Supreme Court ends Roe v. Wade?

Your agreement isn’t necessary. Formal argument often appears “convoluted” to the untrained. But it is not convoluted at all. It’s just the basic rules of formal deductive logic. They apply, like math, whether you accept them or not. And, you’re the one that brought up the distribution of the proposition, my friend. I’m just replying to your argument, such as it is.

Technically, there could be a third alternative besides the disjuncts because the proposition is stated in categorical form, but at that point you’d have to show legislative intent, and that would require positive evidence, not merely a logical possibility. If Congress had intended the unborn to be included in the definition of “citizen”, why didn’t they say so, since “unborn” cannot be derived from “person born”? Otherwise, we could say that “citizens” potentially includes marmosets and goldfish, too. So the burden of proof is on the one making the claim, since it’s impossible to prove a negative. It’s not just about logic, it’s about showing legislative intent.

Technically, by definition, a being is not an individual (and therefore a person in the case of rational creatures), unless and until it exists separately from all others. In the case of humans, that happens at birth. Viability is important because at that point the difference between independence and dependence is largely a matter of location, which is morally arbitrary. So at that point the State would have a compelling interest in requiring some level of due process for the potential person. These definitions are derived from the Trinitarian and Christological controversies, and the position is not difficult to understand or accept once one takes the dogmatic history and the relevant biblical data up into one coherent account.

 

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, Gal.4:4

On face value this text appears to suggest that the fullness of time occurred the moment Jesus of Nazareth left the birth canal and entered the world, but that would be the perception of an unthinking literalist.

It is clear from other Texts of scripture that foetuses are 'under the law' because there are laws concerning their welfare in the womb and St Paul states that "But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, Gal.1:15 Greek (set me apart from my mother's womb). Clearly this intends a reading in modern english as 'IN my mother's womb'.

But the law under consideration here is not Biblical it is constitutional and plainly refers only to those persons who have actually been born into the jurisdiction of the state as individuals. That constitutional phrasing should not be made to refer to those yet unborn.

It is clear that other laws need to deal with issues arising from the staged, progressive, development of the foetus in the womb of the host mother, not merely assume it does not exist as an entity worth consideration, without right to life, right up until it is ejected into the jurisdiction of the state.

Clearly such laws need to be framed to deal with when it is acceptable to medically assist the termination of an unwanted or dangerously unviable pregnancy, not just if it is ever acceptable. The only reason the Bible contains no specific guidance on medical interventions in pregnancy is because it was not technically possible when the bible was written. Safe interventions for the mother simply did not exist. It is never acceptable for unqualified medical intervention or 'do it yourself' back street abortions to take place and these should all continue to be illegal under state law.

Draconian laws forbidding terminations of pregnancy regardless of any other circumstances are a serious erosion of freedom of the individual that should be avoided equally as much as unregulated and increasingly frequent terminations for mere convenience or lifestyle choices. Financial hardship should not be a reason for a termination, (1) Because it is the responsibility of the state to manage the economy and equal rights of every citizen to suitable work or have alternative means of support if unable to work. (2) If terminations are taking place for purely economic necessity, then it may be the fault of the state, not necessarily the fault of the individual.

 

Yours is the superior intellect. Your thoughts are so much higher, they are as gibberish to us ants. The untrained mind of a J.D. is unable to comprehend. I leave this forum to my betters.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/05/07/mitch-mcconnell-says-federal-abortion-ban-possible-gop-dodges-topic/9687867002/?gnt-cfr=1

So it’s not actually about “states’ rights”. I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.

 

Death Penalty for Abortions Becomes Pivotal Issue in GOP Runoff in Texas
https://www.newsweek.com/death-pena...-pivotal-issue-gop-runoff-texas-1692240?amp=1

Because “pro-life.”

 

We are pro-innocent-life. We are not pro-guilty-life. We are not Hindus who tip-toe around ants and mosquitos. We eat meat, we skin animals. Please don't misrepresent what a normal/traditional human worldview is like. We were never "pro-life" in the way that atheists and progressives misrepresented us.

 

That is wrong in both respects. There is nothing magical about the passage through the birth canal that confers "personhood" on a baby. If you disagree, I'd love to hear the rationale about how it's just a lump of flesh in one moment but a human person a few moments later when the infant passes through the birth canal. Is it the Christian pro-choice position that this is when ensoulment happens? What about caesarian births? Do the infants born in that way lack a soul entirely? How about infants born of surrogate mothers?

And if we're going to delve into the "viability" argument, we enter the dark realm of euthanasia as well. Shouldn't we just euthanize the elderly or terminally ill if their physical form is no longer "viable"? Based on the rationale used by pro-abortion advocates, why not?

There is an alarming lack of clarity here about what the human being is, essentially. We are not souls only, nor bodies only. We are both, and are both for eternity (which is why Christianity insists that we are resurrected in the body, and is why Christ was resurrected in a physical body, ascended to heaven in his physical body, and retains a physical body still).

