When does "human life" begin? (government, support, vote)
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Wrong. It's true that the church does not allow any form of ARTIFICIAL birth control, but at least in theory, contraception is a sin against the 6th commandment ("Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery"), which in the Church's view, forbids not only adultery but all "external" sexual sins (masturbation, homosexual acts, fornication, etc.).
Abortion violates the 5th commandment, which is "Thou shall not kill".
However, many contraceptives are thought to have an abortifacient method of operation, usually as a back-up to a primary or secondary method. "Abortifacient" as in not allowing the new organism to implant,
I agree that killing a human baby violates the 5th commandment, but as the results of this poll show, different people with different religious beliefs (or lack of beliefs) set the beginning of human life at different points. Many believe as you do that a new human is formed the instant conception is complete. Others believe differently. If the zygote/embryo/fetus isn't a human baby, then aborting it doesn't violate the 5th commandment. If you set the beginning of human life as conception, then yes, anything that stops a pregnancy from that point forward (IUD's, "morning after pill", etc.) would be murder.
Backing up to the 6th commandment, I fail to understand how the use of condoms, diaphragms, or spermicide (or any other form of pre-conception birth control) violates any Biblical scripture. If your religion considers adultery plus masturbation, homosexual acts, fornication, etc. to be sins, then ok, they're sins. But they have nothing to do with the use of any form of birth control. Telling a 35-yr-old lower-middle-class married catholic mother with 8 children that she is not allowed to use condoms, or a diaphragm, or spermicide, or anything else with her husband to prevent having more children, is a travesty beyond words. But that's off topic.
However, I think I see your point. I had no idea that the "sinfullness" of pre-conception birth control stemmed from a totally different commandment, which means that my poll question and first post is in error. I apologize for that.
False, most abortions are performed on stupid people who would wind up having stupid children. It ain't a coincidence that the crime rate basically peaked 18 years after Roe v. Wade and then started going down hill.
But, but, but.....Oleg just said that the "creme of the crop" are being aborted.
Quote:
"The other thing over looked is that millions of people are missing due to abortion- intelligent and good people from whom a few leaders would have risen- Instead - It is evident that inferior leadership has arisen...You can't mess with the gene pool."
I agree that killing a human baby violates the 5th commandment, but as the results of this poll show, different people with different religious beliefs (or lack of beliefs) set the beginning of human life at different points. Many believe as you do that a new human is formed the instant conception is complete. Others believe differently. If the zygote/embryo/fetus isn't a human baby, then aborting it doesn't violate the 5th commandment. If you set the beginning of human life as conception, then yes, anything that stops a pregnancy from that point forward (IUD's, "morning after pill", etc.) would be murder.
Most (orthodox) Catholic theologians seem to set the beginning of human life somewhere before implantation. By this standard, yes, drugs like IUDs may have a homicidal modus operandi. Check out this document: http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARRIAGE/CCLIUD.TXT
What is interesting is the development of this opinion. Before embryology came into being as a modern discipline, theologians believed that ensoulment happened some time after the sexual act, about 40-80 days depending on the sex of the child. As the science of reproduction was uncovered in deeper detail, theologians began to believe that ensoulment occurred at conception.
Quote:
Backing up to the 6th commandment, I fail to understand how the use of condoms, diaphragms, or spermicide (or any other form of pre-conception birth control) violates any Biblical scripture. If your religion considers adultery plus masturbation, homosexual acts, fornication, etc. to be sins, then ok, they're sins. But they have nothing to do with the use of any form of birth control. Telling a 35-yr-old lower-middle-class married catholic mother with 8 children that she is not allowed to use condoms, or a diaphragm, or spermicide, or anything else with her husband to prevent having more children, is a travesty beyond words. But that's off topic.
However, I think I see your point. I had no idea that the "sinfullness" of pre-conception birth control stemmed from a totally different commandment, which means that my poll question and first post is in error. I apologize for that.
