Just Abortion theory

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it’s wrong to hurt people because of skin color or gender, why is it okay to hurt them because they are smaller, less developed, or in a different location?

Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying you could be killed then but not now.

OP - that is the whole point do this thread. Most people don’t think war is right or good but Just War theory articulates when it is justified and therefore moral

Similarly Just Abortion theory would hold that Abortion is not inherently right or good but that it is important to support abortion rights because there are many circumstances when abortion is justified and the lesser of evils. Some criteria to meet the threshold for justified are clear cut (when bringing pregnancies to term puts mothers’ life at risk, pregnancies born of rape or incest and severe congenital abnormalities if the fetus. Other criteria are more subtle but I believe should be factored in: ability of mother to care for her existing children if she continues with pregnancy, and access to decent medical care during and after pregnancy.

The issue of when personhood (or from religious perspective ensoulment) occurs is contested. I personally don’t believe that embryos and early fetuses are “people” until sentient consciousness or the soul emerges sometime during the second trimester when the brain and other organs are formed (lungs develop later). I don’t think that embryos while containing physical life hold spiritual life/ consciousness until after the organs are formed and their little bodies can host a soul that is required for conscious awareness of self and environment around it. However, I am open to medical and scientific evidence to justify different beliefs in this regard.

There are degrees of both good and bad. We have been gifted with brains and discernment to utilize for pursuing optimal goods for both ourselves as individuals and for our society/ communities. To me, Bring Pro life means supporting optimal outcomes for sentient human life.

What are you basing your belief that an unborn baby doesn’t have a soul until the second trimester on?

OP again

Defining sentient life as conscious self awareness and awareness of self in relation to environment … or what people of religious faith may refer to as ensoulment/ Embodied soul.

Both Muslim and Jewish scholars contend that ensoulment or when the human soul becomes embodied in a fetus happens in the second trimester. Earlier Christian theologians contend it happened around then also.

From a Western science/ Medical perspective I think sentient consciousness would require the brain and most organs to be formed before the embodied soil could physically be aware of itself and experience reality. The baby does not breathe on its own until outside the womb so the lack of fully formed lungs probably does not impact capacity for consciousness in the womb.

As stated, I am open to new sound science and evidence around when fetuses develop self aware consciousness and what people Of religious faith might refer to as ensoulment.

I have to go out now but can discuss more later if desired.

Happy Palm Sunday all.

What science do Jewish and Muslim scholars base their beliefs on?

The science that the mother id already living and her life is what matters and that life begins at first breath. Because until very recently babies were not sustained until they were born vaginally and near full term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I'm a pro-choice Christian and your post has been making me think a little bit, and I think the issue is that this theology can't start with abortion. It's a deeper issue of defining "human" or "a life" in a way that I think Christians have trouble doing in any way other than the very simplistic "life begins at conception, the fertilized egg is a full person with a soul." I don't believe that deep down myself, having multiple pregnancies and kids, but if you take away that bright line it's much harder and maybe beyond traditional theology.

What I mean is, I think IF you want to start with the idea that "just abortion theory" is important but "just infanticide theory" is beyond the pale, you have to define the distinction. On the other hand, if you don't want to start with that idea, then you're in totally different theological waters than I was assuming and it IS much more like just war theory than I realized.

OP again - i am throwing the theory out there for consideration.

I mainly am interested in theological framework that supports women’s human and reproductive rights that are under attack in the US. I do think there are similarities to Just War Theory but there are also major differences. That is why I am hoping brilliant theologians will take it on.

You raise an excellent and controversial tricky point about defining life and when it starts. That would require research into any medical and other expert consensus on when the fetus facilitates the emergence of individual consciousness/ sentient awareness of self / soul. The third month is when an embryo becomes a fetus in the womb. According to Muslim scholars, the soul enters the body at around 4 months after conception. There is no clear statement off when human souls begin life in the Hebrew Bible, Gospels or Indian ancient scriptures. However, the rabbis in the Talmud all agree that human ensoulment does not occur at conception but around 13 weeks after conception. Even Roman Catholic theologians in the Middle Ages, such as Thomas Aquinas, held that human ensoulment occurs between 2-4 months in the womb.

I don’t agree with modern Christian arguments that life begins at conception. I personally agree with Muslim scholars that sentient self awareness/ human soul probably emerges around 4 months. I believe that is when all the human organs such as brain and heart have formed except perhaps for the lungs. You are correct that Just Abortion Theory would need to define and account for when spiritual human life/ sentient self awareness begins.

Interesting that 93% of reported abortions in US in 2019 were performed before at or before 13 weeks of pregnancy. 6% were conducted between 14-20 weeks and only 1% occurred after 21 weeks. the later abortions tend to be related to medical concerns such as fetal abnormalities or maternal life endangerment. The vast majority of abortions are carried out before human ensoulment likely occurs. The later ones are usually justifiable?

Thank you for a thoughtful and thought provoking comment.

I'm the PP you're responding too, thanks for the thoughtful comment. I do think that the traditions of other faiths offer some alternative approaches. I'm personally a bit skeptical that it's possible to draw a bright line at a single point in pregnancy given that fetal development is a gradual, ongoing process, and we don't have to think necessarily that sentience and the soul are precisely the same thing. What if fetal development is a long ongoing process of becoming a human, but we can't say there's a before or after?

