The souls of aborted fetuses

[RickD]

Neo wrote:
5. The reason I said it's not murder is that it technically just isn't. If you have a justification to kill/end life if you consider the pros and cons, and I am using the same yardstick here Rick, the one you referred to about the Nuking post. That if you take all factors in, it just seems to me that, yes it is also justifiable to have an abortion.

Rick, Thank you for your candid thoughts. I was a bit surprised that you didn't spot the irony in what you said. You initially called me out in the inconsistency that I held nuking Japan, unjustified but not abortion and I believe your argument is that nuking Japan can be justified but abortion can't be. Do you see that abortion can too be justified, the same as the nuking? We're basically saying the same thing. You hold the nuking, justified and not abortion and me Vice versa. If there is an inconsistency then it is in both of our arguments. Or else you can agree with me that they are two very different issues.

Like I said before, I may be missing something. So please, before I can answer, I'd like to hear the reasoning you have to say that abortion is not only justified, but necessary.

It's necessary in conditions of extreme poverty, like I wrote in point 4 of my post. People don't get abortions because they like to. Desperation and poverty and a miserable life more so becomes the reason. Especially what happens to such a child in these conditions.

So, would you say that in those cases, abortion would be the least bad, option?

Maybe thought of as the least evil choice, among all available choices?

Yes, I Can agree to that.

Ah, ok. I'm understanding your pov better now. Thanks for explaining.

First off, I'd just like to be clear that I have no way of understanding what someone must be going through, to lead them to believe that killing their unborn child is the best choice they have. The hell on earth they must be experiencing, I can in no way understand.

Usually when I think of a moral dilemma, and choosing the least evil choice among the available choices, I think of lying to protect the lives of Jews from Nazis. Or stealing food to feed a starving family. In those examples, lying and stealing are the least evil choices, compared to one's family dying from starvation, or a person being killed at the hands of Nazis.

I have a hard time comprehending how killing my own child is the best/least evil choice.

But like I said, I cannot relate because I'm not in that situation.

[RickD]

Just to point out that abortion is an emotional subject, the slaughter of the most innocent lives, brings out emotions in people(who'd have guessed?).

As the link I posted at the top of page 4 of this thread shows, the argument that abortion is murder, is in fact a logical argument.

Here's the link:
https://www.truelife.org/answers/is-abortion-murder

[Philip]

Neo: A 3 month baby in the womb is potential human life.

Complete and utter hogwash! We ALL know that there isn't some lifeless blob growing in the womb. If carried to term, it always results in a further developing human - to childhood, puberty, adulthood, and old age (all stages of development!). We can know peer into the womb and see this life, its unbelievably early development, etc. It's unique DNA, blood type, etc. So, you have absolutely no justification to assert an unborn baby isn't a life. And as usual, you avoid the relevant Scriptures of God speaking of the personhood of the unborn. Of course you deny the personhood, because that is the only way you could justify it as a moral choice. So, Neo, please address what the Bible says about this - do you believe it or not? Again, there would be only one God-honoring justification for abortion - if God did not view human life as sacred and an unborn baby as a human made in His Image! That and if he'd not said unavoidably taking innocent life to be murder.

Think about the assertions for justifiable abortion due to the economic costs, hardships on families, drain on resources, etc. Apply those same things to our dependent elderly - the very same issues. Or parents become old, infirm, take time, effort, the cost of money and treatment - all severe drains on families of meager resources. So is it okay to use such things as justification for taking grandpa's life? I spent 15 years (as did my siblings) helping care for my mother stricken with Alzheimer's - it impacted all five of us terribly. Would we have been justified with ending mom's life because of severe hardships? Because Neo's justifications, if moral and God-honoring, should apply there as well. Right?

Note in Exodus 21, God addresses various deliberate taking of human life and justifies their execution. Quite interesting, he also addresses the harm caused by a person unnecessarily attacking another, in which a pregnant woman's unborn child is harmed - note carefully that this scenario is different than the ones proceeding it, as the focus is the impact upon the pregnant woman's child - also note that this unborn one is considered an unborn "child!" And the injuries to be assessed concern the how the woman's "children come out" after the woman is hit in the midst of the men fighting. One must wonder why God would be concerned with injuries made to an unborn child, and why he considers the punishments equal to those of assault by one adult upon another?

