Penalty for ABORTION.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

I have to disagree with you. Images of mutilated flesh does not prove that a fetus has a soul in the womb.

Yes lets call it mutilated flesh instead of babies that have been ripped apart because we need to detach ourselves from the reality of the situation. Second, I am sure we are both aware that even the potential destruction of human life is considered wrong in God's eye, i.e. its not just actions but also the internal workings of your mind. If God is upset by the mere potential of the destruction of human life, then what does that say about the actual destruction of potential human life?

Surgery is a pretty disgusting process, does that mean that surgery is evil too?

There is a difference between cutting into something with the intention of healing it, and savagely ripping something apart by vacuum force with intention of ending its life. I mean to compare the two is absolutely absurd.

No. I expect more than anti-abortion propaganda. I want you to show me in the scriptures where it says that God imputed a soul into a fetus while in the womb.

I want you to show me in Scriptures where it says you have the moral right to judge a things right to life based on its level of development, and no I won't spare you pictures and videos of babies being murdered because this is a morally charged issue. I mean look at the weakness of your first argument:

תְּ֝סֻכֵּ֗נִי te·suk·ke·ni: to weave together. Flesh is woven together in the womb, but the soul is not flesh. Instead, the soul is acquired by God. Notice how David is making a distinction: God acquires the soul, but the flesh, He weaves together in the womb. Read a little further.

You have taken a pretty clear passage, "God weaved David together in the womb," and just read in a distinction to the text that is no where to be found. Thou didst weave ME... not God weaved together a souless inanimate piece of flesh that was morally worthless until brought forth from the mother...David is saying he made a human in the womb, namely the human named David. You argument is because David used a particular verb in psalms, which I am sure we both know is Hebrew poetry, that he isn't talking about himself, a human person made in the image of God? That is not a very convincing argument. Where as simply taking the sentence and quoting it verbatim disagrees with your position.

The word for "unformed substance" is "galemi". It comes from golem, which simply means inanimate substance, but in the Hebrew culture and mythology, a golem was a soulless zombie...sort of like a statue that is animated by witchcraft, but has no mind of its own.

So your argument is entirely based of a singular Hebrew word that is what is called a hapax legomenon, meaning that this word only occurs here in the Hebrew Bible. This verse is not extremely clear in the manuscripts and it could very well be a transposition of two Hebrew letters to mean "my deeds" , and using such an unclear statement to form a doctrine justify to justify murder on the basis of such a thing when clear poetic imagery is used to speak of God forming David in the womb is a dangerous route. If it is to mean something about a something inside the women, it is a word that is similar in meaning to embryo. This verse as it stands seems to indicate to me that God knew David's appearance and choices long before any of them became actual reality.

In Psalm 139:13-16, David is making himself very clear: 1) It is God who acquires the soul, not the biological process of conception. 2) Unlike the soul, the body (flesh) is woven together in the womb of the mother. 3) The fetus within the womb is a golem...it has no soul. It is just extremely complicated biochemical substance.

It is God who acquires the soul and body. He didn't just form David's soul, he formed all of him. Point two is a drastic misreading of the text. David does not say God made a souless body in the womb, he say he made David a human being that God cares for very deeply. Point three is again you just reading something into a very unclear portion of the passage, even if the etymology of the word is from golem that doesn't clearly indicate soulessness.

If you want to debate with me on the subject, spare me the shock and sob anti-abortion propaganda, and show me how you justify your position from the Hebrew/Greek scriptures. That is what I have done, I expect nothing less from you.

As I said earlier, I am not going to spare you from the reality of babies being ripped apart, because you need to wake up for it is not the will of our Father than any of those little ones should perish. Your version of God would be morally reprehensible by view and as such i could not serve it as it would no longer fit the definition of God for me. God in his foreknowledge would know every possible reality, including possible realities were these aborted babies, don't get aborted. To reframe from giving that child a soul after knowing such things as deeply as God would know them would be similar to my mother choosing not to conceive me if she had the choice to go back in time and decide not have me. Both would be equally unloving acts and as such your position could not be inline with the true nature of God. Not only that but every passage that speaks of someone in the womb applies the same identity to the person. Either it is David he weaved together in the womb or it is not. David is either human or David is not. None of the passages you've brought forth provide a scriptural argument that women have a right to kill unborn babies at will. Your position that it is the first breath that brings life, isn't giving credit to God for the soul, its giving the credit to oxygen. By that logic, serial killers should just become OB-GYN's every time they delivered a baby they would have sometimes up to a minute to torture and rip apart that child in front of the parents, or you could pull it from the womb and cover its air ways to keep God from giving the child its soul. Such an easy God to overpower.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

If women start being penalized for having abortions it will show that pro-lifers care more about the life of the unborn than about the mother.

