and since he’s not a person, we may kill him, thus stopping all signs of life—this suggestion seems strangely self-contradictory. We couldn’t kill him if he weren’t alive. Why would we feel the need to? Obviously, the child is alive and growing, from conception on, and if he’s not already alive, he cannot come to life, or suddenly “become a person,” merely by inhaling oxygen.
We pro-lifers used to have a saying, one that applies to the argument that claims preborns are somehow “less than human” or otherwise “not fully human”: If it’s not a baby, you’re not pregnant! We might add: If your baby isn’t alive, it’s not a baby . . . and you’re still not pregnant.
G. Nelson, welcome here and thank you for the inspiring comment. It comes down to fundamentals of one’s world view, and our camp views life on a microscopic and macroscopic level as a continuum initiated by God.
It’s not against the Bible, very popular at time and not mentioned except to give instructions to a priest (number 5:10-31) how to preform one because a man is jealous suspect ing his wife cheating, but no witness so can’t stone her, not only does the text give instructions to abort the fetus but make her permanent ly unable to conceive a curse with prolapsed uterus., and man is free from jealousy! Thus how dare you preach the Bible is against something it is NOT necessarily against trying to make poor women feel guilty. Shame on you. It is their legal right Twisting the Bible is a bad SIN. You are Pharisees, trying to make rules too hard to follow yourselves, I don’t see you with 10 kids. If your pro life have 10 or more kids and leave the rest of us alone!
Debra, I notice those who allude to Exodus 21 and Numbers 5 as if either had anything to do with abortion-on-demand rarely quote either. Neither even mentions abortion!
The Numbers passage carries an appropriate subhead in modern versions: “The Test for an Unfaithful Wife” and that’s exactly what it’s about. Read it! There’s no mention of anything like an “unwanted fetus,” much less getting rid of getting rid of him or her. There’s no mention of killing a baby. There’s not even a mention of a child!
Exodus 21:22, 23 has nothing to do with abortion, either, but is about the penalties for accidentally causing a woman to “give birth prematurely” (NIV). It’s not even clear from the text whether it’s about a baby dying. A woman can “give birth prematurely” without the baby dying. As our host points on elsewhere on this page, v. 22 qualifies the accident: “but if there is no serious injury.” The death of a baby is a “serious injury,” especially in those days when an inability to have children was a huge stigma. The baby is a human life, so if baby dies, it would seem the aggressor would have to forfeit his life, since the “life for life, eye for eye, etc.” rule would kick in.
Besides all that, all the rules and regulations of the old covenant are now defunct, since “the law made nothing perfect” (Heb. 7:19, NIV). In fact, “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear” (Heb. 8:13, NIV). And of course that was written almost 2000 years ago.
We are now under the royal law of love (Jas. 2:8). The so-called Golden Rule governs: “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Mt. 7:12, NASB).
So, if you wouldn’t like to be torn limb from limb, have poison injected into your heart, be shredded by a powerful vacuum, or have your brains sucked out through a hole punched in the back of your neck, you’re violating the Golden Rule if you recommend or tolerate that being done to others.
You’re obviously quite angry, but I know of no prolifer who’s opposed to abortion in order “to make poor women feel guilty.” We’re just trying to help those considering killing their child(ren) from making an irreversible mistake or to tell those who’ve already made it that it’s wrong and they should ask God’s forgiveness.
I have had some time to think this over! I am more committed to my version of pro life than ever! But I am also more aware than before, of ways Pro life folks must learn to value individual life with out blowing up their own strengths!
I was TheSocialCentre.wordpress.com, but now am SocialDynamos.wordpress.com! All the quotes used to contest the first quotes, about the first life breath, in the wind pipes of the patriarchs, are by their vary nature, secondary to the first life breath in the patriarchs’ windpipes! Also comparing physical stimulation, pain or anything else like the most obvious alternative, blood, are all premised on the life breath, in the individual’s wind pipe & then blood! The Ezekiel, Dry Bones story & the miscarriage in the Exodus brawl, are crystal clear, unambiguous, distinctive supports for the individual birth of or killing of a breathing individual! That does not mean we should kill any pre-born baby body, just because that pre born baby, does not have an individual life breath, in that baby body’s wind pipe! But wind pipes, breathing, respiration, inspiring & animating their pneumatology,are the traditional language of all Bible translations! These are the terms of all missionary bible translating, social service organizations, into all the world languages’ words, meaning life breath, in wind pipes!! The very ideas of being born again, birthdays, being animated, psyched, inspired, winded, out of breath, catching your breath or getting your second wind, are associated with vital pneumatology! Spirit, respiration inspiration animation, anima, animus, animated are Latin for breath & wind! Psyche & pneumatics are Greek for the Anglo-Germanic, soul wind & breath! These are Anglo-Saxon words for the living soul,life breath in the wind pipes of individuals! These are also akin to the secular ideas of social psychology, from the constitutional framers’ social moral philosophy! Pneumatology was the social spirited, social animating, social motivating powerhouse of individual human capital! Our individual social skills & talents, are our social spirited, lending our hands, strengthening our social frameworks! We are like living BREATHING, soul-full computer robots, with social human inspired psyches! All this enables us to be the hands, eyes & ears of our social worlds! The golden rule pays off in great social Karma! The rich of soul power, get richer, while those without that social dynamism, stagnate! The breath of life, animating individuals, by way of individual windpipes, is fixed in the Bible, as well as secular social culture of the human race in our totality! Of course abortion kills a physical baby body! So because abortion is not murdering an individual breathing soul, does not mean abortion is not killing or blocking social progress! Human capital is the real wealth of nations! That is, as the framers’ social moral philosophy taught! Then abortion does not have to be murder! Abortion is missing the mark of social choice! Missing the mark, is akin to the Judaean Hebrew word for sin! That means, to me, we are not murdering, but committing social