Is Abortion Murder?

[samildanach]

By your logic samildanach, if killing 10 year olds for whatever reason would be legal and making abortions illegal, you wouldn't still do nothing about it? Sounds little bit strange...

Well that's because it is.

Unfortunately a phoetus is dependent on the mother for life. If a mother is in the process of attempting to kill her ten year old kid then one can shoot the crazy byotch in the head without harming the child ( at least not physically )

Stopping a mother with an unborn child who is hell bent on having an abortion with a nice head shot, however, is likely to have forseeably negative consequences for the unborn .

Practicalities. You see?

 

[Masquerouge]

I have no problem killing a zygote; however, I have a problem with the murder of a sentient fetus, which occurs well before the end of the second trimester.

And killing a human is murder. Therefore abortion is murder.

Then you support the death penalty for those who commit abortion, I guess ?
That's the penalty for cold-blooded, planned murder.

If you think abortion is murder, then a woman getting an abortion and the doctor helping her getting it should receive the exact same sentence as two people planning and executing the murder of a 10-years old.

EDIT : and it's a bit annoying how people post "abortion is murder" and run away without reading the rest of the thread

 

[shadowdude]

I'm not having unprotected sex right now when there are clearly plenty of unfertilized human eggs out there, that's future denying life!

I'm a murder!

IMO life has to begin first before you can deny future life, although my statement can indeed be interpreted as you suggest.

Now I'll make a citizen's arrest if you don't mind

 

[Sickman]

Practicalities. You see?

Through your over use of giggling and grinning smilies I can see your practical view towards such nice thing as killing.

So should those women who either try or succeed in abortion to be prosecuted of murder or trying one?

If the baby is then born eventually, the mother is locked up for jail?

Yes, I can certainly see the practicality behind those thoughts.

 

[samildanach]

Through your over use of giggling and grinning smilies I can see your practical view towards such nice thing as killing.

So should those women who either try or succeed in abortion to be prosecuted of murder or trying one?

If the baby is then born eventually, the mother is locked up for jail?

Yes, I can certainly see the practicality behind those thoughts.

No. She shouldn't be tried for murder. Essentially what I'm against is women having abortions because a baby just doesn't happen to fit with their career plans at a particular moment in time. Ideally I would like to ratchet up the social stigma associated with having abortions to a level where it is more inconvenient to have an abortion as opposed to having a child.
I don't mean that we should make it more difficult for actually having an abortion by denying access to facilities. It would just be a matter of giving those who are considering an abortion more pause for thought.
Also, I suppose one would have to reward females who have taken time out to have children by making it easier to rejoin the workforce. By road grading malcontents who are sniffy about letting mothers back into the workforce.

 

[Mark1031]

No. She shouldn't be tried for murder. Essentially what I'm against is women having abortions because a baby just doesn't happen to fit with their career plans at a particular moment in time. Ideally I would like to ratchet up the social stigma associated with having abortions to a level where it is more inconvenient to have an abortion as opposed to having a child.
I don't mean that we should make it more difficult for actually having an abortion by denying access to facilities. It would just be a matter of giving those who are considering an abortion more pause for thought.
Also, I suppose one would have to reward females who have taken time out to have children by making it easier to rejoin the workforce. By road grading malcontents who are sniffy about letting mothers back into the workforce.

Interesting POV. So you are basically using the inflammatory rhetoric to try and stigmatize the practice rather than because you think it is actually the same as or worse than murder of a post-natal person.

 

[Sickman]

I don't mean that we should make it more difficult for actually having an abortion by denying access to facilities. It would just be a matter of giving those who are considering an abortion more pause for thought.
Also, I suppose one would have to reward females who have taken time out to have children by making it easier to rejoin the workforce. By road grading malcontents who are sniffy about letting mothers back into the workforce.

I myself consider killing of human being such action that it should be really considered before done for whatever reason (lawful excuse).
So I would pressure to use contraceptives and give as much information as possible about the subject for those who are "going for it".

However the social stigma is problematic in sense that it also puts pressure to those mothers who might have very good reason not to have that baby.
Example because of health issues or because of rape.

Unlike you I support that if person feels the abortion might be the choice, it should be done as soon as possible. The abortion is much more difficult to do later.

In society women should have freedom of choice when it comes whether they want to have the baby or not but as always with freedom there should be also responsibility. Unfortunately if we start calling the abortion as murder and something that cannot be even talked about, it won't help these women when the times come to make the choice.

"Murder" is one powerful word and it shouldn't be used for fun of it. I think partly that's why this thread's question is valid. You don't play with the words around if you aren't ready to pay the bill. And unfortunately even though it would be nice to see babies born healthy, without complications and in the "right time" when it comes to their parent's life, the thing is that it doesn't always happen like that. And labeling abortion as murder can have such consequences in society that some people seem have not understood the reality of these ends.