I am anti-abortion but I am even more Pro-Choice: who am I to judge and condemn a woman when I haven't walked in her shoes?

And for the religious ones here: if God was really against women having abortion I'm sure he would stop them. If he doesn't it's because he's giving them the free will to choose for themselves. So you are not talking for your God.

Besides that, Christians shouting 'baby murderers' and 'you'll rot in hell' are showing how compassionate and caring they are, which is exactly the opposite of what Christ apparently said.

originally posted by: BlueAjah
The penalty for abortion should be eternity in hell.

Hell is a mythical belief without evidence anyway. And there are more than 2000 gods and goddesses in this planet that have completely different ideas of what hell is and if hell exists.

What about women who can't conceive, have IVF and discard fertilized eggs that won't be implanted as they are too many? Should they also be penalized?

originally posted by: TarzanBeta
I'm Christian and I support the preserving of babies and adults.

Please tell us how you support the preserving of babies and adults? Do you foster or adopt unwanted children? Do you invite homeless into your home? Do you invite refugees children to live with you so that they'll survive?

Or do you simply point fingers and feel holier than thou because you judge others?

a reply to: Raggedyman

Then drive on if it means nothing to you

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

So if abortion is a judgement for God, then is not stewardship of ones body something that God will judge also?

If so, is not the mother responsible for the stewardship of the body within her as well?

Conception of life starts at conception, not at the first breath. Only one being needed to have breath placed in him to be a living soul and that was Adam after that, life via the breath of life comes through the mother and is given to the child at conception.

No breath was needed when God created the first woman. She was not made from dead dust but from living tissue.

Gen 2:7 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 soul.
Ge 2:21 ¶ And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Right, so nevermind the fact that we are born again, not conceived again. Never mind the other points I made a few pages back over the Hevrew word mibbeten (out from the womb), or along the same lines, the fact that John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit upon EXITING THE WOMB (per the Greek preposition 'ek'), not within the womb.

The pro-life doctrine requires that you ignore a vast amount of scriptures. Its easy to distort poorly translated text to fit their agenda, but the Word of God is clear....the OT Law is clear.

originally posted by: Agartha
a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

If women start being penalized for having abortions it will show that pro-lifers care more about the life of the unborn than about the mother.

The part I don't understand is that if we do not penalize the women , why do penalize doctors, nurses and anyone else involved?

Sometimes I think it's because if we don't penalize the person who ordered the abortion (the prospective mother), the thought is "we have to penalize somebody!", so they go for whoever they can!

This is total nonsense... whether or not you agree with legal abortion.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Okay I addressed your points about the text I gave you and you completely ignored the response. As for you position on the it meaning "exit the womb" lets examine that.

There is another passage very similar to this one:

41When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Sacred writings of Origen

what are the reasons why the human soul is acted at one time by good(spirits) and at another by bad: the grounds of which i suspect to be older that the bodily birth of the individual, as John(the Baptist) showed by his leaping and exulting in his mother's womb, when the voice of salutation of Mary reached the ears of Elisabeth; and as Jeremiah the prophet declares, who was known to God before he formed him in his mother's womb....

Tertullian (c. 160 - 240)

They [John and Jesus] were both alive while still in the womb. Elizabeth rejoiced as the infant leaped in her womb; Mary glorifies the Lord because Christ within inspired her. Each mother recognizes her child and each is known by her child who is alive, being not merely souls but also spirits.

- De Anima 26.4



Thus, you read the word of God, spoken to Jeremias: "Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee." If God forms us in the womb, He also breathes on us as He did in the beginning: "And God formed man and breathed into him the breath of life." Nor could God have known man in the womb unless he were a whole man. "And before thou camest forth from the womb, I sanctified thee." Was it, then, a dead body at that stage? Surely it was not, for "God is the God of the living and not the dead."

- De Anima 26.5



It is not permissible for us to destroy the seed by means of illicit manslaughter once it has been conceived in the womb, so long as blood remains in the person.