amputation or social suicide! Abortion is akin to destruction of a self educating, computer robot, with the soft touch, human social potential of humane social feelings, that animate the golden rule! We must be able to get back to the old school liberal social progress of JFK-LBJ tax cutting, tax flattening social dynamism! The conservative libertarian fusion of William F. Buckley’s National Review, took the work of Thomas Sowell’s economics & built it into the Reagan-Bush I.0 &2.0, tax cutting policies! We could give a sliding scale, tax rebate, credit, deduction or tax reducing for all money invested in or donated to all children’s schools, foster agencies, adoption agencies & educations! That would ease the individual price of birth & child rearing! We do not need any direct tax funded spending! All we need is 100% deduction, credits or the like for all capital invested in schooling, health & child raising, family upbringing! That would be the best of all worlds of both the JFK-LBJ & Reagan Bush tax cutting, pro growth, tax flattening, social dynamics! Abortion could become a non issue, due to our social dynamism!, That lending our hand, would be a real investment, with out any new “social spending”! That would make abortion akin to burning your own capital, future economic progress! Let us do the social thing! Social conservatives are learning to LIVE & LET LIVE, Letting social individuals do their own thing! That libertarian laissez faire,classical liberal social progress, is the opposite of “Progressive” libertine socialism’s, war on social progress! Conserving individual social progress, is not libertine “Progressives”‘ identity theft against Edmund Burke’s old Whig liberal conservatory of social progress! We can conserve individual social value of all potential newborns, with out calling abortion murder! Let’s make it an obvious, human capital investment issue, for those struggling with income issues! We can do this conserving of individual social progress, dynamism! Defend real individual social progress, from the war on the human race, perpetrated by “Progressives”‘ anti social activism! Thank you for your open social discourse! I hope I have helped some! Bless you all!
Every time a republican is in office they lower taxes on rich, but raise them on poor, and skyrockets our deficit, last time a republican balanced budget 1950. In 2000 Clinton had an almost 240 billion dollar SURPLUS. But Clinton did opposite, raise taxes only on rich, worked great! Trump wants to make it super good on rich, but someone must pay. He wants to screw single moms the most, taking away the head of house status, thus they have to pay on single tax tables ( they go up twice as fast) , also he wants to take away personal exemptions( the automatic deduction you get for each person on your return means the more kids you have the more screwed you are. Too bad good catholic families supported him, he also wants to raise the bottom tax bracket 2 percent. Women need to start looking at the fruit of Republican Party, what they do says they HATE women. Wake up women. Abortions go down with democrates, because they support birth control, and we trust you to make your own decisions, also believe reality that sometimes they are necessary to save your life. Even Jewish law says for the life of the mother not only is abortion allowed, but required! But be wary a lot of freaks on right deny this, thus makes the women sub human, them cells being more valuable than your life!
Debra, you’re evidently unhappy with the recent election, but your political musings are mostly off topic, so I’ll just address what has to do with abortion-on-demand.
Sadly, the number of abortions probably has not decreased very much, since more and more of them are just being done chemically. Republicans aren’t necessarily opposed to contraception, unless it involves abortifacients. As long as conception is prevented, there’s no young human being involved, so almost any method is OK with most prolifers, except Roman Catholics. I think you’ll find even they don’t oppose all contraception.
Regarding using abortion to “save women’s lives,” authorities as diverse as former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and former abortionist and OB/GYN Anthony Levatino agree that abortion is “useless” in high-risk pregnancies. Together, they represent about 80 years’ combined experience in caring for pregnant women.
Dr. Koop said:
“Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smokescreen. In my 36 years of pediatric surgery, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother’s life. If toward the end of the pregnancy complications arise that threaten the mother’s health, the doctor will induce labor or perform a Caesarean section. His intention is to save the life of both the mother and the baby. The baby’s life is never willfully destroyed because the mother’s life is in danger.”
“NEVER.”
Dr. Levatino testified before Congress:
“In cases where a mother’s life is seriously threatened by her pregnancy, a doctor more often than not doesn’t have 36 hours, much less 72 hours, to resolve the problem [dilating her cervix].
“Let me illustrate with a real-life case that I managed while at the Albany Medical Center. A patient arrived one night at 28 weeks gestation with severe preeclampsia or toxemia.
“Her blood pressure on admission was 220/160. As you are probably aware, a normal blood pressure is approximately 120/80. This patient’s pregnancy was a threat to her life and the life of her unborn child. She could very well be minutes or hours away from a major stroke. This case was managed successfully by rapidly stabilizing the patient’s blood pressure and ‘terminating’ her pregnancy by Cesarean section. She and her baby did well.
“This is a typical case in the world of high-risk obstetrics. In most such cases, any attempt to perform an abortion ‘to save the mother’s life’ would entail undue and dangerous delay in providing appropriate, truly lifesaving care.
“During my time at Albany Medical Center I managed hundreds of such cases by ‘terminating’ pregnancies to save mothers’ lives. In all those hundreds of cases, the number of unborn children that I had to deliberately kill was zero.”
“ZERO.”
It’s interesting that in another post, you condemned prolifers as “Pharisees,” but now claim Jewish law is authoritative! Even here, you admit Jewish rabbis would sanction an abortion only to save the life of the mother and there are already legal provisions for such extreme and unusual cases. According to Johnston’s Archive, saving the physical life of the mother is given as an excuse in only one-tenth of one percent of cases!
Does that really make sense to you, to allow the killing of over a million babies a year, because one-tenth of one percent of them MIGHT involve the mother’s life? Those that meet that exception will probably always be legal, but why is it legal to execute hundreds of thousands of babies a year because they’re “inconvenient”?
