Abortion
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citizenzen
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Then by all means seek clarification.
But when you say, "You need to look beyond your nose... you need to learn to think" you only expose yourself as being short-sighted and lacking in wisdom.
CZ, can we focus on the discussion, not the posters, thanks? 
Everyone here has their own bias - that's to be expected. It's also expected that we need to recognise, and tolerate, the face that everyone will have their own unique bias.
After all, this is an interfaith website, not a fellowship one!
Everyone here has their own bias - that's to be expected. It's also expected that we need to recognise, and tolerate, the face that everyone will have their own unique bias.
After all, this is an interfaith website, not a fellowship one!
The clarity sought is there in my responses to the points he made.
D'you think so? I disagree.
The somewhat pugnacious manner of my reply was intentional, determined by Amergin's style of argument.
Thomas
citizenzen
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CZ, can we focus on the discussion, not the posters, thanks?
Everyone here has their own bias - that's to be expected. It's also expected that we need to recognise, and tolerate, the face that everyone will have their own unique bias.
After all, this is an interfaith website, not a fellowship one!
Exactly. I totally agree with you (and wonder why you didn't pass this same message on to Thomas).
I've frequented a number of political websites where the words "blind" and "ignorant" got thrown around constantly. I make it a point not to repeat those terms in my posts. I believe that each person brings a unique perspective to the forum and while we can disagree with their positions, we shouldn't try to deny their ability to see and think. Nobody has a monopoly on intelligence, vision and the truth, and it only reflects poorly when one tries to pretend otherwise.
I too am pro choice (after a fashion). However I think that choice must be considered carefully, and "just because it is inconvenient" doesn't count. I also know that from a personal perspective, I will "judge" the individual involved in my life, that aborts a child.
In the past my "judgement" has been to never associate with that person again...
IMO "inconvenience" is not an excuse for failing to keep one's legs crossed voluntarily...
steadfast199
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(Exodus 21:22-25) . . .“And in case men should struggle with each other and they really hurt a pregnant woman and her children do come out but no fatal accident occurs, he is to have damages imposed upon him without fail according to what the owner of the woman may lay upon him; and he must give it through the justices. 23 But if a fatal accident should occur, then you must give soul for soul, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 branding for branding, wound for wound, blow for blow.
bob x
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The Hebrew uses the word "fruit"; "child" is not used here.
citizenzen
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You forgot "Or inserting your winky into any woman who lets you."
This isn't just about women's chastity and virtue. This is just as much an issue of "keeping it in your pants" as it is "keeping one's legs crossed".
citizenzen
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And since when do we decide legal and medical issues based on the Bible? Please try to keep in mind that your quoting a book of faith that you believe in. America's laws are secular and are applied to people of all faiths (or none at all).
So thank you for sharing your Bible passage.
I will choose to ignore it.
bob x
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I wasn't the one to bring it up. I don't know the poster who did, but I believe the point was that abortion was not treated as "murder" in those times. There are, of course, a lot of people who do base such decisions on the Bible, generally with an inaccurate view of what the Bible had to say.
bananabrain
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cz: if people's objections to abortion are based on the bible, then it is not unreasonable to interpret the bible to understand what they will accept or not accept, i don't think for a minute that bob is suggesting that the bible is or should be the basis for american law. and, for the record, plenty of us *do* decide whether something is "legal" for us based on the bible. for example, for me, before a foetus is 40 days old, it cannot be considered a "child". in any case, that is my own right to decide where i personally draw the moral line, whatever the secular law may say. what i am not suggesting, however, is that my moral scruples should be imposed on anyone else.
b'shalom
bananabrain
b'shalom
bananabrain
Dream
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For the time being, interpretation of Bible passages has a large effect upon public perception, so the explanation is actually helpful. There tens of millions who will misquote this verse in a political context, so don't ignore it or forget it. For many Bible fundamentalists (many current Republican supporters for instance) the #1 political issue is outlawing abortion, yet there are only a few verses that even discuss the unborn. This verse is the most important, because 1. its the oldest 2. the clearest 3. since its the oldest it defines those which come after, 4. it specifically considers certain aborted fetus not to be a murdered persons. You might actually get a Bible fundamentalist to stop and reconsider what trash they're talking about pro choicers, if they'll only respect the verse. You might, for example, bring up this verse in a political debate and win big points -- if the person is a fundamentalist.