- Apologia, cap 25, line 42


That the unborn child is alive: How are they dead unless they were first alive? But still in the womb an infant by necessary cruelty is killed when lying twisted at the womb's mouth he prevents birth and is a matricide unless he dies. Therefore there is among the arms of physicians an instrument by which with a rotary movement the genital parts are first opened, then with a cervical instrument the interior members are slaughtered with careful judgment by a blunt barb, so that the whole criminal deed is extracted with a violent delivery. There is also the bronze needle by which the throat - cutting is carried out by a robbery in the dark; this instrument is called and embryo knife from its function of infanticide, as it is deadly for the living infant. This Hippocrates taught, and Asclepiades, and Erasistratus and Herophilus, the dissector of adults, and the milder Soranos himself, - all of them certain that a living being had been conceived and so deploring the most unhappy infancy of one of this kind who had first to be killed lest a live woman be rent apart. Of this necessity of crime, Hicesius, I believe did not doubt, as he added souls to those being born from blows of cold air, because the word itself for "soul" among the Greek relates to such a cooling. - De Anima 25.5 - 6

Athenagoras (d.177)

What reason would we have to commit murder when we say that women who induce abortions are murderers, and will have to give account of it to God? For the same person would not regard the fetus in the womb as a living thing and therefore and object of God's care [and then kill it]….But we are altogether consistent in our conduct. We obey reason and do not override it. -Legatio 35

How, then, when we do not even look on, lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can we put people to death? And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God s for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very foetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God's care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it. But we are in all things always alike and the same, submitting ourselves to reason, and not ruling over it. -A Plea for the Christians 35.4

Both Origen and Tertullian seem to agree that the text teaches the souls were known to God before he forms them in the womb. None of the translations seem to take your position on it either.


Now as I was saying earlier you are completely throwing out rationale when you interpret these verses. Take Psalm 139 I sent you earlier. David clearly says that God weaved him together. Now logic dictates the A=A. So David is David, and what God weaves together is David. What he knows before he forms Jeremiah is Jeremiah. This is a pretty clear cut issue. Either the fetus is human, and killing it would be murder, or the fetus is not human and killing it is not murder. Biology is all on my side there, so your only position is to resort to a unverifiable soul test. The word eti is an adverb meaning yet or still and ek is a preposition meaning from or out of. According to Richard C. Lenski, eti ek literally means ""still from his mother's womb," and is the best of three possible interpretations due to its harmonization with Luke 1:35 and 1:41. Your view that this speaks of him outside them womb makes no sense given the latter context of the passage, nor does it appear that early theologians like Origen or Tertullian agree with your position on the passage. So lets not pretend like you have shut anything down, you simply have chosen to put forth the interpretation that allows you to argue for the murder of innocents.

originally posted by: GeauxHomeYoureDrunk
a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Most women who make the hard decision to have an abortion punish themselves for the rest of their lives. They don't need the government to do it for them. Years down the road when they look lovingly upon their later children they think back to the child that was never born and what they would then be doing and they grieve. That grief follows them as long as they live. That is worse than any penalty the government could ever put upon them. Christ would show them compassion, so where is ours?

Sadly the extreme right wing bible thumping evangelicals have no compassion or understanding for anyone who isn't like them. They sure have judgement and hate down though. Its beyond me why were still arguing about abortion. For me its cut and dry, its the woman's choice. MY BODY, MY CHOICE, PERIOD. You, your beliefs and your "religion/god" have no say over me and my body. There are a lot of things they do that I don't believe in or agree with but guess what, its none of my dam business. So I move on with my life, not throwing stones, taking care of my own yard and family. Because at the end of the day, I only have myself and family to answer too. If there is a higher being who judges us all, then they can do it when the time comes. But in the here and now, keep your judgmental, know it all nose out of my life and decisions.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb


Well you can go by Tertullian and Origen if you like (who teach that both soul and spirit exist in the womb, despite the fact that Jesus taught the spirit must be born again), I will go with the Word of God.

The Greek preposition ek is the same as the Hebrew min, and it means out from, not within. That would be a different preposition. Just becaus some scholars view the subject as taboo, doesn't give them the right to change the established definions of words.

