ExJw And Abortions

by tyydyy 99 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Sirona

  Hi

  Just a little comment.

  There was a questions from readers which stated that if a baby dies in the womb it will not receive a resurrection...due to the reasoning that it hadnt existed separate from the mother.

  As a JW I was sickened by that because I had a miscarriage and was told my baby would not be resurrected.

  Dont you think thats such a contradication by the JWs? So we cant have abortions because its a life, but if its miscarried then its not a "person" at all?

  Anyway, my opinion is no abortion unless the mothers/babies life is in danger, or if the woman was raped or something like that.

  Sirona
• 

  Abaddon

  Skimmer; without being rude, you seem to be harping on.

  I don't expect you to agree with my point of view, or you to agree with mine, but you seem to be attempting to strengthen your arguement by attacking the character of those having abortions, as well as any arguement about whether abortion is right or wrong in itself. That undermines the strength of your arguement. If you are not careful you are going to degrade the good tone of this discussion and will end up sounding like a spittle-flecked anti-choicer.

  You've also ignored some points made earlier.

  You keep saying human life starts at conception and abortion ends this.

  Yes, you are right. A growing, fertilised egg is human life in one sense, but I say again that it is "human" life, as I think there is no equivalence, for all the similarities of genetic origin, biological activity and possible outcome of existence, between a zygote and a baby.

  A brain-dead patient gets unplugged, so his "human" life ends, but his human life already had ended. Abortion, if done early enough, ends "human" life before human life begins.

  I do agree with you, as I stated earlier, that there is no magic dividing line during pregnancy beyond which it is 'wrong' to abort, that is a question for the individual, within the confines of the upper limit set by law.

  By aborting, we are doing nothing un-natural. As I said to Mommy earlier "Remember, at least a third of fertilised eggs don't even implant. Nature kills off the eggs that don't suit life. Many animals will euthanise their young, or abort, if conditions do not suit life. I think it is fair (and I'm not saying you oppose this viewpoint) that a woman, even using technological means, ends a pregnancy is conditions do not suit life. It isn't un-natural at all, even if the method are un-natural."

  These comments were mirrored by one posters account of their dog.

  Essentially, no one is going to make you have an abortion. You have no right to stop another person having an abortion.

  Can I ask you if you are in favour of the death penalty? If taking human life is an absolute wrong, as you suggest, it would be curious if you do. Murder's may have done wrong, even if it's just being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being caught up in events, but to kill them is to remove any potential for them to achieve what they might be given the chance.

  (I do not approve of the death penalty, but don't see this as a clash with being pro-choice, for the reasons given above.)

  edited for typos

  People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
• 

  Angharad

  ((((Sirona))))

  I agree that this is so sickening:

  There was a questions from readers which stated that if a baby dies in the womb it will not receive a resurrection...due to the reasoning that it hadnt existed separate from the mother.

  As few years ago my brother and his partner were expecting a baby, the baby was stillborn due to complications in labour, she was three weeks over her due dates. But the baby never lived outside of the womb.

  How can they say that it shouldn't be reserected, this was a healthy baby that died about 10 minute before they got it out.

  Of course all the family were grieving for him, but certain JW's thought that we should be having a funeral as it was not a real baby because it never lived outside.

  Also because my brother is disfellowshipped, people thought that we shouldn't be supporting him at this time, but that another thread.
• 

  Angharad

  Sorry above reply was a bit off topic, but it still makes me so mad.

  On the abortion issue, personally I dont agree with it unless there is some medical issue, and then it would have to be matter of life and death.
• 

  Sirona

  Thanks Angharad,

  How awful for your brother and his partner! Mine was early, it must be very difficult when its late in the pregnancy.

  Its just another thing that highlights the hypocrisy of JWs - the only person who visited me after coming out of hospital is another JW woman who had also recently had a miscarriage, noone else was bothered.

  Sirona
• 

  mommy

  Rob,
  You questioned if a baby was alive before the heart starts beating, I don't think it is that simple of a question. We have already covered here that everyones definition of when life starts is different, and until we can come to a clear understanding of when this life starts the point is mute. I mentioned my experience in an earlier post. The fetus continued to grow inside of me, with all the neccessary parts, without a heartbeat. I was the host, providing everything it needed to survive until it was to enter this world. Or until nature realized there was a mistake and aborted the fetus.

  A better question would be, if the baby cannot survive outside of the womb, is it alive? Then I would answer the question, no. I feel up until the point the baby is outside of the womb, the mother has full responsibility and is the sole decision maker on the end result of the child. And it has already been mentioned that this can occur as early as 24 weeks. As a matter of fact, after the baby is born, she really has a minimal say in health matters concerning the child. Everything that she does at this point will be scrutinized by society.

  Abaddon,
  I never replied to your previous comment

  "Remember, at least a third of fertilised eggs don't even implant. Nature kills off the eggs that don't suit life. Many animals will euthanise their young, or abort, if conditions do not suit life. I think it is fair (and I'm not saying you oppose this viewpoint) that a woman, even using technological means, ends a pregnancy is conditions do not suit life. It isn't un-natural at all, even if the method are un-natural."

