Any ex-pro-life staunchly pro-choicers out there?

[MikiBee]

Stealing is against the law. Abortion isn’t. The Church makes rules for Catholics to abide by, and that is fine and I agree with that and I believe what the Church teaches. Obviously there ARE people who don’t believe it’s murder, or it wouldn’t be legal in our country.

I am just saying that not everyone has the same “moral code.” Not everyone thinks that an embryo is a person. To them it is not wrong-- no matter how wrong you think it is. Yes, I think it’s murder of an innocent. I have 3 children of my own. As a mother I don’t understand it. But my definition of when a baby is a baby is different than someone elses… so what would be murder for me is not murder to someone else if they don’t believe that an embryo is a viable human being.

The problem is not whether abortion is murder. For a Catholic who views an embryo… a blastocyst as a human being, yes-- it would be murder to destroy that because we view it as a person. Some people do not believe blastocysts or embryos are human beings, so they aren’t committing murder.

This wouldn’t be a debate if people didn’t have different definitions of what the truth actually is. Unfortunately, because there is no cold hard evidence a blastocyst has a soul, this debate will continue for millennia. People aborted since the dawn of time, and I’m sure there were always people on both sides of that fence.

Please know that I do not disagree with you on the point of abortion. I side with the Catholic church.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

MikiBee

I am just saying that not everyone has the same “moral code.” Not everyone thinks that an embryo is a person. To them it is not wrong-- no matter how wrong you think it is. Yes, I think it’s murder of an innocent. I have 3 children of my own. As a mother I don’t understand it. But my definition of when a baby is a baby is different than someone elses… so what would be murder for me is not murder to someone else if they don’t believe that an embryo is a viable human being.

True, not everyone has the same moral code. Some Americans thought slavery was O.K. because the slaves were not fully human. Did that make slavery O.K. in your opinion? Do you think the law was right that made slavery legal? Would you like to go back to the time when people had a right to practice their moral codes, no matter how horrible they were? Would you like to see slavery brought back into practice by the Supreme Court on the grounds that we can’t really tell whether a slave is human or has an immortal soul?

But isn’t that exactly what happened in Roe v Wade? Unborn humans became property that one could dispose of as one wished.

 

[kage_ar]

Stealing is against the law. Abortion isn’t. The Church makes rules for Catholics to abide by, and that is fine and I agree with that and I believe what the Church teaches. Obviously there ARE people who don’t believe it’s murder, or it wouldn’t be legal in our country.

Going to guess you are a young person, under 40. You exhibit the common point of view “history began when I was born”.

Did you know that just a few years ago, abortion was against the law? Did you know that a handful (literally, fewer than you can count on your fingers) of people decided to that it was lawful to kill a baby at anytime during 9 months of pregnancy - suddenly, what was against the law was made lawful?

Did you know that once it was legal to own slaves? Does a law making something legal make it MORAL or right?

This really has nothing to do with what you or I believe, it is not a religious issue. This is a moral and legal issue. This is bad law, bad laws have to be changed.

 

[MikiBee]

You’re close… I am 42. I took Women Studies in College, so I am well aware of the history of abortion and abortion laws.

Weren’t there slaves since the beginning of time? Didn’t God even pretty much say it was okay and make laws that if you killed someone’s slave, you had to pay a fine to the owner? The bible even tells you how to obtain a slave, how hard you can beat them and how often you could have sex with the female slaves. Where’s the morality there? God didn’t make it seem like it was a bad thing to own a slave. Jesus even spoke of slavery but did not condemn it in any way. Slavery was around since people have been, and only recently in the 19th century was it discontinued. I guess the moral code was indeed different back then if even God and Jesus didn’t condemn it. The bible is full of all kinds of things I would consider immoral. But my opinion doesn’t matter.

Abortion and slavery are unlike things. The culture was different back then. Does that make it wrong? By our standards today, yes. But back then it was a normal way of life. Was it immoral back then? Or do we only think it’s immoral now because of the times we live in?

No, I don’t fall into the class of people that think history began when I was born. But like I said, this debate will continue until there can be substantial proof of when life begins. I’m not sure that question can ever be answered, as unfortunate as that is.

You seem to think I am pro-abortion. I am not.

 

[kage_ar]

You’re close… I am 42. I took Women Studies in College, so I am well aware of the history of abortion and abortion laws.

