Texas triumphs with new law banning abortsions after 6-weeks, child w/ heart beat

The Satanic Temple opposes the TX pro-life law and says they're ready to assist any member who want to fight it in court on religious grounds. It makes me wonder about Christians who oppose the TX pro-life law; whose side are they on, anyway?

 

I think it would be fairly often that they would be on the side of Christ. I respect your right to hold a different view, however I would expect you to do so without casting distertions on those with whom you disagree.

 

At some point, you have to call what is of Satan demonic (if this forum believes he exists anymore). If you support killing children, you are not in the body of Christ. I understand this will draw a lot of pearl-clutching from those who support the dismemberment of Children in the womb and the auctioning of their parts to the highest bidder, but I don't care at this point.

They literally rip apart children in the womb. All because modern Americans are too lazy/evil to practice a minimal degree of self-restraint. I will never be lectured on moral issues by people who support such a practice.

One thing I have learned from this forum is the importance of staying within the confines of scripture. If one cannot determine that abortion is wrong, homosexuality is a sin, and that women shouldn't occupy positions of overseer or deacon in the church from reading the scriptures, I just don't think they are Christians (sorry if you feel hurt).

The above three items are some of the clearest elements in all of scripture. I would contend that they are clearer than the trinity in the scriptures (although now that I know more about the trinity, I see it everywhere throughout the scriptures).

Sometimes things are black and white, good and evil, sometimes nuance and discussion are no longer profitable, sometimes you have to call a spade a spade.

People can be bombarded with scripture and tradition on extremely clear and basic issues and not budge at all.

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."
"Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done."

Not everyone can be convinced, they can only be overcome.

 

Where on Earth is it in scripture that abortion is valid at 6 weeks? Let alone so clearly that it can be called among the clearest elements in all of scripture?What an absurd statement.

Arguments from conception, from birth, and any time in between are based on tradition, science, deduction, reason, etc. on where life begins. Scripture says killing is wrong. Scripture is silent on from what point in gestation a fetus is a human. That's why we haven't quoted verses in this thread beyond one old Jewish law on the punishment for non-consensual miscarriage after assault (which is near universally still a serious offence, I'm sure too in the progressive states of the US).

Your whole statement is offensive to the Anglican tradition, that has since its inception held that abortions anywhere from 13-20 weeks are regrettable but permissible (observable through parliamentary laws) until the modern era. Adding to scripture to remove another's agency is more "of Satan" than any argument I've seen in this thread from a pro-choice perspective. It should be clear where my intuition lies on this issue, and whose side I'm roughly on, and I still have no qualms making that statement against you.

Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or else he will rebuke you, and you will be found a liar.
~ Proverbs 30.5-6​

 

You would be more of a Christian if you skinned one alive and put on his flesh. I'm sick of those who justify murder.

 

Re-framing the issue is a common, but misleading, tactic. Carolinian did not say anything about "6 weeks."

Perhaps mostly true, but then this thread centered on the TX law whereas other recent threads have contained more general anti-abortion scriptures. I'll work on a longer post to refresh our memories concerning scripture's message.

 

With respect, this is nonsense. Academics of all denominations, including those ordained in the Anglican church, near uniformly agree on the validity of the three codices. I took a quick look for a single peer reviewed article doubting Sinaiticus' authenticity, and I couldn't find any - which implies there's not any academic tradition of substantive size that doubts it. I found a book (which I obviously didn't read) that doubts its authenticity in the title, but if it does conclude the text is a fake it spawned no associated publications verifying or reaffirming its truth. I did find two rebuting doubters, including one that had a lengthy section on why the colour is not a reliable way to determine age, and why a difference in colour between two images is not a reliable way to demonstrate inconsistency.

The story goes that it was in a burn basket for destruction, not for kindling. Of course you destroy vellum parchment in a fire, how else do you destroy it? They're not burying it in landfill. It's possible this story was invented to justify refusing to return the taken leaves to the monastery, who still demand its return and to date only hold 12 full leaves and another 14 fragments that were missed. They, of course, have always denied it was labelled for destruction. I'm willing to believe we made it up so we could justify stealing their stuff. Around half the Old Testament is still lost, but the New Testament is complete. For this reason it's considered completely reliable as a NT document - we have older Jewish sources for the OT anyway (e.g. the Dead Sea Scrolls).

