Roe v Wade Overturned

You can easily end the argument. Yet, you continue to talk in circles. Makes me think your "Judge" didn't specifically mention abortion in the Bible. That would make a lot of sense since most Jews don't share white Evangelicals' views on abortion and personhood.

 

As if getting Roe v Wade overturned wasn't enough , now the control freaks are going after contraception. Today the SCOTUS will hear arguments regarding an "abortion pill". Other forms of contraception are in the cross hairs of the party of freedom as well. They want all of it banned.

 

So no scriptural basis for your claims?

 

The first 8 verses from Ecclesiastes 3:

Everything Has Its Time

3:1 To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
2 A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
3 A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
4 A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to gain,
And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
And a time to throw away;
7 A time to tear,
And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,
And a time to speak;
8 A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.

Bible Gateway passage: Ecclesiastes 3 - New King James Version

 

Luke 1:39-45 features Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, calling Mary a mother very early on in her pregnancy. If Mary is a mother, then there is a child in her womb. That is what the Bible teaches.

What the Holy Spirit believes about unborn babies is clearly evident in that passage since the words that were spoken came after Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Tread carefully in your response. The Bible teaches that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven in eternity.

 

I think, like religion itself, the decision, burden and responsibility of bringing a fetus to birth, is deeply personal to the woman carrying the child, particularly during the first trimester. I don’t think anyone should be making a decision on their own body, other than the woman. I don’t think this is a complex issue-it’s so easy for someone who DOESN’T have to carry and care for the unborn to term to comment, but nobody other than the woman actually has to carry and care for the unborn.

Obviously, these are my views, and I appreciate that others vehemently disagree.

But, what I will never understand is how those who are so deeply invested in advocating for pro-life, race from the concept of ”life” once the baby is born. Where is their fierce advocacy for full-throated health care, food credits, child care, pre-school vouchers, etc.

If one is such a proponent for “life,” where’s the advocacy for where it matters most — quality of life?

Pro-Life advocacy, uses birth as its “use by” date. In my opinion, that’s a bit premature, all things considered.

 

In the context of the Old Testament the question is what kind of killing was commanded. It was always to carry out the death penalty on someone who deserved it because of their sin. Now we don't live under the same political system as Israel. So many of those examples do not carry forward since they were tied to a particular political system given to a particular people.

There is however no indication or example anywhere in the Bible that abortion was commanded by God or approved by God.

In this case I think it is far more likely that mankind perseveres in inventing and imagining justifications so he can manufacture a license to do what his heart has already determined to do. He will even find a preacher who will tickle his ears and tell him he can indulge every sin he desires. That is what this is about.

It is also worth noting the nature of the times spoken of in Ecclesiastes. Take the entire passage in context, and what the passage highlights is not that human beings are like Gods that choose and determine the times for these things. No, we are not Gods that determine for ourselves when each of these times is upon us. We are subject to times that are out of our control, and there is prescribed human behavior for each of these times as they come upon us. No one chooses when they are born or when they die. No one chooses the time when to plant and when not to plant. That time is determined and set outside of our control. Those who do not plant when the time for planting is upon them might die of starvation or go hungry. Those who don't harvest the crop when the time for harvest is at hand likewise lose their crop and they might go hungry. Those who don't kill at the proper time as it was determined might be killed themselves if an attacker comes upon their household or they might get displaced from the promised land like Israel was in the Old Testament when they did not kill the inhabitants of the land as they were commanded. Those who weep don't control when the times of weeping are upon them. And those who laugh during times of mourning pay a price for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.

You get the point. The one who rebels against what he is supposed to do in a particular time as it comes upon him pays a price. That is the point of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. What price will you pay if you prevent birth when it is the time for birth? The time of birth is as obvious as the time of planting and the time of harvest. And not only that God brings that time about knitting a person together in the mother's womb as Psalm 139 says. A woman's body starts showing signs that the time for birth is near just like the time of harvest has its obvious signs. What price will we pay if we rebel against what God has prescribed for us to do in that particular time?

