Pro-life and abortion?

Question

Many pro-lifers believe that:
Abortion is the same as murder yet...
Sometimes abortion is ok (mother's health, rape)

Does this mean that sometimes murder is ok?

If you truly believe that abortion is akin to murder than how can it be acceptable in any circumstance?

CrabbyPatty: Contrary to what you believe I very much would like to hear answers on this. I also realize that many believe murder is sometimes acceptable. War, self-defense...

Perhaps I should clarify my point. Pro-lifer's say that abortion is killing innocent babies. Then does it mean that sometimes killing innocent babies is acceptable?

Answer 1

Many pacifists think that war is the same as mass murder.

There cannot be a comparison. Abortion is about a woman's choice to have autonomy over their own bodies. Abortion should never be a religious "belief" or a comparison to murder.

Murder is defined as "illegal killing with malice aforethought."

Not all killing is murder, of course. Murder is actually a small subset of all killing, which includes accidental homicide, killing in self-defense, suicide, euthanasia, etc. When pro-life activists call abortion "murder," they are suggesting that abortion fits the definition of murder, namely, "illegal killing with malice aforethought." However, abortion fails this definition for two reasons. First, abortion is not illegal, and second, mothers hardly feel malice towards their own unborn children.

Many pro-life advocates claim that the same reasoning applies to abortion. Although abortion is legal under current U.S. law, it is not legal when it is held up to a higher law, namely, the law of God. Many forms of killing were considered legal in ancient Israel, and levitical law listed many of the exceptions. Generally, levitical law permitted killing in times of war, the commission of justice and in self-defense. Sometimes, God even gave Israel permission to kill infant children. In I Samuel 15:3, God ordered Saul to massacre the Amalekites: "Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants…"


The second part of the definition of murder involves malice. Is it really reasonable to assume that mothers feel malice towards their own unborn children? Why would they even feel that? What has the fetus done to inspire the mother's hatred, anger, hostility and revenge? This is not the way women react to news of their pregnancy, even an unwanted one, as any woman who has gone through an abortion will tell you. It is a reaction that only men in the pro-life movement find plausible.

Abortion has been made into a political issue when it is a private decision that women come to, not because they want to, but because they are placed under the extreme pressure to make that choice. Ask any woman, would she choose to put herself under that amount of emotional, spiritual, psychological and physical pain and sorrow and they would reply, that no person would. In the end though, women have the right to choose what happens to their body and what doesn't. Governments have no right over an individual's body. The Church has no right over an individual's body.

The most common reasons a woman chooses abortion are

She is not ready to become a parent.
She cannot afford a baby.
She doesn't want to be a single parent.
She doesn't want anyone to know she has had sex or is pregnant.
She is too young or too immature to have a child.
She has all the children she wants.
Her husband, partner, or parent wants her to have an abortion.
She or the fetus has a health problem.
She was a survivor of rape or incest.

Answer 2

Pro Choice

Answer 3

I believe that women have been given a magical power not only to nourish the physical life growing within them but, in a spiritual sense, to act as a portal from one reality to another. Other than this ability, we are given little connection to the spiritual plane from which we originate. A woman's womb is both physical and spiritual... If you think about it like this abortion has to be wrong...

Then again, a woman has to live in this physical existence and if she can live with the decision and she deems it to be necessary why should she be stopped? Nobody else has to carry that baby, care for the baby or find the strength to let that baby go.

Some women can deal with the trauma of abuse and carry the child it produced, others can't - and when I say they can't I mean they really can't. We should all be in-tune with our own bodies and minds enough to know what we can and can't handle. Some women, forced to carry a child conceived by rape would literally lose their minds, others wouldn't. Some women value their lives over that of a baby they've never laid eyes upon, some don't.

Given my original statement about the nature of motherhood and how magical I perceive it to be - I wouldn't give birth to a child of rape, nor would I sacrafice my own life for that of the infant I was carrying (I have two already here that need me).

By the way - There are some circumstances where murder is acceptable. Self-defense for example.

It should be noted that the law happens to agree with me on both points.

Answer 4

It's kind of hypocritical don't you think?

People are always quick to criticize the choices of others - UNTIL they come up against the same choice needing to be made and it affects them. It's always been curious to me how many men are against abortion when their opinion means nothing. If it was their body and their money and their life, I bet most of them would surely opt for abortion if they became pregnant.

I say, it's between me and my God. I don't want my body legislated. I don't want to be told that I am a sinner either. If you haven't been in the position of being a woman with an unplanned pregnancy, keep your opinions to yourself.

Have you adopted any of these unpanned for children? Of course not - it would cost you money and time and upset your happy little life right?

Answer 5

First of all, I would like to clarify your position on pro-life vs. pro-choice.
Pro-lifers believe that life begins at conception. This is an attitude that stems from a deeply religious view on the point of sex. The Judeo-Christian attitude is that sex is for the purpose of procreation. Somewhere in the book of leviticus there is a Mitzva (commandment) saying Pru Urvu (be fruitful and multiply) This is the stem of most of the religious rights ideology, including anti-abortion, anti-LGBT rights, anti-birth control access, and anti stem cell research.

