Thank you for the post! What if the fetus is tested and is found to have very serious disabilities i.e. brain dead?

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InterfaithForums.com-Where your ideas and beliefs count.

When a new life is been formed in the womb of a woman, it has to be taken as a blessing of Creation. The beginning of a New Life is a major physical evidence of the Evolution of the Universe affirming itself in the Actual Strive for Absolute Health .
If life is already started, it means it was inevitable, therefore it has a Purpose and any conscious interruption of it has to be prohibited.

It does not matter if a man and a woman involuntarily instigated the Beginning of Life and they are not ready to become parents. It does not matter if “a child was conceived as the result of rape”, or doctors discovered in the early stage of Life development that it has genetic disorder, or a mother “feels she can’t reasonably bring to term for her own reasons”.
Only one thing does matter, - any Life has a Purpose. Therefore, after the Natural Development of a New Life already took place, it must be encouraged and protected by Human Beings under any circumstances.

The very Purpose of the Beginning of Life is much higher than other Humans beliefs, desires and actual perceptions of the reality of life on the moment when sexual intercourse takes place.
The scale of the Purpose and the Happiness of the Beginning of Life is so colossal and Infinite in it’s Original Purity that it overshadows the Origins of Biological Corruption in Humans.

The truth is, even the sickest criminal in the world has at least one “seed” of Love within his Hate.
“The ground” welcomes “the seed” and it sprouts into a tree of Love.
And this Tree inhales Misery and exhales Happiness.
Even the worst of the criminals has at least one “seed” of Health within their Illness.
When “the seed” touches the ground, it turns into a River of Cure which brings Health in it’s waters to whoever needs them.
When we cut “the Sprout” we let Misery prevail depriving ourselves from Happiness.
When we block “the Young River of Cure” from running, it dries up and Illness grows on it’s muddy bottom.
When despite the fact that we know it all, that we feel it, we still destroy “the Sprouts“, we are TERRIBLY WRONG, we are IMMORAL.
When we do not know it all and cannot feel it, we are still WRONG, we are IMMORAL in our failure to feel, in our laziness to learn.

If we determined beforehand that an embryo has a genetic defect and we destroyed a new life for the “compassionate” reasons, then may be in the reality we committed an act of Premeditated Murder of a Potential Contributor into the Progress and Development of Humankind?
One does not have to have a Healthy Body to have the Healthiest Spirit.
One doesn’t have to be able to walk to teach people how to run toward their Goals.
Or look at this from this angle. How will we ever learn how to fix an engine, if every time when it breaks we throw it in the garbage?
To destroy a new life using “Compassion” as “a Shield” of Frustration, Fear and Laziness is WRONG and therefore,- IMMORAL.

A.P.

You know, brain dead is one thing, but if the infant will be conscious and not in pain, I have to say it would be murder. If the infant will not be conscious, or will be in pain for all his life, I would leave that decision to the mother and doctor, and I am not ready to pass judgement on a decision I know I could never make. But if the infant has a viable chance at life and you take it away . . . it is no different than murder, whatever the good intentions.

This issue is very hard for me to consider. I know that it is the only thing that could alienate me from my family, if a woman I know and love had an abortion, I would have to cut her out of my life, for me it would be like if a loved one became a murderer, it would hurt to much to see them.

In many states, brain dead is considered being dead. Therefore, I have no trouble with an abortion under such a circumstance.

Just as a side, even though Judaism does not allow abortion unless the fetus is not viable or unless the mother's health is in jeopardy, abortion is not considered murder. According to Torah, to cause a woman to have an abortion is penalized by a very large fine and not the death penalty, the latter of which could be imposed in the case of murder.

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"Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well."-- Mahatma Gandhi

"For", meaning I acknowledge a woman's right to make decisions that affect her body parts.

I'm afraid that I really have to disagree with you strongly, Pinski. In the first place, most people are not aware of what an astounding number of pregnancies terminate all of their own accord, which seems to deny any real "purpose."

