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

It is really academic for me being in the UK but I couldn't support a bad law. as it deals with civil law it doesn't make abortion illegal. That would be the subject of criminal law. It makes it a tort which is ridiculous.

I'm not convinced it will stop abortions. Sure, it may prevent some. But, others it will not stop. It'll be impossible to discover why every pregnant female resident of Texas has left the state. She may have gone to another state for an abortion or for an entirely different reason.

I accept what you say about the Supreme Court not being able to stop the law although I'm not sure I understand the reason. I think it creates what will be a terrible mess.

 

Legal, freely available abortions is already a terrible mess!

It's a crazy, crazy world and it's not getting any better.

 

I don’t believe full personhood can be presumed to have begun until a live birth has occurred. It is the only objective marker that anybody can verify, certainly without the aid of advanced technology. Until that time, one is dealing with a potential person rather than a full person, and as such under most circumstances - there are exceptions - it is morally impermissible to terminate a pregnancy. That does not mean it is murder, however, and prior to viability, I do not see that the State has a compelling interest in overruling the wishes of the mother. That decision, whether others approve of it or not, as a matter of law is and ought to be solely between a woman and her doctor. The State’s role up to that point is to ensure that such procedures should be regulated in such a way that they are safe for the mother. Protests all the way up to the front door of a clinic are a violation of privacy and an attempt to interfere with freedom of movement and conscience. The abortion rate in the US has been on a steady decline for decades, no matter which political party has been in power. The modern “pro-life” movement’s agenda is a solution in search of a problem, and insofar as it expresses a clear preference for one major party over the other it is based on a false premise. There is no evidence that electing Democrats causes the abortion rate to increase. I am concerned about elective abortions and believe that the best way to address them is to address the underlying causes, rather than resort to ugly rhetoric and appalling enforcement mechanisms such as is the case in this new TX law. Seeing the subject as a health care issue for women is the way forward, and the last several decades have demonstrated that it works. I therefore have little sympathy with the “pro-life” movement in general, and I do question their core motivations. They seem to be far more concerned about abortion law than about actual abortions, and in controlling and punishing women than in helping them as a members of society. That’s as clear a statement as I know how to make on the subject.

 

I agree Invictua. The fetus is not a 'living' or a 'breathing' human being. The fetal heartbeat it really electrical impulses between the cells, not a real human beartbeat. If the fetus could survive outside the mother's body, on its own, then it is viable. Until that time, it is not an independent human being and is part of the mother's body, over which she is entitled to full control. I am a very religious person, but I simply think that 'pro-life' supporters are misguided and misinformed about this topic, and they use hysteria and strong emotional arguments to try to control the way others think. The soul enters the body with the first breath outside the body, not at conception IMO. After all, breath is the life of a human being.

 

No, the soul is the life of a human being.

Answering the questions on abortion without even wondering of how the soul bears on the question, is the approach of atheism.

 

No, breath is the life of a human being, at least if we’re sticking to the biblical terminology. The adoption of body/soul dualism in monotheistic religion postdates the scriptures of those religions in each case. In the biblical account, “soul” (nephesh) stands for the whole human being, not merely for one aspect of him/her. Only upon receiving the breath of life did man “become a living soul” (Gen. 2), and death occurs when that breath “returns to God” (cf. Eccles.). The biblical account knows nothing of immortal Platonic souls inhabiting bodies, and adhering to the terms of the biblical account has nothing to do with “atheism” (which is just an ad hominem argument). The law also knows nothing of “souls”; a thing has to be empirically verifiable in some way to be the subject of law. Live birth is such a thing; “ensoulment” is not.

 

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

I can show you dozens of biological tracts from the last 400 years that make zero association between breath and life. In fact it is possible for a human to be fed and oxydized intravenously and never to take a breath at all.

Right, so denying the soul. Gotcha

I know that you as an Episcopalian feel like you have the right to say that. But as an orthodox Anglican I can say that that’s (yet another) Episcopalian heresy.

Tell that to the Offences Against the Person Act of 1828, where the soul is literally the cornerstone of the whole law, for why abortion is a murder and a felony.

So when you say “the law” you implicitly mean atheist law. So it’s no wonder that Episcopalianism is feeling very comfortable with atheist laws and mindsets.

 

I agree there is no true heart at six weeks gestation of the embryo. However, you could correctly describe a fully formed and functioning heart as "electrical impulses between the cells".

In addition, I agree that a six-week old embryo could not possibly have an independent existence. I am prepared to entertain arguments in favour of abortion when they are based on objective facts. Whilst the embryo/foetus is in the body of the woman it is not part of her. Indeed, it can technically be considered a parasite; although, of course, most of us do not feel that way regarding an embryo/foetus.

