Are we insane yet?
I’m against abortion. So are you. So is everyone.
Who doesn’t like babies?
The reason I’m against abortion has nothing to do with the fact that I’m a Christian, and everything to do with the fact that I’m a human. Everyone thinks abortion is an terrible option. Everyone wishes no one ever felt compelled to undergo such a traumatic procedure. No one ever cavalierly decides to get an abortion. No one thinks of it as just another form of birth control.
Everyone loves babies. Okay? No one wants anyone else to murder babies.
So could fundamentalists/evangelical Christians please stop saying that anyone supports the murder of babies? That’s such a horrendously caustic accusation.
And could such Christians also please bear in mind that being Christian grants them no uniquely deep claim on abhorrence to abortion? Abortion is everyone’s concern, not just Christians’. When I was a teenager, a Muslim friend of mine had an abortion, and the tears her father cried when he found out about it were as real as any that ever fell to earth. I once accompanied a young homeless woman to her abortion procedure. She was a Christian. She was also poverty stricken, drug addicted, and the victim of a vicious rape.
In this world, sometimes good wins.
Sometimes it loses a ton of blood, and never again rallies.
Our responsibility—all of us, all the time—remains constant: to keep on bringing the love. If good is winning, you bring the love. If good is losing or has lost, you bring even more. Those are the rules of sane, decent people everywhere.
Christians, atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, car salesmen, budget analysts, movie stars, my insane next door neighbor with the crazy rottweiler … 99.99% of people alive on the planet right now would agree that, in a perfect world, every baby would be welcomed, loved, cherished, fed well, and dressed in the sweetest little baby clothes ever.
That relative to abortion everyone desires the same end—which is no abortions, ever—isn’t in much doubt. It’s only the means to that end about which people have varying convictions. But agreeing on our common ends should make for a cooling of the rhetoric about how we might best achieve those ends.
So could we please stop already with the finger-pointing, sign-waving, and screaming?
What are we, babies?
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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Steven: How did I quote Genesis 21: 22-23 incorrectly? The scripture you posted I agree that God can see what’s going to happen before it does. So this scripture does not refute Genesis. Do you have someone who can explain the scripture in Hebrew for you? I don’t have enough space here. But it does apply a loss of property fine to the loss of an unborn child, if no further harm is done, and reserves the life for a life for the mother. But that’s not my point. My point is that many Christian denominations and other religions do not consider abortion murder. And the First Amendment forbids passing laws that favor one over the other.
Honestly, those of you debating the right/wrong of abortion on *this specific thread* are so wildly insensitive and inappropriate, it kind of blows me away. The level of emotional intelligence those of you demonstrate when you do this kind of thing is chilling.
There is another thread on abortion – how about you save the moral indignation debates for posts that don’t start with a totally devastated woman’s experience who’s looking for some support.
I would caution you against using “EVERYBODY” and “NOBODY” for these terms are never true. There is always and exception to Everybody, and always an exception to Nobody.
When making a logical argument, I would caution your use of these terms. For there are SOME (albeit a few) who take abortion lightly, use it as birth control, and there are SOME (albeit a few) who have no love for babies.
Everybody / Nobody makes an argument invalid, or at least compromised.
It’s a blog post, not a comprehensive dissertation.
That’s a cop out, John. Stand by what you say… wherever, however you say it.
(Imagine I said this in the most polite way possible.)
Thanks for the admonition about the importance of integrity. But I’m simply stating a fact. When I write these things, I have to always bear in mind certain concessions that I know the length-limit of the blog form itself will impose upon me. In this case, I purposefully used “everybody” and “nobody,” knowing both were (obviously) inadequate, because I simply did not have the space it would take to finesse my way through anything more inclusive. (A blog post longer than about 800 words is basically useless.) I wasn’t copping-out. I was explaining. Hope that’s okay with you.
Thank you for your response. Is it ok with me? Not completely, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s your blog, after all. I guess I would have used my 800 words differently, considering the depth of the subject.
I’m totally with you on the “bring the love” thing – but, it’s a tad naive to believe “Everyone thinks abortion is a terrible option”. You present an all God’s children love each other and babies view, where only the most dire of circumstances would necessitate an abortion (e.g., your ‘rape’ reference).
I just don’t agree.