It's not just the codices that are absent the text. Both papyrus fragments that contain John 7-8 we have pre-Vulgate also do not contain the text. The oldest text that contains it is the Latin Vulgate. The oldest church father that mentions it is Didymus the Blind. The oldest document that alludes to its existence (although not in the Gospel, possibly in Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord) is the Didascalia, which is ~230-280AD.

Importantly it's completely neglected by any comprehensive reviews pre-Didymus, and even then no one else touches on it for 50-60 more years. The most glaring is Origen, who has a comprehensive commentary of John and comprehensive homilies on Luke (the two books the Pericope Adulterae has been found in) but misses the passage in both. Origen not only has no reason to skip it, because it aligns perfectly with his thesis, but it implies he didn't know of its existence, otherwise he surely would have used it to reinforce his position. There is no other way to explain this centuries of neglect by so many church thinkers other than they didn't know it existed.

In many of the lectionary fragments - those being dated much older than the papyrus fragments, and post Vulgate, the passage is marked with obeluses or other identifiers indicating uncertainty the passage is authentic. That demonstrates a long standing scribe tradition of doubting its validity.

The Byzantine Manuscripts cannot be considered more reliable than every pre-Vulgate source we have ever found, or even useful in any form, because the contention is that post-Vulgate the passage was ubiquitous. If the passage was absent in the Byzantine manuscripts that would be evidence of a different form of tampering, not that it was not in the oldest manuscripts, because we know the texts those manuscripts were based on do include the passage. And in fact, from a quick google, we do see that. Some old byzantine texts from the 6th - 9th century (Petropolitanus Purpureus, Athous Lavrensis, Macedoniensis, and Sangallensis) do exclude it as well, but leave the section blank showing they know the passage exists, but they refuse to include it.

I'd beg you not to dismiss the uniform consensus of the most learned academics of the church, across a consensus of denominations, for over 150 years, from a tradition older than 600 years, because the conclusion is challenging. There's a reason why we follow an episcopal church structure - because there's reliability in authority. Trust those that spend their whole lives dedicated to researching these things, instead of what we lay people can find on a day off.

 

Rather than "re-invent the wheel," I will take the liberty of quoting others who have written on the subject of the unborn and the Bible.

From https://abort73.com/abortion/biblical_teaching/

The question we need to answer is this: Does the Bible give any indication that human beings inside the womb should be regarded as categorically different from human beings outside the womb? Our first scriptural glimpse at life in the womb comes in Genesis 25:22. Isaac’s wife, Rebekah, is pregnant with twins. The verse tells us that, “the children struggled together within her.” The Hebrew word can be translated as “children” or “sons.” It is first used in Genesis 3:16 when God decrees the penalty for Adam and Eve’s rebellion: “I will surely multiply your pain in child bearing (literally, “children you shall bore with•pain”4).” The same word is used in Genesis 10:21 to describe the children of Shem and in Genesis 11:5 to indicate who built the tower of Babel (the “children of man”). It is used five more times before the account of Rebekah in reference to children who are already born.5

In the New Testament, we see the same thing. The “word “baby” (brephos) is used interchangeably to describe babies inside and outside the womb. In Luke 1:41, Elizabeth is pregnant with John the Baptist. Luke, who was a physician by trade, refers to John as “the baby in her womb.” In the next chapter, the same word is used to describe Jesus: “you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths.”6 The first indication that God does not view children in the womb as categorically different from those outside the womb is the fact that he calls them the same thing. He calls them children; he calls them babies. For most of human history, the rest of the world has followed suit. The only people who take issue with applying the word “baby” to an unborn human being are those seeking to justify abortion. Planned Parenthood, after all, doesn’t schedule appointments to abort your baby. They schedule appointments to terminate your pregnancy. For all the times the Bible speaks of life in the womb, an equivalent for the word “fetus” is never used,7 and that is of no small significance. Anyone who has an interest in justifying abortion does not talk the way the Bible talks.