In our society it's so easy to talk about these things when new child's birth doesn't necessarily endanger other children of the mother like it does in poorer countries. This is the one of the main reason why it's such a nasty habit be against abortion in these poor countries. It can mean death of thousands into hunger in later time because there aren't contraceptives used or abortions done in time.

For some it doesn't matter as long as the "sacred life" what men have created inside women is saved. In the end they are nothing but bunch of cells. Now that we can use the word "murder" we could call the growing being in some occasions as "a leech" but that would be too much for some people, wouldn't it?

 

[wit>trope]

On an added note, we should consider St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Thomas Aquinas as accessories to murder as they all thought abortion was OK early on in the pregnancy.

That's just absolutely false. NONE of them thought that abortion was "OK." St Thomas considered conception to be a process that takes place over a period of time but EVEN BEFORE this process was complete he STILL considered it to be a sin, just not the sin of murdering a human being with a human soul. Just because you consider something to not be murder of a human being with a human soul does NOT mean that you are "OK" with it. In fact St Thomas Aquinas even considered CONTRACEPTION to be a sin. So your facts are completely, utterly wrong, wrong wrong. BTW, just because something is not an excommunicable offense does not mean the Church is "OK" with it. Murder of post-born people doesn't get you excommunicated. That doesn't mean the Church is OK with murdering people as long as they are already born.

 

[gorn]

Murder is not the right word for it. Although the jury that convicted Scott Peterson seemd to think so.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

If the fetus cannot survive outside the womb on its own (maintain homeostasis), then abortion is not murder. I mean with absolutely no life support at all.

 

[Sickman]

Although the jury that convicted Scott Peterson seemd to think so.

Yes let's one american jury decide it whether it's considered to be "murder" or not.
Especially since the fetus was something like over 30 weeks old.
Abortions are allowed only up to the 24th week.

 

[Dreadnought]

Religiously yes, but in my own opinion, it could be the result of rape or lack of money (etc)that would result in (most of the time) the kid not being raised right, starved, etc.

 

[Bigfoot]

You also have to consider that each time you have walked past a woman and HAVEN'T had sex with her you have killed unborn people.

Continuing with the great logic:

A woman commits murder at least once a moth.
Each second hundreds of millions of people lose a chance to be born.

This reminds me of a song in Monty Python's 'The Meaning Of Life '


DAD:
There are Jews in the world.
There are Buddhists.
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those that follow Mohammed, but
I've never been one of them.

I'm a Roman Catholic,
And have been since before I was born,
And the one thing they say about Catholics is:
They'll take you as soon as you're warm.

You don't have to be a six-footer.
You don't have to have a great brain.
You don't have to have any clothes on. You're
A Catholic the moment Dad came,

Because

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

CHILDREN:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Obviously I voted no in the poll. BTW murder is not the appropriate terminology here, as a 1st trimester fetus is not recognized as a person under the law. But even had you used a less inflamatory wording, say 'Is Abortion Morally Defensible', I would have answered the same way. Abortion is not a procedure that any sane person takes lightly, but I can think of too many situations where a woman should have that choice (IE rape, incest, birth defects, health of the mother, etc.).

 

[Uiler]

That's just absolutely false. NONE of them thought that abortion was "OK." St Thomas considered conception to be a process that takes place over a period of time but EVEN BEFORE this process was complete he STILL considered it to be a sin, just not the sin of murdering a human being with a human soul.

Which is the definition of murder. Ergo he didn't consider abortion to be murder. Taking the Lord's name in vain is a sin. Having impure thoughts is a sin. Eating certain things in Lent is a sin. A sin can range from the small to the "unforgivables". The entire thing that anti-Abortionists hinge their argument on is that abortion is murder, not that it is a "sin" that you may have to do 120 days penance for (oral sex minimum 7 years). Murder - you know worthy of life sentence in jail or execution. I guess since we're talking about the Church, condemnation to burn in Hell. I presented noteable Church authorities who clearly disagreed with the idea that abortion was murder because they did not believe that the soul enters the body at conception, which is the *central crux* of the anti-abortionists' arguments. The question you have to answer is, did these church authorities, Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine etc. consider abortion to be "murder"? The answer is no. Did they consider the fetus to have a human soul? No, at least early on. Hence it is undeniable they completely disagree with the positions of present day anti-abortionists.

A murder is a sin but a sin does not imply murder.