“Ms. Magazine Names Women who had Abortions”
More than 5,000 signed petition saying they are unashamed of decision (http://on.msnbc.com/abortion_list)
Sorry you find that I treated the subject naively and with inadequate depth. I do look forward to discovering the depth and lack of naivety that you bring to your post on the same matter.
Re: the Ms. article: saying that you’re unashamed of a decision you made is not at all the same as saying that you wish you’d never had to make the decision in the first place. Like one of the women is quoted as saying in the article to which you linked, “I felt it was my right to make the decision, but having that right doesn’t make the decision any easier. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made.”
I thought your post was great, John.
Some people aren’t that traumatized by abortion, because they know it’s the best way, and feel that a few tiny cells won’t be able to suffer, the way sperm that is lost won’t know it. That’s ok. But these same people tend to care deeply about human beings who are already born. And want babies to be born into loving families. John was spot-on and already addressed these issues.
Women who get abortions shouldn’t have to do penance in shame and self-hatred. It’s great that John seems to get this.
It wouldn’t take much more room to say “almost nobody” and “virtually everybody”. Gets the gist across, but it is more the whole truth.
This blog entry is not just some petty little topic about cooking rice. It’s not that important the distinction between “everybody” likes babies and almost everybody. I mean, the howling brats can’t outrun you, so just walk away if you hate them. But the notion that NObody gets abortions willy nilly as a form of birth control is legitimately invalid. There are women who have had even a half-DOZEN of them. (Whoopi Goldberg, for one.) Surely the case can’t reasonably be made that in each one a woman was young, didn’t know any other options after conception (like adoption), didn’t understand birth-control and how to use it. Somewhere around # 5, 6, 7 or at least 42, it ought to really dawn on you what’s going on.
An abortion should be determined by one’s religious (or lack thereof) beliefs, and no one else’s.
Here’s what just kills me about most anti-abortionists: they show absolutely no interest in the most reliable methods to prevent the demand for abortion: comprehensive sex education for children and free contraception for everyone.
If anti-abortionists really wanted to stop abortion, they would make sure that every child knew the facts about sex, reproduction, contraception, pregnancy, and child raising. They would make sure that every adult had access to, knowledge of, and approval for using contraceptions. Unitarian Universalists and the United Church of Christ have a joint sex ed program called Our Whole Lives. Guess which religious sects have the highest average age for first sexual experience, lowest rate of teenage pregnancy, and lowest rate of abortion? The two congregations listed above, that’s who.
The fact that anti-abortionists are so unwilling to consider these proven methods tell me that it’s not about the unborn child. It’s about something else, something much uglier.
If I could like this comment a thousand times, I would.
You said succinctly what I wrote this whole post trying to say. Thank you.
Abortion isn’t an either/or proposition.
Using inappropriate terms such as “inconvenient” or “discomfort” or worse, “murder” in relation to pregnancy only trivializes the reality of the very complex abortion issue. Life begins when the Spirit enters the body. I will hazard to guess that nobody can say with any certainty when that happens.
IMHO, Life begins when the baby is able to live on it’s own outside the womb. I submit, having seen both my children born, the Miracle of Life happens precisely at the moment of that child’s first breath. Hence, the Spirit enters the body simultaneously. There is no sustainable proof to the contrary and neither is there any Biblical reference to suggest otherwise. Ergo, the egregious misuse of the term “murder” simply does not stand up to the light of reason or theology relative to abortion.
Tim, I agree with you about life beginning when you take your first breath, and Hebrew scripture backs backs you up. There is a Biblical reference to the status of the fetus that is either overlooked or suppressed. Genesis 21: 22 – 23 states that the loss of a fetus warrants a loss of property (in the original language) fine, Whereas only the mother qualifies for a life for a life penalty. Elsewhere it states that one does not become a “living soul” until one breathes the “breath of life”. Hope that helps.
It does. Thanks, Cheryel.
Tim: I believe the birth of a child is a holy occasion because that’s when they get their soul. And God is there to breathe into them the breath…
Tim, I’ve always believed that a life does not start until a child takes its first breath, so the whole “abortion issue” is a non-issue to me from a faith perspective. The death of an unborn child is tragic, but is not murder. Thanks Cheryl for the scriptural reference. I had remembered about the mother’s life being worth more than the unborn child’s in Biblical law, but had forgotten the Bible actually talks about the breath of life. Probably where I got the idea from in the first place.