PS this is not to throw up my hands and say "then we simply must say life begins at conception, abortion is always evil murder!" I actually mean, how would we deal with that idea without giving it up just because it's harder to figure out the applied ethics. I do, personally, think that many pregnant women instinctually think about and treat early vs late term abortions and miscarriages very differently, so I agree that we're not likely to have issues with being overly permissive about late term abortions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it’s wrong to hurt people because of skin color or gender, why is it okay to hurt them because they are smaller, less developed, or in a different location?

Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying you could be killed then but not now.

OP - that is the whole point do this thread. Most people don’t think war is right or good but Just War theory articulates when it is justified and therefore moral

Similarly Just Abortion theory would hold that Abortion is not inherently right or good but that it is important to support abortion rights because there are many circumstances when abortion is justified and the lesser of evils. Some criteria to meet the threshold for justified are clear cut (when bringing pregnancies to term puts mothers’ life at risk, pregnancies born of rape or incest and severe congenital abnormalities if the fetus. Other criteria are more subtle but I believe should be factored in: ability of mother to care for her existing children if she continues with pregnancy, and access to decent medical care during and after pregnancy.

The issue of when personhood (or from religious perspective ensoulment) occurs is contested. I personally don’t believe that embryos and early fetuses are “people” until sentient consciousness or the soul emerges sometime during the second trimester when the brain and other organs are formed (lungs develop later). I don’t think that embryos while containing physical life hold spiritual life/ consciousness until after the organs are formed and their little bodies can host a soul that is required for conscious awareness of self and environment around it. However, I am open to medical and scientific evidence to justify different beliefs in this regard.

There are degrees of both good and bad. We have been gifted with brains and discernment to utilize for pursuing optimal goods for both ourselves as individuals and for our society/ communities. To me, Bring Pro life means supporting optimal outcomes for sentient human life.

What are you basing your belief that an unborn baby doesn’t have a soul until the second trimester on?

OP again

Defining sentient life as conscious self awareness and awareness of self in relation to environment … or what people of religious faith may refer to as ensoulment/ Embodied soul.

Both Muslim and Jewish scholars contend that ensoulment or when the human soul becomes embodied in a fetus happens in the second trimester. Earlier Christian theologians contend it happened around then also.

From a Western science/ Medical perspective I think sentient consciousness would require the brain and most organs to be formed before the embodied soil could physically be aware of itself and experience reality. The baby does not breathe on its own until outside the womb so the lack of fully formed lungs probably does not impact capacity for consciousness in the womb.

As stated, I am open to new sound science and evidence around when fetuses develop self aware consciousness and what people Of religious faith might refer to as ensoulment.

I have to go out now but can discuss more later if desired.

Happy Palm Sunday all.

What science do Jewish and Muslim scholars base their beliefs on?

The science that the mother id already living and her life is what matters and that life begins at first breath. Because until very recently babies were not sustained until they were born vaginally and near full term.

what does that have to do with the various theories about ensoulment? The unborn baby is alive too. The baby is alive inside the womb. Life begins at conception.

Life Begins at Fertilization
The following references illustrate the fact that a new human embryo, the starting point for a human life, comes into existence with the formation of the one-celled zygote:



"Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote."
[England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31]


"Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).
"Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]


"Embryo: the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation has occurred, when the organism becomes known as a fetus."
[Cloning Human Beings. Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, MD: GPO, 1997, Appendix-2.]


"Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus."
[Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146]


"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term 'embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy."
[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]


"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]


"Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism.... At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.... The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]


"I would say that among most scientists, the word 'embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."
[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]


"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]


"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]


"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1]


"The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are...respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development."
[Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17]


"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and M�ller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists "pre-embryo" among "discarded and replaced terms" in modern embryology, describing it as "ill-defined and inaccurate" (p. 12}]


"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual."
[Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]


"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. 'Don't worry,' a doctor might say, 'it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]

Life Begins at Fertilization
The following references illustrate the fact that a new human embryo, the starting point for a human life, comes into existence with the formation of the one-celled zygote:



"Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote."
[England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31]


"Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).
"Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]


"Embryo: the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation has occurred, when the organism becomes known as a fetus."
[Cloning Human Beings. Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, MD: GPO, 1997, Appendix-2.]


"Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus."
[Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146]


"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term 'embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy."
[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]


"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]


"Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism.... At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.... The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]


"I would say that among most scientists, the word 'embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."
[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]


"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]


"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]


"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1]


"The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are...respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development."
[Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17]


"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and M�ller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists "pre-embryo" among "discarded and replaced terms" in modern embryology, describing it as "ill-defined and inaccurate" (p. 12}]


"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual."
[Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]


"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. 'Don't worry,' a doctor might say, 'it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]

Life doesn’t begin when a baby takes their first breath outside the womb. You are spreading false information that are not based on science when you state that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it’s wrong to hurt people because of skin color or gender, why is it okay to hurt them because they are smaller, less developed, or in a different location?

Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying you could be killed then but not now.

