Christian Beliefs and Abortion
Abortion is a highly controversial issue with the pro-life and pro-choice supporters professing diametrically opposite view-points on the ethical, legal and medical aspects of the issue. The Christian beliefs regarding abortion have generally been against abortion, although in the middle period (5th to 17th century AD), the Christian church had softened its stance on abortion. Presently, most Christian organizations and churches are against abortion but the intensity of opposition varies among different Christian religious groups. In this paper I shall outline the Christian beliefs on abortion from the biblical times to the present, focusing on the anti-abortion arguments.
The Basis of the Christian Belief about Abortion: Biblical Foundation
Christians believe that life starts from the moment of conception, i.e., as soon as the sperm cell fertilizes an egg; the bible prescribes in the Fifth Commandment "thou shalt not kill"; abortion constitutes taking of an innocent life; therefore abortion is murder.
The Old Testament prescribes in Psalm 139, Verse 13: "thou hast covered me in my mother's womb" This has been interpreted by most Christian theologians as meaning that God alone is Lord of the womb and the womb is an inviolable place. Although abortion was practiced by several neighbors of the Israelites in the biblical times, the Hebrews themselves strictly forbade it and considered it a violation of a sacred place -- the womb. Several Jewish writers equated the practice of abortion with fratricide and considered it outright murder, as it made the womb a place of death instead of life.
When Mary chose to give birth to Christ in the face of adversity, giving of life became a sacred duty and a chance provided to mankind for attaining salvation. This further cemented the religious beliefs against abortion and the Christian writers picked up the tradition of anti-abortion writings from the Jewish writers and the earliest Christian documents condemning abortion are mere revisions...
They argue that the fetus only has the potential of developing into a full-fledged human being; in the same way as an acorn has the potential of developing into an oak tree. In their view it is as ludicrous to call an embryo an independent human being as it would be to call an acorn an oak tree. (Lewis, 2000) Right of Woman Over Her Body The main "pro-choice" argument is
A normal pro-life campaign is less complex than Catholic anti-abortion principles because of the religious aspect of the matter. The connection between the Catholic Church and morality has come to be stronger in the recent years in spite of the fact that it does not essentially function based on morality alone. To a certain degree, one might be inclined to consider that the Church is wrong in promoting anti-abortion simply
7). Still, it seems safe from the seat of scholarship to condemn such exclusive and condemnatory practices as decidedly un-Christian; the oft-quoted (or at least oft-referenced) Biblical passage from John seems to be one of the more direct and unequivocal statements regarding who will be saved: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
Abortion AND CRITICALLY EXAMINE VARIOUS CHRISTIAN RESPONSES ( CATHOLICS, EVANGELICALS, AND LIBERALS) TO SUBJECT. CHRISTIAN ETHICS IS TGE COURSE. THANK YOU AGAIN, GOOD JOB. Christian Views on Abortion The Christian Church has always had strict regulations when concerning matters like abortion. Even with the fact that the Christian Bible contains no information about the practice, many Christians have gotten actively engaged in trying to denounce it as being against God's will. Some
Abortion Debate Pros and Cons of Abortion and the Feminist Perspective The Pro-Life (Judeo/Christian) Perspective: God is the author of life and controls how that life will be dispensed. This is true of both birth and death. It is not the responsibility of the individual to either begin their life or to end it because the life is not theirs it is God's. When God chooses to bless a human being with
While the human newborn may not have intrinsic properties that can support a moral right to life stronger than that of a fetus, the emergence of the human newborn makes it suitable to treat it like it had a stronger life. However, birth is morally significant since it's the mark of the end of one relationship and the commencement of others. On the question of the morality of abortions in rape
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