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So what makes abortion immoral?

RichardMooner

RichardMooner

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Jan 10, 2014
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Inspired by a post on a separate thread, I came to realize that I can't think of a single verse in the Bible that suggests abortion is a sin.

I know of the verses that are commonly used to justify this claim, but everyone I've spoken with that has referred to those verses, were typical, Western, backwoods, fundamentalist, Church attendees with skim through knowledge of the Bible. I'm wondering how the Apologeticists manage to support it?

P.S Please excuse my grammar, I've been up for two days.....and my comprehension is a bit off. Haha

EDIT: My guess is that all of the arguments are poor, and the Church just uses it as another means for the assertion of male dominance, regardless of what the Bible does and does not say.
 
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I found that my grappling with the question of the morality of abortion had nothing at all to do with religious beliefs. When faced with the decision to bring a child into the world or not, one that has already taken life in your body, is one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make. I have always and will continue to support a woman's right to make this horrible decision but I think anyone that makes it easily or with no moral qualms whatsoever must be very disconnected from both life and her own inner self. I have had to make this decision more than once in my life, the first time at 15 years old. I know that it was the right decision but I also feel that I did in fact stop a life--a life that would have taken its course through all the unexpected twists and turns of time just as the children I did bring into the world led surprising lives (one is still leading). To deny the sadness and the ache within that decision makes me as uncomfortable as denying any of the reasons that I chose to do it or my right to do so at all.
 
RichardMooner said:
Inspired by a post on a separate thread, I came to realize that I can't think of a single verse in the Bible that suggests abortion is a sin.

I know of the verses that are commonly used to justify this claim, but everyone I've spoken with that has referred to those verses, were typical, Western, backwoods, fundamentalist, Church attendees with skim through knowledge of the Bible. I'm wondering how the Apologeticists manage to support it?

P.S Please excuse my grammar, I've been up for two days.....and my comprehension is a bit off. Haha

EDIT: My guess is that all of the arguments are poor, and the Church just uses it as another means for the assertion of male dominance, regardless of what the Bible does and does not say.
Click to expand...

Is featuring in the bible a prerequisite for a thing being 'moral'? I'm not so sure...

But I would imagine that a biblical argument against abortion could rest with mose's commandment, "Thou shalt not kill". In fact, a large portion of debate on this topic rests with a counter to that argument, by saying that certain stages of embryonic development fall outside of the accepted view of 'life' and, thus, do not infract that particular ethic.

Whatever though. I don't think abortion is innately immoral at all. It can be, if the context surrounding the act is 'immoral'- a forced abortion, as an example, is incredibly wrong to my mind. Abortion, like nearly everything, is not a black and white or starkly dualistic concept. It has infinite facets, meaning its validity should only be considered solely on its own merits, not some broad overarching proscription against it by a misguided society.
 
Maybe it´s not about the Bible. Forget this for a second. Pretend it doesn´t exist.
What would you really think about abortion?
Imagine a pregnant lady, carrying your own son or daughter and you both have come to the conclusion that this is not convenient.
Would you finish, not the baby´s life, but your own by imagining what would have been like?
And see lots of children all around during your life time, and keep thinking yours could have been one of those.
I know it´s way conservative to think negatively about abortion so I think about myself and my feelings about that.
At the end, I don´t think I would manage to go ahead and do this.
It´s too much of a world print you may be leaving behind.
Just a thought though. I believe it´s all about your own consciousness. You are free to make your choices.
Are you really? Even it´s okay with others.
 
^I think many people have some reservations about 'abortions of convenience', but what about the million instances that are not about convenience?

I think you're right in saying that people will feel a lot of remorse and guilt for having an abortion. I think it is human nature to do so. But hindsight and retrospective thinking is usually pretty frustrating. :\
 
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Imho

I think that abortion has to either be ok or not. You can't say it is OK to choose an abortion but it is murder if someone kills a fetus against a mother's will. And vise versa. We can't have it both ways.

I personally believe life starts at conception and to end any life without the consent of the person involved is murder. And you can't ask a fetus what they want.

However... I also respect that I am not the one having to choose and it is the woman's body. So I do have some internal conflicts going on with this topic. I do think if someone is going great to have an abortion the decision should be made ASAP. like the morning after.
 
willow11 said:
^I think many people have some reservations about 'abortions of convenience', but what about the million instances that are notabout convenience?

I think you're right in saying that people will feel a lot of remorse and guilt for having an abortion. I think it is human nature to do so. But hindsight and retrospective thinking is usually pretty frustrating. :\
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Exactly!
 
addking said:
I think that abortion has to either be ok or not. You can't say it is OK to choose an abortion but it is murder if someone kills a fetus against a mother's will. And vise versa. We can't have it both ways.
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Why not? And its not "both ways"; that implies there are but two ways. There are a myriad potential reasons for someone to have an abortion; doesn't it seem ill-informed to try and judge them all at once?
 