“IMHO, Life begins when the baby is able to live on it’s own outside the womb.”
By this standard, my second child wasn’t actually alive until ~20 days after she was born (when she was finally taken off a respirator)… and I am quite confident God was with her and in her prior to that point.
I’ve watched friends grieve their miscarried children, and I certainly pray for them that those children are with God now.
I know that my God is a loving God, and that spurs me to believe God in his love takes care of the unborn.
Matt, the God of the Old Testament says that life begins when one takes the first breath; so your baby needed help, but she did breathe. In Genesis 21: 22-23, He says that an unborn fetus warrants a loss of property fine. Only the mother warrants a life for a life penalty. I didn’t write this. Just go back and read the original language.
Cheryel –
Fortunately, I read the New Testament as well as the Old Testament, and believe we’ve received a New Covenant through Jesus. Unless you apply all the laws in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus to modern-day life, I don’t believe citing this one proves much of anything.
Also, you’ve mis-cited your scripture – you’re thinking about Exodus 21, not Genesis 21. Even in that case, there is some disagreement between translations as to whether the “there is no harm” clause means that only the woman is alive and healthy (but her child is not) or if it means that BOTH are alive and healthy.
Hanging your entire view on this issue on a verse that is a) part of OT law and b) apparently not entirely clear to all scholars, seems a rather weak point to me. You’re certainly free to have your opinion on this, but citing it as definitive proof seems a bit of a stretch.
Matt, you’re right about Exodus. I apologize. Jesus also said He came to fulfill the law not abolish it. Matt, I have been citing Jewish theology. I was asking not what translation did you read, but if you had read the original language. That is the only one that really counts. My point being that not all religions agree on fetal status. So we cannot make any laws that respect one belief system over the others. Could you tell me on which Bible passage you hang your view? Respectfully.
Oh… and one more thing… none of those verses say anything about anyone taking breaths. That part is 100% extrapolation.
At the time of those verses, it was inconceivable (pardon the term) that any human could live outside the womb before 8 months, or so. And now we manage it earlier than that. It was provably inconceivable at that time that no human or animal could be alive in any way without oxygen for more than what… 5-6 minutes, turning purple. Provable only because they didn’t have a reliable way of getting artificial air to a brain (the respirator). No post-born people made it longer than 5-6 minutes either, and they had actual practice with that inhaling, exhaling routine.
Matt’s daughter lived on “artificial air” for 20 days before taking a “real” breath. Was this child then still pre-born? Not alive? Suppose she had NEVER breathed without a respirator and existed until high school graduation !! Valedictorian on a respirator ! This will happen someday soon. Has this future brainiac never been “given a soul” since the real “breath of life” has never entered?
Obviously, ability to breathe on one’s own is no longer any valid measurement of life. It once was, but no longer.
“So could fundamentalists/evangelical Christians please stop saying that anyone supports the murder of babies? That’s such a horrendously caustic accusation.” ~ Christians and Abortion: what are we, babies?
“If you’re a Christian who believes that being gay is a morally reprehensible offense against God, then you share a mindset, worldview, and moral structure with the kids who hounded Jamey Rodemeyer, literally, to death. It is your ethos, your convictions, and your theology that informed, supported, and encouraged their cruelty.” ~ Christians and the Blood of Jamey Rodemeyer
THAT is “such a horrendously caustic accusation”.
Really Stephie?
I may be a little lost in all the quotation marks. Consequently, I hope I have missed your point, Stephie. Care to clarify?
The difference Stephie is that a suicide is something we all agree is actually a “death”. As a result of that, all we need to define is who was responsible for it.
I get your argument, actually, I think it’s fair to put on the board for consideration. If those of you who tell gay kids the way they are is sinful and has to change or they’ll go to hell have to weather the “you are responsible for their death” charge, what you’re asking is to be able to have the freedom to return the favor, to accuse who have an abortion or want to keep abortion legal as being murderers. And you can certainly do that – but here’s the difference, no one wants these suicides to occur in gay kids. Even you (though I do hold you responsible for driving them to their death) But *you* as someone who is pro-life are in a position where the law is not on your side. You have to influence a lot of people, the majority of Americans actually, that you’re right and they’re wrong. Calling them murderers is probably not going to win you a lot of votes. Or friends. Or even an audience who will listen.