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citizenzen
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It was my mistake to quote Bobx when I was really responding to the post before his. That was clumsy of me.
And I do realize that many people base their personal judgement on the Bible. So long as it stays in that realm (personal) then I have no problem with that choice. As I said, I choose to ignore the Bible as a source of law and morality. That doesn't mean there isn't morality in the Bible, it just means that it takes a lot more to convince me than merely quoting a passage. I'm not going to fall on my knees and say, "It's in the Bible, so it must be the truth!" The Bible is a book of faith, and for those who don't share that faith, it is meaningless.
Amergin
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Abortion if it means killing a human requires us to define precisely when an organism becomes human.
The human foetus starts out as a single cell, a sort of amoeba. Then it forms a ball of attached cells in a sheet like a slime mould. Later a ball of cells forms like a Volvox. Two layers form like Coelenterates. Then it develops a third layer to become a three-layered life form (ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm.) This body plan is first seen in primitive worms, arthropods, and protochordates. It develops many worm-like segments called somatomeres. A primitive structure called a notochord from Cambrian times now found only in Amphioxus develops next in the human embryo. A neural tube forms and the primitive brain neurons send processes across to the opposite side L to R and R to L that we still have today and we have in the early embryo.
At about 6 weeks, the human embryo has primitive fish gills and a tail like a tadpole. Our brain is a fish brain (brainstem) rapidly growing to the amphibian (frog) brainstem and early cerebellum. Then the brain grows a midbrain, diencephalon, and temporal lobes (Palaeocortex) of reptiles. Later it adds the Archaeocortex of primitive mammals, and finally the neocortex of advanced mammals.
The primitive notochord that evolved first 550 million years ago is absorbed and recycled. The bony spine replaces it. The gills are recycled into ear and laryngeal parts. Our tail is resorbed.
So as an embryo humans recapitulate the story of evolution from start to present. At what stage does the foetus a human?
Is human just having 46 chromosomes but structurally a tadpole? Then a skin cell or white blood cell is a human being.
Alternatively, is it human when the neocortex of primates forms? On the other hand, is it when brain wave activity begins to approach human frequencies (but slow and irregular) at perhaps 20 weeks? On the other hand, is it human when the foetus is capable of independent life support (breathing, swallowing, and excretion?)
I do not know the answer. I just pose the rhetorical issue. Perhaps the biology cannot be as firm and unyielding on the answer as those who debate it pro or con would wish. The human embryo begins as a single cell and gestation is progression through worm, amphioxus, fish, amphibian, reptile, and mammal to human mammal. It is a growing and developing organism with no clear line of demarcation. One cannot draw a line designating the exact point at which the foetus becomes human. Those who draw a line do so by arbitrary dogma not by reason.
Humans are not separate from other animals. We are all related and the genes tell our family history. We are all animals. Humans evolved from an ancestral animal starting over 700 million years ago. Like evolution, that transition was in micro-steps so that it is hard to draw a line where a pair of mating non-human apes give birth to a human ape baby. It is hard to tell where a protista unicellular looking life form becomes a human being.
Likewise, the human embryo does not have human anatomy and physiology until at least 5 months gestation. However, what about 4 months and 3 weeks? Are they not human?
Are the single cell protista like fertilized ova human? Yes, they are living unicellular life forms. You cannot draw a convincing line at any focal point in human embryology where the foetus suddenly becomes human. Chimps have only a few different sequences of genes, being overall 98.6% of the same human apes (us.)