I think that abortion has to either be ok or not. You can't say it is OK to choose an abortion but it is murder if someone kills a fetus against a mother's will. And vise versa. We can't have it both ways.
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are you serous?

to explain myself, forcing a woman to abort won't consist of murder, but it would be horrible abuse of the woman. are you okay with that?
 
addking said:
I am just saying.. It is either murder or it isn't. It can't be murder part of the time and ok the rest of the time.
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Yes, but why do you think this is so? You are claiming to understand the motivation for every single abortion, so I do expect you to have a better answer....;) You must have a reason for saying that every single iteration of a particular event is to be judged the same, and I don't think its omniscience.
 
People can't claim it is OK to take the life of an unborn child if the mother is OK with it and and turn around and prosecute someone for murder when they cause the death of an unborn child in some way. If the unborn child is considered a life... It is a life regardless of the circumstances.

It is simple logic.
 
rubbish. have either of you actually studied ethics?

that is not logic.

not all life is the same. until quite late in the pregnancy, a child is a parasitic organism. nothing more. until it can survive outside of the womb, it has no rights above that of the mother. even then, it doesn't attain personhood for most of the first year of life. the ethics around abortion revolved around one thing, harm to the mother. until it is harmful to her, she should be free to choose it.

the social benefits of abortion have been proven.


i've been called a baby hater before for saying this on bluelight. i'm a parent, and we chose when to start having children. not everyone has that luxury. that is wrong.
 
^^^^
I think you just fail to see our logic----
different from it being illogical.
Whether or not you want to have an abortion is up to the individual woman.....

However,
Once you define the death of a "potential" life
and call it murder ( as many a DA have when a defendent causes death of unborn mothers baby)
see " unborn victims of violence act"

it is illogical to say the death of another unborn
"potential" life is not murder.
You are making the same statement and giving two opposite answers at the same time.
thus illogical
You can argue whether or not aborting a "potential" life is murder or not, or even justified or not.....
but that doesnt change that arguing the negative of your statement at the same time you're making the positive is logical.
 
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sorry i misread the post.

i don't consider a crime which ends the life of an unborn child to be murder. it's a grievous harm to the expectant mother, but not murder.
 
No probs,
Im not here to judge women and what they do with their body.
I was just agreeing with addkings logic on the hipocrisy of the law mentioned.
I respect your view
 
The best (though by no means unassailable) ethical argument I've heard against abortion is that it's a slippery slope from there to flat out infanticide. If you can be cool with snuffing out a normally developing fetus posing no serious threat to the life and wellbeing of a healthy and able mother, then why not be cool with smothering an unwanted or unable-to-be-cared-for infant right at delivery (as was common in Japan within living memory -- hey, nothing that putting a cute little cloth-bibbed Jizo statue at your local temple grounds won't atone for, right?) After all, you can argue from neurobiology that neither a fetus in the womb nor a newborn is yet a sentient being with memories, hopes, dreams, and a place in the social fabric. And if you can "mercy-kill" a healthy-but-inconvenient newborn, hey, why not just be able to murder anyone whose existence on this earth is a nuisance to you?

I've also heard it argued that having abortion as an acceptable option removes an incentive to be sexually responsible, i.e. chaste, though this argument holds a lot less water than the above.

I really think the foreseeable burden of suffering, on the child and all who would be involved in his/her care as well as the pregnant mother, needs to be carefully weighed on a case-by-case basis. This is why I usually decline to get involved in the abortion debate, because this isn't one-size-fits-all ethics. Circumstances matter. A lot. I say the same thing about euthanasia at the other end of life.
 
addking said:
People can't claim it is OK to take the life of an unborn child if the mother is OK with it and and turn around and prosecute someone for murder when they cause the death of an unborn child in some way. If the unborn child is considered a life... It is a life regardless of the circumstances.

It is simple logic.
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That is not logic, that is just a semantic defining of what abortion is. Yes, it is killing. No-one is trying to say otherwise. Yet many in the world can justify eating meat. The justifications are usually along the lines of degrees of sentience or survival, and are accepted as reasonable, by many at least.

MDAO said:
This is why I usually decline to get involved in the abortion debate, because this isn't one-size-fits-all ethics
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A clever move really :) I personably don't like abortion, and I don't think many people actually do, but I can certainly see the necessity for it. Its incredibly sad that such a need exists, but we need to be pragmatic and understand that this, indeed, is not one size fits all. :\
 
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