The church teaches that artificial contraception is immoral for much the same reason that it teaches that homosexuality and masturbation are immoral. The traditional reason given is that the primary purpose of human sexuality is to ensure the continuation of the human race, and all sexual acts must be (at least implicitly) directed towards this end. To use contraception, or masturbate, or engage in sodomy is to go against the plan that God clearly set forth in nature, and turn the action inward towards oneself rather than towards others (i.e. the wife/husband and future children).
Practically all of Christianity taught the same until the Lambeth Conference in 1930, when the Anglicans decided to relax the teaching in particularly pressing cases.
The poll here actually points out something that is important to realize but is rarely (for reasons of sectarian dogma) actually considered. Over the nine month period of gestation, something that is obviously not a human being (i.e. a fertilized ovum) gradually becomes something that obviously is a human being (i.e. a full term fetus). But since the transition takes place gradually along a continuum, any attempt to draw a bright line between that which is a human and that which is not is completely arbitrary.
What is it about an embryo that makes it "obviously not" a human being?
Doesn't an embryo have its own unique DNA just like a person?
Can you think of anything else that has its own unique human DNA yet is not a person?
If DNA is incidental to one's status as a human, surely there must be other examples of non-humans who (or which) possess unique human DNA.
What a child has not yet fully developed doesn't make him or her less than human.
I didn't fully develop gray hair until my late thirties, but I assure you that I was a human long before then.
This physiological development became a genetic inevitability at the moment by DNA first formed.
Nature sucks, it is a kind of war, it knows no morals, those are just an invention of humans and some other highly evolved species. Still, we continue to be biological beings as well, so obviously there is no real solution to this dilemma.
"Thou shall not kill!"
Lol, I wonder if religiously motivated pro-lifers are all vegetarians
The church teaches that artificial contraception is immoral for much the same reason that it teaches that homosexuality and masturbation are immoral. The traditional reason given is that the primary purpose of human sexuality is to ensure the continuation of the human race, and all sexual acts must be (at least implicitly) directed towards this end. To use contraception, or masturbate, or engage in sodomy is to go against the plan that God clearly set forth in nature, and turn the action inward towards oneself rather than towards others (i.e. the wife/husband and future children).
Practically all of Christianity taught the same until the Lambeth Conference in 1930, when the Anglicans decided to relax the teaching in particularly pressing cases.
Ah, now that makes sense. It's the basic sex-is-sin (except for specific reasons) argument. I don't agree with it, but it's a logical argument, and I always enjoy learning new things. I'd love to further this by discussing the ramifications of things like vasectomies and hysterectomies and menopause (if a person is physically not capable of reproducing, is all sex from that point forward a sin?), but that's going way off topic.
Maybe another time in another thread.
Back on topic, there are now 60 votes after 2 days. Here's a general breakdown, and I've grouped the results based on similar criteria:
17 Pre-implantation (most conservative view)
16 Implantation to first trimester (legal abortion limit in some conservative states)
9 Between the first trimester and birth (varying levels of viability)
18 First breath
Another breakdown:
17 (28%) No abortion whatsoever (IUD's and "morning after pills" are murder)
25 (42%) Abortion ok as long as it's within specific time limits
18 (30%) Total freedom of choice (Kill it before its lips touch the air and everything's OK)
I'm really wishing I'd remembered to add another option for "Week 34/36: Fetus is officially viable without medical assistance". Any abortion after that point would require that the doctor perform specific actions to kill the fetus, otherwise it would spontaneously start to breath (and therefore "become human") as soon as its lips touched the air. I'd love to think that maybe some of the "first breath" people would have picked that one, but there's no way to tell at this point.
i have some ginger roots on my window sill. They were brutally cut off and dug out I don't know how many weeks ago, and they are now starting to grow, with green shoots and everything Makes you wonder what life is in the first place...
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Makes you wonder what life is in the first place...
