Peter,

<<There is no explicit statement about abortion in the Old Testament or the New Testament versions of the Bible. >>

The Matthew 5:21 statement by Jesus adds a new dimension to the commandment in Exodus 20:13, ‘You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment”’ (Matthew 5:21 NIV).

However, what does the Bible state about when human life begins? Isaiah 44:24 states, "This is what the Lord says—your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb" (NIV). "You" are formed as a human being in the womb. It is not some piece of human tissue to be killed.

Exodus confirms the life of a human being in the womb: “Now suppose two men are fighting, and in the process they accidentally strike a pregnant woman so she gives birth prematurely. If no further injury results, the man who struck the woman must pay the amount of compensation the woman’s husband demands and the judges approve. But if there is further injury, the punishment must match the injury: a life for a life (Exodus 21:22-23 NLT). Therefore, the person in the womb is a human "life."

So, there is no need for explicit statements in OT or NT that mention abortion when the Lord forms human beings in the womb of a woman, He calls the person "life." This does not negate the union of a man and a woman.

Whether by firearm or by impregnation, SCOTUS has gleefully green-lit a war on women and children. Culminating in the unbridled sadism of Governor Kristi Noem, who says a 10yo rape victim should carry the child.

Here, with "godly" Morrison gone, ACT/NT can have assisted dying. There will be no extra privileges for Australia's "Christians" to target gay and trans. They must console themselves with the lush $13b funding they get for church schools, and the fake "chaplains" they are allowed to send into our state schools

There is a price to pay for living; it is a very high one which ends automatically in death.

The moral question is then; at what point of life is death acceptable?

To help with this question we must look at the extreme end of life IE: old age.

Surely, the same moral question arises from premature death at both ends of life.

I believe along with Bernard Gert (re above quote), the question of community acceptance or not of abortion, is a moral conundrum, and unsolvable from any moral position.

The default position to the moral high ground solution, (which is insoluble to the expectation of life), is to revert to justice and laws of the community.

Therefore, I conclude the question of acceptability or otherwise of abortion, should be a legal one entirely, which is effectively where the issue stands now in most countries.

I’m happy that abortion is legal if used for the purpose of terminating a forced pregnancy under conditions of rape for example, and for medical emergencies and similar contingencies mentioned in the article, where the child is diagnosed with medical implications that will impact on the mother and further burden the community in which it is born into.

Dan

Agree and well argued Peter! Moreover, the Exodus and the tablets from the mount with the forteen comandments, may be overturned by archological evidence as a non event/fable? And while the golden rule is a good code for cohabitation by human kind! It is not proven as a divinely inspired message.

We hold that all human life is sacrosanct! But it's our rule not that of our God? Inasmuch as he takes it with, one in three, cancer and myriad life ending diseases!

Created in his own image may not mean what many believe, given our God is everywhere present and all powerful. And we exist in that unified field of energy or, if you will, image as an integral part of it. In being the operative word!
Alan B.

Yes, Dan. And we cannot allow children to give birth to children. Nor where pregnancy was obtained without informed consent, i.e., date rape or in any situation, even marriage.

Marriage is a contract between two people not ownership as a sexual slave with no right to say no!

Besides, if one loves the partner, one would first ask, if it's ok sweetheart. If not and the need is urgent? Then lady palmer and her five daughter will as usual, "come" to the rescue?
Alan B.

"Clearly also, if a child is not wanted, it is preferable to terminate as a foetus. It is the lesser of two harms." Really? Does that apply to all children? Or just those who haven't yet been born? What about the elderly who have noone to care for them? Should they too be aborted?
I know many people who were adopted as children due to their biological parents not wanting them. I don't recall any of them moaning that they weren't killed in the womb.

RJ. If you were killed in the womb? you wouldn't moan about it afterward, would you. The poisoned blood analogy and your body used without your permission for many months, is a good one.

And clearly identifies why a women retains the right to choose wether or not to terminate an unwanted pegnancy. Preferably before there is a brain and a heartbeat!