Our second point of examination lies not in the words God uses to describe unborn children, but in the things he ascribes to them. Returning to the account of Jacob and Esau in the womb, did you notice what these twin boys were doing before they were even born? They were struggling. Literally, they “jostled”8 each other. In recounting a brief, personal history of Jacob, the prophet Hosea says, “in the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in manhood he strove with God.”9 One event happened before birth. The other event happened long after birth. Both are stories from Jacob’s past, and they are recounted side by side.

More remarkable still is the account Luke gives us of John the Baptist. We read in Luke 1:15 that John was filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb. When John’s mother, Elizabeth, visits her cousin, the mother of the Christ, John “leaped” at the sound of Mary’s voice. In Luke 1:44, Elizabeth proclaims that, “when the sound of [“Mary’s] greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” And lest you discredit this attribution of joy as the mere fancy of a giddy mom, verse 41 tells us that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit when she said it. John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit in the womb, and he leaped for joy at his first encounter with Jesus—who was still in the womb himself. Why is this significant? Because in the created order, it is only people who are filled with the Holy Spirit.

In Judges 13:5, an angel of the Lord prophesies about the conception and birth of Samson with the following announcement: “for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines” (emphasis added). The word used to describe this child, this Nazirite in the womb, is the same word used in Genesis 25:22, and the same word that is used throughout the Old Testament to describe born children. More to the point, notice the charge the angel gives to Samson’s mother in the verse preceding: “Therefore be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean.” Why? Because this child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb. Nazirites are not to consume strong drink after birth, and they are not to consume strong drink before birth.

When Samson is grown and foolishly reveals the secret of his strength to Delilah, he traces his Nazirite history all the way back to the womb: “I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb.”10 Notice that Samson uses the personal pronoun, “I” to describe himself in the womb. I was a Nazirite of God in the womb. And Samson is not alone in speaking of his time in the womb in very personal terms. In Job 10:18-19, we find Job in the depths of despair, so consumed with grief that he laments his very existence. He asks God, “Why did you bring me out from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave.” Though the literal rendering of these verses is hard to decipher, Job recognizes that he really existed in his mother’s womb, and to have died in the womb, he says, would have been “as though” he had never been, but not quite. He sees life and death in the womb as real things—as personal things. His remarks run parallel to those found in Jeremiah 20:16-18. Battling significant despair of his own, Jeremiah wonders why the Lord, “did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave… Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?” These are bleak ponderings, but notice what they indicate. These heroes of old did not view their lives in the womb as times of pre-existence. They saw themselves as being really alive with the capacity to really die.

In the first chapter of Jeremiah, the prophet recounts his calling this way: “Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’”11 Jeremiah was set apart as a sacred, holy vessel unto the Lord, a prophet to the nations—not after he was born but before. In fact, God knew Jeremiah before he was even conceived.

In Psalm 22:10, King David declares that, “from my mother’s womb you have been my God.” And if we jump back to the verse preceding, we get a better sense of what he means by that. “You are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.” God’s protection of David in the womb and his provision for David as a nursing babe were the earliest indicators that God could be trusted—that God would provide. Psalm 71:6 reads, “Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother’s womb.” The authors of Scripture do not speak as if our personal histories begin at birth. They speak as if they begin much earlier.

Perhaps the best known “pro-life” passage is Psalm 139. It opens with David’s marveling at the depth and intimacy of God’s knowledge of him. God sees all; God knows all. There is no place we can escape from his presence. David suggests that the foundation of God’s intimate knowledge of us is the fact that he made us: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made… my frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.”12

In Isaiah 49:5, God traces his authority and calling over Isaiah back to the fact that he “formed [Isaiah] from the womb to be his servant.” A few chapters earlier, Isaiah prefaces his address to the nation Israel with the reminder that the Lord “formed you from the womb and will help you.”13 God can be trusted because he formed you in the womb; he took care of you when you were most vulnerable.

When Job maintains his innocence before his accusing friends, he ties his consistent kindness towards his servants to the fact that God made them both in the womb. Job goes on to point out that he has never withheld from the poor. He has never turned the widow or fatherless away hungry. He has become as a father to them, clothing the needy so that none could complain of his generosity. Why? Job answers with two questions: “Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?”14 God is the active force driving our development in the womb. That fact brought praise to the mouth of David, brought purpose and comfort to Isaiah, and compelled Job to treat all as equals. If God is performing a “wonderful work” in the womb,” if he “knitted” each of us together in secret, if God’s provision and protection in the womb is to be the foundation for our lifelong trust in him, can there really be any question as to God’s view of abortion—which forcefully invades the womb to intentionally destroy the person God is creating?