We’re all just “cells.” By declaring it’s all right to kill innocent preborns because of their age, size, ability, location, etc., is really an attempt to make THEM subhuman. How old, big, able, etc., do people have to be in order to be members of the human race?
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You must separate life and soul. That is what the “group” as well as Jews believe. Yes the child is alive as are most animals on the planet, however the body does not have a soul until the first breath. Many Jewish laws back this up for if you murder a woman the culprit will be put to death, however if a pregnant woman is struck and she miscarries the baby he has to provide the family with monetary reparations. If the child was born and killed his culprit would be killed, pre-born it is a fine. I am not saying this is right or wrong, but at least be properly informed, this way you have a better chance of debating your stance.
You state that the body does not have a soul until the first breath. When God formed Adam he was a nephesh mooth, a dead body as in Num 6:6, nephesh being the Hebrew word often translated as soul. With the breath of life he was a nephesh chay, a living body. Since he was a nephesh before and after the breath of life, nephesh or soul or whatever one may call it, it was not the life giving force that animated Adam. That leaves only the breath of God as that force. When the Latin speaking missionaries encountered the Anglo-Saxons they discovered that these heathens already had a word for the Latin ‘anima’ and that word was soul. It was accepted by them as an equivalent. The A/S soul lived on in different places after the body breathed its last. Some went to the A/S version of Valhalla to drink beer and train for war. This is totally unbiblical, so is the concept of soul. On the day of Pentecost when the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit occurred, the apostles heard the sound of a rushing mighty ‘pnoe’ which was translated as wind but that word was in common usage in Greek medicine as the first breath a baby takes after birth. Breath brings life.
is the baby (in-utero) alive?
In uterine the parasite is alive, like an animal no human soul. Not trying to be disrespectful calling it a parasite, but it highlights the important part of the relationship we should not forget, that parasites life is dependent on mom the host, thus logic dictates, that moms life is particularly important, because baby cannot live without mom! a Logic says moms life must be most important, if possiable await delivery until it can survive without mom, but it is self defense to abort to save mom. Ectopic pregnancy, a pregnancy outside the womb occurs abou one in 1300, usually in the tubes, which if not removed can lead to mom hemor aging to death.
I look at the ethical nature of abortion versus the bible due to the progress of what we scientifically know which is why I’m against abortion.
Lets face the facts. The bible is fairly inconsistent when it comes to abortion and when life begins. Both sides can quote outdated scriptures all day and both be right. There are some outdated and gruesome passages in the bible.
The gross bitter water test(Numbers 5:21-21, 27-28) Akin to throwing suspected witches in the water to see if they drown.
Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt. — Genesis 38:24
Yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. — Hosea 9:16
Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. — Hosea 9:14
Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. — 2 Samuel 12:14
What Jesus taught is what is important not the bible in its entirety!
You can’t take all of the bible literally:
Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
-Matt. 13:13
I would not call the Bible inconsistent with respect to abortion. The passages you mentioned have to do with judgment and one of God’s attributes: wrath. The judgments against entire nations like Midian, Canaan, Amalek (so-called attrocities by the post-modern moralist) are just.
Jesus’s own teaching on hell shows us that that a large percentage of humanity will justly suffer eternally in hell for their rejection of the gospel. You might say that is kind of harsh. Apostle Paul confirms this in 2 Thess 1:9-10.
People love the loving, good, merciful attributes of God, but they forget He is also just and wrathful.
None of the passages you gave in defense of life starting in the womb even mention “life”. They talk about being FORMED, being set apart, and being known… All those things can very well be true for God to have done, without the fetus ever being “alive”.
Show me a verse that says “when you were formed AND alive in the womb”…
ok… John the Baptist leaped for joy in his mother’s womb. Can a person who is not alive leap for joy?
Yes, as Delight in Truth says, you’ve overlooked one of the verses listed: Luke 1:44.
To me, it’s interesting and relevant that, throughout Scripture, no distinction is made between preborns and newborns. For example, the same Greek word, “brephos” (“baby”), is used in referring to the leaping Baptizer before he was born as well to the Christ child laid in the manger (Luke 2:12).
Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest scientist who ever lived, was also a Christian who wrote more about theology than he did about physics. He said there were two records of God’s handiwork: Scripture and the nature. Science and common sense teach us some things Scripture may not mention explicitly. Does anyone really contend that nonliving things are somehow “formed” in their mothers’ wombs, only to be somehow magically brought to life at birth?
Over 150 years ago Louis Pasteur, another Christian, postulated the law of biogenesis, which holds that life comes only from life. Prior to that time, people actually believed, for example, that maggots could spring spontaneously from meat without flies first laying their eggs there!
As early as the 1840s, human conception was observed, the union of living gametes to form the beginning of a new living human being. After all, God is “is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Matt. 22:32, NIV).
The baby leapt for joy in the womb after she was “filled with the Holy Spirit”. The second she heard his voice the Holy Spirit entered her body (would this not also effect an embryo?)
Also, we are speaking biblically. If the bible is to be taken as the one true word, it doesn’t really matter what scientists or philosophers theorize as God has the last say correct? As far as I see he has yet to SAY otherwise….
No, you’re reversing the order of events as recorded in Scripture.
According to the most strictly literal translation, the NASB, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” Elizabeth first heard Mary’s greeting and then the baby leaped, evidently in response to Mary’s greeting if anything. (Preborns can hear, you know! Their ears begin forming at about the 8th week and are fully formed after the 24th.)
While I would agree that Scripture is the one infallible word, it’s not the only source of true knowledge, which is what Newton was talking about, that there are TWO records or testimonies about God. God reveals himself through nature. Scripture repeatedly recommends we consider lessons from nature: “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!” (Prov. 6:6, NIV). Many of our Savior’s teachings were based on the ways of nature, as in the Parable of the Sower.