OP - that is the whole point do this thread. Most people don’t think war is right or good but Just War theory articulates when it is justified and therefore moral

Similarly Just Abortion theory would hold that Abortion is not inherently right or good but that it is important to support abortion rights because there are many circumstances when abortion is justified and the lesser of evils. Some criteria to meet the threshold for justified are clear cut (when bringing pregnancies to term puts mothers’ life at risk, pregnancies born of rape or incest and severe congenital abnormalities if the fetus. Other criteria are more subtle but I believe should be factored in: ability of mother to care for her existing children if she continues with pregnancy, and access to decent medical care during and after pregnancy.

The issue of when personhood (or from religious perspective ensoulment) occurs is contested. I personally don’t believe that embryos and early fetuses are “people” until sentient consciousness or the soul emerges sometime during the second trimester when the brain and other organs are formed (lungs develop later). I don’t think that embryos while containing physical life hold spiritual life/ consciousness until after the organs are formed and their little bodies can host a soul that is required for conscious awareness of self and environment around it. However, I am open to medical and scientific evidence to justify different beliefs in this regard.

There are degrees of both good and bad. We have been gifted with brains and discernment to utilize for pursuing optimal goods for both ourselves as individuals and for our society/ communities. To me, Bring Pro life means supporting optimal outcomes for sentient human life.

What are you basing your belief that an unborn baby doesn’t have a soul until the second trimester on?

OP again

Defining sentient life as conscious self awareness and awareness of self in relation to environment … or what people of religious faith may refer to as ensoulment/ Embodied soul.

Both Muslim and Jewish scholars contend that ensoulment or when the human soul becomes embodied in a fetus happens in the second trimester. Earlier Christian theologians contend it happened around then also.

From a Western science/ Medical perspective I think sentient consciousness would require the brain and most organs to be formed before the embodied soil could physically be aware of itself and experience reality. The baby does not breathe on its own until outside the womb so the lack of fully formed lungs probably does not impact capacity for consciousness in the womb.

As stated, I am open to new sound science and evidence around when fetuses develop self aware consciousness and what people Of religious faith might refer to as ensoulment.

I have to go out now but can discuss more later if desired.

Happy Palm Sunday all.

What science do Jewish and Muslim scholars base their beliefs on?

The science that the mother id already living and her life is what matters and that life begins at first breath. Because until very recently babies were not sustained until they were born vaginally and near full term.

what does that have to do with the various theories about ensoulment? The unborn baby is alive too. The baby is alive inside the womb. Life begins at conception.

Life Begins at Fertilization
The following references illustrate the fact that a new human embryo, the starting point for a human life, comes into existence with the formation of the one-celled zygote:



"Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote."
[England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31]


"Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).
"Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]


"Embryo: the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation has occurred, when the organism becomes known as a fetus."
[Cloning Human Beings. Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, MD: GPO, 1997, Appendix-2.]


"Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus."
[Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146]


"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term 'embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy."
[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]


"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]


"Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism.... At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.... The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]


"I would say that among most scientists, the word 'embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."
[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]


"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]


"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]


"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1]


"The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are...respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development."
[Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17]


"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and M�ller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists "pre-embryo" among "discarded and replaced terms" in modern embryology, describing it as "ill-defined and inaccurate" (p. 12}]


"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual."
[Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]


"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. 'Don't worry,' a doctor might say, 'it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]

Life Begins at Fertilization
The following references illustrate the fact that a new human embryo, the starting point for a human life, comes into existence with the formation of the one-celled zygote:



"Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote."
[England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31]


"Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).
"Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]


"Embryo: the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation has occurred, when the organism becomes known as a fetus."
[Cloning Human Beings. Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, MD: GPO, 1997, Appendix-2.]


"Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus."
[Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146]


"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term 'embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy."
[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]


"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]


"Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism.... At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.... The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]


"I would say that among most scientists, the word 'embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."
[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]


"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]


"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]


"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1]


"The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are...respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development."
[Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17]


"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and M�ller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists "pre-embryo" among "discarded and replaced terms" in modern embryology, describing it as "ill-defined and inaccurate" (p. 12}]


"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual."
[Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]


"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. 'Don't worry,' a doctor might say, 'it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]

Life doesn’t begin when a baby takes their first breath outside the womb. You are spreading false information that are not based on science when you state that.

OP again - I have to go out and can’t answer in depth now .

However it is important to note that I am not talking about physical life but when would become embodied . Embryos and young fetuses are physically alive but at what point in the life cycle do they develop consciousness/ awareness of self and environment.

There is no consensus on this although ancient theologians from various traditions thought long and hard about it.

This thread is an invitation to for theologians to think through just approaches to abortion. The questions and answers raised are not straightforward .

[Anonymous]

The entire framework is already there.

For a government, the ability to put one individual's rights over another's requires both to have legal rights, which is why the idea of when human life beings is vital to this issue (and that fact that human cells are alive doesn't make it a living human being -- many combinations of human cells doe not develop into a person). It is what makes this issue different for all other religious-based legal controversies. Roe tried to avoid the religious ensoulment issue and use the best available scientific evidence to answer this, and decided that when the fetus could live on its own outside the womb it attains rights that the government can protect. Many disagree with this as either to restrictive or not restrictive enough. Beyond that, the government cannot know any more than theologians, who concede that they don't know, but they have religious based beliefs about the issue.