Weren’t there slaves since the beginning of time? Didn’t God even pretty much say it was okay and make laws that if you killed someone’s slave, you had to pay a fine to the owner? The bible even tells you how to obtain a slave, how hard you can beat them and how often you could have sex with the female slaves. Where’s the morality there? God didn’t make it seem like it was a bad thing to own a slave. Jesus even spoke of slavery but did not condemn it in any way. Slavery was around since people have been, and only recently in the 19th century was it discontinued. I guess the moral code was indeed different back then if even God and Jesus didn’t condemn it. The bible is full of all kinds of things I would consider immoral. But my opinion doesn’t matter.

There is a big difference between the slavery practiced in the US south (and in other parts of the world to this day) - what is called “chattel slavery” and the indentured servitude in Scripture.

ETA - please show me chapter and verse where the Bible tells you how hard to beat a slave and how often you can have sex with female slaves.

Point is, bad law does not make immoral chattel slavery right. Bad law does not make abortion right. The laws need to be changed, abortion will be illegal again - pray God that day comes soon.

 

[Paints]

jjjj

 

[MikiBee]

ETA - please show me chapter and verse where the Bible tells you how hard to beat a slave and how often you can have sex with female slaves.
.

Exodus 21 says it all.

Exodus 21: 20-21 “:When a man strikes his slave, male of female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his money.”

Exodus 21: 7-11 "When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt faithlessly with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himsefl, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

Leviticus 19: 20-22 "If a man lies carnally with a woman who is a slave, betrothed to another man and not yet ransomed or given her freedom, an inquiry shall be held. They shall not be put to death, because she was not free; but he shall bring a guilt offering for himself to the Lord, to the door of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guild offering before the Lord for his sin which he has committed; and the sin which he has committed shall be forgiven him.

Luke 41: 47-48 And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating. But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating.

There are plenty of instances in Genesis where maidservants were made to sleep with their mistress’ husband because they themselves were barren-- Abram… Jacob… Not very moral in my (today’s) standards.

I apologize to the rest of this topic’s readers for this hijack about slavery, but I was asked a question and answered it.

 

[vera_dicere]

Some people do not believe blastocysts or embryos are human beings, so they aren’t committing murder.

This wouldn’t be a debate if people didn’t have different definitions of what the truth actually is. Unfortunately, because there is no cold hard evidence a blastocyst has a soul, this debate will continue for millennia. People aborted since the dawn of time, and I’m sure there were always people on both sides of that fence.

And here’s the problem, the Pro-Life movement has the science backing us up, the pro-aborts know that, and know they can’t argue with science, so they have made this idea that the embryo is human as some kind of religious opinion, and people get a bit twitchy when people try to “force” their “religious belief” on to others.

The science says that the human life begins at conception. It says the zygote, blastocyst, embryo, foetus is human. They are human beings in a different stage of development. Just as I’m in a different stage of development, just as you, the child in school, the baby in the hospital, the old man in the rest home, all just different stages of development.

None of us would be here if we weren’t those little blastocysts or embryos. Its a stage of development.

As Catholics and Christians or whoever, we can argue about ensoulment till we’re blue in the face. But really, who cares when the soul enters the physical form? We in the Pro-Life movement should be focussed on the science, and the science says that zygote is a human being.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

MikiBee

*[SIGN]No, I don’t fall into the class of people that think history began when I was born. But like I said, this debate will continue **until there can be substantial proof of when life begins. *I’m not sure that question can ever be answered, as unfortunate as that is. [/SIGN]

If you are in doubt as to when life begins, ask any biologist. It begins in the womb. Watch any video of an abortion being performed up close and personal. Then go and wretch your guts out.

Abortionists are the most evil people in the whole. They don’t just take away part of a human life. They take away the whole of it … for money. These killers must enjoy their work … tearing little human bodies to shreds … some do it hundreds and thousands of times … smiling no doubt all the way to the bank.

I don’t know how to make it any clearer … how depraved our society has become as we just stand by and say things like, “Who am I to judge?”

 

[kage_ar]

Exodus 21.

Exactly the passage I expected. Please begin another thread where we can discuss how this is about moral treatment of servants and taking wives who have been servants - not free reign to go have sex and beat your servants.

 

[rayne89]

I am pro-life, but I do struggle with outlawing abortion. I think what makes me stop and question it is when I ask myself, “Would I force a woman to complete her pregnancy if she were raped?” I couldn’t do it. Could any of you? And if you couldn’t, how is this any different from supporting outlawing her ability to get an abortion?

If a woman who was a victim of rape carried her child to term and then killed the baby would you feel she should not be charged with murder?

Why is a rapist’s innocent baby less deserving of life than any other baby? It’s either a child or it isn’t. If you truly believe that a fetus is an unborn child how on earth could you say its ok to murder that child in certain circumstances? If is it a child than its murder -regardless of how the child was conceived.