It just doesn't hold water. I don't know where this obsessive pro life comes from. We tear pregnant women, babies, and children apart with bombs and raids. But because its war, its ok. I don't think so. I think if one really cared about life, they would protest war just as much.

a reply to: MOMof3

For real, it sounds more like a desire to prey on the innocent... so more more more and to hell with the life already here. Which makes it an irrational thing. I had a pro lifer tell me oh but those are not people they are demons so its ok. Pro life? Um more like failing it... ignoring all that alive already.

I think one of the problems is that people confuse pro life and pro birth.

If we aren't going to (or don't want to) throw money in the kitty to support these born children, if abortions are banned, or criminalized, then we have no business saying we are pro life.

We already have an overflowing system full of unadopted children, who's chances go down by 14 percent, every year passed age 1. What will happen with more unwanted children brought into this mess? The chances of being adopted drop dramatically every year. Are all these supposedly pro lifers going to step up to the plate and adopt?

There is also the matter of miscarriages. Will we start investigating miscarriages to make sure there wasn't any foul play?

There's a slippery slope to slide down, here.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Well you can go by Tertullian and Origen if you like (who teach that both soul and spirit exist in the womb, despite the fact that Jesus taught the spirit must be born again), I will go with the Word of God.

The Greek preposition ek is the same as the Hebrew min, and it means out from, not within. That would be a different preposition. Just becaus some scholars view the subject as taboo, doesn't give them the right to change the established definions of words.

Okay so first this totally shift your argument from babies don't have souls to babies aren't born again. So your position is now that if someone is not born again it is morally acceptable to murder them at will? Being born again is Jesus baptizing you in the holy spirit and in fire, and changing you from the inside out, and has nothing to do with when it is acceptable to murder or not. You can't even call what you are doing stretching its just a flat out false comparison.

Second I love how you just assert that Origen and Tertullian can't read the language properly that is just silly. You have set yourself up as this authority as though if someone disagrees with what you think something means, then they are going against the Word of God. No, we think the word of God says different things. You completely ignore Luke 1:35 and Luke 1:41 which do not harmonize with your view Scripture at all.

Third, you interpreting 'ek' alone. Let's do some grammar:

ad·verb ˈadˌvərb/
noun GRAMMAR
a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or other adverb or a word group, expressing a relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc. (e.g., gently, quite, then, there ).

prep·o·si·tion ˌprepəˈziSH(ə)n/
noun GRAMMAR
a word governing, and usually preceding, a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word or element in the clause, as in “the man on the platform,” “she arrived after dinner,” “what did you do it for ?”

Luke 1:15 uses the adverb "eti" which can refer to either time or degree, and means "still, yet, even now". This adverb modifies the prepositional phrase "ek koilias" or "from the womb". So what is in question is not just the preposition "ek", but the phrase "eti ek koilias", which translates literally into, "still from the womb".Again this harmonizes with the later leaping in the womb by John, which is the same conclusion drawn by people much closer to the original language than us as well as modern day scholars. So based on the input of ancient and modern scholars, the phrase "eti ek koilias" and the later context in Luke 1:35 and 1:41 we can be pretty certain John was in the womb, and we can most definitely be certain that your position isn't strong enough to base preforming an action that is immoral all around.

So in conclusion, this post shifted your argument from the baby doesn't have a soul, to the baby is not born again, asserted that anyone who disagrees with your interpretation of a passage is not following the Word of God, and takes what appears to be a minority view of the passages meaning as all translations pretty much translate it "even from his mother's womb" and almost all scholars seem to connect it with the later passages in Luke 1, except for those who want to murder babies.

originally posted by: daryllyn
I think one of the problems is that people confuse pro life and pro birth.

If we aren't going to (or don't want to) throw money in the kitty to support these born children, if abortions are banned, or criminalized, then we have no business saying we are pro life.

We already have an overflowing system full of unadopted children, who's chances go down by 14 percent, every year passed age 1. What will happen with more unwanted children brought into this mess? The chances of being adopted drop dramatically every year. Are all these supposedly pro lifers going to step up to the plate and adopt?

How about being pro life to the extent of teaching more respect for the act that creates life. How about pro responsible sex.. and being grown up enough to deal with the consequences if something goes unplanned. Many still want to adopt as well. Nothing wrong with giving a child a loving adoptive home.

a reply to: daryllyn

So let me get your argument, if a childs life may be tough you have a right to kill it? Or if the child is financially inconvenient you then you can kill it? I mean honestly nothing you are saying justifies murder.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Controlling women and their uterus in order to bring life to certian demographics and ideologies is not a new thing it has roots from our animal past...