Abortion is only clearly homicide when the embryo becomes capable of life outside of the womb. The rest of the embryological transition from single cell to human being is a continuous gradient. This gradual process is only arbitrarily divided into distinct stages.
There is no answer, only opinions (many based on superstition, others based on science and reason.) My answer is "I don't know."
Amergin
The human foetus starts out as a single cell, a sort of amoeba. Then it forms a ball of attached cells in a sheet like a slime mould. Later a ball of cells forms like a Volvox. Two layers form like Coelenterates. Then it develops a third layer to become a three-layered life form (ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm.) This body plan is first seen in primitive worms, arthropods, and protochordates. It develops many worm-like segments called somatomeres. A primitive structure called a notochord from Cambrian times now found only in Amphioxus develops next in the human embryo. A neural tube forms and the primitive brain neurons send processes across to the opposite side L to R and R to L that we still have today and we have in the early embryo.
At about 6 weeks, the human embryo has primitive fish gills and a tail like a tadpole. Our brain is a fish brain (brainstem) rapidly growing to the amphibian (frog) brainstem and early cerebellum. Then the brain grows a midbrain, diencephalon, and temporal lobes (Palaeocortex) of reptiles. Later it adds the Archaeocortex of primitive mammals, and finally the neocortex of advanced mammals.
The primitive notochord that evolved first 550 million years ago is absorbed and recycled. The bony spine replaces it. The gills are recycled into ear and laryngeal parts. Our tail is resorbed.
So as an embryo humans recapitulate the story of evolution from start to present. At what stage does the foetus a human?
Is human just having 46 chromosomes but structurally a tadpole? Then a skin cell or white blood cell is a human being.
Alternatively, is it human when the neocortex of primates forms? On the other hand, is it when brain wave activity begins to approach human frequencies (but slow and irregular) at perhaps 20 weeks? On the other hand, is it human when the foetus is capable of independent life support (breathing, swallowing, and excretion?)
I do not know the answer. I just pose the rhetorical issue. Perhaps the biology cannot be as firm and unyielding on the answer as those who debate it pro or con would wish. The human embryo begins as a single cell and gestation is progression through worm, amphioxus, fish, amphibian, reptile, and mammal to human mammal. It is a growing and developing organism with no clear line of demarcation. One cannot draw a line designating the exact point at which the foetus becomes human. Those who draw a line do so by arbitrary dogma not by reason.
Humans are not separate from other animals. We are all related and the genes tell our family history. We are all animals. Humans evolved from an ancestral animal starting over 700 million years ago. Like evolution, that transition was in micro-steps so that it is hard to draw a line where a pair of mating non-human apes give birth to a human ape baby. It is hard to tell where a protista unicellular looking life form becomes a human being.
Likewise, the human embryo does not have human anatomy and physiology until at least 5 months gestation. However, what about 4 months and 3 weeks? Are they not human?
Are the single cell protista like fertilized ova human? Yes, they are living unicellular life forms. You cannot draw a convincing line at any focal point in human embryology where the foetus suddenly becomes human. Chimps have only a few different sequences of genes, being overall 98.6% of the same human apes (us.)
Abortion is only clearly homicide when the embryo becomes capable of life outside of the womb. The rest of the embryological transition from single cell to human being is a continuous gradient. This gradual process is only arbitrarily divided into distinct stages.
There is no answer, only opinions (many based on superstition, others based on science and reason.) My answer is "I don't know."