Too often, pro-life extremists don’t consider all the consequences of an abortion-free country. If a female crack addict gets pregnant by another crack smokers while they’re both high, you really expect her to carry a baby she doesn’t want while she continues using drugs? Then she has a crack baby that may be mentally challenged. Who takes care of all the medical bills for this child?
Not everyone is cut out to be a parent. And as a man, I have no right to force a woman to carry a child. Period.
I think you’re right. They aren’t thinking that far ahead. And if they are, they’re thinking that if they just get rid of legalized abortion, all those other problems will magically go away.
Authoritarian types believe that if they make a lot of rules and enforce them with a great deal of strictness that people will toe the line. But people prove themselves time and again to be more than capable of circumventing the rules and the punishments imposed tend to have, at best, a temporary effect. Only a change of heart can change people’s actions. Unless we want to live in a police state, making a bunch of rules and enforcing them vigorously is not going to solve the problem.
You’re right, Diana. “Only a change of heart…” Conservative Christians need to see that Jesus had a plan to change the world, one heart at a time. To that end, he specifically told them to preach the Gospel and take care of those less fortunate. In fact he made that the criteria for judgement in Matthew 25. He did not intend for them to legislate the Gospel or he would have been born into Caesar’s house. American Christians find Jesus’ methods too inconvenient, and time consuming, to be taken seriously.
Cheryel, I have never heard that put so well. Thank you!
Diana, Christian conservatives and Tea Party people are, I believe, the vocal minority. There is a large faction of liberal and progressive Christians who believe quite differently. If you like, you may appreciate the Christian Left web site.
Abortion is either the murder of innocent life or it isn’t. If it is, people who “oppose” it should be upset about it and want it outlawed. If it isn’t, then why should people find it so horrible and such a bad option, as John suggests? Why would it be a big deal at all?
At least war, which often causes the death of innocents, can in many cases have a long-term good and be considered a necessary evil. Abortion, if it’s murder, has no long-term good and protects no one but the mother, and protects her from nothing but the inconvenience and discomfort of childbearing.
Dallas, you might be able to control what something “really is” in your own world but in the real world, you don’t get the last word on the dialogue. Adults who talk about this issue effectively recognize the huge number of very important facets to this debate. With all due respect, I think you might be out of your league here, particularly given the rather low view you hold of women based on your excessive focus on our appearance (which is creepy).
Dallas, Re: “At least war, which often causes the death of innocents, can in many cases have a long-term good and be considered a necessary evil. Abortion, if it’s murder, has no long-term good and protects no one but the mother, and protects her from nothing but the inconvenience and discomfort of childbearing.”
Your opinion here, which is what this is, is rather short-sighted and certainly not comprehensive. War always includes the death of innocents; it depends on whose side you are and how broad your worldview who the innocent ones are. Not to mention the deaths of the “guilty.” Our perceptions of guilt and innocence tend to become blurred when it comes to things like war and nationalism and difficult, emotionally charged topics.
Your perceptions about the good and the bad, the risks and the benefits regarding a woman and her choices actually begin and extend far beyond herself and and the labor and delivery room. As a home visiting nurse educator, I met many women who already had more children than they wanted and could support – married and single women. Rich and poor women. And every home in which the primary caregiver is overwhelmed and undersupported those children are at risk for abuse and neglect: physical, emotional, and sexual. The burden on society is also lasting. Our unpreparedness for the realities of how challenging parenting is leads to much harm done to children – even by “good, God-fearing, church-going people.” Mix in all the other challenges of life and some people barely manage it for themselves, let alone taking on the responsibility of another, particularly one so fragile.
We cannot talk about abortion without talking about contraception. We cannot talk about abortion without talking about community resources. We cannot talk about abortion without also talking about adoption and children’s services and WIC and Food Stamps and Aid to Families with Dependent Children and the financial and emotional cost of raising a child. We cannot talk about abortion without also talking about education and job training and the cost of education….and drugs….and child abuse….and choices. These issues do not exist in a vacuum. They are all interrelated. You push a little here and something is going to bulge elsewhere. That’s how societies work.
But please keep in mind: one man’s murder is another man’s necessary evil is another man’s self-preservation. It depends on where you are standing on the battlefield and how wide the view.
