What biblical and Church teachings might be used in a discussion about abortion? please help?

Question

Heres my answer so far:

Christians disagree with abortion in principle. They see children as a sacred gift from God and feel that abortion is rejecting God’s gift. Christians believe that ‘God made man in his image’ (Genesis) and so all life is precious and should be treated accordingly.

The Roman Catholic Church is against abortion in all circumstances. They see abortion as sanctioned murder, arguing that life is scared from the moment of conception and that the foetus should be given the same rights to life as the mother. They say that abortion therefore goes against the commandment ‘thou shalt not murder.’ (Exodus) They would use quotes such as ‘before I formed you in your mother’s womb I knew you’ (Jeremiah) to support this view. This shows that God has a plan for everyone and that all life is sacred. In Ecclesiastes it stated that there is ‘a time to be born, a time to die.’ Only God has the right to decide these times and by having an abortion we are ‘playing God.’ Having a child is a sacrament and therefore abortion is seen as a very important issue. Roman Catholics believe that the child is valued by God. This is shown in the book of Luke: ‘every hair on your head is counted.’ This means that we should do all we can to protect life, not take it away. Roman Catholics believe in the sanctity of life and would therefore see adoption as a better option.

Although the Church of England does not agree with abortion, they take a more liberal view and believe it is acceptable in some circumstances. In cases of rape, for example, they believe that abortion shows ‘agapé,’ or greater love. This may also be true if the baby would be severely disabled and have a poor quality of life. They may also agree with abortion if the mother’s life was in danger. This follows the Utilitarianism argument, the greatest good for the greatest number. They do not, however, encourage abortion and only condone it in the most serious circumstances.

But it needs to be longer so please add anything you can and feel free to correct/comment on whats already there

thank you!

Answer 1

I don't see how such teaching have any place at all in a debate on a 21st century issue. Religion said it's last intelligent and relevant thing centuries ago.

But if pushed I would point out how much the god of the bible enjoys infanticide. The slaughter of the Egyptian firstborn, the wrath with the isrealites for sparing the children of defeated nations, the exhortation to dash the brains of babies against rocks. Far from being against child-murder, as some answers claim, god specifically orders it.

What right has such a god to object to medical abortions?

Answer 2

You could quote the pertinent sections of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (the authoritative source for Catholic doctrine and teaching) which specifically address abortion in the larger context of the fifth commandment and the sanctity of human life.  Here's the entire section, and paragraphs 2270-2275 contain the teaching of the Church on abortion:

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a5.h...

Answer 3

...They shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up...

...Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall

have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eyes shall not spare children...

...And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women...

...Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women's children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves...

...Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones...

...And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver...

Hosea 13:16, Isaiah 13:18, Ezekiel 9:6, Numbers 31:17, Psalm 137:9, Leviticus 27:6

For the Pro-Choice argument:

I could go on and on. God seemed pretty ok with it. I don't personally believe in abortion, but I believe in a woman's right to choose. I also don't believe in using the bible to support pro-life. It has to many contradictions, of either God actually killing babies, sanctioning the killing of babies, not interfering when people plan to go out and kill babies, and even putting a price on babies.  

Answer 4

Children, whether before or after they are born, are a blessing and reward from God:

(Psalm 127:3) Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward.

It is God who makes & forms an unborn child. Abortion is destroying something God has made & formed. Such an act is going against the will of God:

(Isaiah 44:2) Thus says the LORD who made you and formed you from the womb...

God knows a person even before they are born, and He has laid out their entire lives before they have even lived one day. To decide to abort an unborn child is to destroy a person whom God knows fully & completely:

(Jeremiah 1:5) Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you...

(Psalm 139:13-16) You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.

Many women decide to carry out an abortion because they feel that they cannot survive and go on with life with the weighted responsibilities of a child. However, the Bible says that God will not allow anybody to be overwhelmed to the point of failure. No matter what hardship, God will always provide a way out, if that person seeks Him for that way out.

(1 Corinthians 10:13) God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

(Philippians 4:13) I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

All things that are created are only created by the will of God. Therefore, if a person becomes pregnant, it is by the very will of God that that child was conceived, even if it was the result of incest, rape, etc.

(Revelation 4:11) You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.