  I would like to comment on that now. It is true that most fertilized eggs do not implant, but those are not even in question when it comes to the abortion issue, because nature takes care of that. As for animals euthanizing their young, this is a fact. When a pup is born sick, we see it or out of 8 kittens the mother eats the runt, we all understand why she does this.

  When children are born and they have severe disabilities, have you ever heard of a hospital suggesting we put the baby to death? Why not? Because we are not animals. We have evolved past that point, our reasoning abilities are more advanced, and our emotions can in no way be compared to an animal.

  When you said ending a pregnancy based on conditions that do not suit life. I am assuming that you are refering to a woman aborting because there is something physically wrong with the fetus. I will agree with you on this point. Or are you refering to a woman ending a pregnancy because it will interfere with her life? If you are, I can not agree with that personally, though I do know of many circumstances that can bring this about. There are many other options beside ending a life.

  I think what bothers me the most about this issue is that woman do not realize the emotional burden this act will bring on. Years after an abortion, woman still continue to suffer emotionally from it. Mostly this is due to not being aware of all the other options available. If a woman is educated to the other possibilities, then a decision can be made that will coincide with her conscience, thus making it an easier decision, and one that is filled with no regret. I hate that the education on such matters is lacking in this country.
  wendy

  Blind faith can justify anything.~Richard Dawkins
• 

  NeonMadman

  A big focus of the comments on this board seem to revolve around the question of when life begins. Without getting into my personal beliefs on the matter, which have not changed since I was a JW, I would point out that we are and have been on a slippery slope with regard to this particular question...

  When I was a child, abortion in this country was illegal, and generally regarded as immoral, i.e. inappropriate for any person who wished to be socially acceptable.

  At some point, controversy began about abortion during the first trimester.

  At some point, abortion during the first trimester became socially acceptable, at least in some quarters, and the discussion advanced to abortion during the first two trimesters, and eventually at any time during pregnancy. Somewhere in there, Roe v. Wade became law.

  Today, we have controversy about partial birth abortion. Many of those who had argued that life didn't begin until the baby was viable apart from the mother now argue that it is appropriate to terminate the life of a baby who is part way out of its mother's womb, and who could clearly survive apart from direct connection to the mother.

  Recently, I heard on the radio about some academic somewhere (don't ask me to document this; it was a brief radio clip, and I was driving, and didn't write down the name) who thinks that partial birth abortion should be extended to post-birth abortion, during the first 30 days after birth. It wouldn't surprise me if this was the level of the argument in another 5 or 10 years.

  Where do we go from there? Well, reproduction is a life function, right? So maybe we could define 'life' as not beginning until all life functions, including reproductive ability, are operationational; in other words, puberty. If it's not convenient to have that pesky 8-year-old around the house, just ace him; after all, he can't reproduce himself yet, so he's not really 'alive', right? I'm being a bit sarcastic here, but frankly, I'm just cynical enough to think that, perhaps in the next generation (I mean 25 years or so, not a Watchtower generation), we might just be having that argument.

  Oh, brave new world!

  Tom
  "The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure; to live it you had to explode." ---Bob Dylan
• 

  ashitaka

  I'M PRO LIFE, SCREW YOU POOPIE PRO-ABORTIONIST MURDERERS!!!!!
• 

  ashitaka

  I'M PRO-CHOICE, SCREW YOU WEAK WILLED, FUNDY FREAKS!!!
• 

  Skimmer

  Hello Abaddon:

  I do not attack the general character of women that have abortions. (Remember the "tongue in cheek" warning?) It would be irrational to do so as I've known a (sadly large) number of women who have had abortions and their reasons for doing so are quite varied. If there was one most common problem that these women had, it was a serious lack of self-esteem and assertiveness. The plurality of them had an abortion because their boyfriend or husband coerced them into doing so. Some had an abortion because their parents or their boyfriend's parents coerced them into doing so. A few had an abortion because the child they were carrying was not the offspring of their current boyfriend or husband and were in fear of being abandoned. I think that few, if any of the above cases would have resulted in abortion if the women involved were more willing to take a stand for themselves. It is hard to blame women in these cases when one is moved more towards pity.

  There is much less sympathy available for women who abort because it was socially inconvenient to carry a child for a few months; here in the United States there are waiting lists, years in length, for couples waiting to adapt newborn children, so no mother is forced into childrearing.

  And I have heard of a case when the woman aborted her child just to spite her boyfriend. No sympathy there.

  Interestingly, I know of no woman personally that had an abortion due to fear of a lack of financial support.

  Concerning the disconnection of life support on patients with no brain activity, there is no comparison with willful abortion. Unplugging support from a brain dead patient removes NO future living potential from that person while aborting a child removes ALL future living potential of that person. Sadly, I know of this quite well as that's what happened to my stepfather in June and to my sister in August. Removing medical intervention provides for a natural death in these cases; in abortion, it's the unnatural medical intervention that causes death.

  I do not now why there are cases of failure of implantation or of spontaneous abortion. I do not know why children are sometimes born with life threatening conditions and will die in absence of (sometimes mild) medical intervention. But if natural pregnancy failure occurs and you take that to justice willful abortion, then to be consistent you must also hold that live births with life threatening conditions justifies infanticide.

  As regards capital punishment, it should only be used as a last resort when there are absolutely no other alternatives such as life without parole imprisonment, and this is really just another name for death by incarceration.