I didn’t mention any philosophers, only two exemplary scientists who were also Christians. It’s been well argued that, except for Christianity, what we think of as science in the West probably wouldn’t exist. People like Newton, Pascal, Kepler, and many others, based their findings (which weren’t mere theories!) on biblical teachings about the immutability and knowability of God and the understanding that the laws of nature, being part of his creation, were unchanging, dependable, and discoverable.
We needn’t choose between true science and true religion, since they’re not enemies. Both came from the same source. “Science” is just another word for “knowledge,” the Latin root of which is scio, “to know.” In 1 Timothy 6:20, the KJV warns of “oppositions of science falsely so called,” and almost every more-recent translation substitutes for “science,” the word “knowledge.”
The bible states God speaks to us in metaphors because we can not grasp his logic. not everything is literal or can be taken literal. The true Scripture says that the Spirit filled her before the baby leapt. To change the versus into “literal” paraphrasing to make it fit your argument is misleading and inconsistent with the message of the passage in the first place.
Also, God disproves science all the time, however science has yet to disprove God. We have knowledge (which according to scripture also comes from God ), yes, and obviously science is part of that knowledge… However, are you to take sciences side above the scripture in which it clearly states that life is not given until he has breathed the breath of life into us? If so, then any argument you have about “gods will and word” is pretty much redundant as you base your beliefs off of THEORETICAL (not proven) human claims, Above clear and concise scriptures station otherwise.
All of that aside, like I asked, please show me the verse where it actually says life is given in the womb.
I believe our God isn’t a redundant one. If we as Christians are to believe that LIFE starts in the womb (and not with His gift of the breath of life) then please show me the passage where he CLEARLY communicates that to us
imsmartyr, so you do not believe that a a baby who undergoes all the processses of cellular respiration and full neurological function at 40 weeks, but not yet born, is not alive?
wow.
BTW the the baby breathes via the placenta.
Are you a supporter of abortion practice?
Lol you can try and use all the science you want.
I’ve started, very clearly, that I would like to see a passage that says the word “LIFE” in the same passage or sentence as the womb.
We could go all day talking about whether or not a baby PRACTICING (normal developmental responses) equates it as being alive. The bible doesn’t state it is, and so I am asking for the verse that states as clearly as, oh let’s say, job 33:4.
It is very clear that the bible equates the word breath with LIFE.
Not the womb…
But go ahead and try and prove that the bible SAYS otherwise… I’ll wait 😂
Do you support abortion?
I noticed you said PRACTICING breathing. Those are also normal responses to stimuli…
I’ve now written about 1,100 words in response to your challenges, but you seem to have read only two of them and not to have understood those two.
This time, you’ve seized upon the word “practice,” a term from the British website. Do you really think “breathing movements” (their phrase) prove preborns are not alive? How do nonliving things have any “movements”? Fetal breathing is NOT “normal responses to stimuli,” but even if we assume your theory were correct, how would a nonliving thing have ANY “responses to stimuli”? Do nonliving things respond to stimuli? Responding to stimuli is one way we know something is alive.
Surely you’d agree that babies grow in their mothers’ wombs. Do nonliving things grow?
You do realize, don’t you, that as Pasteur the Christian demonstrated, everything is either living or nonliving? Abortion fans often argue preborns are “not human beings,” since they lack this or that human quality or ability, but are you really arguing that nonliving preborns don’t come to life until their first breath?
However no amount of scientific theory has yet proven that the bible INDEED associates the LIFE of a fetus within the womb…”
That statement doesn’t make much sense, since for one thing, as I keep saying, it’s a fact, not a “theory” that human life begins at conception! The process was first observed over 150 years ago. It’s settled science! Just check any biology textbook printed in the last 80 or 100 years.
https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html
Your theory that preborns aren’t alive really makes you a science denier.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/08/science_deniers098481.html
If preborns weren’t living creatures, people wouldn’t have to go to so much trouble to kill them. They scald them to death in a saline solution, decapitate them, tear them limb from limb, inject a solution of potassium chloride and/or Digoxin into their hearts, suck their brains out through a hole punched in the backs of their necks, etc.—all in order to be certain the babies are dead. Human lives, especially at later stages of pregnancy, are quite sturdy and stubborn, and preborns often do not give up their lives without a fight.
How can you kill something that’s not alive? Why would you want or need to?
As explained in the second paragraph of my original reply to your post, Scripture uses the very same terms to describe both born and preborn children. If one were living and the other nonliving, why wouldn’t the Bible make that very important distinction? You mention “semantics,” but you seem to be the one who’s playing word games, pretending there’s a distinction between children on this side of the birth canal and children on the other side. It’s a distinction Holy Writ does not make! As far as Scripture is concerned, a baby is a baby is a baby, regardless of its location, age, size, ability, race, etc.
Not sure why you seem to have pounced on the word “literal.” I just used the term to describe the NASB, the translation I cited. What “paraphrasing”? Paraphrasing is exactly what I was doing my best to avoid doing and that’s the reason I referred to the most literal translation I know of. Remember: literal is the opposite of paraphrased.
It turns out at least 20 translations ( http://biblehub.com/luke/1-41.htm ) confirm the point that:
1. First came Mary’s greeting.
2. The preborn John then leaped in Elizabeth’s womb.
3. Finally, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
You seemed to be saying you thought the Baptizer didn’t leap until Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, as if he’d done so in response to his mother’s being imbued with the spirit. But that’s not possible, according to Scripture. Holy Writ says he leaped before his mother became Spirit-filled.
Are you thinking of the old idea of “quickening,” according to which it was (wrongly) believed that a preborn didn’t come to life until after his mother first felt him move? It turns out, the baby is moving long before the mother can feel it, due to the tininess of the baby and the insensitivity of the womb to anything but stretching.
