Discussion of When Life Begins [Everybody welcome]

[Lisa0315]

No worries if you think my thoughts are stupid and entirely unfounded. Almost certainly, someone here does. Nevertheless, I'm eager to put my thoughts on the table and expose them to collective scrutiny. I hope you will, too (put yours on the table and/or scrutinize my views).

The reason I say what I say is that there are many times that one person kills another person. Sometimes it is justifiable and sometimes it isn't. To the degree that the law is authorized to decide between such things, I don't see it as helpful to say that all abortion is murder unless all homocide under any circumstance is murder.

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As a side note, if you feel particularly strongly and want to take the level of discussion and dissection up a notch (BAM) there is (or will be) an "Outside" forum here for the purpose of outright debate.

Well, I think I am here mainly to fellowship for now. We will table the discussion for later. I do look forward to it eventually though.

Lisa

 

[Rhamiel]

Belenda, I missed you, it is nice to hear from you and Freitag agian.
Interesting topic, I am a Catholic and the Church teaches that life begins at conception, now the Church is not authoritative on science and this is kind of a scientific question, but even if life did not start at conception I think we should act like it does for two reasons
1. better to err on the side of caution when human life is at stake
2 even if life does not start till a little after conception, the embryo would turn into a "live person" under normal situations

 

[BelindaP]

You make a good argument for why one shouldn't consider even a very early-term abortion. But are there any scriptures to guide the way on when life begins? I guess I should specify that I'm thinking of life beginning when a soul is created for the life being created in the womb.

Btw, scientifically, conception is the beginning of life, because metabolism starts at that point.

 

[Rhamiel]

I guess I should specify that I'm thinking of life beginning when a soul is created for the life being created in the womb.

I understand, I still go with the Catholic Church on this, either it happens at conception or soon afterwords, someone pointed out how the Orthodox are just ok with it being a mystery, I am cool with that too, but if it is after conception we have to think "well if everything goes normally then this mass of cells will get a soul in like a week and a half" so it is either a person form conception or about to be a person from conception, either way I think it boils down to the same thing for any type of aplication in day to day morals

 

[Willtor]

You make a good argument for why one shouldn't consider even a very early-term abortion. But are there any scriptures to guide the way on when life begins? I guess I should specify that I'm thinking of life beginning when a soul is created for the life being created in the womb.

Btw, scientifically, conception is the beginning of life, because metabolism starts at that point.

I'd like to distinguish biological and spiritual life, though. For example, (not to sound too callous, but...) I step on bugs all the time. I can't say I do it with any particular pleasure but it certainly doesn't cause me to lose sleep. Biological life - by itself - doesn't entail a moral imperative to protection.

 

[Lisa0315]

I'd like to distinguish biological and spiritual life, though. For example, (not to sound too callous, but...) I step on bugs all the time. I can't say I do it with any particular pleasure but it certainly doesn't cause me to lose sleep. Biological life - by itself - doesn't entail a moral imperative to protection.

The problem with the animal vs human argument is that the animal never has the potential to be ensouled. When that ensoulment begins, I do not know for sure, but as Rhamiel said, we are far better off to err on the side of life than on the side of death.

Lisa

 

[Willtor]

The problem with the animal vs human argument is that the animal never has the potential to be ensouled. When that ensoulment begins, I do not know for sure, but as Rhamiel said, we are far better off to err on the side of life than on the side of death.

Lisa

To be sure.

My point is not that one shouldn't be cautious, but that in considering the question of life, I don't think that the biological argument is either sufficient or necessary.

 

[Rhamiel]

you know what, I think the "I don't know" answer might be the best, as Christians we need to say I don't know more often, we do not know everything, it is the atheist who thinks he has all the answers, we should just say "I don't know" and trust God
Now that is only for theological matters, social matters(like abortion) "I don't know" is not a reason to do something, if you fire a gun into a dark room and if you are asked if it is empty "I don't know" will send you to jail, or if you kill someone you just can not say "well I did not know if the room was empty or not"

 

[BelindaP]

You do have a point wrt whether a person acts upon their belief that life doesn't begin at conception. I personally would take the conservative view and not interfere with a pregnancy once conception occurs. However, I'm not seeing anything in the scriptures that states it to be the case.

The scripture is very clear that ensoulment happens at some point during fetal development, but, other than the one verse I found, I don't know if it has anything else to say.

Rhamiel, do you know if life beginning at conception is dogma, or is it doctrine?

 

[Lisa0315]

To be sure.

My point is not that one shouldn't be cautious, but that in considering the question of life, I don't think that the biological argument is either sufficient or necessary.