As many as 50% of pregnancies miscarry before implantation in the womb occurs. Early after implantation, before pregnancy is clinically recognized, loss rate is about 30%. After the pregnancy can be clinically recognized, between days 35-50, about 25% will end in miscarriage. Think about those numbers for a moment. It is likely that nearly three-quarters of all conceptions terminate all by themselves!

As to your assertion that "any Life has a Purpose," well I challenge that in several ways. The first, and possibly the most important, is to ask "what purpose?" And I'll tell you that if you state that the purpose is God's purpose, then you don't know what it is, you don't know what you're here for, you can never know what the purpose of your life is. And if you can't know the purpose of your life, then you are nothing but the tool or plaything of the entity whose purpose it is for you to live. I find that extremely unsatisfying.

But I would go further, and say to you that if every life has a purpose, let's ask the purpose of the butterfly. To create beauty? Okay, what of the little worm right now boring into the eye of a child sitting on a river bank in Africa, slowly turning him blind? What is that worm's purpose? Surely it was created by the same process as the butterfly. (And you and I would agree that they were created by the same process, except that I would say it is blind evolution, you would say it was God.)

Let me quote Sir A.J. Ayer, a British Philsopher.

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

So your emotions dictate for you as to whether or not people should get abortions?

Are you saying that the right to life overrides any right to bodily integrity?

I put other, I can't say I am 'for' or 'against' but strongly believe that the option should be available. There isn't a one size fits all solution, and there are many circumstances where people will make exceptions even if in general they are against - such as if there is a threat to the health of the mother, ectopic pregnancy, extreme youth, congenital defects, conception through rape etc as examples. Unless we want to go back to the days where desperate women sought out back street abortionists or being forced to carry through with the pregnancy even if it is harmful to their health or non-viable I think it needs to be kept as an option. I also support education on sexual health and relationships as well, as this is part of the bigger picture and context and rarely gets discussed when looking at abortion.

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Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Marie Curie

I don't think that abortion is a particularly desirable option, as it's an invasive procedure that gets increasingly complicated as the fetus grows.

I do feel that it should be easily available for any woman who wants to terminate a pregnancy -- Removing legal and bureaucratic roadblocks will allow abortions to be done early in gestation, before the fetus starts to develop a nervous system and becomes capable of feeling pain.

I'd like to quote from some of the posts above, but everyone had so many great points, that I might as well just share my point of view. I've spoken to this topic before on this forum, as I've had a little experience with abortion. I had 2 of them in my early twenties, and can echo the sentiment that "no one is for abortion." It's quite easy for us to assume that "I would never do anything like that," until it happens to us. Let me tell you, abortion is painful, expensive, and not fun emotionally.

First of all, I think we have to be careful when it comes to forming images in our minds that every abortion involves an uncaring mother and/or a fully formed fetus. Checking the facts, at 4 weeks after impregnation, the "baby" is the size of a poppy seed. At 10 weeks it has grown to about an inch long. According to research, nine in ten abortions occur during the first 12 weeks.

We should also remember that the success rates for birth control are never 100%, ranging from .5% to 35% women becoming pregnant inspite of birth control. Research tells us that about half of pregancies in the US are unplanned.

There are also many kinds of individuals and many kinds of reasons for abortion: from a woman who's been raped or abused to someone with emotional problems to someone who has no means to raise a child. There's a history behind each pregnancy. Women can definitely feel pressured to have sex, get pregnant in spite of using birth control, get pregnant in menopause. Some are left by the baby's father. Some find themselves without income, just to name a few.


Of course, several of these circumstances may occur all at once, as they did in my case (and in a time before birth control was even talked about). According to statistics, abortions peaked about 1981 and have been declining since then.

Some other statistics that are worth mentioning:


I thought these were interesting and informative statistics. It always helps to have a little information on these matters, because they're just not black and white issues (in my opinion, anyway). There are also the stories about women using coat hangers and the like. (My mother told me about one of my relatives doing that though I haven't done any research on it).

Another thing I've wondered about is what the guys think about all this. I've heard opinions from male leadership about the "right vs. wrong" once a woman is pregnant, but nothing about the male role in the pregnancy itself. The man is more often the agressor when it comes to sex. Should he exihibit more control of his desires, or take some responsibility in birth control, in order to reduce abortions?