The morning after pill needs to be purchased across the counter without a script, so also the contraceptive pill and without parental consent.

Given kids are often sexually active in their teens minus parental consent and need to be protected from themselves and immature uninformed decisions!
Alan B.

In any discussion such as this it would be helpful if the precise time that human life starts were known.

"There is no explicit statement about abortion in the Old Testament or the New Testament versions of the Bible".

Has anyone or any group with the power to make laws on abortion actually consulted the Bible? My guess is no.

Rhys,

<<I know many people who were adopted as children due to their biological parents not wanting them. I don't recall any of them moaning that they weren't killed in the womb.>>

I was married to a woman who was an adopted child. Her adoptive parents loved her deeply and raised her to care for others.

I am not convinced that the decision to terminate a pregnancy (kill the unborn) is in the best interests of the child, especially when there are so many adults wanting children and are unable to have them.

If you want the truth behind this nonsense and you subscribe to Spectator Australia, read 'The forgotten story behind Roe' by Joel Agius today.

If you don’t subscribe, or don’t read it, remain ignorant. What you think or say means diddly squat anyway. It's all done and dusted

We have to contend with a lot of useless people thanks to abortion laws !

This will not be and end to abortion but simply the end to safe abortion for many.

It also removes any right to personal privacy where medical records or even mobile phone apps can be subpoenaed by the court on the basis of suspicion. In some States people can be sued by complete strangers for a tidy sum if they claim to be personally offended by somebody having an abortion.

The bottom line is that a group of people are willing to sentence complete strangers to a potential life of suffering, poverty or misery just so they can feel good about themselves while having no financial or moral stake in any undesirable outcome.

I remember a case in a religiously devout town in South America where an 11-year old child was found to be pregnant with twins, due to frequent molestation by an uncle. The child was given a life-saving abortion but she, her mother, the doctor and the attending nurse were all excommunicated and publicly humiliated. However, no charges were laid against the rapist uncle. Is that a healthy society?

Biblically God had no trouble allegedly drowning everyone on Earth, causing spontaneous abortions or urging followers to rip babies from the wombs of their mothers on many occasions, just as countries are willing to drop bombs on pregnant women during war time.
The Bible even gives "the recipe" for how a priest may abort a fetus from a woman suspected of adultery.

A US Republican Senator recently boasted that America is now "like the Taliban, but in a good way" but I can't see much difference, especially when they also claim to have other groups in mind for similar repression.

It’s important to turn the pages back in time to where abortion was generally unavailable to young women under stress with unwanted pregnancy.

The stolen generation. Abortion is a balancing act. The lack of truthful dialogue over the years on this subject has hidden the overall damage of unwanted pregnancy from view.

By no means were the stolen generations exclusively aboriginal children.
All colours were subject to the forced removal of their infants at birth; the criteria for forced removal of infants from young mothers was entirely a poverty issue.

Dan

I think it needs to be said, the further outcomes from the stolen generations,(not exclusively Aboriginal in nature at all), was the introduction of the supporting mothers pension by the Whitlam Government in 1973.

Legal abortion was not an option. Young mothers were forced into untenable situations for survival of them and their infant, if not taking the option to adopt the child out.

Poverty is always the unspoken issue with the abortion debate. It needs a higher priority to focus the need of the child, but just as importantly, the Mother.

The whole question is an unsolvable moral conundrum with a constant need for compromise.

Dan.

diver dan,

<<The whole question is an unsolvable moral conundrum with a constant need for compromise.>>

I disagree. The moral issues are: (1) Is the child in the womb a human being? (2) Is it legal to kill/murder a human being?

The Bible answers both questions:

(1) Isaiah 44:24 states, "This is what the Lord says—your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb" (NIV). The individual "you" is formed in the womb.

(2) The Book of Exodus confirms what is in the womb is life, as living as any adult life, " “Now suppose two men are fighting, and in the process they accidentally strike a pregnant woman so she gives birth prematurely. If no further injury results, the man who struck the woman must pay the amount of compensation the woman’s husband demands and the judges approve. But if there is further injury, the punishment must match the injury: a life for a life (Exodus 21:22-23 NLT).