God does not specifically tell us the moment at which an embryo becomes a human person, so we must assume that it begins at conception. If the embryo is not viable and is lost to miscarriage, that is God's will and the human child is gathered to God. A deliberate ending of a pregnancy via abortion is the deliberate and calculated ending by one person of another human being's life, and thus must be counted as murder. There is no instance where murdering an innocent is anything other than an abomination. The child's gift of life is given by God, and it is not for us to take it away.

That being said: Christians must provide alternatives. We need to build a culture and a society that celebrates life and not death. We must make it not just possible but advantageous to bear and raise children. We must promote stable monogamous family life, not just in words but also by deeds in our own lives. We need to found and fund programs to help young families bear and raise healthy children. But it's not just a matter of more "programs"; we need an approach that will rebuild the family as the essential building block of a functional society.

 

No magic is needed. It is simply the moment that the child’s existence achieves biological from independence from the mother’s body. That criterion alone is decisive. It also helps that the event is also an objective one that can be witnessed by persons other than the mother (unlike conception, heartbeat, or quickening).

Why? None of the criteria for personhood are met at that stage. It’s simply a single cell that happens to have human DNA.

This is circular reasoning. The Scripture never teaches this. Murder is not merely “the deliberate and calculated ending of another human being’s life”, but rather the unjustified taking of such a life. As I noted above, inducing abortion was a penalty for adultery under the Mosaic Law, which God commanded (cf. Numbers 5). An act of negligence that results in a miscarriage is treated as a tort, not a crime (cf. Exodus 21).

There is in fact no Scriptural basis for conception-personhood, and the history of law and philosophy point to either quickening or birth as the relevant milestones, with birth being the termination of the process of development toward personhood. Prior to that, it is a potential person (which should still entitle the fetus to certain due process protections). Since the law deals with what is objectively verifiable, birth is the only relevant event for that purpose. No one but the mother will know when the first movement in the womb was, and that can happen as late as 25 weeks.

The elephant in the room here is the notion that we are endowed with immortal souls and that the possession of such is the explanation for our personhood and the basis for our expectation of postmortem survival. Not only does Scripture nowhere teach this, but the very origin of the idea of “soul” in any form comes from ancient ideas of physics that posited that immaterial forms were necessary to explain the movement of bodies (“soul” in Latin being the word anima, from which we get the word “animal”, a living thing that moves). Not since the Renaissance has such a concept been necessary. Our clinging to the notion in a metaphysical sense is just a stubborn cultural holdover, being read into the biblical text. It’s not actually there.

 

To be clear, there is no historic or Christian-related belief that birth can be a milestone for personhood. There are literally thousands of years of Christian reflection on theology and law, and hundreds of judicial decisions on this matter, by some of the greatest jurists and judges in human history. Not one of them has ruled that birth is a relevant criterion for personhood. You're trying to sneak in the last 50-year johnny-come-lately atheistic, progressive, and evil anti-Christian culture as a relevant referent for orthodox Christians to refer to. It is not.

 

You need to read 1 Peter 1:8-9: "Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." (Emphasis mine.)

The Greek word most often translated as soul is ψυχῶν (psyche), and it is abundantly clear by its contextual usage what it means.

This word is used literally dozens of times in the NT. The biblical translation of this is "breath of life", or, more properly, God's breath of life into us. Matthew uses the same word in Matt. 16:26.

The NT affirms over and over again that we are body and spirit (soul), not body only or spirit only. Our corporeal bodies will return to the dust from whence they came, but our ψυχῶν is everlasting. It will reside in a glorified physical form when the dead are raised during the parousia. (Note: everybody will be raised, not just the righteous. Every human being in the history of the world will be physically raised, not just believers, because all children of God are soul and body both. It is only after their resurrection that they will be judged by Christ and live eternally with him in a reformed Heaven and Earth, or condemned to eternal damnation.)

I am frankly flummoxed that a professing Christian can assert that there is no such thing as an immortal soul; but more than that, can assert that the Bible does not even teach such a thing! I must assume that I have misread or misunderstood what you wrote, so I would appreciate some clarification.

 

I want to post another piece of scripture about body, spirit, and soul, from 1 Thess. 5:23:

The Greek words that Paul uses are are: σῶμα (soma - body), πνεῦμα (pneuma - spirit), and ψυχὴ (psyche - soul). It is clear that Paul considers these things to be elements of the human person, though it's not clear in context why he separates spirit and soul. Perhaps he considers pneuma to be the animating spirit of God in us (the indwelling Holy Spirit), while psyche is specifically that non-corporeal part of the human person that continues even when the earthly body dies and corrupts.