 

Thank you for appreciating valid disagreements. That's a fair way to start the conversation. However, your appreciation disappears and becomes downright billous, contemptuous, and slanderous with the assertions that pro-lifers are not sympathetic, charitable, or humane after birth. For instance, most people do what they can to assist and improve the lives of family, friends, and even strangers. That compassion is not abrogated by a disagreement with or disapproval of government programs - which are notoriously inefficient and often result in outcomes that create additional and generational societal harms. Those are policy decisions and there are, to be certain, many factors to be considered and weighed about government's role. For instance, I'd rather feed the poor from my kitchen than send the equivalent money to the government. Does the government care about people more than I do? If your default answer is always that the government is the answer, then what's the point of anyone being charitable or humane? Rather, it's apparent that you intentionally misuse a group's policy preferences to grasp at the trophy of enlightenment and sanctimony instead of addressing the issues directly.

 

Yes, but what other bodies ? Also, when an individual intends to kill another person, isn’t that intention deeply personal to that individual ?

 

So the Byrds pretty much ripped off the bible.

 

I maintain the view that no heavenly rewards will be given to taxpayers for government welfare programs, or even to those who voted for such government programs. Taxes are compulsory. True charity is not compulsory, and it is from one person to another person. True charity comes from our own treasury and not the government's treasury. It is how we steward what we are given that really counts.

 

I changed my mind, and I answered your question. See post #1505.

 

That's certainly admirable of you, but unless everyone who votes against abortion, and against most government social programs, does the same then the whole thing doesn't work. You may be clearing your conscience, but it doesn't solve the larger problem created by your voting pattern.

 

First and foremost, thank you for doing good. We need more of people like you.

I don’t mean to be “billous, contemptuous, or slanderous.” However, I do mean to start the conversation that advocacy for pro-life should START, not end, with a stance on abortion.

Substantively, you spend much of your narrative berating me for the audacity to point out what is considered hypocrisy by many — advocacy for the unborn and indifference to the living. Underscoring the point, Drive up and down the Turnpike, and you will see anti-abortion billboards covering the highway. How many billboards advocate for food? Healthcare? Child care? Education?

I’ve worked with organizations advocating for preschoolers, and I can tell you first hand how grossly deficient the funding is — both charitable and government funded. We have a gaping hole of need to care for those who live.

“Pro-life” advocates have secured the laws to protect the unborn. But where are the laws that protect the lives that are now mandated to be brought into term? So much energy and resources are spent on the abortion issue, but the conversation always ends there.

Show me the persistent advocacy for these kids, through their entire lives. Speaking only from my firsthand knowledge, the advocacy is limited to a few hyper-dedicated unspoken hero’s who work for a pittance trying to ensure everyone is given a fair shake. I’ve watched them, I am in awe of them, and they barely make a dent.

IMO, the resources should be better allocated to ensuring who have entered this world are given basic, fundamental core tools to sustain and enjoy life, like healthcare, food and education.

 

I’m not sure I understand the question, but I can’t imagine anyone arguing against the fact that the decision to carry to term or abort is, by definition, deeply personal

 

I am not arguing religiosity, I am suggesting that there is hypocrisy to mandating rights to an unborn fetus while refusing to mandate right to live to the innocent children once they’re born. I’m suggesting that the fervor over life should not end at term, it should just BEGIN.

 

I will do my best to answer your question. I cannot speak for all people who self-identify as Christians. Even conservative leaning Christians are not a monolithic entity. I think we can start with a basic question:

What are the basic needs of a human being?

A human being needs (fill in the blank).

You might think that this question is simple and that it can be universally agreed upon, but the answer to this question reveals a lot about a person's worldview. I think we can agree on food, clothing, shelter, etc. I would add a nuclear family structure. The nuclear family structure historically has provided for the basic needs of the child. A child needs a father and a mother. I would also add that a human being needs to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Parents who know God and who love God will better preserve and maintain the nuclear family structure that God has given for our flourishing and the flourishing of our children. Jesus would say we need to know Him more than we need food and drink.