The killing of an unborn human being was confirmed by Jesus Christ as a fulfillment of the Law: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them" (Matthew 5:17 NIV)).

Before God, it's a serious moral issue when unborn and born people are murdered. Australia has blood on its hands.

OzSpen

Yes, but!

If you dwell in the circle of belief of Christian values, then you have a conscious need for a conscience view on abortion, and therefore what you say above is relevant only to that aspect of abortion viewed through the lens of religion.

However, in a secular society, values are pragmatic in nature, not necessarily religious in nature. Your view is correct for yourself and others with similar views. Those views should be considered in the wider debate.

But the broader social ramifications of whether abortion should be legal and to what extent, is an overall societal one to be considered within the confines of the ability of society to absorb the outcomes both negative and positive.

The introduction of a supporting benefit in 1973 was an innovation designed to reduce the need for abortion, (illegal at that time).
There are other options as well. I think those options should be actively supported by Governments with responsibility for social outcomes.

But there will always be a need for abortion to a lesser or greater extent, depending on public pressure.

Dan

diver dan,

<<However, in a secular society, values are pragmatic in nature, not necessarily religious in nature. Your view is correct for yourself and others with similar views. Those views should be considered in the wider debate.>>

If I live in your pragmatic world, I would need to be consistent and make pragmatism the value judgment of all values. If it works for you and doesn't work for me, that leaves me on the low ground of accepting the lowest common denominator. It also means I have to allow any person do do what is right for him or her. However, which "right" will you choose?

You want to chuck out my Christian/religious values because they don't conform with your secular mandate. This promotes snobbery as it wants to abandon religious values for secular morality. God bless you if you want to go down that route. We know where it leads. Take a read of the secular outcomes for the Nazis and the Gulag. They were pragmatic worldviews.

OzSpen,

Your interpretation of that passage in Exodus is contrary to how the rabbis have always interpreted it: If a man injures a pregnant woman so that she miscarries, he has to pay damages, but if the woman dies as well, "the penalty shall be life for life". Similarly in Jewish law, the execution of a pregnant woman was not delayed unless she was actually in the process of giving birth.

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-fetus-in-jewish-law/

There was a division of opinion among the early Christians. Some believed that ensoulment (personhood) took place at the moment of conception but others, such as St. Augustine, not until later in the pregnancy. This second group would have said that early abortion was still wrong, but for reasons to do with Christian theology and because (at the time) it was so dangerous for the woman, but not because it was tantamount to murder. References in

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christian_thought_on_abortion

OzSpen

Reality has it, we live in a secular society. A reality which many consider as not a choice.

It’s fundamental value is separation of Church and State. Not necessarily an ignorance of Church by the State.

Now that position gives you the right to your religious views, and every right also to express them publicly, and to live your life by, in your case, your Christian values.

I’m sure you are wholly aware of that fundamental position of Secular Society.
I don’t believe you are Robinson Crusoe having difficulty accepting its average morality, but to be Democratic you must accept a mix of ideas, (inclusive of your own), which settle out from its overall mix of standards.

Dan

One of the ironies of this outcome is the fact that Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas - a black man - is married to a white woman.

The Supreme Court did not make interracial marriage legal in all US States until 1967 so he has been the direct beneficiary of being granted certain personal rights yet he has removed rights from others and intends to challenge same-sex marriage in the future.

Another complication is that the question of when life begins has not been defined. If it is at the instant of conception then all failed fetuses during the invitro process would become illegal abortions and put people under potential legal threat. Likewise the onus of proving innocence would be placed on women who miscarry during pregnancy.

Above all, the religious aspect argument is irrelevant because it can be twisted to mean anything. It's a moral argument but also has political roots.

The rallying of the abortion stance was a deliberate political ploy by the Southern Baptists against Jimmy Carter who was threatening to remove certain tax exemptions from their colleges. Before then the general view was pro-choice.