Thank you for this post! As I stated in a previous post I am currently pregnant (after being told that it was impossible for me to get pregnant again) and this is a situation that has cost me dearly. Due to having a limited medical card the doctors I dealt with could have cared less if I could reproduce another child or not, but after performing so many tests that they felt like I would not be able to pay for they stopped attempting to find out what was really wrong with me, told me I could not bear children, refused to write me a prescription for birth control because it was doing more hard than good for me according to my gyno, and sent me on my merry way. Now I am already a single mother attempting to finish school and rebuild my life after making bad decisions when I was younger. Here I now sit though jobless because my job of four years let me go due to having such a hard and high risk pregnancy, I have no income of any kind, I am having to move out of my home of four years with no where to go, my vehicle has broken down and unlike before when I was working I have no way of repairing it, and I have had to sit out of school yet another semester. Now I will not lie I truly struggled with keeping this child because I know with the way things look currently I will not be able to sufficiently support myself, my daughter, and yet another child BUT thankfully I also do believe in God and I am trusting Him to get me through this. The thing is you are right so many people want to say how horrible abortion is and blah, blah, blah yet they do nothing to assist with preventing it or the aftercare of many of these children. For all the people that were in my ears telling me what a sinner and horrible person I would be if I aborted this child I have NOT one of them now trying to assist me. Not even rides to doctor appointments, let alone shelter or clothes or anything else for the baby. I also can recall a time when I was attending school and I was known as a Student Leader in the college and would plan different events for the college/high school students who attended the college. I wanted to have two workshops towards the end of my last Spring semester at the college. One was “Let’s Talk About S.E.X” and the other was a day to inform students about the pink medical card and to get them signed up. I have already talked to Planned Parenthood and arranged for them to come out, sit at a booth, and literally take applications there so that the women at the college would not only have sex education, but a way to receive the necessary items they needed to stay healthy, safe, and “unpregnant” unless they choose the alternative. The school however pitched a fit over the use of the word sex on the fliers and felt uncomfortable to the idea of having Planned Parenthood signing women up for the medical card because they were afraid it would send the wrong message. Now my question to them is how many women now are they condemning for wanting/needing abortions yet they had a way to assist with preventing the unwanted pregnancies in the first place. I am so tired of people telling you to just wait until marriage and abortion is murder as the solution to this growing situation. Let’s truly DEAL with it and perhaps abortion will not be as huge of a deal as it currently is.
SheaShea, is there anything I, or any of us on this blog, can do to help you? Is there any one near you, or an agency that can help? To all of my fellow bloggers: Jesus tells us all to put our money where our mouth is, and be a glove on His hand. I believe there is want in the world because we Christians would rather be a lace glove than a work glove. He said We are His emissaries. His plan is to heal the world through us; for us to be His work glove.
Abortion isn’t an either/or decision, Dallas.
Using inappropriate terms such as “inconvenient” or “discomfort” relative to bringing a child to full term only trivializes the reality of the very complex abortion issue. Life begins when the Spirit enters the body. I will hazard to guess that nobody can say with any certainty when that happens.
IMHO, Life begins when the baby is able to live on it’s own outside the womb. I submit, having seen both my children born, the Miracle of Life happens precisely at the moment of that child’s first breath. Hence, the Spirit enters the body simultaneously. There is no sustainable proof to the contrary and neither is there any Biblical reference to suggest otherwise. Ergo, the egregious misuse of the term “murder” simply does not stand up to the light of reason or theology relative to abortion.
“Abortion, if it’s murder, has no long-term good and protects no one but the mother, and protects her from nothing but the inconvenience and discomfort of childbearing.”
Are women worth so little in your eyes that if they are the only ones being protected then the measure should not be taken?
To echo others before me, you are incredibly short-sighted and naive. It protects women from going through something that can KILL them, that can force them into a role they are not ready and may never be suited for. You know what happens to women that are forced to have children they don’t want? They harm their children, Dallas. They beat them, they ignore them, they pimp them, and they shortchange them. They drown them in bathtubs and strike them when they ask for hugs.