Because of the words God uses to describe children in the womb, because of the types of things God ascribes to children in the womb, because so many of the Bible’s personal histories are tied to the womb, and because God is regularly identified as the one at work in the womb, there can be only one conclusion. God expects us to treat children inside the womb with as much dignity, care, and respect as we would show to children outside the womb. There is simply no indication in the Bible that the lives of unborn children should be viewed as insignificant or expendable.​

 

What a despicable thing to say. If it's true that it is among the clearest elements in all of scripture, quote the verse. Otherwise you've added to scripture, and the consequences of that are actually clear in the bible.

 

When it comes to the question of early abortions versus later term abortions, consider this:

If we assume that all of Scripture’s references to children in the womb refer to babies nearer birth than conception, how can we be certain what God’s view of unborn children is during the first trimester of pregnancy, when close to 90% of all abortions occur?

At the crux of this objection is the idea that aborting early in pregnancy is morally superior to aborting late in pregnancy. Statistically speaking, 66% of the Americans surveyed in a 2003 Gallup poll believe abortion should be legal during the first trimester; only 10% believe abortion should be legal during the third trimester.3 One of the best ways to demonstrate the fallacy of making such distinctions is to examine the basic biology of prenatal development. From conception on, human development is a continuum. The only differences between children early in pregnancy and children late in pregnancy are the differences that don’t matter. More to the context at hand, there are a number of ways to respond to this objection from the pages of Scripture.

Of the texts we’ve looked at so far, many of them have just as much application to early pregnancy as they do to late pregnancy. When the angel commands Samson’s mother to not drink any wine for the sake of the Nazirite in her womb, it is not a prohibition that applies only to the second or third trimesters. It is given before conception. When David traces his personal history back to the womb, he takes it all the way back to conception: “in sin did my mother conceive me.”4 The bride of Solomon does the same thing when she references, “the chamber of her who conceived me.”5 And without question, all of the references to being formed in the womb are especially applicable to the first trimester, since virtually all of the “forming” takes place during the first eight weeks. It is also true that starting in Genesis 4:1 and progressing throughout the Old Testament, there is a consistent pairing of conception and birth in Scripture’s family narratives: “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain... Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch... Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son... Leah conceived and bore a son.”6 The list goes on and on and on. “Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.”7 Wouldn’t it have been more efficient to simply say, “Bilhah bore Jacob a son”? Though we can’t say for certain why the biblical authors were so often compelled to preface birth accounts with conception (literally “becoming pregnant”) accounts, it is not unreasonable to conclude that God is giving special significance to both the sexual act of becoming pregnant and the decisive beginning of a new human life.

Depending on the translation you’re using, there are only 1-3 times that the word “conception” appears in the English Bible. Hosea 9:11 is the verse that is most consistently translated to include the word “conception.” It reads: “As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird—No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception! (literally, “conception of biological life”8). This same word has been translated “conception” in Ruth 4:13: “So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and when he went in to her, the Lord gave her conception (literally “conception to·her yahweh and·(he) gave to·her”9), and she bore a son.” There are two things to note. First, God is not only the one who forms children in the womb once the process has started, he is the one who divinely decrees that the process start in the first place. God gave her conception. Second, in declaring a curse upon Ephraim, Hosea starts with the blessing of birth and works backwards to conception. Notice that he doesn’t say, no conception, no implantation, no heartbeat, no brain wave activity, no viability outside the womb, etc. The only decisive moments are conception and birth—indicating again that there is no biblical line of demarcation in the womb, where we go from being a non-child to a child.