What most smart and sensible womyn and men (and all those genders in between) know, is that sometimes life is not the end all be all effort for how ethics is created. Freedom is a major part of what makes something ethical or not, especially when the life question is up for grabs. The thoughts on when life begins are varied and wide ranging- through centuries and continents, The ancient Hebrew Rabbis believed that for the first trimester, a fetus was largely water, the Kung civilization believes that life starts when the baby is seperated from hir mother for the first time (i.e. at the cutting of the ambilical cord)
What most of these opinions are missing is the enormous presense of womyn, you know the people who have to carry and deliver the baby and do most of the parenting.
This started to change with the advent of feminists like Margaret Mead, who poignantly argued for widely accessible contraception for womyn, but lets face it; we still live in a highly heteropatriarchal society that values fetuses over fully grown womyn. And the conservatives have been taking back whatever revolutions these feminists and advocates might have instilled.
People like Pat Robertson and The Christian Coalition have enormous political clout and now that the supreme court is controlled by one of these conservatives and has 4 of them on the bench, roe v wade is just a step from elimination. Lets hope a democratic congress and house can stop them.

But Politics aside, what anybody musing about the ethical repercussions of abortion needs to understand is that science has no clear answers yet over when life begins. Yes we know the different stages of pregnancy and gestation through sonograms and other recent medical technologies-but the question is largely an ethical and philisophical question, not a scientific one: Does birth begin at conception, when the fetus starts breathing, starts developing a mind and thoughts, at delivery? Each of these answers have been proposed by various people. Furthermore, since we really don't know when a fetus or baby starts thinking, and feeling-even at a very basic level, we can't make the argument of intelligent life vs. non intelligent life. How can you believe that abortion is murder and still be a meat eater, or believe in capital punishment, or the other way around.

And then there are all the practical issues- womyn have resorted to drastic measures when abortion is not readily available. Coat-hanger abortions are tortoruus and often kill the womyn and the fetus. And what about the victims of rape? One in three womyn will be sexually assaulted during her lifetime, mostly by people they know well. Are we saying that the potential for life actually trumps life? Are we saying that robbing a womyn of what dignity and power she has left after such an attack to save a fetus is going to save America or the world? Because a large percentage of abortions come from raped womyn, and how can a baby born in such a situation ever recieve the love and care they need to be a healthy member of society. Such a baby grows up in shame.
So, this is a tricky question indeed;
personally I believe that a fetus is the potential for life, not life itself. The lives and freedoms of womyn trumps the potential for life.

Answer 6

Well, if bringing a child into horrific living conditions with no hope and drowing in poverty slowly kills the child's spirit, which is worse?

How about if it slowly kills the woman who already has too many kids and her abusive husband won't wear a condom?

How about if getting pregnant ruins a young woman's chance at having an independant, healthy and productive life?

Abortion is not murder. But killing the doctors and blowing up clinics is. Ask a fundie.

And if you don't like abortions then don't have one.

Answer 7

Of COURSE murder is sometimes ok. If a baby threatens a womans health abort it. You gotta protect yourself. Same goes if a man threatens your health/life. You are okay to shoot him in self defense then. Heck he doesnt even have to threaten your life, it is prefectly okay to shoot him if he threatens "just" your dignity (attempted rape). So yeah sometimes murder is acceptabel. Why do you think they hanged some Nazis, Sadam, fried serial killers. This is a no brainer really. Geeze get a life and quit beeing so angry.
Before you start quivering with anger down there, Iam pro choice and therefore pro murder, it is only feminist/thrash girls knocked up by some looser/badbody who abort and **** themselfs up down there anyway and if girls too cowardly to accept responsibility or too stupid to time their pregnancy right breed themselfs out of the genepool I am more than willing to start the kill machine for them.
*uck those pro lifers, if some attention whore is standing on a ledge threatening to jump, dont try to preach her out of it, give her the big boot.

Answer 8

Pro-lifers are just plain hypocrites. Most are fundamental Christians, which are also hypocrites. The large majority of the population believes in choice, we just don't spread inapproppriate propoganda like these people.

Answer 9

I am in agreement with 'chanyart'. An embryo is the 'potential" for life, NOT life itself. i have always found is astounding that so very many pro-lifers are pro capital punishment (aka :State Sanctioned Murder). How you Americans can reconcile this hypocrisy leaves the rest of us baffled, to say the very LEAST.

Also, the loudest voices of those wishing to deny women the right to control over their own bodies are often middle class white males:

"...who are you to judge that this baby should cease to exist. How convenient it is nowadays to choose the easy way out."

This young, middle-class white male has had all the benefits that 'the good life' has to offer. Never knowing hunger, never knowing fear. "The EASY way out?" Easier than DEATH BY COAT HANGER? The question of when 'life begins' is subjective. Even scientists are not in agreement. However, there is NO argument that unwanted children are infinitely more likely to suffer abuse than their 'wanted' counterparts. Without quality of life then life itself is not worth living.

"Orditz" just wrote: 'Sometimes, God even gave Israel permission to kill infant children. In I Samuel 15:3, God ordered Saul to massacre the Amalekites: "Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants…"

Hey, this 'god-guy' can be really, really nasty! Doesn't look to me like he gives a toss about the welfare of 'POST-BIRTH' Amalekite babies - or ANY babies, anywhere at anytime. If that's who you you so-called pro-lifers look to for guidance I say whooooooo-heeeeeeee, NOT much of an ambassador for your cause.

Answer 10

Abortion is an issue we should take on a case by case basis. This is a highly charged issue, one that I feel only the mother can truly decide. I know all the trite sayings "Abortions stop a beating heart" and all, but there isn't just one victim, but 2 for every decision made re: abortion.