FANATICAL PRO-LIFE EXTREMES
An extreme anti-abortion law brings about an extreme result! Can the fetus be developed to a viable stage and a normal baby? Will the State assist the family with the huge medical expenses?:
Texas hospital to keep pregnant, brain-dead woman on life support
He told WFAA that his wife's collapse may have been caused by a pulmonary embolism and that tests on the fetus are too limited to determine its health and whether it can ultimately survive. Doctors may have to decide in about a month whether to attempt a caesarian delivery, since 24 weeks is generally considered the age of 'viability' in the US.
'That poor fetus had the same lack of oxygen, the same electric shocks, the same chemicals that got her heart going again,' Marlise Munoz's father, Ernest Machado, told the Dallas Morning News. 'For all we know, it’s in the same condition that Marlise is in.' Local firefighters have set up a benefit fund to help the family pay medical bills.
Brain-dead pregnant woman kept alive against family wishes to deliver child
About half of all 50 American states impose laws of varying stringency that ban medics from cutting off life support to pregnant women regardless of their will or their family's requests.
Critics have said the laws clash with American women's right under the landmark 1973 Roe vs Wade supreme court decision to an abortion before the foetus is viable outside the womb.
The more one researches the abortion issue, the more incredibly complex it appears to be. It is a serious mistake to allow emotion to control one's thinking. Religious doctrine should have nothing to do with legislation on this complicated and controversial matter, particularly in a nation subject to a constitutional separation of church and state. Even outside of the constitutional factor which involves the rights of different religious faiths, what is known from the Bible leaves room for wide- ranging views and debate about what constitutes personhood, which is the essential core of the question of when life begins in the process of procreation. The Bible passage Exodus 21:22-25 is definitive and more clear-cut than any other quoted texts concerning the Divine viewpoint on the personhood of a fetus at any stage of its development. Numbers 5:11-31 could be definitive on the question of abortion for good reasons such as the life of the mother etc.; but this depends on the proper interpretation of the phrases "belly to swell" and "thigh to rot." The silence of the Bible in identifying a particular stage at which personhood is attained should be a warning against dogmatism; and in any event no single Christian denomination or alliance of Christian denominations has the constitutional right to impose its view on those who differ, whether other Christians, other religious faiths, or unbelievers. The claim of such a right is the stuff of theocratic dictatorship. Here are articles expounding some of the diversity of views:
When does human personhood begin?
What does contemporary science say about when an embryo becomes a person? There is no consensus among biologists as to this question. Below are four points in development at which different groups of scientists maintain that personhood may begin. Other scientists, however, say that the question itself is unscientific and cannot be answered.
Jewish Attitudes Towards Abortion
Even given the designation of the embryo / fetus as intrinsic to the mother's body and thereby lacking, we might say, personhood - is feticide, the killing of at least a potential human being the same as homicide? The biblical books of Exodus and Leviticus (part of the Torah - teaching, path, law - in Judaism, and canonical "Old Testament" books for Christians,) as understood through the Talmud and Rashi (one of the most important Rabbinic authorities), argue that the answer to this question is, 'No' . . .
In the effort to resolve the abortion debate, a common Christian move is to argue that human life (as equivalent to moral personhood) begins with 'ensoulment,' with God's placing an immortal soul in the material body of the fetus. Diverse Christian views claim that ensoulment occurs at conception, at the end of the first trimester, or at birth: the latter two views, of course, would allow for abortion, while the first view (ensoulment occurring at conception) would (largely) forbid abortion as the moral equivalent of murder. But the debate over when ensoulment occurs, Feldman points out, is essentially a Christian debate. . .
A Rabbi and a Minister Respond to 'Personhood'
The Personhood movement, as well as the anti-choice movement, in general, says that they are trying to comply with divine law, as opposed to civil law, and rely upon portions of the Christian and Hebrew Bibles to make that claim. But when I decided to take a look at the texts they say inspire these 'divine' laws, I couldn’t find one place that unequivocally said that life begins at conception. Befuddling! . . .
With the exception of a somewhat ambiguous reference to predestination, which is contrary to this website's theology, the following is an interesting analysis of abortion laws being promulgated by religious right legislators:
So whose doctrine is correct? And whose doctrine should reign supreme in a democracy that claims freedom of religion? . . .
To add to the confusion, science has its own varied theories of when human life begins. . .
The answer is not one that will be found easily. And if we are going to pass laws based on a doctrinal belief rather than based on the unfolding science then the debate becomes whose religious doctrine is supreme. That is a road towards theocracy. A road that this democracy needs to ensure that humanity never travels down again as it thwarts the fullness of humanity in all of its creativity and expression. (Underscored emphasis added.)
The latest in the US House of Representatives:
All-Male Congressional Committee Considers Imposing Far-Reaching Abortion Restrictions
How The Omnibus Spending Bill Restricts Abortion Funding
The talk show hosts ask repeatedly why the Republicans are obsessed with the abortion issue. No-one ever lays the blame at the feet of the Church of Rome and its Religious Right allies though there is an abundance of documentation that they are in control. This is theocratic government in action - the Image to the Beast.