God gave mankind ten commandments many years ago to bring us happiness and as a roadmap to make us worthy to enter his presence. One of the commandments is “thou shalt not kill”. Some people like to claim a fetus is not a living soul because it totally depends on an umbilical cord for nourishment, a rather dubious argument. A newly born child is totally dependent on someone else for survival. Does that make him less than a living soul?
Does God consider an embryo a living soul? You will not find anything in the Bible discussing that. But what if he does? Where does that leave a person who participates on abortion? One might make the argument that if a person, who participates in abortion, does not believe in God they will not qualify for Heaven anyway. What about people who consider themselves Christians and wonder how God feels about abortion. This may help. When a married couple decide to have a child and the mother conceives, they become co-creators with God in bringing forth a child. This is a sacred act. Even if abortion is not killing, surely it would displease God to terminate that sacred act. If a child is conceived by an unmarried, woman she has already committed the sin of fornication which is condemned by the Bible. Having an abortion compounds her sins.
Those who support abortion claim the fetus is part of a woman’s body and it is nothing more than a routine surgery such as removing a cyst. That is not a believable story since at some point that fetus develops a heart and begins to move.
Abortion advocates can be extreme. The Governor of Virginia, who is a pediatric physician, was asked what should happen if an abortion attempt results in a live birth. He was quoted as saying “the baby should be resuscitated and if that is what the mother and family desire and then a discussion would ensue between the physician and the mother”. Perhaps the discussion would be, “it is tissue, so it does not matter what is done with it”.
One of the most common abortion practices is using a suction machine to extract the child. Abortion providers refer to this as clearing out the contents. Is abortion clearing out the contents or terminating human life? A suction machine would seem to eliminate the possibility of a child taking his first breath.
When do biologists believe life begins. I am quoting from The Conversation who present themselves as a “non profit organization through fact-and research based journalism”. They report on research done by Steven Andrew Jacobs a graduate student at the University of Chicago who wanted to know when biologists think life begins. He sent a survey to 62,469 biologists who could be identified from institutional faculty lists a survey. He got responses from 5,502 of which 95 percent thought life begins when a sperm and an egg merged. It would have been nice to know what the other 56,974 thought, but we can safely say all biologists do not believe life begins when the baby takes its first breath.
The argument on abortion could hinge on if God does not exist it does not matter if a woman has an abortion. However, if God exists then abortion is a grievous sin.
This is an opinion blog for conservatives and people of faith.