I am 100% against the killing of children. I do not believe in giving a child a death sentence for the crimes of his or her father.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

If a woman who was a victim of rape carried her child to term and then killed the baby would you feel she should not be charged with murder?

Why is a rapist’s innocent baby less deserving of life than any other baby? It’s either a child or it isn’t. If you truly believe that a fetus is an unborn child how on earth could you say its ok to murder that child in certain circumstances? If is it a child than its murder -regardless of how the child was conceived.

I am 100% against the killing of children. I do not believe in giving a child a death sentence for the crimes of his or her father.

I’m only 10 years or so older than Mikibee and quite frankly I feel as though people with her mindset have either been brainwashed or browbeaten into a quivering mass of “oh I cannot POSSIBLY ‘impose’ my beliefs on anybody–unless of course people question my own one-size-fits-all societal tolerance, in which case suddenly I’ll impose MY beliefs onto them by telling them to shut up because they can’t prove anything to MY satisfaction”. . .or else (which is worse) they really and truly accept the craziness and embrace it as proving that ‘stupid Christians’ have been responsible for ‘making’ evil (because everybody knows that humans are just wonderful if you let them go around and ‘decide for themselves’ without the ‘posion’ of ‘organized’ religion,) and if only we religious nutjobs would shut up and realize how we have ‘offended’ and ‘exploited’ and heck, even murdered billions more than these ‘poor women’ with their ‘bits of tissue’, we religious people should all just go off on the nearest ice floe we’ve caused with our global warming and float away forever. . .

 

[MikiBee]

Exactly the passage I expected. Please begin another thread where we can discuss how this is about moral treatment of servants and taking wives who have been servants - not free reign to go have sex and beat your servants.

I will, Kage. I honestly do want to know the truth, and even more than just “going with the flow because I’m told to do so,” I really would like to understand why the truth is the truth. The morality of the Bible has always been a hard one for me to wrap my mind around-- how what was okay back then (adultery, slavery, murder… etc.) is now appalling to modern people, or just, perhaps, our Western culture.

I will start a new thread.

Michelle

 

[Apryl]

I am pro-life, but I do struggle with outlawing abortion. I think what makes me stop and question it is when I ask myself, “Would I force a woman to complete her pregnancy if she were raped?” I couldn’t do it. Could any of you? And if you couldn’t, how is this any different from supporting outlawing her ability to get an abortion?

I could… I don’t see how the fact that the woman was raped makes that child any bit less human than the child of a woman who was wined and dined on the night of her conception

The question I have for you is: could you force a woman to have an abortion after she was raped?’

There are a number of people, sadly, who would!

 

[rainbowlitez]

Stealing is against the law. Abortion isn’t. The Church makes rules for Catholics to abide by, and that is fine and I agree with that and I believe what the Church teaches. Obviously there ARE people who don’t believe it’s murder, or it wouldn’t be legal in our country.

I am just saying that not everyone has the same “moral code.” Not everyone thinks that an embryo is a person. To them it is not wrong-- no matter how wrong you think it is. Yes, I think it’s murder of an innocent. I have 3 children of my own. As a mother I don’t understand it. But my definition of when a baby is a baby is different than someone elses… so what would be murder for me is not murder to someone else if they don’t believe that an embryo is a viable human being.

The problem is not whether abortion is murder. For a Catholic who views an embryo… a blastocyst as a human being, yes-- it would be murder to destroy that because we view it as a person. Some people do not believe blastocysts or embryos are human beings, so they aren’t committing murder.

This wouldn’t be a debate if people didn’t have different definitions of what the truth actually is. Unfortunately, because there is no cold hard evidence a blastocyst has a soul, this debate will continue for millennia. People aborted since the dawn of time, and I’m sure there were always people on both sides of that fence.

Please know that I do not disagree with you on the point of abortion. I side with the Catholic church.

I think this is very well said - even though my personal idea of when the soul comes into the equation is different to yours - at the end of the day, that’s the point at which this becomes a moral issue. If what I I’ve learnt through science and the experiences of a couple of friends who have experience miscarriages in early pregnancy (neither felt they’d ‘lost a baby’ - both felt disappointed - both went on and had children and one of them says she felt the baby became a baby around 4 or 4.5 months - she can’t say why, but that she felt she intuitively could sense a ‘soul presence’ around that time…it’s not proof of course but it’s the experience of someone who is very spiritual and a close friend of mine).