No-one has countered my argument though that as Jews it is likely that Jesus and his apostles would have approved of abortion under certain limited circumstances (usually to save the mother) and they would not have hold the opinion that the human soul enters the body at conception, nor would they have considered the killing of a fetus murder (though since the fetus has the potential to be human it is afforded some protections). This is all traditional Jewish belief which they never condemn in the New Testament. They were Jews and this was/is Jewish belief. That "humanity" does not begin until the baby has left the birth canal. As to when the soul enters the body, only God knows. It is very likely that the apostles and Jesus would be considered supporters of "murderers" by today's anti-Abortion Christian fundamentalists, which is pretty ironic and shows how little their POV is really based on the Bible and more on dogma that arose after the time of the apostles. Even the idea that the soul enters the body at conception was only accepted as dogma a couple of centuries ago. Before that the Church was teaching that birth began 40-to around 100 days after conception depending on which period you were in. So in answer to the question, what would Jesus do? The likely answer is, support abortion in certain circumstances and most likely disagree that abortion is murder.

Personally I suspect (early) Church opposition in the *Roman Empire* to abortion came more from opposition to infanticide. They just sort of lumped abortion into it, but the main target was infanticide which was fairly common in Rome. Early Christians used to pick up abandoned new borns left to die to raise (for which, ironically enough, they were accused by the Romans of doing because they wanted to use the babies for human sacrifice). Also the New Testament was written originally in Greek, for which the word for fetus, infant and child is the same. Which could have got many people very confused. But definitely according to traditional Jewish beliefs which were most likely held by Jesus and his apostles, a fetus was not a full human and his/her death is not murder.

 

[wit>trope]

Which is the definition of murder. Ergo he didn't consider abortion to be murder.

You said he considered abortion to be "OK." He did not consider abortion to be OK.

Taking the Lord's name in vain is a sin. Having impure thoughts is a sin.

There is no sin that was considered "OK" A sin BY DEFINITION is not "OK."

Eating certain things in Lent is a sin. A sin can range from the small to the "unforgivables".

Err, he considered it to be a "mortal sin" -- a sin that leads to damnation in hell.

Murder - you know worthy of life sentence in jail or execution. I guess since we're talking about the Church, condemnation to burn in Hell.

You just made my point. He considered it worthy of condemnation to "burn in Hell." Of course he also thought as with any sin there was the possibility of repentance and reconciliation.

I presented noteable Church authorities who clearly disagreed with the idea that abortion was murder because they did not believe that the soul enters the body at conception, which is the *central crux* of the anti-abortionists' arguments.

This is where you demonstrate your lack of understanding of their historical point of view. You are doing an anachronistic analysis. It's not true that they considered someone who was already conceived, not a human being. Rather, it is true that they considered conception to be a process that took place over time and was complete some time after what we TODAY realize through modern biological science is the point of conception. So they were in COMPLETE agreement that someone who was conceived was a human being with a human soul. Where they differ from today's understanding is WHEN AND IN WHAT MANNER CONCEPTION TAKES PLACE. I don't think you realize how ignorant people were back then about the mechanics of conception and pregnancy, etc.

The question you have to answer is, did these church authorities, Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine etc. consider abortion to be "murder"?

Some of them (not Aquinas and not Augustine as far as I know but a different Church authority) considered contraception to be WORSE than murder, so your argument is really really bad.

shows how little their POV is really based on the Bible

You're right. It's not based on the Bible, at least not exclusively on the Bible. It's based on general human morality not specific to a religion. There are pro-life Jews, pro-life Buddhists, pro-life Muslims and even pro-life atheists. In fact in some countries that don't even have a majority religion of any kind, abortion is still considered wrong and even illegal (even if the laws against it are not enforced)

 

[Uiler]

Oh, where does he write this?

Err, he considered it to be a "mortal sin" -- a sin that leads to damnation in hell.

You just made my point. He considered it worthy of condemnation to "burn in Hell." Of course he also thought as with any sin there was the possibility of repentance and reconciliation.

But how does that matter in the argument? The crux is, when is a fetus considered human, not what one word means. To put it another way, they consider the human soul not to enter the body until a while after when the fetus is first formed. Modern anti-abortionists consider that the human soul enters the body when the fetus is first formed. Ergo, there is a clear disagreement.

This is where you demonstrate your lack of understanding of their historical point of view. You are doing an anachronistic analysis. It's not true that they considered someone who was already conceived, not a human being. Rather, it is true that they considered conception to be a process that took place over time and was complete some time after what we TODAY realize through modern biological science is the point of conception. So they were in COMPLETE agreement that someone who was conceived was a human being with a human soul. Where they differ from today's understanding is WHEN AND IN WHAT MANNER CONCEPTION TAKES PLACE. I don't think you realize how ignorant people were back then about the mechanics of conception and pregnancy, etc.