Please carefully read every word of the first paragraph on this page:
http://www.abortioninformation.net/fetal_development.asp
Perhaps you need to reread Delight in Truth’s original post if you think Scripture “clearly states life is not given until [God] has breathed the breath of life into us.” Do you really believe preborns are not alive prior to the first time they inhale air?
As DiT explains, the passages which seem to indicate we’re not alive until we first breathe air are taken out of context. And passages like the one describing God creation of the first man have nothing to do with the way every other man has been formed.
But Psalm 139:16, which DiT cites, makes it clear that we exist even before conception!
Our physical lives on Earth begin at conception. There’s nothing “theoretical” about it! It’s been settled science for over 150 years. Human conception was observed in the early 1840s. And as I pointed out in another comment above, if the creature conceived isn’t alive, there’ll be no need for an obstetrician or abortionist, either one, because there’ll be nothing to be born or killed.
Shari Richard, a pioneer of ultrasound technology, goes around the country demonstrating just how alive preborns are.
We’ve given you passages that DO affirm preborns are living human beings (Luke 1:41, 44), but you won’t accept them, evidently determined to believe that nonliving creatures can leap. Can they also squirm, smile, suck their thumbs, hear and react to sounds, flee from instruments threatening their existence, and even dream dreams?
If you’d ever carried a very active baby like my wife did, one who’d sometimes practically knock the breath out of her before he was born, you’d never doubt that preborns are alive. Though she barely felt her other child move at all, except when she once had hiccups, her son was a regular athlete! She will never doubt that her children were alive from conception on.
Nelson G., I always appreciate your input
You’re very kind, Doctor. You really don’t need my two-cents’ worth and I was about to apologize for getting so carried away so often! But I just seem to see and feel the facts, both spiritual and scientific, on this issue so clearly.
You mention the baby breathing via the placenta, but there’s also such a thing as “fetal breathing,” isn’t there? According to a British site, these breathing movements “begin at 9 weeks of pregnancy and allow the fetus to practice” the skill they’ll use the rest of their lives. A preborn acquires this ability so that “when the baby is born, he/she will be able to breathe straightaway.”
After all, it isn’t the baby’s fault he must dwell in an airless environment.
I always marvel that so many otherwise intelligent people seem willing to accept the idea of a Magical Birth Canal, where the nonliving are transformed into living creatures and where non- or sub-humans with no human rights become full-fledged humans with all their rights.
Surely, we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” as we are “knit together” in our mothers’ wombs. And, as you’ve suggested, building a nervous system, a circulatory system, a lymphatic system and readying them for 100 years of use, none of these things can be done in one magical instant.
You’re probably familiar with that wonderful paper on the truth about the nature of preborns by New Zealand’s Sir A.W. Liley, who’s been called one of the fathers of fetology. At one point, he refers to: “one recorded case of air amniography where the presence of a substantial volume of intraamniotic air led to prolonged loud foetal crying.”
If only those who think preborns are not alive or not human would read, nay, STUDY, this brilliant paper!
Here’s a nice printable version, for anyone who’s interested.
http://www.ehd.org/classics/liley_foetus.php
I noticed you said PRACTICING breathing.
Those are also normal responses to stimuli…
However no amount of scientific theory has yet proven that the bible INDEED associates the LIFE of a fetus within the womb…
Nice try, you can not tell me that the bible agrees with any of your semantics
Feel free to do all the lolling you like, but I’m not “trying” to “use science.” I’m just pointing to proven, settled, scientific facts, which do not, incidentally, contradict Scripture at all. In fact, you’re contradicting both science and Scripture by assuming there is a distinction between preborns and neonates, babies in the womb and out of it. Scripture doesn’t go along with your arbitrary, artificial distinction and neither does science.
Life is a continuum that begins at conception and ends when we die. Birth (or first breathing air) is more like a milestone on the journey of our lives, like puberty or menopause, not a line of demarcation between being and nonbeing, humans and nonhumans, humans and subhumans, the living and the dead, or between humans with rights and those without them.
It’s quite obvious why some want to define preborns out of the human race! If they’re not human or not alive, it’s all right to kill them. Although I still don’t understand how something that isn’t alive can be killed.
There are several flaws in think Job 33:4 proves preborns aren’t alive. First, you’re ignoring the context of the verse. It’s among the words of one of Job’s foolish accusers, Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite (32:6). When he finally shuts up, several chapters later, the first thing God says is: “Who is this that darkens my counsel / with words without knowledge?” (38:2). Though God is speaking to Job, he actually honors Job’s defiance, while scarcely condescending to reply to the groveling and obsequiousness of Job’s “friends.” So v. 4 is not an authoritative statement or a divine definition.
Another flaw is that Hebrew is a poetic language, in which almost every word has multiple layers and levels of meaning. Although nothing in Scripture contradicts true science, Hebrew isn’t a scientific language. And Job is clearly an allegorical poem, which is why it’s formatted as any other poem would be in modern translations. It’s as much of a poem as any of the Psalms, which is why it’s where it is in the Bible.
So! When 33:4 mentions “the breath of the Almighty,” it’s a poetic expression, not a literal reference to that mixture of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and other gases we call “air.” Does anyone really believe the Creator of the Universe inhales and exhales literal air?
Besides, “breath” is NOT the only substance used to represent life in Scripture! Consider Genesis 9:4; Deuteronomy 12:23: Leviticus 17:11, 14; and even John 6:53, 54, all of which indicate that “life is in the BLOOD.” Consider too how often the Bible talks about “shedding innocent blood.”
