Here's a good question that everyone should have an answer for: At what point does a person become a person?
There's a lot of debate around this topic, and I'm sure you know that unless you live on the moon. Though maybe, you might even know it then...
Some people say a woman's baby is a fetus until it's __ weeks old, some say it's always a baby, and some even go so far as to say you should be legally able to abort a... something (still fetus?) until it's up to a year old. What do you say?
My argument is strictly coming from someone who loves Jesus, believes that the Bible is the true, inspired word of God, and who believes that each baby is immensely wanted and loved by God. I have considered the thoughts and feelings of women who have had abortions, who are raging feminists, and those who have been physically violated and don't want a living reminder of that. But I still stand firm in my beliefs. I still believe babies who are unwanted by their mothers and fathers are wanted by the Father. I still believe that babies who are conceived through rape and incest are deeply loved by Jesus. I still believe that babies who are "scientifically proven" to have significant birth defects or mental issues are important and so greatly wanted by the God of the universe.
I recently read a blog titled "What to Expect When You're Aborting" where a 23 year old woman writes (in rather vulgar language) about her abortion experience at Planned Parenthood. I copied a few things that struck my heart.
"It’s fantastic that abortion is legal and accessible in this country, but it’s the pro-life (I decided I can use the term pro-life because I recognize that at one point in a pregnancy there is a heartbeat. But I don’t care. This world doesn’t need more kids. I don’t care if the thing inside me can blink, move its fingers, feel pain, play the piano, or speak fluent french. If its inside of me, its my life, that’s what I’m concerned with, NOT with a potential life.) agenda [that] has permeated the entire process. The waiting period, the mandatory counseling, illegal third trimester abortions, etc."
"If I could have I would have ripped the f-ing thing our with my bear hands on the spot. It just freaked me out that it had a definitive shape. That maybe its size would make it harder to yank out. Or that my beautifully circular womb would get banged up in the process."
Unfortunately, I think this is the case with most women who choose abortion. They don't at all see the baby growing inside them as its own person, they see it as their possession, so they should be able to do whatever they want with it. If someone can feel pain, play the piano, speak ANY language, or move at all, don't you think it's alive? And if a human is alive, don't you think it's its own being? No one owns any other person's life, so no one should have a say in whether that person is allowed to live or if it should be killed. It's so sad too, that she seems to be so concerned about herself, her "perfect womb" and how much it will hurt her, rather than being concerned at all about the "womb squid" inside her.
"I scooted off the slab, with the paper still clinging to my ass and thighs and asked if I could see 'it'. I looked at a medical waste bucket by my feet and to be honest, my head was swirling so much that I could have been looking at bucket of baby bones, or Marie Antoinette’s severed head, or unicorns, or thumb tacks [and] I wouldn’t have known the difference."
Why would you want to see something you just paid upwards of $1,000 to kill? Unfortunately it seems as though many women are drugged, so they most likely can't realize the severity of the situation or what has just happened to them and their unborn baby.
" 'And you’re all done.' The doctor says.
I couldn’t believe it.
I felt nothing.
I heard nothing.
I felt awesome.
Wanna talk about the question of life? Let me put it like this: the physical and psychological euphoria was so immense that moments after I stood up I felt resurrected. I felt very certain the life had indeed prevailed. My life."
Yeah, her life prevailed after her abortion operation, but someone's life was destroyed. The amount of morphine women are put under during abortions obviously gives them a desired, euphoric experience that I'm sure they don't mind having. How different, how completely opposite is the experience for the baby.
"I sat back in the chair expecting all us sisters, we bloody, happy few, would make each other laugh and exhale out anxieties. I looked to my right and I saw the polish woman. I just reached out and grabbed her hand. I asked her, because I was zonked out of my f-ing head, why she had an abortion. Through a lot of tears she told me that she was 15 weeks pregnant, had three children, and she just found out her new child was going to be autistic. And decided she didn’t want to go through with it."
My roommate and a couple of my other friends all work and love people who have special needs. I've been around them many times and experienced the happiness and joy they bring to everyone they're around. Yes, I'm sure raising a child with autism is difficult, but that doesn't mean your life is going to be awful. Isn't it already hard to raise typical children? I also have heard a story from my roommate that one of the families she works with was told one of her children would be born with Down Syndrome, but she was born typical, then was told with her next child that she would be typical, but was born with Down Syndrome. How many babies have been killed because the doctors were wrong and the parents were terrified to have to work harder to raise their children? I can tell you one thing: It's just as easy, if not more so, to love someone who has special needs.
"By monday my hormones were a little wonky but in all I just felt like this parasitic creature that burrowed its way into me and fed of my energy, appetite, and joy was removed. And I had been restored."
It's unsettlingly obvious that she only saw her aborted child as a "parasitic creature", an alien inside her, and not a human being.
I hadn't heard a woman's story who had had an abortion before, at least not one in this amount of detail. Honestly, it made me so sad and sick. Sad for the baby who was killed, sad for the women around her who had also had abortions, and so unbelievably sad for her. I believe that if women knew how much Jesus loved them, could feel His overwhelming love, and knew how much He wanted their baby to live, that not one of them would even consider aborting their child.
What also pains me so much is knowing there are so many families that cannot conceive that would be so completely ecstatic and overjoyed to have a child, even one with a mental or physical disability. One of my mentors has been trying to have a baby for years now, and unfortunately they can't. They are now spending thousands of dollars and trying so unbelievably hard to adopt a baby, and I pray so hard that some wonderful woman will feel called to give her baby to them.
In regards to what the Bible says about abortion, Carm.org is a great resource and is what I used for the following few paragraphs:
Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you..." God clearly has a plan for each person even before they were born. He knows every human being before they are conceived.
Regarding the conception of Jesus, Matthew 1:20 says, “But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.’ ” The fact that the angel tells Joseph that “the Child who has been conceived” is “of the Holy Spirit” indicates that Jesus certainly was a person at the moment of conception.
Perhaps the strongest argument against abortion from Scripture is the fact that the same punishment is applicable to someone who kills or injures an unborn child as for one who kills or injures an adult. Exodus 21:22-23 states, “If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life . . . .” This strongly indicates that the Mosaic Law viewed the unborn as persons worthy of the same protection and rights as adults.
Psalm 139:15-16 says, “My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written; the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” Pretty self explanatory, I think...
In these verses, God indicates that the unborn, no matter how far along the pregnancy is, are human beings. I'm going to assume that everyone knows that the Bible says murder is wrong (For just a small sample of the Biblical passages forbidding murder, see Gen. 9:6; Mt. 15:19; 19:18; Mk. 10:19; Lk. 18:20; Jn. 8:44; Acts 3:14; and Rom. 1:28-29; 13:9.), therefore, murdering the unborn is the same as murdering a 36 year old, is the same as murdering a 12 year old, is the same as murdering an 87 year old.
It's wrong.