"Anti-abortion at any point" is based in theology on the concession that one cannot know when the soul enters the body and life begins, and that some religions decide that the morally safer -- not morally correct, but morally safer - choice is to assume (not know) that is happens at conception. That is the Catholic teaching. This can inform one's personal choice. Theologians also acknowledge that different religions believe the soul enters the body at different times (e.g. upon the first breath of life), and so their moral choice is different. Others do not believe in a soul at all, so there is no moral aspect to the decision. None of these positions can be proved objectively right or wrong, and all studied theologies acknowledge that we do not know, but we can form beliefs.

And to the "cells are alive so ensoulment doesn't matter" poster, yes, it does matter legally whether the cells are a separate human being from the host mother, otherwise any removal of human cells would be murder, as all cells are alive, but not all cells are human beings with separate legal rights. The concession about unknowable ensoulment is why this pivot is seen as necessary to the pro-life movement - they they can't prove ensoulment so they must argue it doesn't matter -- even though the whole premise of the theology of abortion is based on ensoulment.

As an American, one must accept that when different religions have different beliefs on a point, the government cannot adopt one religion's belief system over all others, nor can it force an individual to personally act against her religion (except when two peoples' rights come into conflict -- hence the soul question). So they can't force abortions on people, but they also cannot choose which religion has the correct moral view on when life begins and adopt a particular religion's moral belief and ban all abortions, thus denying the rights of others to hold and act on contrary religious and moral beliefs.

As for when it is justified after the point of viability, we already have jurisprudence that balances the rights of individuals against each other: self-defense, good-samaritan, suicide, etc. The most basic one is that a government cannot force a person to be a hero, specifically, to take an action that would result in personal harm even if by taking that heroic risk the person would save another (aka Bystander Laws or Good Samaritan Laws). Why would this not apply to the personal harm of pregnancy and childbirth? Similarly but opposite, our laws acknowledge that a killing is justified to save oneself from death or serious bodily harm (not that some states are saying just death when it domes to pregnancy and this is creating seriously tragic results); or when in an unenviable position of having to choose between two lives, you have not committed murder in making that terrible choice. Consider this: if suicide is unlawful, why can a mother decide to give birth knowing it will cause her own death? Why should the reverse decision be unlawful then?

Anyway, there is more, but I propose that the framework for you request, OP, already exists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The entire framework is already there.

For a government, the ability to put one individual's rights over another's requires both to have legal rights, which is why the idea of when human life beings is vital to this issue (and that fact that human cells are alive doesn't make it a living human being -- many combinations of human cells doe not develop into a person). It is what makes this issue different for all other religious-based legal controversies. Roe tried to avoid the religious ensoulment issue and use the best available scientific evidence to answer this, and decided that when the fetus could live on its own outside the womb it attains rights that the government can protect. Many disagree with this as either to restrictive or not restrictive enough. Beyond that, the government cannot know any more than theologians, who concede that they don't know, but they have religious based beliefs about the issue.

"Anti-abortion at any point" is based in theology on the concession that one cannot know when the soul enters the body and life begins, and that some religions decide that the morally safer -- not morally correct, but morally safer - choice is to assume (not know) that is happens at conception. That is the Catholic teaching. This can inform one's personal choice. Theologians also acknowledge that different religions believe the soul enters the body at different times (e.g. upon the first breath of life), and so their moral choice is different. Others do not believe in a soul at all, so there is no moral aspect to the decision. None of these positions can be proved objectively right or wrong, and all studied theologies acknowledge that we do not know, but we can form beliefs.

And to the "cells are alive so ensoulment doesn't matter" poster, yes, it does matter legally whether the cells are a separate human being from the host mother, otherwise any removal of human cells would be murder, as all cells are alive, but not all cells are human beings with separate legal rights. The concession about unknowable ensoulment is why this pivot is seen as necessary to the pro-life movement - they they can't prove ensoulment so they must argue it doesn't matter -- even though the whole premise of the theology of abortion is based on ensoulment.

As an American, one must accept that when different religions have different beliefs on a point, the government cannot adopt one religion's belief system over all others, nor can it force an individual to personally act against her religion (except when two peoples' rights come into conflict -- hence the soul question). So they can't force abortions on people, but they also cannot choose which religion has the correct moral view on when life begins and adopt a particular religion's moral belief and ban all abortions, thus denying the rights of others to hold and act on contrary religious and moral beliefs.

As for when it is justified after the point of viability, we already have jurisprudence that balances the rights of individuals against each other: self-defense, good-samaritan, suicide, etc. The most basic one is that a government cannot force a person to be a hero, specifically, to take an action that would result in personal harm even if by taking that heroic risk the person would save another (aka Bystander Laws or Good Samaritan Laws). Why would this not apply to the personal harm of pregnancy and childbirth? Similarly but opposite, our laws acknowledge that a killing is justified to save oneself from death or serious bodily harm (not that some states are saying just death when it domes to pregnancy and this is creating seriously tragic results); or when in an unenviable position of having to choose between two lives, you have not committed murder in making that terrible choice. Consider this: if suicide is unlawful, why can a mother decide to give birth knowing it will cause her own death? Why should the reverse decision be unlawful then?

Anyway, there is more, but I propose that the framework for you request, OP, already exists.

This is 100% correct, which is why even this generally well- meaning conversation about abortion rights is so infuriating. It is indicative of just how much we have left the religious right capture the narrative.