I notice you haven’t answered our hosts question about where you stand on abortion. In case, you don’t reply, I hope you know there’s forgiveness for every sin, even slaying your own offspring if that happens to be the case. There was once a man who was directly involved in killing Gospel preachers, but once his life was transformed, he wound up writing as much as half of the New Testament!
Nothing you referenced said when life begins. You’re attempting to rewrite the Bible to support your own opinion.
A spider can grab your finger, feel pain, AND independently sustain it’s own life, yet you’ll squash them without a thought. I hate the idea of abortion just like you. I’m just not going to pervert the word of God to support my argument.
Kevin, exactly when human lives begin is not explicitly addressed in Scripture, but that’s not the subject under discussion here. This is a discussion about whether human lives begin prior to birth OR at the point babies first breathe air.
The passages cited do demonstrate that, according to Scripture, human beings are living creatures long before taking their first breath of air. This agrees with the scientific findings of centuries later.
Psalm 139:16 “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
ALL THE DAYS ORDAINED FOR ME…BEFORE ANY OF THEM CAME TO BE.
in other words, his days haven’t started as he was not yet alive. All the scripture cited as “proof” that conception is when Life begins either talks about how God sees the unborn, since God knows all things, or talks about a child that will be. You conveniently left out Luke 1:42: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!” THE CHILD YOU WILL BEAR, or that hasn’t been born into Life.
modans55, what makes you so sure “before any of them came to be” means “his days haven’t started as he was not yet alive”? Once a child is conceived, his days have indeed “started,” since he is quite alive and growing rapidly! Otherwise, there’ll be no need for an abortionist or obstetrician, either one.
I hope you’re not confusing the way we reckon the age of children in the West, which is really just a custom, with the point at which each new human being actually comes into existence. (According to East Asian age reckoning, a child is one year old at birth. That’s also a custom.) The well-established scientific fact is that living human beings come into existence at conception, not at some later point.
With regard to Luke 1:42, “will bear” doesn’t necessarily mean “will give birth to.” The literal meaning of the Greek in the last part of this verse is “blessed is the fruit of the womb of you.”
http://biblehub.com/text/luke/1-42.htm
The NIV’s “will bear” just seems to be an attempt to translate a Greek idiom into something English-speaking people would be more likely to understand. The majority of English translations read “blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
http://biblehub.com/luke/1-42.htm
Notice almost all of them say “IS,” not “will be” or “will bear,” and certainly there is no sense in any of them of looking forward to some future time when the child “WILL BE” or “WILL BECOME” alive.
http://biblehub.com/text/luke/1-42.htm
Many don’t seem to realize is that in both testaments, Scripture always uses PERSONAL pronouns to refer to children in utero (“he,” “she,” “they,” etc., but never “it”). And NO distinction is made between preborn children and post-born children. In the New Testament, the Greek word “brephos” (baby) refers both to John the Baptizer leaping in his mother’s womb (Lk. 1:41, 44) as well as to the Christ child laid in the manger (Lk. 2:7, 12).
They’re always just referred to as “babies,” “children,” “sons,” et al. This point is crucial, since almost all abortion fans, from the Supremes on down, are always insisting there IS a distinction between pre-born and post-born babies. The distinction is man-made, with an obviously ulterior motive.
You people who read the Bible that life begins with breath and can’t accept it need to look into your hearts and ask the Holy Ghost why you can’t accept the truth, do you really hate women that much? God is simply stating according to his law the human value of life begins with breath, and quit trying to judge other people, the Bible is clear on that one also. Quit pick and choosing your bible, it says mainly Love God and love people, also main theme is Jesus, that’s why John the Baptist and Jesus is mentioned in the womb in the bible, don’t make it into something it’s not. Jesus looks into your heart, why are you judging women?
Debra, you’re not just being disrespectful; you’re being quite unscientific in referring to preborn children as “parasites.” There are several forms of symbiosis and parasitism is one of them, but a human mother carrying a child is not a parasitic relationship. It’s one of “mutualism,” a relationship which is mutually beneficial to both parties.
Here’s a brief article about four of the ways being a mother can make you healthier.
http://www.babycenter.com/0_how-being-a-mom-can-make-you-healthier_1438536.bc
My own grandmother was told, after having two children, that having another would kill her. They were devout Christians and decided to, in their words, “trust the Lord and go ahead and live their lives.” They did so and in the course of time had two more children, neither of which killed her or was ever in anything less than perfect health. All were blessings to everyone who knew them (one served in World War II), had their own or adopted children, and lived to ripe, old ages.
My own mom was a great example of how having children can improve your health. In her youth, she was always quite thin, sickly, and had what we’d now probably call migraines if she didn’t eat right on schedule. She found it so difficult to gain weight the doctor actually prescribed for her to drink a quart of milk a day. Nothing did her much good, until she married and started having children. Somehow, having children seemed to improve her metabolism, she gained weight, and stayed strong and healthy until her final few years, when she died at age 85. I’ve wondered if she could ever have lived that long without having had children!
I know of another case in which a mom’s life was saved because she refused to abort a baby that was supposedly threatening her life. The baby didn’t kill her and, after he was born, and the mom survived, it was discovered that the mom was suffering from a perforated diaphragm that would have killed her if the baby had been taken early. As it was, he was positioned just so that kept her from bleeding to death until they could see to it.
If she’d aborted her baby, both would certainly died, but since she chose life for her baby, both of them lived!
Babies save women’s lives! Haven’t you heard about the recent discoveries that preborn babies can help heal their mom’s hearts?
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/baby-gives-back-fetus-capable-saving-moms-life
Removal of an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion, since, for one thing, an abortion is the deliberate killing of a preborn. But when an ectopic is removed, he or she dies because our technology is not able to “transplant” him or her. Such a pregnancy is therefore rightly considered a miscarriage.