Answer 5

Since the Holy Spirit which comes from the love of Christ and His Father has been given to the Catholic Church in the teaching of the Christian faith what more would you need.  However I may add that in a case of saving a mothers life an abortion may take place but it is not willed, quite a different matter when saving a mothers life

Answer 6

abortion has NOTHING to do with religion & is a womans personal choice

if god hates hands that shed innocent blood...what the f*ck has that got to do with it...ffsthought 'god' didn't hate anyone as all sins are supposed to be forgiven..these christians are so two faced

Answer 7

Abortion on demand is the greatest moral evil in the world today,it is nothing less than genocide,the turning of humanity against itself.

Abortion is the wanton sacrifice of human life on the altar of insanity,and it is the greatest single cause of society today fragmenting and going fast into the abyss.

I speak now as a Catholic when I say that all and any Catholic politician, no matter what country they live in who support abortion on demand should be excommunicated,it is time to send out a message to the world that you CANNOT be Catholic indeed Christian, and support in any way shape or form, the heinous crime of killing the unborn child.

When you do this to the least of my Brethren you do it to Me, said Jesus; and who is the least in regards of life on this planet today? the unborn child.

The blood of countless millions of slaughtered innocents blood, cries out to Heaven for vengence, and God Who is infinetly good, infinetly just, will not put up with this demonic practice much longer I believe.

You want to know why the world is going down the tubes?, why there are so many so called natural disasters, then look no further than the hellish sin of abortion.

We need to wake up and realize that this wholesale slaughter is in it`s very essence demonic in origin, and make reparation to the Lord Who is gravely offended,or pay the price of chastisement.

Is it not hypocritical when people are upset and outraged when they see pictures of baby seals being clubbed to death,thier blood splattered over the pure white snow yet fail to raise any objection, when fellow human beings are treated in much the same horrible fashion?

The Catholic Church has always condemned abortion as a grave evil. Christian writers from the first-century author of the Didache to Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae ("The Gospel of Life") have maintained that the Bible forbids abortion, just as it forbids murder.

As the early Christian writer Tertullian pointed out, the law of Moses ordered strict penalties for causing an abortion. We read, "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [Hebrew: "so that her child comes out"], but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" (Ex. 21:22–24).

This applies the lex talionis or "law of retribution" to abortion. The lex talionis establishes the just punishment for an injury (eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, compared to the much greater retributions that had been common before, such as life for eye, life for tooth, lives of the offender’s family for one life).

The lex talionis would already have been applied to a woman who was injured in a fight. The distinguishing point in this passage is that a pregnant woman is hurt "so that her child comes out"; the child is the focus of the lex talionis in this passage. Aborted babies must have justice, too.

This is because they, like older children, have souls, even though marred by original sin. David tells us, "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Ps. 51:5, NIV). Since sinfulness is a spiritual rather than a physical condition, David must have had a spiritual nature from the time of conception.

The same is shown in James 2:26, which tells us that "the body without the spirit is dead": The soul is the life-principle of the human body. Since from the time of conception the child’s body is alive (as shown by the fact it is growing), the child’s body must already have its spirit.

Thus, in 1995 Pope John Paul II declared that the Church’s teaching on abortion "is unchanged and unchangeable. Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his successors . . . I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium. No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church" (Evangelium Vitae 62).

The early Church Fathers agreed. Fortunately, abortion, like all sins, is forgivable; and forgiveness is as close as the nearest confessional.

Abortion should not be legal, and even from a non-Christians view but from a  from a science perspective, a fetus IS composed of living cells, and they DO contain unique human DNA, so I don't understand how the "it's my body" argument holds any water.

God bless*

Answer 8

May I refer you to another web page where you will find ample information for your purpose.

http://www.carm.org/abortion.htm

Answer 9

I did a google search and popped up 3,740,000 results.  I think there might be some contradictions.  

Answer 10

Google search "What does the bible say about abortion." You'll find tons of information.

Answer 11

Exo 20:13  You shall not murder.  

Answer 12

God believes in abortion, he killed the first born of everyone in Egypt a long time ago.

Answer 13

Read Proverbs 6:16-20.

God hates.............hands that shed innocent blood

Answer 14

"Every hair on your head is counted" seems to indicate that fetuses don't count until they have hair. Which is about 20th week or so.

Answer 15

Pray sinner, pray.

Answer 16

The roman catholic church is alway whinging about something.  If it isnt abortion then it's stem cell research or euphasia or g**s.

but what is the deal wtih the roman catholic's churchs view on contraception.