But though my position because of my PERSONAL idea of when the soul becomes part of the equations could be wrong, I have to say that if the church is right and the soul is there at the off, then it would be murder. However, miscarriage is a sad but very common thing (now tests can tell you if you’re pregnant very early the statistics seem to be about 50% or more pregnancies end in miscarriage). Again, it’s just my view but it would seem to me that with that high risk, God wouldn’t be investing embroyos with souls at that stage only to kill them within days or weeks?? It worries me how much more traumatic a miscarriage would be at the early stages when it’s so common for a person who thinks of the embryo as already being a baby.

Not really going anywhere with this post am I!? Just adding my 2 cents but wanted to say I agree with this lady that if the church IS right and the soul is present at the moment of conception, then abortion would be murder. I can understand why people who believe this is the case based on church teaching would have strong anti-abortion views. But as the lady said, other people (like myself) don’t see the soul as being present from conception and to those people it isn’t murder.

On both sides we are dealing with BELIEF and not a verifiable fact; we can’t measure the presence of the soul yet. I think sometimes religion makes a mistake if it claims to KNOW something when in fact, it’s a BELIEF. In many areas that can be dangerous and destructive. We may find out more about the development of the soul during pregnancy in the future and all of this can be ‘put to bed’.

But until then, perhaps more construction than the extremes would be an attitude of ‘pro-research - pro-forgiveness - pro-understanding’

 

[Fidelis_Unus]

I am pro-life, but I do struggle with outlawing abortion. I think what makes me stop and question it is when I ask myself, “Would I force a woman to complete her pregnancy if she were raped?” I couldn’t do it. Could any of you? And if you couldn’t, how is this any different from supporting outlawing her ability to get an abortion?

I would encourage anyone who thinks this to take some time and read some of the stories here from women who were in this situation: afterabortion.org/ before considering this position. A vast majority of women who are pregnant due to rape or incest do NOT have an abortion and many women who were cooerced into abortion after being raped are now speaking out about how this compounded their suffering, adding one trauma on top of another. Later, they’ve had difficulty separating the unhealthy guilt of being rape with the natural guilt of an abortion. It has further traumatized them.

Women deserve better.

 

[Fidelis_Unus]

And here’s the problem, the Pro-Life movement has the science backing us up, the pro-aborts know that, and know they can’t argue with science, so they have made this idea that the embryo is human as some kind of religious opinion, and people get a bit twitchy when people try to “force” their “religious belief” on to others.

The science says that the human life begins at conception. It says the zygote, blastocyst, embryo, foetus is human. They are human beings in a different stage of development. Just as I’m in a different stage of development, just as you, the child in school, the baby in the hospital, the old man in the rest home, all just different stages of development.

None of us would be here if we weren’t those little blastocysts or embryos. Its a stage of development.

As Catholics and Christians or whoever, we can argue about ensoulment till we’re blue in the face. But really, who cares when the soul enters the physical form? We in the Pro-Life movement should be focussed on the science, and the science says that zygote is a human being.

 

[vera_dicere]

Why is a rapist’s innocent baby less deserving of life than any other baby? It’s either a child or it isn’t. If you truly believe that a fetus is an unborn child how on earth could you say its ok to murder that child in certain circumstances? If is it a child than its murder -regardless of how the child was conceived.

This is another one of those pro-abortion land mines, something based not on science or medicine or even rational thought, but on emotion. I hate how the pro-aborts accuse the Pro-Life movement of being all emotional and sob stories about babies and people who hang themselves from the rafters, when in reality, its the pro-aborts who use the sob stories and tear jerkers.

As Pro-Lifers we stand firm by saying “no, the woman who got drunk on a Friday night CAN NOT have an abortion”, or “no, it is not justified for a woman to get an abortion if she is in high school, or trying to get a job, or if she has three other children”.

Why? Well, those are circumstances we say, circumstances that can be changed to be pro-active in assisting the woman.

Rape, is a circumstance, albeit a damn awful one.

There is no difference between the 8 week old foetus conceived in a Friday night orgy, the 8 week old foetus concieved in the loving Catholic family or the 8 week old foetus conceived in a rape. They are the same. The only difference is circumstance.

If pro-lifers can say “well, okay, aboriton for rape, but only for rape because its so horrible”. They are betraying their logic by allowing rape for a circumstance. A terrible circumstance, but a circumstance all the same.

And if we can allow abortion for one terrible circumstance, then what of other terrible circumstances, and it wouldn’t be hard to come up with some other tear jerkers.

Abortion really is an all or nothing sort of situation, despite the sob stories the pro-aborts want to throw at us.

Which then of course, is just evidence of the pro-abortion repugnant lack of morals, that they can take a woman in the worst situation of her life, and use it to further their cause. They have done so much damage, slipping into society this beleif that raped women want aboritons, because now how many people think “well, she can’t have been raped because she doesn’t want an abortion. What woman would want her rapist’s baby?” Whether the raped woman has an abortion or not, she hasn’t really had much of a choice, has he, when society tells her she must be a freak to not want an abortion.

