“The unexamined life is a life not worth living.” Socrates.
“A life without self-reflection, introspection, and critical thinking is not worth living.” Socrates.
“Meaning that such a life lacks purpose, meaning and fulfillment.” From a post on, The unexamined life.
The purpose of the quotes above is a part of the lead-in to our subject of abortion.
I have heard that many of the current anti-Israel protesters have, when questioned, shown a complete ignorance of Palestinian and Israeli history.
It becomes apparent that many, if not most of these rioters are completely ignorant of what they are making a stand for.
The upshot is this, many of these children are sacrificing their college education, their tuition of thousands of dollars, and many are denied their opportunity to graduate. Think of it massive college debt, years of work and all down the drain!
Many others will have a police record, even jail time, because they hit a policeman for a cause they knew nothing about.
The world is in turmoil because billionaires pay charismatic troublemakers to organize ignorant children to riot over something that they for the most part know nothing about.
Lenin called people like this, “Useful idiots.” Even the people using these shallow children have nothing but disdain for them.
All because they are living an “unexamined life”.
Which brings us to Whoopi Goldberg. Whoopi who in no stretch of the imagination is a Bible scholar, once told her audience that God does not say anything against people becoming transsexuals.
Whoopi has a bad habit of using fragments of Scripture to confuse her audience into believing her. I recently saw a satire on You Tube of her making the claim that God says nothing about abortion. Immediately afterward a man is shown quoting Deuteronomy 5:17, “Thou shalt not kill”.
While this was obviously satire, it is plain that she made such a statement from the video. However, it is also obvious that many other pro-abortionists have made statements like this. It is also obvious that the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” is an inadequate argument to a pro-abortionist.
The question surrounds viability, or, when does the fetus become a person.
In Medieval times they wrestled with this question of when did a fetus become a person. This makes sense from their standpoint, if a person aborts their pregnancy, when does it go from a blob of goo to the murder of a live child?
Abortions were considered allowable before what was called, “before quickening” which was usually considered to occur before the fourth month of pregnancy. Before quickening refers to the baby’s quickening, or the child’s first movements in the womb. The problem here is that it is likely that the fetus moved quite a bit before mom felt movement.
Ensoulment was another method of deciding when a fetus went from a wriggling mass to a baby whose soul had been given to it.
In this case the question becomes, when does this fetus receive its soul to become a living human baby?
So, when can we kill it? Ensoulment became a theory by which solid ground could be laid to ensure that one would not be killing a live child.
So, when does a fetus receive its soul? Various periods of time have been used, while some have suggested 21 days after conception, which in many cases a woman may not even know she is pregnant. Some have said that the child receives its soul at birth, therefore you can kill it anytime before birth.
These theories were to set up legal and moral guidelines and especially to make it legal to kill babies. There is absolutely nothing in Scripture to prove the existence of “before quickening” or “ensoulment”.
So, what do these methods have to do with modern abortions – probably very little, but they indicate how desperate folks are to justify their questionable actions.
It is interesting though that the question still goes back to this, when is the fetus viable? As a result, many laws set a limit on when one can abort some up to and including partial birth abortion.
If you have a tender heart you may want to skip the next paragraph.
Partial birth abortions are used when a child is nearly due. Because of its size, the baby is turned around for a breach birth and the legs and torso are outside the birth canal and while the baby’s head is still in the canal a vacuum tube is inserted in its head and the brains sucked out. Dear God, what demon out of hell came up with this procedure!
So, when does a fetus have a soul? The Catholic Church has taught that a fetus is a living being from conception and many Protestant churches also believe the same, a fetus is a living soul at conception.
Does the Bible confirm this? Please read carefully and critically the following.
“Then the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus.’” Luke 1:30-31.
“Then Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I do not know a man?’ And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.’” Luke 1:34-35.
With this in mind, let us consider what is probably a blasphemous question. At what point could Mary have gotten an abortion and not taken Jesus?
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest…” God the Father will cover you like a cloud, “overshadow you…”
We have two of the Godhead mentioned here, the Holy Spirit and the Highest, God the Father, but where is Jesus, God the Son?
Jesus is the Holy One, the Son of God who takes the form of an embryo at Mary’s moment of conception then becomes a fetus which matures into a baby.
“For You have formed my inward parts; You have covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.” Psalm 139:13-16.
It is not my intent to argue you into agreeing with me in this post, but I do want to bring out what Scripture says about this, so called, “ensoulment”, or not.
Consider the creation of Adam the first man. This is one of the most incredible things that has ever happened in human history.
“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 being.” Genesis 2:7.
Consider first that Adam was formed from the dust of the of the ground. That we are but dust is proven daily when the skeletal remains of a human are found. What is left? The skeleton which is the last to return to dust with the rest of the corpse. The same can be said for animal remains. Granted there are carrion eaters, animals, bugs, worms and so on, but all return to the earth.
All returns to the earth which is what God said to Adam and Eve after they had sinned.
“In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:19.
Adam was formed “of the dust of the ground…” this was an amazing thing; his body was formed of the dust of the ground. Adam was neither alive nor dead. What did he do next?
Well, nothing. There was no life in him, he was neither a rotting corpse nor a living being. Life had not been given to him, God had not yet “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”. But look carefully at what happened next, “and man became a living being”!
Adam did not become a living being until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, his spirit, or soul if you will.
“For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” James 2:26.
During a famine Elijah went to stay with a widow of Zarephath and her son where God miraculously made a little bit of flour in a bin and some oil in a jar multiply to keep the three alive. Then one day her son died.
“Then he [Elijah] cried out to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord my God, have You also brought tragedy on the widow with whom I lodge, by killing her son?’ And he stretched himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord my God, I pray, let this child’s soul come back to him.’ Then the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived.” 1 Kings 17:20-22.
“As the body without the spirit is dead”, so was this child, until God sent his soul back to him and he revived.
If I have made a proper case here, it would indicate that there is no life without the spirit, meaning that a living embryo at conception has a soul given by God. There is no way to end a pregnancy at any point without killing a living being.
God punishes whole nations for sacrificing their children to idols.
“And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech [burn to death], which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.” Jeremiah 32:35.
God loves children and it is written that they are a gift from Him. Yet as you can see men and women kill them in the cruelest manner possible. Do not be fooled, God will bring swift and terrifying judgment upon the nations that destroy children.
While God does not seem to address abortion in Scripture, He still values children as much as He does adults.
“If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no lasting harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any lasting harm follows, then you shall give life for life…” Exodus 21:22-23.
This passage goes on to say eye for eye, tooth for tooth and so on, but I have stopped at the end of verse 23 where it states, “you shall give life for life”. This means exactly what it says whether the woman dies, or the baby dies the penalty is the killer’s life for the life of the victim.
Since 1973 our country has taken the lives of 60 million living beings. Do you really think that God is going to bless this unrepentant nation?
“Thou Shalt no kill.” Deuteronomy 5:17.
On Abortion taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 5-16-24 ck.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.