What many do not realize is that one of the unwanted side-effects of abortion is increased incidence of ectopic pregnancies!
Randy Alcorn has pointed out: “Studies show that the risk of an ectopic pregnancy is twice as high for women who have had one abortion, and up to four times as high for women with two or more previous abortions. There has been a 300 percent increase of ectopic pregnancies since abortion was legalized. In 1970 the incidence was 4.8 per 1,000 births; by 1980 it had risen to 14.5 per 1,000 births.”
Debra, please reread our host’s article. It turns out, he’s not just some wild-eyed, religious fanatic but is instead an M.D.
He explains that each of the most often cited passages are really taken from their contexts. “A text taken out of context can become a pretext.” We don’t accept the assertion “that life begins with breath” because nowhere does Scripture say that.
Here’s my verse-by-verse explanation.
Genesis 2:7 has nothing to do with the way the rest of mankind have been created. Adam was created “from the dust of the ground” and God breathed life into his nostrils, so what would that have to do with all the rest of us who are children of Eve and were conceived and grew in our mother’s wombs?
Job 33:4 doesn’t record words from God’s lips. They’re not even the words of Job! The person speaking there is Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite (32:6), one of Job’s rather unspiritual tormentors, all of whom God eventually condemns by basically contradicting all their “good advice” and honoring even Job’s defenses of himself.
Ezekiel 37:5, 6 is about a vision God gave to the prophet in order to demonstrate his omnipotence. He directed Ezekiel to resurrect a field dry bones, attach tendons to them, put flesh on them and cover them with skin. A perfect analogy to the way babies grow in their mothers’ wombs!
Except that it’s not.
A woman who went through the early ’70s as a choicers but eventually came to realize the mistake she made has written: “If you were in charge of a nature preserve and you noticed that the pregnant female mammals were trying to miscarry their pregnancies, eating poisonous plants or injuring themselves, what would you do? Would you think of it as a battle between the pregnant female and her unborn and find ways to help those pregnant animals miscarry? No, of course not. You would immediately think, ‘Something must be really wrong in this environment.’ Something is creating intolerable stress, so much so that animals would rather destroy their own offspring than bring them into the world. You would strive to identify and correct whatever factors were causing this stress in the animals.”
Read more at:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430152/abortion-roe-v-wade-unborn-children-women-feminism-march-life
Though we’re commanded to judge (John 7:24), those who ask women to stop killing their babies are not “judging” anyone. We’re just urging them to stop doing something they cannot undo, something they’re very likely to regret, and something that’s really harmful to their own long-term happiness.
We’re not helping women by allowing or even encouraging women to kill their children. The most loving, helpful, Christian thing any of us can do would be to help them find a way to avoid extermination their own offspring.
You make a claim that the Christian Left was taking quotes out of the bible without context yet you do not refute the context of those passages. Are we supposed to just trust you on that one? Then you use your own quotes from the bible without context. Jeremiah is talking about someone who was predestined to be a prophet. The Psalms you quoted were showing that God will always recognize us no matter what form we take.
The context for the verses I provided do not exclude that the baby is alive before being born. Look closely at the Luke passage. Here we have a baby prior to birth (John the Baptist) who clearly meets the criteria of personhood AND meets philosophical and common sense criteria for being alive: experiences joy!
Ron, anyone can read the passages cited in their favorite translation and decide if they sound they are relevant to the question of when human lives begin.
In case you missed my speech about the passages in Luke, I will, like Benjamin Franklin, “quote myself with great gravity.”
Many don’t seem to realize is that in both testaments, Scripture always uses PERSONAL pronouns to refer to children in utero (“he,” “she,” “they,” etc., but never “it”).
And NO distinction is made between preborn children and post-born children. In the New Testament, the Greek word “brephos” (baby) refers both to John the Baptizer leaping in his mother’s womb (Lk. 1:41, 44) as well as to the Christ child laid in the manger (Lk. 2:7, 12).
They’re always just referred to as “babies,” “children,” “sons,” et al. This point is crucial, since almost all abortion fans, from the Supremes on down, insist there IS a distinction between pre-born and post-born babies. The distinction is man-made, with an obviously ulterior motive.
In the language of Scripture, they’re just “babies,” wherever they reside.
All this article does is once again reaffirm for me that the Bible is bursting with so many contradictions and “contexts” that it can be used to argue for any point under the vault of stars. That’s because it’s an asynchronous patchwork, cobbled-together by human hands looking to get a stranglehold on the gullible masses. Man’s connection to the Creator is a direct line, an immediate, unmistakable experience that no book or human-wrought framework could hope to encapsulate, let alone monopolize. Feh.
So, how do you plan to access this “direct line?” Like Oprah, who invented her own religion?
Amen
If life is in the blood, where does the blood come from? Of course it comes from God.
A question I constantly ask myself… why do Christians, often very good people, become so consumed over what other people do, often to the point of becoming militant, and completely overshadowing any good left in themselves??
If you don’t believe in drinking…don’t drink.
If you don’t believe in smoking…don’t smoke.
If you don’t believe in same sex marriage…don’t get one.
But don’t impose your one sided views on others. When someone says you can’t pray in public, you are outraged, yet you somehow justify telling others what’s “right” for them.
The Bible can be interpreted and twisted in many ways. Unfortunately, so many good Christians are being led to believe individual racist and bigoted teachings in the name of Christ.
It’s so very sad.
Someday, we will learn that God is love, not hate. Maybe it will be too late.
According to such reasoning, we might also say, “If you don’t believe in slavery, don’t buy one” or “If you don’t believe in mugging people, don’t mug anyone.” If a neighbor is beating his wife or molesting children, would you say it’s no one’s business but the one committing these crimes?
