Monday, February 5, 2007

ABORTION--A NEW DEFINITION

In a recent posting, I allowed that I oppose abortion on moral grounds, but respect the right of others to feel differently. The true beauty and genius of our Constitution lies in the guarantee that all people can hold and express their views without interference from either the government or other individuals. This is true freedom-cherish it! Remember, any change we want to bring about must be done with respect for the rights of our fellow citizens. Use persuasion, logic, protest, pressure on our lawmakers, the ballot, whatever is legal to achieve your aims.
That said, my belief is that abortion is murder, but I also feel (again, on moral grounds) that the taking of ANY human life is murder. I am deeply troubled by the fact that so many of you who feel as I do about abortion are so narrowly focused on JUST abortion that you rail against terminating a pregnancy, but don't give any consideration to the moral imperative of preserving lives once born into the world. Killing in ALL its forms is certainly covered in God's commandment "Thou shalt not kill". Where are the loopholes? Does God allow the luxury of picking certain parts of that commandment to follow? Certainly not!
So, if you are going to protest the immorality of murdering a fetus, isn't short-sighted to not also protest the immorality of murder in all it's other forms as well? Murder has many different aspects: wars( especially for profit, as nearly all of ours have been), preventable starvation, preventable death from illness or disease, yes, even capital punishment because we are passing a judgement reserved to God Himself. After all is said and done, ending a human life at ANY age, except by accident, is still murder, and the moral consequences are the same whether you caused the death directly or passively permitted it to happen.
I truly feel that you are right in protesting abortion, but your scope is too confined .Enormous benefit to the whole of humankind can be achieved if you apply your zeal and determination to the wider fight.
One way that may help you to put all this in perspective is by accepting an expanded definition of abortion. At present, there are two primary forms of abortion that are recognized; MISCARRIAGE, to which attaches no guilt, and ELECTIVE, where a pregnancy is ended by choice at any point within the first three trimesters from conception, and from which the death of a fetus results. I propose that you consider the ENTIRE span of a persons life in trimesters ( for example, a person who lives a full lifespan of 50 years before a natural unavoidable death, will have lived 203 trimesters, including three as a fetus), and that you recognize a third type of abortion,POST-PARTUM, which is the early termination of a life AFTER the third trimester.
By understanding that taking a life at any time after conception is really the same sin against God and man, you will see the logic of this new definition.
Do you have any idea how more millions of lives could be saved if you advocated for the sanctity of the FULL SPAN of ALL human life? Do you understand that our responsibility is to protect all life, born and unborn?
To get a better handle on how so many millions of these inexcusable early deaths occur, I recommend that you carefully examine all the different manifestations of greed, and examine closely its horrible consequences.
And lastly, once you know these things, DON'T BE SILENCED!
(I welcome all comments)

1 comment:

JohnDWoodSr said...

Jeff-Thanks for the comment.I'd like to add that the Republican strategy is to use the abortion issue, carried out by right-wing "Christian" leaders, as a tool to keep their base in line. They truly do not care about abortion at all, except as a way to keep their rabble roused. They can't afford to see Roe overturned because they don't have another issue that comes close to being as effective. The "gay agenda, war on Christmas,school prayer, creation "science", flag burning, etc., all help them but simply don't resonate emotionally in the same way as abortion. Abortion is their bread-and-butter, and they can't lose it. All the more reason to see 95-10 succeed.