 

[Fidelis_Unus]

If what I I’ve learnt through science and the experiences of a couple of friends who have experience miscarriages in early pregnancy (neither felt they’d ‘lost a baby’ - both felt disappointed - both went on and had children and one of them says she felt the baby became a baby around 4 or 4.5 months - she can’t say why, but that she felt she intuitively could sense a ‘soul presence’ around that time…it’s not proof of course but it’s the experience of someone who is very spiritual and a close friend of mine).

I’m sorry, I don’t understand … If you’d learned what through science …? Two or three women’s experiences do not make a ‘rule’. Frankly I’ve known many women who have had miscarriages early in the pregnancy who have suffered greatly and such a statement would be painful and unkind, IMHO.

But though my position because of my PERSONAL idea of when the soul becomes part of the equations could be wrong, I have to say that if the church is right and the soul is there at the off, then it would be murder. However, miscarriage is a sad but very common thing (now tests can tell you if you’re pregnant very early the statistics seem to be about 50% or more pregnancies end in miscarriage).

Where does 50% come from? “Studies reveal that anywhere from 10-25% of all clinically recognized pregnancies will end in miscarriage.” American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)

On both sides we are dealing with BELIEF and not a verifiable fact; we can’t measure the presence of the soul yet. I think sometimes religion makes a mistake if it claims to KNOW something when in fact, it’s a BELIEF. In many areas that can be dangerous and destructive. We may find out more about the development of the soul during pregnancy in the future and all of this can be ‘put to bed’.

Well this is not exactly correct. The fact is that there is a Truth. A human life should be valued at conception, regardless of religious beliefs. The Truth exists. We will grow to understand it, but you and I, or example, cannot each have different Truths. Truth simply is.
In terms of dangerous and destructive, I can’t see much that is more dangerous and destructive than abortion, for women and for their offspring.

But until then, perhaps more construction than the extremes would be an attitude of ‘pro-research - pro-forgiveness - pro-understanding’

Who says Pro-Life people aren’t any of these? We who are Pro-Life care more about the women that the abortion providers and yet you act as though we’re the devil’s spawn because we belief that the baby has as much of a right to life. God created that life that you are so understanding about ending. Who are we to play God?

 

[vera_dicere]

God wouldn’t be investing embroyos with souls at that stage only to kill them within days or weeks?? It worries me how much more traumatic a miscarriage would be at the early stages when it’s so common for a person who thinks of the embryo as already being a baby.

God isn’t killing anyone, certainly not zygotes, embryos or foetuses.

There are in place certain biological and physical laws, the world has fallen because of sin, and death is its wage. There are studies that say obese women have higher chances of miscarriage, smoking, drinking, bad diet, these are all factors that inhibit the ability of the zygote to implant or the foetus to survive till birth. God isn’t saying “Well, you won’t make it past implantation, so I won’t give you a soul”. That stinks of a really twisted kind of pre-destination if you ask me.

Basically, God isn’t killing the ZEF, the woman’s body which is no longer perfect and adhering to those biological laws is simply not fit for the ZEF at that particular time of death for the unborn child.

I mean, really, its the same sort of thing to say well, if the child is going to die of SIDs, or will be stillborn, why should God give it a soul. Or abortion, if God knows everything, He knows the woman will abort so why bother giving the “blob” a soul? Its theologically repugnant.

As for your friends’ experiences with miscarriage, well everyone’s different. My mother miscarried a child about 6 months after I was adopted. She was only about 8 weeks along, yet, she named him, and even now, almost 30 years later, I see a sadness in her eyes when the topic of miscarriage comes up. Recently my cousin experienced miscarriage, and my mum had discussions with her because my mum was the only one in the family who really knew what it was like.

I’ve met way more women who have mourned their miscarried babies then I have who just brushed it off. In fact the only woman who miscarried that didn’t mourn whom I met was actually going to have an aboriton in a few weeks and was so greatly pleased.

Miscarriage is an experience that is either grieved for or brushed off depending on the personal opinions of the mother. I think society has to play a part too, given that society is so pro-abortion it has pushed this “its just a blob” mentality, so women who miscarry feel they are being “silly” for greiving for the loss of something that millions of women kill every year.

Miscarriage can destory a woman’s very soul, and to deminish it in anyway is an indication of a horrific societal embrace of a culture of death.

Miscarriage is very, very common, no one can box women into either catagory, but we have to be willing to acknowledge that for some women it is heart breaking and for others its just another part of a reproductive life span.