Christians don’t have the luxury of living aloof from the world or of ignoring the suffering of others. We’re commanded to love each other, which doesn’t mean telling others whatever they want to do, even killing their own offspring, is a matter of complete indifference to all but the ones doing the killing. Patting people on the head and and telling them to do as they please is about as uncaring and unloving as anyone can be, especially for all the helpless, defenseless little decedents.
Christians are under orders to:
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.
—Proverbs 31:9, 10 (NIV)
Is anyone poorer, more needy, or more destitute than the little human being whose mom wants him dead?
Christians are often criticized as if defending innocent preborns is some quaint religious belief we’re trying to impose on others, but as it turns out, there are secular, atheist, agnostic, and even Muslim and Buddhist prolifers!
One needn’t be an adherent of any religion in order to be prolife. All one has to be is civilized.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
—John Donne (1624)
Please leave logical reasons to people with at least a minimum of mental competence.
That’s absurd. And the part where you believe in Satan is scary. What kind of horrible vengeful god would sentence a person to eternal hellfire. Too stupid to live. Why didn’t Jesus know the moothe stars were suns?
Actually, the first breath would be when the lungs are developed and working, while still in the womb. The baby is already breathing. However, the baby is already recieving oxygen from the mother even before lungs are working.
We do not need an intrepetation of what the Bible clearly states. Life begins when we draw our first breath. That is, if you believe the Bible at the time it was written, and not what modern medicine can provide. Current abortion policies exceed what the bible states is a person. Twisting the accidental death fallacy is only boosting YOUR opinion. Not what the Bible teaches. Get right.
Keith,
If that’s the argument you wish to make, perhaps you are unaware that the same ‘breath of life’ that the mother breathes is transmitted to her unborn child through her and then the child’s blood (I’m sure DelightInTruth can explain this in more detail is needed). It really doesn’t seem that the biblical understanding of life is so different than modern medicine’s.
I don’t tie the start of life to oxygen, specifically, but if you do, then you need to move your timeline back a few months at a minimum.
You don’t get to redefine things just because it’s inconvenient.
Breathing does NOT mean “having lungs”. Ir dead people would be “breathing”! “Breathing” means to purposely draw air Ito your lints for the purpose of oxygenating you’re blood.
Again, nice try, though.
Nope:
Lev 17:11
Nice try, though.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hand-of-hope/
I know this may not be followed any more but I have just read it.
I was disappointed in the article. I expected and hoped for a contrast of passages saying life begins at conception and those that say it begins with breath. Instead it declares the ones saying it begins with breath as out of context without offering proof. It just states it as fact. Then it makes an argument that it begins at conception because a fetus can interact with surgeons. That is a valid argument apart from what it says in the Bible. This article stated purpose is to prove life begins at conception by using Bible text. This fails to do that.
You are doing the same as the “Christian left” using scripture to argue your point.
God gave us dominion over all creation, but not each other so who are you or anyone else to tell women what they can and can’t do with their bodies and as Gods creation that is between her and God, I’m not not left or right I acknowledge God as my creator and Jesus as my savior end of story.
You’re ok with babies having their limbs torn apart while being in their mother’s womb?
Silence is violence!
Fetuses are NOT babies, and the procedure you are referring to is rare, and only performed in circumstances where the life of the mother is in mortal danger. But her life isn’t what you mean by “pro-life”, we know.
Besides, the Bible is quite clear about two things: first, that life does NOT begin at conception, but rather at birth, and second, that, since God’s plan for each one of us was supposedly known since the beginning of time, if a fetus gets aborted, that is what God intended.
If not, all you are admitting is that doctors and laywomen are more powerful than your weak, impotent, and thoroughly ineffectual “god”.
You are quite ignorant of clear biblical text indicating that unborn children are quite alive. At least read the verses I posted. Also you seem to endorse fatalism (if the nazis killed 6 million Jews, that’s what God intended?). Too bad. And ripping limbs apart in the womb IS NOT a rare procedure.
No, I’m not, and merely typing nonsense into the internets does not magical make it true.
And NONE of the nonsense biblical passages referenced here have ANYTHING to do with the question of the life status of fetuses. As opposed to the numerous passages which make clear and confirm the ancient Hebrew belief that life began with the first breath. And then there’s Lev 19:11.
There is no way around these dictates.
Moreover, how about you try Hooked on Phonics®? I “endorsed” nothing of the kind. Fatalism is not my position, it’s the only logical outcome of YOURS.
And yes, the procedure you are discussing, the dilate and extraction, most certainly is a rare procedure. You literally have no idea what you’re talking about.
There is not a single biblical text that refers to unborn fetuses being alive.
Bro not everyone believes in your GOD. Using the Bible as a reason to tell people what to do is taking away peoples freedom of religion.
And yet in Exodus abortion is okay. It clearly states that if a man suspects his wife is unfaithful he can take her to the priest and he can give her bitter water which causes her expel the object that makes her belly grow, meaning she drinks this crap and aborts her fetus.
You’re referring to the passage in Numbers. And no, the priest does not induce abortion. He curses the woman to cause her abdomen to swell and make her infertile.
Just an observation after reading the article and comments all the way through. The doctors (OP and G. Nelson) are very logical and patient in interacting with those who are emotionally driven.
I do agree the Bible doesn’t explicitly differienate between the preborn and born baby. To God, they are all babies “brephos,” so the Bible doesn’t need to have a verse that specifically says that the preborn is alive or human. It assumes the fact by using the same word for both.
I also love the numerous mentions of how God and Science are compatible. And that famous scientists of the past were often Christians. This fact is something that is largely ignored in today’s largely atheistic scientific community.
Anyway, I appreciate this article and think it is as relevant in 2022 as it was when it was written.
Life starts at first breath when God gives the person a spirit. Life ends when you take your last breath and the spirit leaves the body.