Bree Mcdonough wrote:
I always enjoy when it gets to "a man of the cloth."
I have several questions for you: When does God breath life into that soul? What's your best guess? At the time of conception? First trimester? Second trimester? Does it not say in the Old testament that God KNEW US in the womb? A man of the cloth.. how do you reconcile this? IF it's not a life.. what is it? (sorry..I've asked you more than several questions)
Your questions are fair and I answer them fully in respect to you.
The breath of life comes at birth, there is no breathing in the womb. Given the Hebrew usage of the word breath, spirit, and wind, the breath of life comes at birth, when a fetus becomes a born and living person. A fetus who is miscarried or stillborn has never been considered a living person, because breath, life, comes with birth, vaginal or caesarian, at viability outside of the womb.
God knows us in the womb - so I have no doubt that God knows which will miscarry, which will be aborted, which will reach full term. Those passages from the psalms do not speak much to me on this issue. It also says God fore knows - which makes my point. Those passages, such as last Sunday's psalm from 139, are addressed to the knowledge that Samuel was fore ordained to be a great prophet. They are not scientific treatises.
I am sure that when God looks upon some of the hideous maldevelopments of some fetuses, God knows why God gifted humanity with medical skills and intelligence and discernment so that those deformed fetuses can result in terminated pregnancies and spare the mother possible death and the mortally doomed fetus the agony and suffering and death that would come with a full term pregnancy.
My oldest daughter (I am full of surprises) is so severely damaged from fetal maldevelopment that had she been born in any other time than when she was, she would have died at birth, however, they were able to revive her. Had fetal testing been available, it is probable that she would have been aborted. Given her situation, I have encountered many other children whom I can only term miscarriages that live, the level of pain and suffering that these children endure (and Amy is now 32 and it breaks my heart). It is about the most heart wrenching thing a parent can endure. To sit in the institutions where these living human vegetables are warehoused and see all the children in this situation... one of the blessings of Roe v Wade and improved in utero testing is that fetus' are more often being aborted when they are this malformed.
And when I passed over from emotion to rage at RTLers is the day we left the institution where Amy and the others, so severely deformed with no connection to this world, were at then, and passing through a demonstration of people calling us "baby killers" because we are pro choice.
Amy is now 32. In all the years, whether at the institution or the home based foster care institution that she is now in with others in her situation, in the schools that these chidden are trucked to because they fall under the education codes. I have never once, not ever, seen a Ruler volunteer to sit with these children and do anything for these children.
But the RTLers do make their appearances at the probate courts when parents try and get their daughters, such as Amy, sterilized because as sick as it is, there are male staff people who impregnate women like Amy. Sometimes the males in this situation who have the mental capacity of a new born yet have the urge to procreate and it is a living nightmare when it happens. Amy may be profoundly retarded and an IQ so low it cannot be measured and has no way of connecting to this world, but she can get pregnant and bear a child. And when parents or guardians go to the probate courts to get the authorization for sterilization of these children, or in some cases, abortions for those impregnated, the RTLers are there to oppose. My anger level gets very high then. They favor the genetic and biological monstrosities that are born of these unions and go back to the churches and congratulate themselves on their fight "for life" while perpetrating horror on human beings that they will never again have contact with.
As a man of the cloth, I note the total absence of any Scriptural teaching on abortion, a practice well known at all times in which I Bible was written, That silence tells me that God tells us to use our intellects on this and act with justice, with compassion, and in response to reality.
(the Rev) Vince
