To get a quick and entertaining summary of what I think
about abortion you may want to watch this 1996 video: https://www.amazon.com/George-Carlin-Back-Town/dp/B00M0DBWE8
Meanwhile, I went looking for scripture that condemns
abortion and could find absolutely nothing in the New Testament regarding this
topic except that Paul bragged in Galatians 1:15 that God had plans for him
even when he was in the womb. That
hardly applies to the question of ending pregnancies. It only applies to Paul’s ego. All the other biblical stretches regarding
abortion come from the Old Testament. So
funny. It is the Old Testament that
argues that adulterers should be stoned to death, divorce is forbidden,
rebellious children should be stoned to death, animals should be sacrificed to
God, we should wage war on non-believers, and a host of other rules and laws
that Christians have conveniently chosen to ignore. From my point of view, if one can cherry pick
the scripture in the Old Testament that merits following, why choose scriptures
that do not address abortion directly to insist that it is evil? Hypocrisy, that is why.
Carlin is right. The
pro-life movement is not really pro-life.
It is anti-women. Any group that
claims they are pro-life and wants to argue that life begins at conception is facing
a whole lot of scientific evidence to the contrary. A zygote is not a human. A blastocyst is not a human. An embryo is not a human. A fetus is not a human until about 24 weeks
of pregnancy when it is possible that the fetus could exist without the life
support of the mother. Further, since
about 80% of all fertilized eggs tend not to take root in the uterus and are
flushed out monthly then that would be serial killing on the part of God or the
mother depending on your perspectives or beliefs.
If pro-life people were really pro-life they would oppose
the death penalty. They would favor
stronger gun control. They would favor
drastic action to save our climate. They
would support early childhood education, food stamps, child welfare, CPS,
etc. They do not. It is a bogus claim to fight for a zygote but
not for breathing human beings.
A puzzle I heard from another source that I cannot
recall: You are in the waiting room of
your doctor’s office when the fire alarm goes off and smoke starts to fill the
room. You are on the 4th
floor. You run to the stairway and begin
to descend. At the 2nd floor
landing you hear an infants crying, you open the door and check the
hallway. There is a door labeled “fertility
clinic” behind which you hear the crying.
You open the door and there on the floor are identical twins crying as
smoke fills the room. Next to them is a refrigerator
labeled “fertilized eggs”, and inside is a tray of 1,000 fertilized human
eggs. You have a choice. You can grab the tray and exit the building,
or you can pick up the twins and exit the building. You cannot do both. Who do you save? Do you let the twins die to save 1,000
possible humans, or do you save the twins and let those possible humans
die? In your answer lies your true
understanding of the abortion issue.
It is the living, breathing humans that merit our
protection. It is the mother and her
doctor who should make the decision regarding a pregnancy. Any other argument is either purely political
or purely religious and should have no place in our law. Old white men, priests and preachers, and
confused women have no right to intervene, much less regulate such a
decision.
If you oppose abortion, do not have one. I am amazed that the very people who are most
fearful of Muslims attempting to implement Shia law in the US are the very ones
who advocate implanting their own religious views into law. Imposing your religious beliefs on others is
un-American.
