The first reply made an important point:
Are you asking this question from a purely religious perspective or from a scientific perspective ?
Also, are you also wondering what Jesus meant by His statement in John 17,
"When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, 2 just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him. 3 Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”
So there are a number of angles in response to your question:
- Are you asking if as a Christian, I believe the medical concept of “death” which is
the absence of brain and heart activity ?
- Are you asking how is it that I do not believe “choice” as in a woman terminating a pregnancy called an “abortion” is not “death” because of a Christian’s belief in “everlasting life.” ?
In basing my position against the right of a woman to terminate a child’s life at any point of existence, I base it on scientifc, medical, and religious reasoning as follows:
a) A simple definition of death is the absence of heart activity. A infants heart begins beating at approximately 24 days after conception. Thus it is medically alive
b) Before developing its own heart a child is dependent upon the mother’s heart.
c) At conception the defing DNA for a human being which the Supreme Court ruled is unique and can be used as evidence of a person’s innocence such as if the DNA at a crime scene does not match that of the accused, this can be grounds for the innocence of the accused. Thus from conception to death the DNA identifies a unique human being.
d) From conception to the end of heart and brain activity a human being is “alive” as long as it is still “growing”. One of the symptoms of approaching termination is a human being “stops growing.” This can be along physical, emotional or intellectual “growth.”
e) Scripture supports the reality of what science has defined as truth:
DNA and an individuals uniqueness:
Psalms: 139:13-17; It was you that created my inmost self, and put me together in my mother’s womb; for all these mysteries I thank you; for the wonder of myself, for the wonder of your works. You know me through and through, from having watched my bones take shape when I was being formed in secret, knitted together in the limbo of the womb. You had scrutinized my every action, all were recorded in your book, my days listed and determined, even before the first of them occurred.
A pregnancy is the fruits of the love of a man and a woman:
Wisdom: 7:1-2; Like all the others, I (Solomon) too am a mortal man, descendant of the first being fashioned from the earth, I was modeled in flesh within my mother’s womb, for ten months taking shape in her blood.
He said in reply, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”
From the book “Medical Ethics” by Kevin D. O’Rourke, Philip Boyle:
“the procreation of a new person, whereby the man and the woman collaborate with the power of the Creator, must be the fruit and the sign of the mutual self-giving of the spouses, of their love and their fidelity.”
(Medical Ethics: Sources of Catholic Teachings, By Kevin D. O’Rourke, Philip Boyle
Edition: 3, revised Published by Georgetown University Press, 1999
ISBN 0878407227, 9780878407224 442 pages)
I also believe that a child is entitled to the same rights inside the womb as outside of the womb. It is just that while in the womb, the child from conception is dependent upon the mother and it seems to me the responsibility of the mother is to acknowledge and care for that child in her womb.
From the time of conception until the grave, a child is moving farther and farther from reliance upon its mother. This begins at creation. Changes at birth, when the child has
begun to live independent from the mother and moves forward towards marriage: “for this reason a man and a woman shall leave father and mother and the two shall become one flesh” thus continuing to “be fruitful and multiply.”
For these reasons, I believe abortion is wrong and an attack aimed at God.
Regards,