OP, the problem is not that a proper framework hasn't been worked out. It's that a vocal minority of Americans want to prioritize the rights of embryos over the rights of women. They literally seek to make women second- class citizens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let’s hope brilliant scholars Harvard or Yale divinity schools or any serious well regarded theological school take up working on Just Abortion Theory.

Take it up? Has anyone here discussing this been in a philosophy class in the last 50 years? This theory is already well-developed on secular philosophy, in terms entirely compatible with the OP’s understanding of what Christianity should and should not permit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s hope brilliant scholars Harvard or Yale divinity schools or any serious well regarded theological school take up working on Just Abortion Theory.

Take it up? Has anyone here discussing this been in a philosophy class in the last 50 years? This theory is already well-developed on secular philosophy, in terms entirely compatible with the OP’s understanding of what Christianity should and should not permit.

As the very excellent 15:58 post—one of the best I have ever read here—makes clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s hope brilliant scholars Harvard or Yale divinity schools or any serious well regarded theological school take up working on Just Abortion Theory.

Take it up? Has anyone here discussing this been in a philosophy class in the last 50 years? This theory is already well-developed on secular philosophy, in terms entirely compatible with the OP’s understanding of what Christianity should and should not permit.

As the very excellent 15:58 post—one of the best I have ever read here—makes clear.

And, by the way, it’s a crying shame that so many people reading this will mot understand what 15:58 means when they say “As an American…”, because of how far off-course the various entities involved in promoting this whackadoodle “ensoulment doesn’t matter” concept have taken us as a nation. The idea of pluralism of the type 15:58 is describing is almost completely a relic at this point.

[Anonymous]

[youtube]https://youtu.be/fUspLVStPbk

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[youtube]https://youtu.be/fUspLVStPbk

Monty Python’s Every Sperm Is Sacred

[DAD]
There are Jews in the world, there are Buddhists
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those that follow Mohammed, but
I've never been one of them

I'm a Roman Catholic
And have been since before I was born
And the one thing they say about Catholics is:
They'll take you as soon as you're warm

You don't have to be a six-footer
You don't have to have a great brain
You don't have to have any clothes on
You're a Catholic the moment Dad came
Because

Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted
God gets quite irate

[CHILDREN]
Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted
God gets quite irate

[GIRL]
Let the heathen spill theirs
On the dusty ground
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't be found

[CHILDREN]
Every sperm is wanted
Every sperm is good
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood

MUM]
Hindu, Taoist, Mormon
Spill theirs just anywhere,
But God loves those who treat their
Semen with more care

[MEN]
Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great

[WOMEN]
If a sperm is wasted,...

[CHILDREN]
...God get quite irate

[PRIEST]
Every sperm is sacred

[BRIDE and GROOM]
Every sperm is good

[NANNIES]
Every sperm is needed...

[CARDINALS]
...In your neighbourhood!

CHILDREN]
Every sperm is useful
Every sperm is fine

[FUNERAL CORTEGE]
God needs everybody's

[MOURNER #1]
Mine!

[MOURNER #2]
And mine!

[CORPSE]
And mine!

[NUN]
Let the Pagan spill theirs
O'er mountain, hill, and plain

[HOLY STATUES]
God shall strike them down for
Each sperm that's spilt in vain

[EVERYONE]
Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is good
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood

Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted
God gets quite iraaaaaate!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The entire framework is already there.

For a government, the ability to put one individual's rights over another's requires both to have legal rights, which is why the idea of when human life beings is vital to this issue (and that fact that human cells are alive doesn't make it a living human being -- many combinations of human cells doe not develop into a person). It is what makes this issue different for all other religious-based legal controversies. Roe tried to avoid the religious ensoulment issue and use the best available scientific evidence to answer this, and decided that when the fetus could live on its own outside the womb it attains rights that the government can protect. Many disagree with this as either to restrictive or not restrictive enough. Beyond that, the government cannot know any more than theologians, who concede that they don't know, but they have religious based beliefs about the issue.

"Anti-abortion at any point" is based in theology on the concession that one cannot know when the soul enters the body and life begins, and that some religions decide that the morally safer -- not morally correct, but morally safer - choice is to assume (not know) that is happens at conception. That is the Catholic teaching. This can inform one's personal choice. Theologians also acknowledge that different religions believe the soul enters the body at different times (e.g. upon the first breath of life), and so their moral choice is different. Others do not believe in a soul at all, so there is no moral aspect to the decision. None of these positions can be proved objectively right or wrong, and all studied theologies acknowledge that we do not know, but we can form beliefs.

And to the "cells are alive so ensoulment doesn't matter" poster, yes, it does matter legally whether the cells are a separate human being from the host mother, otherwise any removal of human cells would be murder, as all cells are alive, but not all cells are human beings with separate legal rights. The concession about unknowable ensoulment is why this pivot is seen as necessary to the pro-life movement - they they can't prove ensoulment so they must argue it doesn't matter -- even though the whole premise of the theology of abortion is based on ensoulment.

As an American, one must accept that when different religions have different beliefs on a point, the government cannot adopt one religion's belief system over all others, nor can it force an individual to personally act against her religion (except when two peoples' rights come into conflict -- hence the soul question). So they can't force abortions on people, but they also cannot choose which religion has the correct moral view on when life begins and adopt a particular religion's moral belief and ban all abortions, thus denying the rights of others to hold and act on contrary religious and moral beliefs.