Exodus 21:22: “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if there is harm,[d] then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

Again, please address what God says about the unborn.

[Nessa]

Are you supposing abortion is just an emotional issue for those who oppose it?

It's not purely an emotional issue for me. I am going by what the bible says about life.

We are knitted into our mothers wombs. God sees us before we are born... I could go on.

As Stu pointed out, is a newborn baby any less dependant on humans? Abandon one in a field and see how far the dependancy argument gets you...

[neo-x]

@Nessa
I was talking about the emotional hyperbole that can be created by using words like "murder" and "Playing God". What does that make the doctors "assassins"?

So I just don't buy it. The argument is not about dependency but is a 3-month baby in the womb, a complete human being? No, it isn't. It's potential life. A baby came to full term is a human being.

[RickD]

@Nessa
I was talking about the emotional hyperbole that can be created by using words like "murder" and "Playing God". What does that make the doctors "assassins"?

So I just don't buy it. The argument is not about dependency but is a 3-month baby in the womb, a complete human being? No, it isn't. It's potential life. A baby came to full term is a human being.

Neo,

That's just completely anti-science.

[neo-x]

@Nessa
I was talking about the emotional hyperbole that can be created by using words like "murder" and "Playing God". What does that make the doctors "assassins"?

So I just don't buy it. The argument is not about dependency but is a 3-month baby in the womb, a complete human being? No, it isn't. It's potential life. A baby came to full term is a human being.

Neo,

That's just completely anti-science.

Based on what I have read it isn't. Let me know your source, I can give it a read.

[RickD]

@Nessa
I was talking about the emotional hyperbole that can be created by using words like "murder" and "Playing God". What does that make the doctors "assassins"?

So I just don't buy it. The argument is not about dependency but is a 3-month baby in the womb, a complete human being? No, it isn't. It's potential life. A baby came to full term is a human being.

Neo,

That's just completely anti-science.

Based on what I have read it isn't. Let me know your source, I can give it a read.

You want a source that says only babies that come to full term are human beings?

A baby that is delivered by c section at 7 months is not a human being? One at 6 months? 8 months?

You seriously want a source for that?

A 3 month old fetus isn't a complete human being, so it's not a human being? Toddlers aren't complete human beings either. Are they not human beings?

[Storyteller]

@Nessa
I was talking about the emotional hyperbole that can be created by using words like "murder" and "Playing God". What does that make the doctors "assassins"?

So I just don't buy it. The argument is not about dependency but is a 3-month baby in the womb, a complete human being? No, it isn't. It's potential life. A baby came to full term is a human being.

Neo,

That's just completely anti-science.

Based on what I have read it isn't. Let me know your source, I can give it a read.

Heres one...
https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/wdhbb.html

[neo-x]

@Nessa
I was talking about the emotional hyperbole that can be created by using words like "murder" and "Playing God". What does that make the doctors "assassins"?

So I just don't buy it. The argument is not about dependency but is a 3-month baby in the womb, a complete human being? No, it isn't. It's potential life. A baby came to full term is a human being.

Neo,

That's just completely anti-science.

Based on what I have read it isn't. Let me know your source, I can give it a read.

You want a source that says only babies that come to full term are human beings?

A baby that is delivered by c section at 7 months is not a human being? One at 6 months? 8 months?

You seriously want a source for that?

A 3 month old fetus isn't a complete human being, so it's not a human being? Toddlers aren't complete human beings either. Are they not human beings?

Rick, you said that it is anti science, so obviously I assumed you must have a source that says so and hence I asked for it. A baby fully formed is of course a complete human being. That is the brain and other main organs are fully formed.

A 3 month old fetus is just that, a fetus. It is human only in genetics. It is not a person. Anymore than having an apple seed is not an apple tree. It can become one but it isn't one yet.

[neo-x]

@Nessa
I was talking about the emotional hyperbole that can be created by using words like "murder" and "Playing God". What does that make the doctors "assassins"?

So I just don't buy it. The argument is not about dependency but is a 3-month baby in the womb, a complete human being? No, it isn't. It's potential life. A baby came to full term is a human being.

Neo,

That's just completely anti-science.

Based on what I have read it isn't. Let me know your source, I can give it a read.

Heres one...
https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/wdhbb.html

Ok thanks. I will give it a read.