Amergin
Nicholas Weeks
Bodhicitta
Birth control pills are not good for women:
https://www.sarahehill.com/your-brain-on-birth-control/
"Although women go on the pill for a small handful of targeted effects (pregnancy prevention and clearer skin, yay!), sex hormones can’t work that way. Sex hormones impact the activities of billions of cells in the body at once, many of which are in the brain. There, they play a role in influencing attraction, sexual motivation, stress, hunger, eating patterns, emotion regulation, friendships, aggression, mood, learning, and more. This means that being on the birth control pill makes women a different version of themselves than when they are off of it. And this is a big deal."
https://www.sarahehill.com/your-brain-on-birth-control/
"Although women go on the pill for a small handful of targeted effects (pregnancy prevention and clearer skin, yay!), sex hormones can’t work that way. Sex hormones impact the activities of billions of cells in the body at once, many of which are in the brain. There, they play a role in influencing attraction, sexual motivation, stress, hunger, eating patterns, emotion regulation, friendships, aggression, mood, learning, and more. This means that being on the birth control pill makes women a different version of themselves than when they are off of it. And this is a big deal."
Nicholas Weeks
Bodhicitta
Theosophy in general answers: “At no age as under no circumstance whatever is a murder justifiable!” and occult Theosophy adds:—“yet it is neither from the standpoint of law, nor from any argument drawn from one or another orthodox ism that the warning voice is sent forth against the immoral and dangerous practice of foeticide, but rather because in occult philosophy both physiology and psychology show its disastrous consequence.” In the present case, the argument does not deal with the causes but with the effects produced. Our philosophy goes so far as to say that, if the Penal Code of most countries punishes attempts at suicide, it ought, if at all consistent with itself, to doubly punish foeticide as an attempt to double suicide. For, indeed, when even successful and the mother does not die just then, it still shortens her life on earth to prolong it with dreary percentage in Kamaloka, the intermediate sphere between the earth and the region of rest, a place which is no “St. Patrick’s purgatory,” but a fact, and a necessary halting place in the evolution of the degree of life.
The crime committed lies precisely in the willful and sinful destruction of life, and interference with the operations of nature, hence—with KARMA—that of the mother and the would-be future human being. The sin is not regarded by the occultists as one of a religious character,— for, indeed, there is no more of spirit and soul, for the matter of that, in a foetus or even in a child before it arrives at self-consciousness, than there is in any other small animal,— for we deny the absence of soul in either mineral, plant or beast, and believe but in the difference of degree. But foeticide is a crime against nature.
Blavatsky, Is Foeticide A Crime, CW 5:107-08
The crime committed lies precisely in the willful and sinful destruction of life, and interference with the operations of nature, hence—with KARMA—that of the mother and the would-be future human being. The sin is not regarded by the occultists as one of a religious character,— for, indeed, there is no more of spirit and soul, for the matter of that, in a foetus or even in a child before it arrives at self-consciousness, than there is in any other small animal,— for we deny the absence of soul in either mineral, plant or beast, and believe but in the difference of degree. But foeticide is a crime against nature.
Blavatsky, Is Foeticide A Crime, CW 5:107-08
Nicholas Weeks
Bodhicitta
I might, finally, point out the fact, all too often ignored or indeed utterly unknown to modern men and women, that once conception has taken place and the embryo begins its growth, any attempt whatsoever to stop its growth or to destroy it is plain murder in the teaching of the Esoteric Philosophy, considered as being only a little less bad than the murder of an adult human being.
This ‘little less’ only because such destruction takes place before the self-consciousness of the victim has had a chance to come into flower. Let there be no doubt whatsoever about this fact, for it should be understood clearly among all Theosophists; and this one fact alone, while finding statement here in an Esoteric Instruction, it is perfectly permissible and proper to state anywhere and at any time and to anybody as being the teaching of Theosophy — I mean that any attempt to abort, or to destroy a human embryo is considered by us as murder.
G. de Purucker, Esoteric Teachings 12
This ‘little less’ only because such destruction takes place before the self-consciousness of the victim has had a chance to come into flower. Let there be no doubt whatsoever about this fact, for it should be understood clearly among all Theosophists; and this one fact alone, while finding statement here in an Esoteric Instruction, it is perfectly permissible and proper to state anywhere and at any time and to anybody as being the teaching of Theosophy — I mean that any attempt to abort, or to destroy a human embryo is considered by us as murder.
G. de Purucker, Esoteric Teachings 12
An egg is not a chicken.