As for when it is justified after the point of viability, we already have jurisprudence that balances the rights of individuals against each other: self-defense, good-samaritan, suicide, etc. The most basic one is that a government cannot force a person to be a hero, specifically, to take an action that would result in personal harm even if by taking that heroic risk the person would save another (aka Bystander Laws or Good Samaritan Laws). Why would this not apply to the personal harm of pregnancy and childbirth? Similarly but opposite, our laws acknowledge that a killing is justified to save oneself from death or serious bodily harm (not that some states are saying just death when it domes to pregnancy and this is creating seriously tragic results); or when in an unenviable position of having to choose between two lives, you have not committed murder in making that terrible choice. Consider this: if suicide is unlawful, why can a mother decide to give birth knowing it will cause her own death? Why should the reverse decision be unlawful then?

Anyway, there is more, but I propose that the framework for you request, OP, already exists.

A pregnant woman cannot know if she will die during childbirth. Doctors don’t know which of their patients (pregnant or not) will die.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The entire framework is already there.

For a government, the ability to put one individual's rights over another's requires both to have legal rights, which is why the idea of when human life beings is vital to this issue (and that fact that human cells are alive doesn't make it a living human being -- many combinations of human cells doe not develop into a person). It is what makes this issue different for all other religious-based legal controversies. Roe tried to avoid the religious ensoulment issue and use the best available scientific evidence to answer this, and decided that when the fetus could live on its own outside the womb it attains rights that the government can protect. Many disagree with this as either to restrictive or not restrictive enough. Beyond that, the government cannot know any more than theologians, who concede that they don't know, but they have religious based beliefs about the issue.

"Anti-abortion at any point" is based in theology on the concession that one cannot know when the soul enters the body and life begins, and that some religions decide that the morally safer -- not morally correct, but morally safer - choice is to assume (not know) that is happens at conception. That is the Catholic teaching. This can inform one's personal choice. Theologians also acknowledge that different religions believe the soul enters the body at different times (e.g. upon the first breath of life), and so their moral choice is different. Others do not believe in a soul at all, so there is no moral aspect to the decision. None of these positions can be proved objectively right or wrong, and all studied theologies acknowledge that we do not know, but we can form beliefs.

And to the "cells are alive so ensoulment doesn't matter" poster, yes, it does matter legally whether the cells are a separate human being from the host mother, otherwise any removal of human cells would be murder, as all cells are alive, but not all cells are human beings with separate legal rights. The concession about unknowable ensoulment is why this pivot is seen as necessary to the pro-life movement - they they can't prove ensoulment so they must argue it doesn't matter -- even though the whole premise of the theology of abortion is based on ensoulment.

As an American, one must accept that when different religions have different beliefs on a point, the government cannot adopt one religion's belief system over all others, nor can it force an individual to personally act against her religion (except when two peoples' rights come into conflict -- hence the soul question). So they can't force abortions on people, but they also cannot choose which religion has the correct moral view on when life begins and adopt a particular religion's moral belief and ban all abortions, thus denying the rights of others to hold and act on contrary religious and moral beliefs.

As for when it is justified after the point of viability, we already have jurisprudence that balances the rights of individuals against each other: self-defense, good-samaritan, suicide, etc. The most basic one is that a government cannot force a person to be a hero, specifically, to take an action that would result in personal harm even if by taking that heroic risk the person would save another (aka Bystander Laws or Good Samaritan Laws). Why would this not apply to the personal harm of pregnancy and childbirth? Similarly but opposite, our laws acknowledge that a killing is justified to save oneself from death or serious bodily harm (not that some states are saying just death when it domes to pregnancy and this is creating seriously tragic results); or when in an unenviable position of having to choose between two lives, you have not committed murder in making that terrible choice. Consider this: if suicide is unlawful, why can a mother decide to give birth knowing it will cause her own death? Why should the reverse decision be unlawful then?

Anyway, there is more, but I propose that the framework for you request, OP, already exists.

A pregnant woman cannot know if she will die during childbirth. Doctors don’t know which of their patients (pregnant or not) will die.

OP again

I suspect you must have medical experience as there are many clues when women are likely to either die or suffer grave health consequences in child birth.

About 700 women die from pregnancy-related complications each year in the US. That number has increased dramatically in states with antiabortion laws now in effect.

About 3 in 5 pregnancy-related deaths could be prevented. About 1 in 3 pregnancy-related deaths occur 1 week to 1 year after delivery.

Tragically, Many of the preventative measures are adversely impacted by anti abortion laws as it has led to so many doctors and nurses fleeing not just abortion services but maternity related services as well as there is so much political interference in medical decision making.

Ways to prevent maternal deaths
During Pregnancy: Improve access to and delivery of quality prenatal care, which includes managing chronic conditions and educating about warning signs.

At Delivery: Standardize patient care, including delivering high-risk women at hospitals with specialized providers and equipment.

Postpartum: Provide high-quality care for mothers up to one year after birth, which includes communicating with patients about warning signs and connecting to prompt follow-up care.

Heart disease and stroke cause most deaths overall. Obstetric emergencies, like severe bleeding and amniotic fluid embolism (when amniotic fluid enters a mother's bloodstream), cause most deaths at delivery.

