When does Life begin? The Christian anti-abortionists are dead wrong.

When does Life begin? The Christian anti-abortionists are dead wrong.

The Bible says life begins with the first breath. I have included 11 scriptures in the body of this essay that show my assertion. We'll take a look at Philosophers, the Church of Rome, the law and medical science. July 2007 finds us to a great degree, understanding the fertilized ovum and its stages of development. But that doesn't seem to have helped much. Now regardless of our freedom of religion or from religion, we are still divided into three hostile camps. Life begins at conception or at birth or somewhere in the messy gray area.

Since the early 1800s western society has been settling issues in the struggle to define a balance of civil rights. By the end of the 1950s in the U.S. women were enjoying the right to have their own bank account and cast their own vote, but at the same time, reproduction rights had slipped clear away. All abortion was outlawed in the U.S. accept to save a woman's life. An unprecedented control of a woman's reproduction rights in this country's short history. Even in the dark ages, the church allowed abortion before the quickening, an idea that seems to have taken its first official breath in Athens. Aristotle, 384-322 b.c., taught the delayed ensoulment theory. A fetus is animated with a human soul 40 days after conception for a male and 90 days for a female. Both having a vegetable soul before then, and birth was the rational stage. This was the excepted philosophy in the western world, including the Church of Rome for many centuries. Of course there were dissenters and argument back and forth by men like St. John Chrysostom, calling abortion, “murder before birth,” but then he also called women a “necessary evil.” Even Jerome wrote that,”The seed gradually takes shape in the uterus, and abortion does not count as killing until the individual elements have acquired their external appearance and their limbs.” (epistle 121,4). The Apostolic Constitutions (380 ace) disallowed it only after the fetus took on a “human shape.”

Aurelius Augustine born 11-13-354 A.D. was a sincere and passionate scholar of philosophy, and after converting to Christianity in his fifties became one of the church's most respected writers of doctrine. Building on Aristotle's theme, he was the one to introduce the term “the Quickening,” and his clear distinction between the animate and inanimate state of a fetus became Cannon Law in 1140. Decretum Magistri Gratiani 2. 32.2.7 to 2.32.2.10, in Corpus Juris Canonic 1122,1123 (A.Friedburg, 2nd ed.1879) There were a few brief exceptions, such as Pope Sixtus V in 1588 made all abortions illegal, but was reversed again by Pope

Gregory X1V, codifying abortions at up to 16 ½ weeks as “not equivalent to the killing of a human being, as no soul was present.” Then Pope Innocent 111 in the early 1200s ruled that the fetus had no soul until it was “animated” Thus the Church of Rome including all of its Prodestant offshoots has influenced western law on abortion to this day, coming to America by adoption from the English Common Law of the Quickening concept. This began changing in 1803 with a series of changes in English statutory law. England's first criminal abortion statute. It made abortion of a quickened fetus a capitol crime, but a misdemeanor for abortions done before “quickening.” By 1840, eight American states had statutes of their own dealing with abortion. Meanwhile the Church of Rome in 1869 under Pope Plus 1X declared all abortion to be homicide and finally by 1983 all distinction between “Fetus Animatus” and “Fetus Inanimatus” were purged from Cannon Law.

After the Civil war, legislation in the U.S. continued to replace English Common Law, dealing severely with abortion after quickening, but remaining lenient with it before quickening, so retaining the quickening concept, clear through the 1940s. The opponents to abortion gained a great deal of power in the 1950s and by the late 50s, the criminalization of all abortion, except to save a woman's life, left Americans deeply divided. Debates raged, record numbers of births happened, (the baby boom) and women died in back alleys. The debate finally made its way to the Supreme Court who, after much grappling with the philosophy of when life begins, decided as written by Mr. Justice Blackman, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins, when those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the Judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” And so they looked to the constitution to resolve this issue within the narrow definition of legal rights. After deep consideration of the constitution the Supreme Court concluded that the use of the word “person” is such that it has application only postnatally. “None indicates, with any assurance that it has any possible pre-natal application, and so the word person as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.” They also concluded that the right of privacy,is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.

Thus women were given back their right to choose. So here we are still in 2007 fighting over when life begins. In all fairness to the philosophical acumen of Aristotle and Augustine and even Thomas Aquinas, in their day, it was the excepted belief that the world was flat.

Furthermore the printing press was a thing of the future, 1454, and the Holy Bible wasn't to be assembled and distributed by King James until 1611. So the church doctrines were created from logic and philosophical Reason. therefore any person who is not a catholic does not have the religious obligation to defer to St. Augustine, or Canon Law. The dilemma wouldn't be so disturbing if we weren't grappling with the question of, is it murder or not murder. The morality of murder goes even a step further if you're a Christian and becomes not only immoral, but also a sin against God, thus condemning a murderer to Hell,”A lake which burneth with fire.” Yipes! No wonder the debate is so strident. But Christians take heart, we have an advantage over Aristotle and Augustine. We have the word of God to guide us as to his will. I got out my Strong's Exhaustive concordance and explored the subject and you won't believe what I discovered! But you are exhorted to study it. 2 Timothy 3:16, stay with me, this bit is worth slogging through.

Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

Isaiah 42:5 Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:

Ezekiel 37:5 Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: &10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.

Job 33:4 The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.

Acts 17:25 he giveth to all, life and breath, and all things.

Genesis 6:17 And behold I, even I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

Genesis 7:22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.

Psalm 104:29 Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.

Jeremiah 10:14 ?.every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

1 Kings 17: 17 and it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him.

&21 And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again. &23?..and Elijah said, see, thy son liveth.

Job 9:18 He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness.

Of course there are exceptions to every rule. The Bible tells us in Luke 1:41-44 that John the Baptist leaped in the womb for joy when he heard that Jesus had been conceived. So not only was Mr. Baptist aware of the whole sacrificial lamb plan from fetus hood, he also had extraordinary under water hearing. However he was able to know as a fetus, he was definitely the exception. Just like Elijah who was so Holy he got to by pass death and go to heaven in a chariot of fire. All the rest of us have to live and die by the rules, which clearly are breath or no breath, according to the Bible.

Christians however do not own the exclusive rights to morality. In this 21st century there is a growing culture who have come to embrace morality as a human imperative that stands alone outside of any religious doctrine or dictate. Much like Socrates, if we are not looking to God to dictate our morality, then we must reason with ourselves. But we have another advantage over Aristotle. Modern science shows us how human procreation takes place. It mostly happens inside a woman's uterus. Her body creates an ovum. Once it is fully formed in about 28 days, it is released to reside in the uterus. Even though modern science has proven that the ovum is truly alive, it will not grow into a

person unless it is fertilized. Because the ovum alone and by itself cannot grow into a person, some assert that life begins at the time of fertilization or conception. But is it truly a person?

Or does it remain just as dependent on many more processes of development, just as fully alive as an unfertilized ovum but equally as not yet a person until all of the developmental stages are completed and it emerges into the world and begins to live and breath on its own. I assert that the ovum is not any more a person the moment after it is fertilized, than it is the moment before it is fertilized, and not any less alive the moment before fertilization, than the moment after. Conception is only just one step in the nine month process. And so I'm going to have to agree with God on this debate, we become a living Soul or a person, when we breath that first breath

into our “nostrils” at birth. So I plead with all people of reason. Let us stop the eroding of our bill of Rights. Let us leave the responsibility of the breath of life in the hands of God, and the private choice to host or not to host, right where it is now, the responsibility of women, who bear the entire consequences on their health and body.