Is there a difference between a man that drops dead of a heart attack and one who is killed deliberately by another? 
Posted on 03/20/2006 2:23:32 PM PST by madprof98
Those who seek to outlaw abortion often use the rhetoric of "protecting the most vulnerable and helpless" in our communities. Many of them are Christians who see their opposition to abortion rights as inextricably linked with their faith and their understanding of Christian ethics. After all, wouldn't a God of love and life want us to protect life wherever we found it?
If only it were that simple.
In practice, there are other questions we must ask. Does a God of love and life ever support war? Does such a God understand that some innocent civilians will die when we fight to protect our freedoms? In other words, does God approve when we make the decision to kill other people to protect our quality of life? What about when we kill to prevent genocide? Does God have a holy balancing scale that weighs intangibles like "intent" and "the greater good" or one that compares the number of innocent lives lost against the number of innocent lives saved?
We do not know. For every Christian with a "God Bless Our Troops" sticker on their bumper there is another with "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" on their rear windshield.
If my experience as a pastor is any indication, it is unlikely that the driver of either car would be making their point from the kind of complex theological arguments I learned in seminary. In practice, our upbringings, our biases and our circumstances have much more to do with what we believe God thinks; and we are often inconsistent.
How else could we spend millions of dollars to oppose abortion --- despite no clear biblical argument for or against it --- and ignore the overwhelming number of biblical texts that explicitly command us to care for the poor?
For the vast majority of Christians, it is not about consistency --- it is about convenience. Even those of us who speak passionately about protecting the weak often forget that our willingness to purchase cheap goods produced by exploited workers sentences children to poverty, disease, violence and death. The cars that we drive, the food that we allow to be marketed to children, the tax breaks we support or oppose, they all have a life-or-death impact on the most vulnerable among us. It is not only in war that we make decisions to value one life over another. Consciously or not, we do it every time we go to the supermarket.
The issue of abortion is not about whether life starts at conception. There are convincing arguments either way. The issue is which carries more weight: the life that may be in the embryo, or the life and needs of the woman in whose body that embryo was conceived?
After spending time in women's health clinics, I have come to realize that the "most vulnerable and helpless" who need our active protection are the women and couples who are faced with the agonizingly difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy. As a Christian pastor, I strongly support protecting the right of women to make this decision. Other Christian pastors have chosen otherwise, and our division on this issue is proof that there is no Christian consensus here.
The far right, however, has been able to set the issue of abortion apart from all of the other controversial, life-or-death decisions we make every day. Abortion is not a special case; and I pray that the guardians of our Constitution will continue to protect our freedom to choose our own priorities in all of these weighty matters.
The beliefs or prejudices of some, regardless of who has a majority, should not be used to take the choice out of the hands of the woman who will be the main bearer, perhaps the only bearer, of the consequences of her decision.
The Rev. C. Joshua Villines of Decatur is a regional spokesman for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. An ordained United Church of Christ pastor, he is completing a doctorate degree at Vanderbilt University.
You MAY be fooling yourself Reverend, but you don't fool us.
Exodus Chapter 21:
22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
In the case of abortion the "mischeif" spoken of in the verse is pre-meditated...so the punishment should be life for life.
Ping-aling-ding ding!
Uh-oh a bell on viagra.
Is there a difference between a man that drops dead of a heart attack and one who is killed deliberately by another?
Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping list...
Thank you for the ping! :)
This tells me that the United Church of Christ supports murder. It keeps getting worse and worse.
Horses**t.
His newspaper challenges about when life begins, as well as his stand on the mother's right to destroy her child in the womb lead one to wonder how he interprets the words of Psalm 139: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. … I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body."(Psa. 139:13-14).
More on these words and just some of the amazing new discoveries and technologies which bring new meaning to the words of Psalm 139 can be found here.
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Why the drop after 1960? (in deaths of women from illegal abortions)
The reasons were new and better antibiotics, better surgery and the establishment of intensive care units in hospitals. This was in the face of a rising population. Between 1967 and 1970 sixteen states legalized abortion. In most it was limited, only for rape, incest and severe fetal handicap (life of mother was legal in all states). There were two big exceptions — California in 1967, and New York in 1970 allowed abortion on demand. Now look at the chart carefully.
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Abortion Statistics - Decision to Have an Abortion (U.S.)
· 25.5% of women deciding to have an abortion want to postpone childbearing
· 21.3% of women cannot afford a baby
· 14.1% of women have a relationship issue or their partner does not want a child
· 12.2% of women are too young (their parents or others object to the pregnancy)
· 10.8% of women feel a child will disrupt their education or career
· 7.9% of women want no (more) children
· 3.3% of women have an abortion due to a risk to fetal health
2.8% of women have an abortion due to a risk to maternal health
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So how many women’s lives have been saved by abortion?
Only about 3% of abortions since 1972 were reported to be “due to a risk to maternal health.” A reasonable person would recognize that not all of those cases represent a lethal risk. But let’s say they did. That means that nearly 45 million fetuses were butchered to save the lives of about 1.3 million women. Or put another way; 35 babies are killed to save each woman.
Abortion was legal in all 50 states prior to Roe v. Wade in cases of danger to the life of the woman.
Roe v Wade: FULL Text (The Decision that wiped out an entire Generation 33 years ago today)
How about contraception? Is that a murder as well? Where exactly is that line? It is rediculous some of you put as a clear black and white issue.
IBTZ
..the utterances of a cloud without water from the NCC...
Same here.
where is the "barf" alert???
Why is birth considered the cutoff line? Why not infanticide?
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