Yeah, so. All I pointed out was that there were many disagreements in the Church and that the Church has never taken a unified position on this.

Some of them (not Aquinas and not Augustine as far as I know but a different Church authority) considered contraception to be WORSE than murder, so your argument is really really bad.

Right, which is why most anti-abortionists in America love quoting scripture as "proof" that God disapproves of abortion. In America at least, the anti-abortion movement is clearly linked to Christianity and the Bible. This is completely undeniable.

You're right. It's not based on the Bible, at least not exclusively on the Bible. It's based on general human morality not specific to a religion. There are pro-life Jews, pro-life Buddhists, pro-life Muslims and even pro-life atheists. In fact in some countries that don't even have a majority religion of any kind, abortion is still considered wrong and even illegal (even if the laws against it are not enforced)

 

[samildanach]

Interesting POV. So you are basically using the inflammatory rhetoric to try and stigmatize the practice rather than because you think it is actually the same as or worse than murder of a post-natal person.

I actually do view abortion as murder. So, i'm not just throwing the word around for effect. But at the same time I would desire the effect of seeing more pregnancies taken to term as a result.

I appreciate the point sickman made that there may be problems resulting from increased stigmatisation. Such as girls committing suicide due to increased societal pressure to keep on with a pregnancy when they really don't want to.

I happen to have been brought up as a Roman Catholic. Now, however, i'm an athiest. Although the religion that I was brought up with partially informs my view on abortion my real concern is to do with population. I'm not particularly happy that the U.K. has to strip other nations of their human resources in order to maintain a dynamic economy. I would much rather that people already here dropped a few more sprogs. It would be better for us and better for the farm team nations as well.

 

[vbraun]

A fetus is not a human being until it can do normal bodily functions without a mother.

 

[FearlessLeader2]

Ok, so I voted 'yes', obviously, and then I waded thru the thread, reading all of the posts, and I did see a few of the standard boilerplate pro and con responses, but then along came Mark1031 with this fantastic post:

My main point is really to focus on the rhetoric and the use of the term murder. I agree that abortion is killing something. I agree that that something whether a fetus, or a zygote or a blastocyst is human in the same way that one of my hairs is a human hair rather than a cat hair. I agree that this something is morally different than a hair in that left to its own devices it has a reasonable, although surprisingly low (especially in older women), chance of developing into a baby. I agree that you can oppose abortion on moral grounds be they religious or based on some other philosophical premise. I agree that you can seek to have the government prohibit abortion through political means if you oppose it for whatever reason. However, I don't think is that it is fair, accurate or logical to use the term murder. This is a rhetorical tool to put the other side in the position of arguing in favor of something heinous. I also think that the actions of the pro-life community belie the fact that they do not believe abortion is murder in the same way as killing a 10-year-old is murder. I mean really if your country was randomly killing hundreds of thousands of 10-year-olds every year for 32 years would the only action that you take be to petition government for change and maybe protest a bit? Seems to me obvious that those who say it is murder even if sincere do not believe it is the same as killing a fully formed human being. We need a new word (well not really we could just continue to call it abortion). I also think the use of the term murder is irresponsible and that it incites some unstable people to violence.

The bold parts I find myself forced to agree with.

(BTW- for those keeping score, this is twice now that I've moderated an opinion, remeber DP?)

Abortion is, in all likelihood, not murder per se. I still think it is something that should not be done to physically healthy fetuses inside physically healthy mothers under any circumstances, because doing so cheapens human life, and society cannot afford to have human life made cheaper than it already is. I'd like to point out, to all those that I've discussed this topic with over the years, and who are yelping with glee and jabbing the mouse button with the pointer over QUOTE as hard and fast as they can, that moderating my opinion from murder to something not quite murder, but definitely not good, actually STRENGTHENS my position. IF abortion is not murder, but 'merely' something tragic that sometimes needs to be done, instances like rape, incest, deformity, and medical need obviously fall under the omnibus description of 'sometimes needs to be done', and abortion as contraception remains repugnant and malignant, as it should be.

So yeah, change my vote to 'No, it's not murder.', but bear in mind that it's still not sweetness and light. There are some steps in between 'murder most foul' and 'holy act of selfless charity'. Sometimes, under extreme and unusual circumstances, an abortion is called for and should be performed, albeit grudgingly. Other times, it is the act of a selfish and reprehensible beast that should be condemned and outlawed.

This is as moderate as I'm ever likely to get. Enjoy it.

 

[Mathilda]

Fearless
Mark

Sorry Fearless, couldn't help myslef.
This is a diamond.