[RickD]

Neo wrote:
Rick, you said that it is anti science, so obviously I assumed you must have a source that says so and hence I asked for it. A baby fully formed is of course a complete human being. That is the brain and other main organs are fully formed.

Ok. Since science shows that a human brain isn't fully developed until around 25 years of age, anyone younger than that isn't a complete human being. And any person missing any of his main organs, isn't fully human. And mentally handicapped people aren't fully human.

Are you seeing anything wrong with your rationale yet?

When exactly, in your mind, does someone go from a potential life, to an actual person? Specifically when?

[Kurieuo]

I'm interested in discussing the logic clearly rather than someone merely supporting or not supporting abortion.

Soul was introduced in the original question and has since come up in discussion. The thing is, re: a soul distinction, this metaphysics of sort is actually applied by those who introduce a non-scientific category like "persohood" to argue something like neo-x did: Abortion isn't murder although biologically it is killing an innocent human life because it's not what I'd call a "person".

Such arguments can be made, and have been made, by societies to de-personify a group of people throughout history (with horrific outcomes). With unborn babies there is no good objective distinction one can make that matters as to why a baby about to be born is any less than a baby born.

Infact, two rather simple questions can be asked here to help us be consistent with our beliefs: 1) Are "you" a person? 2) Were "you" once a baby in your mother's womb? If you answer yes to both, then the human life/human person distinction doesn't really exist for you, except perhaps when you merely prefer it to exist for others (which is dangerous). And, scientifically speaking, no distinction can be made, a human life and human person are one and the same.

[neo-x]

Neo wrote:
Rick, you said that it is anti science, so obviously I assumed you must have a source that says so and hence I asked for it. A baby fully formed is of course a complete human being. That is the brain and other main organs are fully formed.

Ok. Since science shows that a human brain isn't fully developed until around 25 years of age, anyone younger than that isn't a complete human being. And any person missing any of his main organs, isn't fully human. And mentally handicapped people aren't fully human.

Are you seeing anything wrong with your rationale yet?

When exactly, in your mind, does someone go from a potential life to an actual person? Specifically when?

I think it is needlessly being complicated. A fetus is not a person, period. The brain matures by the age of early twenties, it not forming, the way it forms in the womb. The baby's brain is formed by week 24, at that point, all major organs have formed. The skin is there, it starts to resemble a human baby. But the physical appearance is not an issue. The brain is important because it signifies what makes a person, a person. Basically a consciousness.

[neo-x]

I'm interested in discussing the logic clearly rather than someone merely supporting or not supporting abortion.

Soul was introduced in the original question and has since come up in discussion. The thing is, re: a soul distinction, this metaphysics of sort is actually applied by those who introduce a non-scientific category like "persohood" to argue something like neo-x did: Abortion isn't murder although biologically it is killing an innocent human life because it's not what I'd call a "person".

Such arguments can be made, and have been made, by societies to de-personify a group of people throughout history (with horrific outcomes). With unborn babies there is no good objective distinction one can make that matters as to why a baby about to be born is any less than a baby born.

Infact, two rather simple questions can be asked here to help us be consistent with our beliefs: 1) Are "you" a person? 2) Were "you" once a baby in your mother's womb? If you answer yes to both, then the human life/human person distinction doesn't really exist for you, except perhaps when you merely prefer it to exist for others (which is dangerous). And, scientifically speaking, no distinction can be made, a human life and human person are one and the same.

K. personhood is the outcome of the brain. So if a brain is formed we can say that yes this is actual human life now. Not potential anymore. I am not advocating for personhood to be the measure as no one know when someone actually becomes a person but it is safe to say it isn't when a baby is born since there is no brain that has formed comapred to when the baby comes to term. I wanted to clarify this. Personhood may or may not be fully there but what begins it, is the brain, and if it is there as it would be when the baby is out of the womb I think that is what a human being is.

And as far as

Such arguments can be made, and have been made, by societies to de-personify a group of people throughout history (with horrific outcomes)

I think I can point out that people still today can take a verse from the Bible and stone the adulteress or burn the witch or burn women for wearing men's clothes etc (It still is being done in african countries). It is then not the argument but the people who have agendas who dehumanize someone or a group and kill them. You can say the most saintly thing and someone will still find it to serve their own hatred.