Finally, let’s consider Ecclesiastes 11:5: “As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” We are ignorant of when and how God imparts a human soul to a developing body. We are also ignorant of how and when God removes that human soul from the body at the point of death. What we do know is that God merges spirit and body somewhere in the womb. Our inability to pinpoint the exact point at which this happens should not lead us to conclude that abortion is permissible. It should compel the very opposite. If there is uncertainty as to when the spirit of a human being enters the body of a human being, we must error on the side of protecting life, not on the side of destroying it.​

 

So, you're going to overlook the fact that parchment was too valuable for a monastery to think of destroying it, and assume that either the monks were too stupid to realize the value or else Tischendorf lied about how he acquired it so as to cover his theft. On the one hand you have a great improbability, and if that is set aside as unlikely, then on the other hand you concede that the person who allegedly "discovered" Sinaiticus was a liar and a thief. In the latter case, we cannot trust that Tischendorf actually found it at the monastery; the entire thing could have been hastily written during Tischendorf's adult life, treated with some aging agent to make it look old, and handed over to him for the benefit of the RCC. The entire provenance of the thing just went out the window! And the man who claimed to have made this amazing "discovery" has zero credibility!

Looking at all the sloppy errors in Sinaiticus, it certainly looks like a 'rush job,' all right.

 

With respect, I did some double-checking on this, and everything I have found - both in textual commentaries and in online sources - is that the first known instance of the Pericope Adulterae is in Codex Bezae, which dates from the early 5th cent. (close to 400 CE, according to one source). If you’re aware of a different source that assigns an earlier date to Codex Bezae, I’d like to see it because I wasn’t able to find one myself. It’s entirely possible I just missed it or wasn’t looking in the right place.

Although Didymus lived much earlier, the problem is that we do not possess autographs of his writings. If the manuscript copies of Didymus that we possess dating from the 6th, 7th, or 8th, etc., centuries CE do contain the pericope, that’s not necessarily evidence that it was there in the 3rd century. (We run into the same kind of problem with manuscripts of Cyprian as they relate to the Johannine Comma: Cyprian wrote in the 3rd century, but the earliest manuscripts containing the Comma are from the 5th century, if my memory is correct.)

I’m not arguing that the Pericope Adulterae should be removed from Bibles or excluded from the lectionary. I certainly have nothing against the passage myself at all, and I personally suspect - though this is just my opinion - that it does indeed contain an authentic saying of Jesus even if the pericope itself wasn’t originally part of John’s Gospel. It sounds a lot like the pericopes that are specific to Matthew’s Gospel. Perhaps it somehow got separated from Matthew at some point and was later added to John? Maybe someday we will know. In any event, the worst case scenario is that it’s still part of the Church’s broader tradition even if it wasn’t originally part of the canonical writings. All I’m saying is that we simply need to be careful that we don’t put too much of an exegetical burden on passages whose pedigree is in doubt. My argument is merely one in favor of a little humility and restraint in light of what dedicated scholarship has established.

 

I’m not sure what laws you are referring to, because the Offences Against the Person Act of 1828 (which I cited so frequently here) punished an abortion prior to quickening/ensoulement with a felony, and an abortion after quickening/ensoulement with a felony and capital punishment.

 

Medical science proves that human life begins at conception. Abortion advocates who know their stuff actually admit that human life begins at conception.

There are only two types of people who argue that life does not begin at conception: those who don't fully understand the science, and those who claim that medical science is not conclusive because they don't see proof in the Bible that life begins at conception.

Isn't that ironic? Some Christians are more willing to doubt that life begins at conception than the pro-abortion advocates themselves.

 

I'm responding to your longer two posts, but to deal with this - that someone would lie to steal something does not mean they would forge something. This was during an age when explorers and archeologists stole everything they could. The obelisk in the British Museum is not a forgery, even though it was acquired fraudulently. The ethical qualms about lying, deceiving and stealing in that age, and really even today, are blurred because the thieves see themselves as doing a moral good for the world by liberating ancient relics and displaying them openly for all to see.

I think it likely no monk in the monastery had read the folios in their generation, and so were unaware of its value (allowing Tischendorf to leave with the codex). I do not think it likely the monks were so stupid to be looking for space, read the texts, and then still marked them for destruction - so yes I think it probable Tischendorf lied to prevent the monks from reclaiming them after they had discovered what he had taken.

Of course we can trust he found it at the monastery. The monks still have pages he didn't take to this day. The monks also have a signed letter dated to 1844 from him saying he was merely borrowing the texts, and they never gave them away permanently. The British Museum also has a letter from a decade and a bit later from the monastery saying they are gifting him the pages. For him to have forged them he also needs to have convinced a group of monks to join his conspiracy and bear false witness for no material gain to themselves. He also was not the only person to find them, other travellers saw the codex as well, but didn't take them. If his codex is a forgery, then where is the original codex the monastery had 100 years earlier?