In the week after delivery, severe bleeding, high blood pressure and infection are the most common.

Abortion may be medically necessary to save a mother’s life. Medical indications that abortions are or may possibly be needed to save pregnant women’s lives if medical interventions don’t work:

- if a woman breaks her water before 20 weeks into her pregnancy, it is usually strongly recommended by medical professionals that she considers an abortion.
- A placental abruption, which is when the placenta starts to separate from the uterus, is another condition that could fatally impact a pregnant women’s life.
- In a “small percentage of abruptions,’ a woman is bleeding so heavily that she can go into hemorrhagic shock, and an urgent abortion is needed as a life saving measure for the mom to prevent her bleeding to death.
- preeclampsia early in pregnancy (less than 24 weeks) places women at high risk for dying during childbirth. Usually medical staff will try hard to manage the high maternal blood pressure but that is not always successful. The rate of preeclampsia in the United States increased by 25% between 1987 and 2004 and The earlier it develops, the more severe it will be.
- If a pregnant woman has cancer, treating her cancer could be severely limited during pregnancy due to hormonal changes that favor cancer growth. Also some cancer treatments may harm embryos during the first trimester creating a Sophie’s choice between the health of the mother and embryo.
- Sometimes pregnant women begin to miscarry, and they experience complications that threaten their lives but the fetus still has a heartbeat for a limited time. Not being permitted to complete the abortion or delaying it can cause maternal sepsis and death over an unviable fetus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The entire framework is already there.

For a government, the ability to put one individual's rights over another's requires both to have legal rights, which is why the idea of when human life beings is vital to this issue (and that fact that human cells are alive doesn't make it a living human being -- many combinations of human cells doe not develop into a person). It is what makes this issue different for all other religious-based legal controversies. Roe tried to avoid the religious ensoulment issue and use the best available scientific evidence to answer this, and decided that when the fetus could live on its own outside the womb it attains rights that the government can protect. Many disagree with this as either to restrictive or not restrictive enough. Beyond that, the government cannot know any more than theologians, who concede that they don't know, but they have religious based beliefs about the issue.

"Anti-abortion at any point" is based in theology on the concession that one cannot know when the soul enters the body and life begins, and that some religions decide that the morally safer -- not morally correct, but morally safer - choice is to assume (not know) that is happens at conception. That is the Catholic teaching. This can inform one's personal choice. Theologians also acknowledge that different religions believe the soul enters the body at different times (e.g. upon the first breath of life), and so their moral choice is different. Others do not believe in a soul at all, so there is no moral aspect to the decision. None of these positions can be proved objectively right or wrong, and all studied theologies acknowledge that we do not know, but we can form beliefs.

And to the "cells are alive so ensoulment doesn't matter" poster, yes, it does matter legally whether the cells are a separate human being from the host mother, otherwise any removal of human cells would be murder, as all cells are alive, but not all cells are human beings with separate legal rights. The concession about unknowable ensoulment is why this pivot is seen as necessary to the pro-life movement - they they can't prove ensoulment so they must argue it doesn't matter -- even though the whole premise of the theology of abortion is based on ensoulment.

As an American, one must accept that when different religions have different beliefs on a point, the government cannot adopt one religion's belief system over all others, nor can it force an individual to personally act against her religion (except when two peoples' rights come into conflict -- hence the soul question). So they can't force abortions on people, but they also cannot choose which religion has the correct moral view on when life begins and adopt a particular religion's moral belief and ban all abortions, thus denying the rights of others to hold and act on contrary religious and moral beliefs.

As for when it is justified after the point of viability, we already have jurisprudence that balances the rights of individuals against each other: self-defense, good-samaritan, suicide, etc. The most basic one is that a government cannot force a person to be a hero, specifically, to take an action that would result in personal harm even if by taking that heroic risk the person would save another (aka Bystander Laws or Good Samaritan Laws). Why would this not apply to the personal harm of pregnancy and childbirth? Similarly but opposite, our laws acknowledge that a killing is justified to save oneself from death or serious bodily harm (not that some states are saying just death when it domes to pregnancy and this is creating seriously tragic results); or when in an unenviable position of having to choose between two lives, you have not committed murder in making that terrible choice. Consider this: if suicide is unlawful, why can a mother decide to give birth knowing it will cause her own death? Why should the reverse decision be unlawful then?

Anyway, there is more, but I propose that the framework for you request, OP, already exists.

A pregnant woman cannot know if she will die during childbirth. Doctors don’t know which of their patients (pregnant or not) will die.

OP again

I suspect you must have medical experience as there are many clues when women are likely to either die or suffer grave health consequences in child birth.

About 700 women die from pregnancy-related complications each year in the US. That number has increased dramatically in states with antiabortion laws now in effect.

About 3 in 5 pregnancy-related deaths could be prevented. About 1 in 3 pregnancy-related deaths occur 1 week to 1 year after delivery.

Tragically, Many of the preventative measures are adversely impacted by anti abortion laws as it has led to so many doctors and nurses fleeing not just abortion services but maternity related services as well as there is so much political interference in medical decision making.

Ways to prevent maternal deaths
During Pregnancy: Improve access to and delivery of quality prenatal care, which includes managing chronic conditions and educating about warning signs.