How are we really any different today unless we cease thinking we have any right of control over another body without their full consent?

We do not. If someone does not want to bring life into this world or be someone's sex cattle of ideology perpetuating that ignorance? Their personal choice as it is their body it is a separate choice of having children verses having the sexual intercourse involved. Two different things... this was known and accounted for which is why then sex becomes the taboo and falls under moral business too... well where does it end when all such moral ideology and even scientific ideology like eugenics end?

In ethics separation of church and state was written for a reason. Church has protection from the state, but what protection does the state have from the church?

Our ethical fiber of freedom has been over ran by the "moral" fiber of the church this is why the US has been falling the hell apart.

Individual freedom, rights of the individual, consent laws that remove consent from the individual? Out of moralist agenda? Are illegal. At least that's how it used to be in the U.S. of A. not the pander and tax free money to wave a bunch of make believe around as truth? Facts come from experience, in each individuals life experiencing them as they arise... when such experience is kept away or forced on someone? Anyone?

Freedom ends.

The most advanced and intelligent don't breed for a reason... all of the nonsense and stupidity swirling around in make believe? Ludcaris.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

No one is born again until they believe in Christ, so how could a baby (let alone a fetus) be born again if the child has yet to hear the gospel and believe it????

But lets settle this issue right now.

Numbers 5:
11Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 12“Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them, ‘If any man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him, 13and a man has intercourse with her and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband and she is undetected, although she has defiled herself, and there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act, 14if a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife when she has defiled herself, or if a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife when she has not defiled herself, 15the man shall then bring his wife to the priest, and shall bring as an offering for her one-tenth of an ephah of barley meal; he shall not pour oil on it, nor put frankincense on it, for it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of memorial, a reminder of iniquity.

16‘Then the priest shall bring her near and have her stand before the LORD, 17and the priest shall take holy water in an earthenware vessel; and he shall take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water. 18‘The priest shall then have the woman stand before the LORD and let the hair of the woman’s head go loose, and place the grain offering of memorial in her hands, which is the grain offering of jealousy, and in the hand of the priest is to be the water of bitterness that brings a curse. 19‘And the priest shall have her take an oath and shall say to the woman, “If no man has lain with you and if you have not gone astray into uncleanness, being under the authority of your husband, be immune to this water of bitterness that brings a curse; 20if you, however, have gone astray, being under the authority of your husband, and if you have defiled yourself and a man other than your husband has had intercourse with you” 21(then the priest shall have the woman swear with the oath of the curse, and the priest shall say to the woman), “the LORD make you a curse and an oath among your people by the LORD’S making your thigh waste away and your abdomen swell; 22and this water that brings a curse shall go into your stomach, and make your abdomen swell and your thigh waste away.” And the woman shall say, “AMEN, AMEN.”

In the OT Law, if a husband suspected his wife of being unfaithful to him and as a result became jealous, God provided a test. They would go to a priest with an offering, and the woman would have to take an oath. The oath being that upon drinking a mixture of water and dirt, if she had committed adultery, she would miscarry, but if she was faithful, nothing would happen.

The key here is the oath. An oath must be taken on a voluntary basis, or else it is useless, since an oath is a test of personal integrity and honesty. So a hypothetically unfaithful woman would either have to confess that she did commit adultery prior to taking the oath, or she would have to lie, which would result in an aborted pregnancy.

Essentially, an unfaithful wife had two choices; either confess, or abort the pregnancy by violating the oath. The passage says absolutely nothing about the woman being guilty of murdering the fetus as a result of lying under the oath.

And by the way, the word used for "abdomen" in Numbers 5 is beten (בֶּ֖טֶן). It means womb.

How about I put it this way... do you personally plan on having a child in the future? Can you have one? Yes? Awesome! If you have had one or more great! Not going to have anymore?

None of your business, opinion irrelevant. Not your situation, not your circumstance keep your nose out of a topic you have no business being in.

even the potential destruction of human life is considered wrong in God's eye

Well, then we should be able to execute all the Republicans first right??? Since they always support war, guns, the death penalty, and letting businesess kill people with pollution, etc.