 

The fact that the word is used does not mean it is used with the same meaning as what it had in a pagan context. It is a Greek word being used to translate a Hebrew concept (nephesh), Judaism had no concept of an afterlife prior to the Babylonian Exile, and there is nothing in the Hebrew Scriptures to indicate that we were endowed with entities corresponding to immortal souls. To quote the entry on "soul" in Harper's Bible Dictionary,

In the NT, ‘soul’ retains its basic Hebrew field of meaning. Soul refers to one’s life: Herod sought Jesus’ soul (Matt. 2:20); one might save a soul or take it (Mark 3:4). Death occurs when God ‘requires your soul’ (Luke 12:20). ‘Soul’ may refer to the whole person, the self: ‘three thousand souls’ were converted in Acts 2:41 (see Acts 3:23). Although the Greek idea of an immortal soul different in kind from the mortal body is not evident, ‘soul’ denotes the existence of a person after death (see Luke 9:25; 12:4; 21:19); yet Greek influence may be found in 1 Peter’s remark about ‘the salvation of souls’ (1:9). A moderate dualism exists in the contrast of spirit with body and even soul, where ‘soul’ means life that is not yet caught up in grace.
​

An individual (physical) being is either biologically alive, or dead. It either "has breath" (literally), or it does not. There is nothing in Scripture or in modern science to indicate that the explanation for this fact lies in the presence or absence of an immaterial and immortal entity. "Soul" as used in the NT is thus an umbrella word. It can denote the continued existence of a person after death, yes, but that does not mean we have to assume pagan Greek mythological concepts in order to underpin the belief. The afterlife, such as it is, is supernatural, and utterly mysterious. It is a result of an act of God, preserving the conscious part of the former person, until such time as all are raised.

Not only does the Bible not teach that we are composed of body + immortal soul, there is also nothing in either the Nicene Creed or the Articles of Religion that requires that I assent to such a proposition. The true biblical vision of afterlife is resurrection, not "souls" existing in disembodied states like ghosts. The NT makes clear in a few places that there is an intermediate state between death and resurrection, but no recourse is made to Greek paganism to explain this, thus to do so is eisegesis. And this plain fact has important implications for how Christians ought, as Christians, to approach the topic at hand.

 

If there is no soul and the body has fallen away to corruption, then what exactly is "raised"? Clones? Some sort of automata? Where does the mind come from, the thinking, feeling, remembering part of ourselves? The mind can't be in the brain if it is as you say, because the corporeal brain will have long since corrupted and fallen to dust. So where does this consciousness come from? Does God re-invest it, having stored it away like a file on a hard drive? (And if so, isn't that the same thing, essentially, as an eternal soul?) If God and Angels are pure spirit, and Christ has both body and spirit, why then wouldn't we?

The insistence of Christianity on a bodily, physical resurrection is a stumbling block to your thesis. A body with no mind (or a different mind) is not the human person who is saved and then resurrected. The human person is soul and body together. The promise of bodily resurrection only makes sense if both are present.

The bible does not promise a re-creation; it promises a resurrection. As Christ was raised, so shall we be raised.

It's also untrue that Jews (surely in the ancient context and likely not even in the current-day context) deny the existence of a soul. In fact, traditional Judaism posits many words describing soulhood: Nefesh (breath), Ruach (wind/spirit), Neshamah (breath), Chayah (life), and Yechidah (singularity). Of course their conception is different than that of Christians, but the Jewish faith most assuredly does posit a non-corporeal "self" that we would call a soul. (I am by no means an expert on Judaism and do not presume to speak with authority here, but I do have many Jewish friends of both Orthodox and Reform persuasion, and I don't think any of them would disclaim a belief in a soul.)

 

Birth as a criterion is a necessary inference from the independent existence criterion which in turn comes out of the medieval clarifications of the Trinitarian and Christological definitions. It may be possible to defend an earlier marker, like viability, from a philosophical standpoint, but not for purposes of law, as I see it. But this is just incidental. The Bible doesn’t talk about “persons”, and there is no necessary link between personhood and sin, on the passive side. Plenty of things can be sins without being committed against persons (e.g., cruelty to animals, desecrating a grave, etc.), in other words.

 

It’s not at all clear to me that you’re interacting with anything I actually wrote.

 

The Books of Common Prayer have hundreds of references to the soul as distinct from the body. So I don’t see how one can remain an orthodox Anglican if rejecting this understanding:


¶ Then may the Priest say,
Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith.
THOU shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

¶ Then the Priest may say,
O ALMIGHTY Lord, and everlasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct, sanctify, and govern, both our hearts and bodies, in the ways of thy laws, and in the works of thy commandments; that, through thy most mighty protection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee;

THE Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving.

Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

And countless others.

 

I meant to reply to this as well: this is God commanding the life of the unborn child. The Lord gives; the Lord takes away. Are abortionists claiming to be guided by the living God?

God gives life and takes it away. He struck down every firstborn male child in Egypt when Pharaoh refused to let his people go. He gathered the children to himself. The Lord is not only the Lord of life, but also of death. There is no area where God does not hold dominion. He does as he will. But we are not God, and may not presume upon his prerogatives. He commands; we obey.

 

In your view, can God command evil?

 

Perhaps if you re-visit 1 Corinthians 15, it will explain my point better. I cannot match Paul's eloquence, and I won't try.

 

None of this proves the immortal soul concept that I critiqued. It doesn't even address it. I am not saying "don't use the word 'soul'", or "there is no such thing as soul"; I am saying its actual meaning in the biblical text - which is the normative one for us as Anglicans - does not match its commonly assumed cultural use.