Again - this is all conjecture on your part. An entire branch of academia does not share your concerns, and it's worth doubting yourself and asking why. The text is authentic. Even if it's not (and it is), that's not material to the original claim in this thread which is that the Pericope Adulterae is a gloss.

 

I think that act is good evidence of what I'm talking about?

Post-quickening abortions were punished with the death penalty, pre-quickening abortions were not. The punishment for murder and manslaughter was death. That pre-quickening abortions were not penalised with the death penalty demonstrates society did not perceive that act as murder.

Perhaps I erred when I said "regrettable but permissible" and should have said "regrettable but not murder". I never intended to make the point that the church thought pre-quickening abortion was okay, just that the position that all abortions are murder is a product of the modern pro-life movement and if rejecting that is the work of the devil then the Anglican church has been doing the work of Satan from inception.

Also - as an unrelated aside because I think we're probably on the same page anyway on what the historical position of the church is - I think an 1828 Act is an indicator, but not particularly great evidence of the Church of England position. 1828 is late enough in the game that parliament might pass bills at odds with the beliefs of the CoE.

 

This is absolutely true. Book hunters have been lying to monks and stealing manuscripts from monastic libraries for centuries. Stephen Greenblatt’s book The Swerve discusses this in fascinating detail as it relates to the discovery of some of the classical texts of Greece and Rome during the Renaissance.

What you are up against here is likely derived from KJV Only-ism, which may or may not have much of a following in Australia but which is prominent in fundamentalist and revivalist circles in the U.S. I recognize every one of those arguments because I heard them almost verbatim in my youth. They are, of course, utterly erroneous, as you rightly pointed out.

 

These are precisely the points I have been trying to make throughout this thread. I am (moderately) pro-choice politically; my moral sentiments do not favor abortion in general (though I do recognize that there are exceptions).

 

This seems like a redirection of Aquinas. None of this is evidence of life at conception, these things describe movement. This is why Thomas Aquinas was certain ensoulment was about the quickening not implantation. I find all of this persuasive that life most certainly begins before birth, but I don't think it's common amongst the ordinary public to deny that fact.

I have no response to this, beyond I think the language used in those forms of speech shouldn't be taken too literally. I can see myself saying "why did you not kill me in the womb?" without making any genuine statement on the reality of my existence at that point. I can even imagine saying things about a sperm - and I certainly don't hold that as actually me.

I believe it was Botolph who dealt with this earlier, but this is not evidence life or ensoulment begins before conception, obviously. So if a pregnancy is terminated before the being was ever ensouled, did God know them? The consequences of reading this passage too literally is disturbing - it could be read to prohibit abstinence and masturbation too.

Surely that is evidence life does not begin at conception? "you knitted me together in my mother’s womb" demonstrates a process of a creating life, not an instantaneous event. I agree it confirms life begins before birth. As I said above, I don't think that is contentious, it is an extreme minority who hold that to be the case. Correct me if I'm wrong, but other states outside of Texas still do not permit late-term abortions, right?

If this text is claiming any of the above is evidence of life at conception, short of the passage in Judges, then that's an unreasonable stretch in my eyes. Even if you take an alternate reading, I also don't think anyone could look at those passages and think it is clear that life begins at conception. I don't see anything in the above that says pre-quickening abortions are against scripture.

 

This is fine logic. It's also not based in scripture, which is what I said.

This is a preposterous argument. Using the word conceive has no bearing on the point where life begins, and pairing the word conceive with the word birth is obviously expected. Using the word conceive gives no special significance to it, it's a word, it's used as it's expected to be used, there's nothing strange or significant about its usage there.

This is equally preposterous. Just because God decrees Ruth conceive a child does not mean he ensouls that child at conception. He also decreed dust into existence, and dust has no soul. He also decrees animals into existence, and it is not immoral to slaughter them (...well, depending on who you ask).

I'm sympathetic to this line of thinking, as I said in a comment the other day - but it is not an argument from scripture. It is based on logic. Which is what I said. Scripture says we do not know. Logic says we should therefore play it safe, and err on the side of being more protective.