At Delivery: Standardize patient care, including delivering high-risk women at hospitals with specialized providers and equipment.

Postpartum: Provide high-quality care for mothers up to one year after birth, which includes communicating with patients about warning signs and connecting to prompt follow-up care.

Heart disease and stroke cause most deaths overall. Obstetric emergencies, like severe bleeding and amniotic fluid embolism (when amniotic fluid enters a mother's bloodstream), cause most deaths at delivery.

In the week after delivery, severe bleeding, high blood pressure and infection are the most common.

Abortion may be medically necessary to save a mother’s life. Medical indications that abortions are or may possibly be needed to save pregnant women’s lives if medical interventions don’t work:

- if a woman breaks her water before 20 weeks into her pregnancy, it is usually strongly recommended by medical professionals that she considers an abortion.
- A placental abruption, which is when the placenta starts to separate from the uterus, is another condition that could fatally impact a pregnant women’s life.
- In a “small percentage of abruptions,’ a woman is bleeding so heavily that she can go into hemorrhagic shock, and an urgent abortion is needed as a life saving measure for the mom to prevent her bleeding to death.
- preeclampsia early in pregnancy (less than 24 weeks) places women at high risk for dying during childbirth. Usually medical staff will try hard to manage the high maternal blood pressure but that is not always successful. The rate of preeclampsia in the United States increased by 25% between 1987 and 2004 and The earlier it develops, the more severe it will be.
- If a pregnant woman has cancer, treating her cancer could be severely limited during pregnancy due to hormonal changes that favor cancer growth. Also some cancer treatments may harm embryos during the first trimester creating a Sophie’s choice between the health of the mother and embryo.
- Sometimes pregnant women begin to miscarry, and they experience complications that threaten their lives but the fetus still has a heartbeat for a limited time. Not being permitted to complete the abortion or delaying it can cause maternal sepsis and death over an unviable fetus.

Sorry - no medical experience

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The entire framework is already there.

For a government, the ability to put one individual's rights over another's requires both to have legal rights, which is why the idea of when human life beings is vital to this issue (and that fact that human cells are alive doesn't make it a living human being -- many combinations of human cells doe not develop into a person). It is what makes this issue different for all other religious-based legal controversies. Roe tried to avoid the religious ensoulment issue and use the best available scientific evidence to answer this, and decided that when the fetus could live on its own outside the womb it attains rights that the government can protect. Many disagree with this as either to restrictive or not restrictive enough. Beyond that, the government cannot know any more than theologians, who concede that they don't know, but they have religious based beliefs about the issue.

"Anti-abortion at any point" is based in theology on the concession that one cannot know when the soul enters the body and life begins, and that some religions decide that the morally safer -- not morally correct, but morally safer - choice is to assume (not know) that is happens at conception. That is the Catholic teaching. This can inform one's personal choice. Theologians also acknowledge that different religions believe the soul enters the body at different times (e.g. upon the first breath of life), and so their moral choice is different. Others do not believe in a soul at all, so there is no moral aspect to the decision. None of these positions can be proved objectively right or wrong, and all studied theologies acknowledge that we do not know, but we can form beliefs.

And to the "cells are alive so ensoulment doesn't matter" poster, yes, it does matter legally whether the cells are a separate human being from the host mother, otherwise any removal of human cells would be murder, as all cells are alive, but not all cells are human beings with separate legal rights. The concession about unknowable ensoulment is why this pivot is seen as necessary to the pro-life movement - they they can't prove ensoulment so they must argue it doesn't matter -- even though the whole premise of the theology of abortion is based on ensoulment.

As an American, one must accept that when different religions have different beliefs on a point, the government cannot adopt one religion's belief system over all others, nor can it force an individual to personally act against her religion (except when two peoples' rights come into conflict -- hence the soul question). So they can't force abortions on people, but they also cannot choose which religion has the correct moral view on when life begins and adopt a particular religion's moral belief and ban all abortions, thus denying the rights of others to hold and act on contrary religious and moral beliefs.

As for when it is justified after the point of viability, we already have jurisprudence that balances the rights of individuals against each other: self-defense, good-samaritan, suicide, etc. The most basic one is that a government cannot force a person to be a hero, specifically, to take an action that would result in personal harm even if by taking that heroic risk the person would save another (aka Bystander Laws or Good Samaritan Laws). Why would this not apply to the personal harm of pregnancy and childbirth? Similarly but opposite, our laws acknowledge that a killing is justified to save oneself from death or serious bodily harm (not that some states are saying just death when it domes to pregnancy and this is creating seriously tragic results); or when in an unenviable position of having to choose between two lives, you have not committed murder in making that terrible choice. Consider this: if suicide is unlawful, why can a mother decide to give birth knowing it will cause her own death? Why should the reverse decision be unlawful then?

Anyway, there is more, but I propose that the framework for you request, OP, already exists.

I think you are right - that there is a secular framework for just approaches to abortion - using criteria that clearly establish moral grounds for providing abortions.

However, I would like to see work done on a theological framework for Just Abortions to counter the extremism and ignorance of many contemporary evangelical anti abortion beliefs.

I am tired of right wing Christians claiming high moral ground by being vehemently anti abortion in simplistic and misinformed ways while showing contempt and callousness towards so much life, especially female life.