If you believe in
life after death, you believe that each person consists of a mortal body and an
immortal spirit.
The body is an earthly creation. The spirit is a creation of God.
Christians believe that each spirit is given one body and one physical life.
We know when and how the physical body is created. We don't know when the
spirit is created by God, however: if Christians believe that the body does not
exist without the spirit then the body and the spirit are created at the same
time. Thus the spirit is born at the moment of physical conception.
When the body dies, the spirit's afterlife begins. Some bodies survive
for more than 100 years. Some bodies die as infants. Some bodies
die during the physical birth. Some bodies die before the physical birth.
In each case the body's spirit returns to God and is never reborn in the
physical world.
Every birth aborted after conception ends the one and only physical life of the
spirit created with the body at conception, including the spirits of the bodies
aborted by the morning after pill.
The U.S. Constitution and all the federal, state and local laws of the United States of America are secular laws. Whether a god or gods exist, whether this god or gods created the universe and everything in it, including certain laws for mankind to obey, are matters of individual faith, not the Constitution and the laws of these United States of America except that the Constitution protects each citizen's right to a religious belief and the practice of that religion as long as it does not limit the Constitutional rights of others.
If you believe that your god(s) create an immortal spirit at the conception of each being, then you must also believe that abortion in any form and for any reason interferes with an act of god, especially if you believe that everything happens according to god's design. If you believe that conception, whether or not it is timely, normal or voluntary, is determined by your god(s), then you might also believe that you have no right to abort that conception.
No matter how true that is for the believer, the believer has no right to impose his belief on anyone but himself. However, abortion becomes a matter of secular law if the human being, protected by the U.S. Constitution regardless of religion, exists from the moment of conception. Even secular law must establish when a human being is protected by the U.S. Constitution as an individual.
When the citizens of Mississippi were asked whether a person exists from the time of conception, many of us thought that this question was not a matter for secular law but it is. Regardless of one's religious beliefs, the U.S. Constitution must define when a human being gains all the rights and protections of the U.S. Constitution relative to the time of conception. Is it at the same time? Is it after two trimesters? Or, is it only after birth?
When does constitutionally protected life begin and is it adequately protected by our laws?
1 comment:
I think that the idea that all people have something that survives death has it's origins in Greek thought. My thinking is that some people are born spiritually after they are physically born. Everyone else simply ceases to exist when they die.
Not sure what that does to the abortion debate. I have thought for some time that viability outside the womb is the big issue.
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