And don’t give me the adoption argument; if you think that giving a child up for adoption is all roses for the child, you’ve got some pretty rosy glasses on. I was in foster care from the time I was eight years old-I didn’t get adopted. I aged out of the system, unwanted, like so many of my peers. Children of the state are shuffled around from home to home, never making lasting relationships with friends or any semblance of family. The rigorous adoption procedures in this country make it incredibly difficult for possible parents to adopt, not to mention the fact that they’ll go to another country just as easily as go with their own. Children in foster care go without – without food, without proper clothing, without guidance or confidantes or advocates; adoption is not the end-all-be-all solution. It also doesn’t change the fact that anti-abortionist such as yourself want to take a woman’s right away for a minimum of nine months; her body is no longer her own, so shame on you. I also don’t see you or anyone else giving a flying fig about those children once they’re out of the womb – hence the sorry situation of state care. If you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one, but please stay out of uterus.
Ducky, that you or any child should face feeling unwanted is a shameful disgrace for our country and a slap in the face to God.
When a child isn’t wanted, it is no reflection on that child, because every child is a child of God.
But it is a direct reflection on how society spits on the God it claims to worship.
This quote has been on my mind alot lately.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Matthew 25:34-46 (New International Version)
“protects her from nothing but the inconvenience and discomfort of childbearing.”
Dallas, I’ve never had an abortion. Just had 3 children I very much wanted, and a loving husband to boot. But I still remember waking up pregnant thinking, “geez, I just don’t know I can make it X more months.”
I had a desk job that wasn’t looking for ways to fire me, and I could call in sick those days I couldn’t make it (with no loss of pay) and a husband who did everything when I was incapacitated. Nobody yelled “Stupid” at me on a daily basis the way they might have, had I been 19, unmarried, and living in a dysfunctional family. I had the money to eat well, make it to the doctor, buy maternity clothes, etc.
It takes but a little imagination to realize exactly what “inconvenience” and “discomfort” can actually mean in the lives of some women. We’re not talking about a hangnail. Pregnancy is serious business.
Yep, I suppose if it is murder it doesn’t matter what the woman has to put up with– up to (and, as some would have it, including) her own death. But let’s not pretend it’s nothing. And please understand why those of us who do not think it is murder — resent having you make that decision for us.
Dallas, my grandparents were “holiness” people who believed that card players, especially poker players were going to hell, even though there is no condemnation of poker players in the Bible. Should we take your views seriously when they have no biblical basis?
“I agree wholeheartedly that abortions should be scarce, legal, and free.”
Free? What do you mean? Someone has to pay for them, who should it be? You’re saying it should NOT be the person who didn’t take easy and obvious measures to avoid pregnancy, but it should be their tax paying neighbors, some of who may find the procedure abhorrent? How reckless and unfair.
Then don’t pay for the community health centers where drug addicts are given methadone via your tax dollars or your parks where prostitutes are giving BJs in the bathrooms. Move to a location where your taxes get to be 100% about *you* and *your* values which doesn’t exist anywhere in the world, but good luck trying to find it. Dallas Jenkins doesn’t define what your – or my – federal tax dollars support. You might be the king of your particular hill dear, but that stops at the end of your driveway.
We get to choose to believe where our tax dollars are spent. You can choose to believe that your tax dollars go toward the programs that you like. I can choose to believe that my tax dollars don’t go toward bombs and torture and do go toward programs of social uplift, housing, and food assistance. We get to do that. We get to choose.
Dallas, your comfortable life with no interruptions or discourse most be wonderful and we will pray that it continues to be so forever. But, when you say things like ” should NOT be the person who didn’t take easy and obvious measures to avoid pregnancy” it appears that you do not understand that every female that becomes pregnant may not have had that choice, or do you recommend that we put every young girl that come of age to bear a child on automatic and “easy” birth control. So it is reckless and unfair for the 13 year old raped by her father not to have taken obvious measures not to get pregnant? And you are the one who said, it is either murder or it is not. If you are hell bent on making it one way or the other, then you have to say that you are willing to force birth control on all females at an early age or you agree that it is murder no matter what the circumstance. See, it truly is not black and white, but sometimes ugly shades of gray.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
You are the Dallas Jenkins who is a movie producer and son of a co-author of the Left Behind series. Yes?
Yes, that’s him. (In case he doesn’t make it back this way.)
Dallas never makes it back to actually engage in conversation, he certainly doesn’t appear to have the courage of his convictions.
Thank you John and DR.
I was wondering why it seems that the person with the most comfortable lifestyle has the biggest problem pitching in with everyone else for the greater good?
Isn’t the baby born of the crackhead mother the “least of these” that Jesus spoke about in Matthew25?
