Abortion And Chrisiananity Essay, Research Paper
Abortion
The Christian belief in the sanctity of life is based on the teachings of famous Christians and on what they read in the bible, the teachings of Jesus. A quote from the bible which seems to support the view that abortion is wrong is from Psalm 139:13, verses 15-16:
“You created every part of me; you put me together in my mother’s womb? When my bones were being formed, Carefully put me together in my mother’s womb. When I was growing there in secret, You knew that I was there -You saw me before I was born. The days allotted to me
Had all been recorded in your book, before any of them ever began.”
This seems to be saying that god has already begun to have an influence on the life of a person before they are even born. The life of a person is already unique and god has already given them their own identity before they are born. If this is true, and the quote seems to be saying that it is, then abortion would have to be seen as a crime on the same level as murder. There are no good grounds for murder. It is morally wrong because the majority of people believe so. One of the Ten Commandments says, “Do not commit murder.” So, if we were to consider only this quote then we would have to see abortion as fundamentally wrong, any justification for abortion would become a justification for murder, and we can see no justification for murder, the ultimate sin. Another quote from the bible would seem to strengthen this view, Jeremiah 1:4-5, “The Lord said to me, ‘I chose you before I gave you life, and before you were born I selected you to be a prophet to the nations.” This seems to suggest, as did the last quote, that God decides the fate
of the child before it is born, abortion would prevent the child from fulfilling its potential. This would be fundamentally wrong and would not have any justification, in performing an abortion, a doctor may unwittingly be ending the life of a famous prophet before it has even begun; something which anyone would have to agree is not a good thing.
The Catholic Church holds the view that abortion is wrong. They believe that to justify the killing of an unborn child one would also have to justify the killing of any human being given the same set of circumstances. A fetus has as much right to live as anyone else. There are many Christians who would disagree with this view, they would say that the unborn child has the right to live, and that it is preferable that they be allowed to do so. They would not, however, see this right as being all-important. They believe that there are circumstances in which terminating an unborn fetus is justified. This is demonstrated by the official stance of the Church of England. Although the church and I believe that the fetus is to be specially respected and protected, nonetheless, the life of the fetus is not absolutely sacrosanct if it endangers the life of the mother.
The anti abortionists using many of the arguments given above contest this view, that the life of the mother is more important than that of the unborn child. The fetus is a human being and so to have an abortion simply to save the mother’s life would be to make a decision to kill one person for the sake of another. This is the sort of decision that only God can make.
The argument about whether or not the fetus is a life in its own right before the moment of the turning is not one that can decide the question of whether or not abortion is justified. Even if the view that the fetus before this moment is not a human life and therefore not as important as its mother is accepted, there is still a potential life there, something which can, in time, become a human being. The argument about the turning is that this life is entirely dependent upon the survival and health of the mother. It is fundamentally wrong to put the life of the fetus above the things that have been there to allow it to survive just because it will not be dependent upon them after the time of birth. This argument seems to be overwhelming and is, in my opinion, a justification for a Christian to have an abortion on the grounds that her health or her life would be seriously threatened by continuing the pregnancy for the full term. Of course, the argument about having an abortion because of the woman’s health does not involve the question of the moment of turning, the baby will have passed the time of turning by the time it is in a state to threaten the mother’s health and still survive itself. The life of the child is no longer dependent on that of its mother, but it once was, and the mother is a fully developed human being who already has her own personality. It seems wrong to endanger the mother’s life, upon which the fetus was once entirely dependent to allow the child to survive. It’s just another circumstance in which some people attempt to justify abortion.