Now, having established the needs of a child, how well does the current system that you have proposed meet the actual needs of our children? I think it is obvious that the welfare state is a mixed bag. The government provides for physical needs, but it also enables the disintegration of the nuclear family, which is essential to human flourishing. It enables unemployed single motherhood, which comes at a cost for the child. The presence of a father in the home has a tremendous impact on a child. There are also barriers erected by a secular welfare state that prevent the child dependent upon such a system from knowing the God that they need to flourish. The secular welfare state is a poor substitute for a loving Christian family that provides for the child. I think the words of Christ are instructive regarding the effectiveness of the welfare state: "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?" I think we must ask this with question with respect to the welfare state and its ability to meet the needs of our children. That does not mean I am opposed to welfare in every scenario, but it does mean this supposed unquestionably good thing may not be as unquestionably good as it is made out to be.

Healthcare is an interesting question. Not all healthcare is essential. If you a break an arm you should be able to go to the hospital. If you have appendicitis, then you should be able to go to the hospital. I am not against that, but "full-throated" healthcare? That is not a need. It is a luxury. Most human beings throughout the course of human history did not have healthcare in the sense in which you probably imply when you invoke the term "healthcare."

To summarize, the secular state is not the end all be all answer for children and their needs, and it actually involves tradeoffs by meeting some needs of the child, while actually hindering or even preventing some of the most important needs of the child from being met.

 

I think the flaw in your analysis is captured in your last paragraph — we live in a secular state, not a Christian state. Our secular state now mandates, using your analysis, a single and secular woman to carry a fetus to term, without providing the essentials, as you wrote, for the child. That’s a problem, and SQUARELY IMO, is one that FAR exceeds the question of abortion.

 

The US being a secular state has no bearing on the question of what are the basic needs of a human being. Whatever the truthful answer is to that question, though, it serves as a referendum for how we are doing as a society regarding meeting the needs of our children.

It is possible for a society to fail its children. You even acknowledge this possibility as being true from your own vantage point. So, I am unsure why it becomes a grand problem when another POV acknowledges a similar fundamental reality.

In general I would point out the flaw in your reasoning as this:

Ideally, you start with fundamental truth, and then you build your philosophical approaches to different things on the bedrock of truth. That is how you end up with a philosophical approach grounded in truth.

When you start with a philosophical precommitment (a secular state) and then you decide what truth is based on a philosophical precommitment, what you end up with is a philosophical structure sitting on top of a cracked foundation of some kind of mixture of truth and lies.

No one should be comfortable with accepting a philosophy that is constructed that way. Start with truth, and then build up from there when you develop your philosophy of anything.

 

Also, food for thought:

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. -1 Timothy 5:8
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You may not think this has anything to do with this topic, but it absolutely does. It shows a design for how these needs are to be met. The nuclear family structure is designed to meet the needs of children.

What has happened in our society is the disintegration of the structure that is supposed to meet those needs.

Then there is a hand wringing that happens, and there is a rush to falsely blame all kinds of people for all the children who do not have their basic needs met.

There is a direct connection to the relegation of men as sperm donors and the rise of the welfare state. And this goes hand in hand with a rejection of the Christian sexual ethic.

A society that rejects Christianity will see a domino effect way beyond what they previously imagined. There will be a long trail of negative consequences that were never considered in the calculus of rejecting Christianity.

You choose to reject Christianity, and you lose the nuclear family structure and all the societal benefits that come with it. That is what history since 1900 teaches us.

Now you have to invent the welfare state to solve a problem created by our own national idolatry and disobedience before God.

A welfare state is a poor substitute for living in God’s design and providing for children according to God’s design.

You can create all kinds of theories about systems of oppression and invisible forces that are causing these things. However, sin has societal consequences. You choose sin you reap those consequences.

No fault divorce, having children out of wedlock, having multiple baby daddies, free love…all of it has consequences. Maybe we should just repent as a nation. That would be a much better solution to these problems than a welfare state.