If somebody’s child is sick without insurance it’s “let ‘em die” (Tea Party quote)
To use Dallas’ words against him, “reckless and unfair” is when you want the authority to tell another to have a baby, but won’t be responsible to chip in with support for that family.
Is that being Christian?
For me, the issue reduces to “NO SLAVERY FOR WOMEN.” I agree wholeheartedly that abortions should be scarce, legal, and free. But as long as the issue is framed “Pro-choice” or “Pro-child,” rather than “NO SLAVERY FOR WOMEN,” then we lose.
By the way, it’s also worth noting that somewhere between 25% and 33% of ALL fertilized eggs DO NOT implant in the womb, and are therefore lost. You can look it up…
If this is so, and it is, then why doesn’t organized religion hold services for all these lost souls — after all, they were human beings after fertilization, right? Just wondering…
Good point, Bob; good point.
@Sherry Lou Meeks : good points – not to mention all the middle eastern babies (children, adult civilians) we killed and called “collateral damage”
Exactly.
WHAT A GIFT to see a comment beginning, “The issue isn’t abortion…,” which is of course true. The real question is, does a woman have control over her body or does her body ‘belong’ to the group? Even the twenty-first century sees the obvious answer clouded by “misogyny and the history of male imagination upon [not only] the bodies of women,” but their intrinsic value as individuals. Women as the ‘lesser sex’ is so embedded in our culture that most people fail to realize even the ‘progressive’ suggestions of funding sex-ed, child-care, educational opportunities, etc., are condescending. The only appropriate way to address this problem, and the multitude related to it, is to exact a fundamental change in ideas so deeply rooted in our psyches they are seldom given any thought. Using phrases like ‘men and women,’ ‘boys and girls,’ ‘male and female,’ all subtly reinforce and preserve the lie. The greatest damage of all is done by our constant referencing of the Deity as male. The late theologian Mary Daly offered a summation in less than a dozen words, “As long as God is man, then man is god.”
The Hebrew language has masculine and feminine articles just like Spanish and French. In Hebrew the word for God is neither neutral nor exclusively masculine. it is the rare word that is both feminine and masculine. The names and attributes of God are some in the masculine and some in the feminine. Interesting to note that the name and attributes of the Holy Spirit are in the feminine. When God created Adam in the likeness of himself, he created Adam male & female. When Eve was created, God took the feminine attributes of himself from Adam and created a new creature in the feminine likeness of God. Eve was created to be a helper, not as we conceive a sous chef, but as a fellow soldier, as the Hebrew word for helper, ezar, denotes. Ezar is a Hebrew military term for a soldier that comes to the aid of a fellow soldier overcome by the enemy in battle and rescues him. Funny how our society’s idea of a white knight rescuing a damsel in distress differs from God’s idea of Eve coming to Adam’s aid. God identifies himself as our ezar in one of his names, Eleazar. Because of this, Christian feminists see that woman was created equal to man. Either, the Christian church, historically, has been ignorant of what the Bible originally said, or a male dominated clergy has suppressed it.
Thank you so much for this, Chereyl. My dear friend who went to seminary in the 60′s when women didn’t go to seminary said that the most revealing and incensing thing about the experience came early in her education while taking Greek and Hebrew. She turned to me and said, “Christy, I read it with my own eyes; the text doesn’t say what they’ve been telling us for it says.”
*for so many years it says.
Oh, Christy, there is so much more; but don’t get me started. To anyone who is interested, let me recommend a book by Bart D. Ehrman, “Misquoting Jesus”. It will either make you lose your religion or find it.
Bart D Ehrman is intelligent, educated and honest.
His books are must reads for believer and atheist alike.
We could use more like him.
Thanks, Will. We, the average Christian, know so little about the Hebrew language. Even if we can read the original text word for word, we know nothing of Hebrew idioms and euphemisms. E.g., the word translated “feet” in Isaiah, “with two he covered his feet” and “they shall pluck out the hairs of your feet”, is a euphemism for genitals. “If thine eye be single”, more accurately translated “If thine eye be good”, is an idiom for generosity. I say all this to say that we have to be careful about on what we base our beliefs because whole teachings have been based upon translation errors.
Thanks, Cheryel. I didn’t know that about “feet”
I’ll try harder not to put my foot in my..uh.. .er..nevermind.
Like!
Cheryel, that is *beautiful*. Thank you.
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