However, it takes time for both blood and breath to happen after implantation. Implantation is usually around day 6 and the heart doesn't start beating until day 22 or so. That means that we can remove the implanted embryo before day 22 without it being an abortion? However, it takes until even later for the placenta to begin to work and the baby's heart is beating before this happens. Additionally, even once it implants in the uterus and becomes a fetus, it still can't reproduce, eat or respond to it's environment so I think that this sort of argument doesn't really work for saying it's OK to abort a baby early and it's not killing a life.
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Colorado Christian- morning after pill
- Thread starter Salty
- Start date
However, it takes time for both blood and breath to happen after implantation. Implantation is usually around day 6 and the heart doesn't start beating until day 22 or so. That means that we can remove the implanted embryo before day 22 without it being an abortion? However, it takes until even later for the placenta to begin to work and the baby's heart is beating before this happens. Additionally, even once it implants in the uterus and becomes a fetus, it still can't reproduce, eat or respond to it's environment so I think that this sort of argument doesn't really work for saying it's OK to abort a baby early and it's not killing a life.
FR7 Baptist
Active Member
An embryo does not meet the technical definition of "baby". At any rate, an embryo is obviously alive and the morning-after pill does result in its death. However, pregnancy does not begin until the embryo implants in the uterus. Because the morning-after pill does not terminate a pregnancy, it can not be called an abortion.
As someone who believes that embryos, irrespective of whether they are human persons at that stage of development, are worthy of moral consideration, I don't approve of the morning-after pill.
We kill tiny creatures all the time, including bacteria, insects, etc, just by moving around. If we eat, we kill plants and animals.
So a man or woman avoiding pregnancy (a woman allowing an egg to go through the cycle without attempting fertilization or a man avoiding opportunities to fertilize an egg at the anticipated time) is both murder and disobedience to God?
Really?
I don't think you've thought through your position at all.
If you have, please let me know how men and women can avoid "murdering" their eggs and sperm on a consistent basis.
This is a very judgmental response, and one for which you've shown no sound biblical exegesis or interpretation. The birth control issue is one of conscience and is made intimately by married couples. You are free to have your own opinion and conviction, of course, but to say that those who disagree with you are in sin is an immature attitude to take.
It's just not as easy as you make it.
Should couples get pregnant every time it is physically possible? The rhythm method is birth control. Are they sinning if they use the rhythm method to prevent pregnancy? What about a woman for whom carrying a child could be dangerous or even fatal?
The ramifications of your judgmental attitude run farther and deeper than you realize.
Thinking that idea through, if a woman ovulates and does not attempt to become pregnant every month, she is intentionally allowing that egg to die. Additionally, a husband and wife being intimate when she is not ovulating means that the sperm will die as well. So the vast majority of times that a husband and wife enjoy each other is a sin - if we go with the idea that purposely allowing an egg or sperm to die is a sin.
menageriekeeper
Active Member
I've been called disobedient by greater than you! So if you think tossing that out there will have some effect on me, well, you'll just have to think again.
Now, *I* didn't redefine life nor conception. God told us specifically in His word that to have life you must have breath and blood, with breath being the greater of the two. A fertilized egg before it is implanted has none and will have neither until and unless it implants! Nature itself, rejects many of these pairings. So now the onus is on you to prove from scripture that causing something that nature already allows is sinful.
It doesn't matter that the fertilized egg is microscopic. It's not alive because it doesn't meet the definition of life that God gives. It has the POTENTIAL to become life, but it is not life yet. There are still steps to be taken.
Well there could be some arguement that between day 6 and day 22 that the embryo has access to it's mother's breath and blood and therefore meets the definition of life in a sybiotic manner. I personally draw the line at implantation for that reason. But I'm not dogmatic about it until the heart starts beating. However the word abortion covers any removal (including miscarriage) after implantation.
But you see, the embryo DOESN'T have access to it's mother's breath and blood before the placenta begins to work. Before that, it gets it's nutrition from the yolk sac and it doesn't breathe at all since it has no lungs at that point. So any embryo that is growing and has a beating heart - but does not have a fully functioning placenta could be said to not be life?
menageriekeeper
Active Member
Not life as expressed in personhood that should be protected. And I'll tell you why I believe this but I'm going to let you read the passage for yourself rather than post the entirety here. Ezekial 37 specifically verses 8 and 9:
Eze 37:8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.
Eze 37:9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
There was an entire army standing there that had a lot more than a 22 day old embryo, but they still weren't alive. They didn't even have the potential to be alive until God breathed over them. There is more to being a person than a beating heart.
When does God breathe into an embryo? Those bodies in that passage were not alive because they were just flesh and bones in a dead state. Their bodies were not functioning, their cells were not dividing. Yes, God breathed over them to bring them to life - He brought life to something that was dead. But a developing embryo is not dead. If it were dead, it would begin to decompose. But it does not. It continues to have it's cells divide and it continues to develop into a fully independent human being. If those bodies had been left there in on the ground, they would not have developed into a fully independent human being. I don't think we can compare what God naturally causes to occur with the supernatural. God opens a womb to conceive - and thus I believe when we go against God in this matter and remove or purposely cause what God opened to be closed, then I think there is a big problem.
Please stop calling yourself pro-life. You aren't. You support murder of a child.
FR7 Baptist
Active Member
Abortion does not kill a child and it is not murder.
Life exists at conception.
Whether personhood exists at conception is an open question.
I don't approve of abortion or the morning-after pill.
Paul, I refuse to play word games with you.
FR7 Baptist
Active Member
That's okay. Maybe we can work together to further the pro-life cause.
Is there such a thing as there being human life but not personhood?
Regardless about the red herring concerning when life begins, which is not necessarily what this story is about, the broader point is that no private organization should be forced to provide a service or product which it finds morally questionable.
Colorado Christian, like many other organizations, shouldn't have to cow-tow to the ridiculous inklings of the Federal government.
I wonder if this would be as big a story if it was a Muslim school or other religious minority?
Colorado Christian, like many other organizations, shouldn't have to cow-tow to the ridiculous inklings of the Federal government.
I wonder if this would be as big a story if it was a Muslim school or other religious minority?
FR7 Baptist
Active Member
You could take a cell from my liver and it would be technically alive, but not a person.
But we are not talking about a cell that will never be a person. Instead, we are talking about an organism that just needs time and food and it will soon be a baby...who will need time and food to grow.
You don't appear to be pro-life, either. You want all children to be born, but you don't give a crap about what happens to them after that.
It makes more sense to be pro-life from conception to death.