I respectfully disagree. Because we do not use the medical definiton of life, then, we default to the legal definition of life. The legal definition requires the child to take a breath independently of the mother in order to obtain its own rights. So, in the case of third trimester abortions, the baby is turned so that its legs are delivered first. This is done so that it cannot take a breath and the brain stem is then severed before it can be declared a legal life with rights.

You tell me...does manipulation of the natural birth not constitute murder in these cases? The baby is positioned so that it cannot take its first breath. It is essentially held in the birth canal and its legs held still by the Assisting Nurse so that the abortionist can by legal definition dispose of the non-life.

You tell me.

That same non-life, when in the first days of its conception, if its non-life is taken by someone other than the mother, is considered murder.

So, even the legal definition is manipulated so that socially approved murder can take place.

I told you I was passionate about this subject...

Lisa



Lisa

 

[BelindaP]

Lisa, dear. *cough, cough*

 

[Lisa0315]

Lisa, dear. *cough, cough*

Sorry. It is just about the one subject that I cannot walk away from. I will unsubscribe.

Lisa

 

[BelindaP]

I know. And God looks upon you with favor for it. The little ones need a strong advocate.

 

[Rhamiel]

Oh I am almost sure it is a doctrine, because of lack of scripture that talks about it and the lack of talk about it in the early church, it is really a modern issue, this topic only comes up when you have a scientific understanding of pregnancy. there are relitivly few dogmas in the Catholic Church

 

[Freedom&Light]

I'm not a very scientific soul. It amazes me that we can look inside the womb and see a 3D baby on a monitor. It's impressive.

Life begins inside the womb. It doesn't matter when. I guess that would be fertilization? You see in the Bible how the Lord opens people's wombs- maybe that means implantation? You see, I'm not a scientific person.

 

[BelindaP]

OK. That's what I was wondering about. I have only a small knowledge of the dogmas, etc. of the Catholic church. I suppose I should spend some more time reading up on it, as it interests me. I adhere to sola scriptura, but I believe there is tremendous wisdom in Tradition that often gets left by the wayside by protestants.

 

[Joykins]

I'm becoming increasingly convinced life does not begin at conception, because life has always been there. Sperm and egg are living cells.

I tend to think a pregnancy begins when implantation takes place.

There is an entire forum to debate abortion, is it necessary to have it out in here?

 

[BelindaP]

Well, I'm trying very hard not to debate abortion. Just when life begins from a scriptural standpoint.

 

[Rhamiel]

from my understanding the differance between a dogma and a doctrine is a dogma is more defined and a doctrine is more open to differant understandings, Mary was born without sin is a Dogma, it is very clear. Purgatory is a doctrine, differant people have differant ideas on Purgatory but all catholics believe in Purgatory (or should), then we also have the "pius opinion" these are ideas that theologians and mystics and just about anyone else had that do not go agianst catholic teaching, the idea that people who never heard the gospel or were baptised went to limbo was a pius opinion, although many people treated it as a defacto doctrine. The authenticity of visions falls under pius opinion, a lot of people in the Church, even some Bishops and Popes might believe Saint Joan of Arc(for example) saw a vision of Christ but no one has to believe that the vision was a true vision, although cannonization of saints falls under papal infalibilty, so I can say she did not see a vision of Christ but I can not say she is not a Saint
Don't take my word for any of this, I am sure I got something wrong

 

[chaoschristian]

This is a discussion that I started to have elsewhere, but it didn't go so well. So, I thought it would be a great one to try for our first discussion here.

I've been thinking a lot lately about when life begins. I know that the default position of many Christians is that it begins at conception. However, I think people choose that because they think the Bible is completely silent about the matter, so they go as early as possible.

I don't want this to turn into a discussion about abortion at all. Rather, I'm interested in what others think the Bible says or doesn't say about when life begins. I'll start by posting a verse and then give my thoughts.

Lev. 17:11 (KJV)--For the life of the flesh [is] in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it [is] the blood [that] maketh an atonement for the soul.

Embryos don't have their own blood supply until about a week after implantation. Since that is the case, would it mean that life doesn't really begin until the embryo has it's own blood?

I don't think scriptures tell us when life begins, or what life is. Our perspective and understanding of the meanings of those terms and questions transcend that of the authors of scriptures.

What scriptures do point towards is the intention of Creation - which is the glorification of God through life. Scriptures also point towards what our intentions towards life should be - we are the stewards of Creation, the stewards of life. Caretakers and viceregents through Christ.

Our understanding of the definition of life is going to evolve over time and is more properly informed by our science than our scripture. But what we do with life is more properly informed by our conscience in God, than it is by our science.