I think from a moral perspective we, as Christians, should be concerned with the unborn at the point when it receives its soul from God. I am fully aware of when the Roman Catholic Church teaches that happens, which is at the time of conception. However, I am unable to find what the Anglican position is on that matter or even whether the Anglican Church takes a position on this issue.

 

There was no denial of God or the soul. We are talking about law, not belief. Laws concern the empirical. There is no such thing as “atheist” law.

 

I think the proper Christian stance is this: the burden of proof should be on those who say that the embryo or fetus has no spirit (or soul, if you prefer) from God. If they can show from scripture (or at least from the early church) that it does not, then fine, abortions are not immoral. If they cannot show this from scripture or the early church, doesn't it make the most sense to err on the side of caution and to assume that the unborn does have a spirit (or soul)?

Because, let's face it, if the unborn is not "ensouled" and we preserve its life (for it is not dead, but alive and growing), we have inconvenienced a mother who must then decide whether to raise the baby or put it up for adoption. But if the unborn is "ensouled," and we encourage his/her destruction by advocating in favor of abortion 'rights', we will have done a horrible, despicable thing in God's eyes and will have contributed to the deaths of millions of human beings.

What Christian wishes to be cavalier about whether he pleases or displeases God, for the sake of a relatively new 'privacy right' constructed out of thin air by a handful of black-robed judges, and for the sake of allowing women to act selfishly?

Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done. Not my will, Lord, but Thine be done. O God, what would you have us do?

 

To my understanding there has never been an official Anglican position. I think this is appropriate - scripture gives us no clear answer, and so it should be up to each Anglican to discern for themselves, not told what to think by the Church. The three popular lines of thinking I have seen in the past is birth (first breath), ~16 weeks (the quickening), and 2 weeks (scientific). I have only seen evidence of Anglicans taking the position that ensoulment happens at conception in the modern era, and usually post-advent of the pro-life movement. Even then, and without evidence, I still think we're much less likely to take that position than other protestant faiths have been, although I'm not sure exactly why.

Birth: The arguments at first breath have been detailed above.

~16 Weeks: For readers unfamiliar, the quickening describes the moment when the mother can feel the baby's movement for the first time - often around 13-16 weeks. This was formerly the position of the Roman Catholic Church, until they changed to conception around 1869. If you're looking for why feeling movement is considered material to ensoulment, this position was originally outlined by Saint Thomas Aquinas.

2 Weeks: The argument I have seen for 14 days is because at 14 days the egg could still split into twins. A soul cannot break into two new persons, and so that's evidence before that point it is not an ensouled being yet (I don't want to say human, because the cells at 14 days could not possibly be considered human). This takes the position that we should go with the earliest possible time ensoulment could occur, because we cannot be certain when ensoulment happens precisely.

The tension I have with the first position is based on the definition of breath. This might make some of the more biblical literalists here cringe, but I'm not entirely convinced the breath of life is a literal breath. Stalwart alludes to the game breaking thought experiment with what if a person lives their entire life without ever taking a literal breath? Suppose they are removed from their mothers womb before being capable of breath, incubated, and given oxygen by a machine their entire lives. Do we need to say this person has no soul? That sounds monstrous to me. In the same way I often disagree with conservatives on this forum because I don't see a God that is strictly bound by legalistic arguments from the strict wording of scripture I have to disagree with the most progressive interpretation of ensoulment - at least if the argument is based on when we first draw a literal breath.

I don't know exactly what I think yet, I can see the appeal of taking the safest, earliest time, but I can also see the very real practical harms we inflict on women and future families based on a hunch. My position is the same as yours that we should be concerned with abortion once the fetus is ensouled, or to take a secular line of wording, once it is "human". I think abortion pre-ensoulment is ethical but regrettable, and should not be legally prohibited but should be considered a very serious decision in society lest people access abortion flippantly.

 

I have no intent to question the right of the great state of Texas to make and administer its laws.

The two sides issues in the discussion are the question of making babies without making live (IVF) and making love without making babies (Contraception). Both of these issues, together with the question of abortion (early termination) suffer because we have trouble with the question 'when does life begin'. (The allied question is about when does life end)

At some stage between copulation and birth which uninterrupted is the process by which life comes to be. Various options have been given along the way, including the collision of the two zygotes to to form a gamete or fertilised cell, the moment of implantation into the wall of the uterus, the quickening where in foetus moves independently of the mother though within the womb, and birth itself. There are probably some other options as well.

Of course in many respects the answer to this is ineffable, (a story unable to be told), however in a world of classic arid legalism, people want a hard and fast specific moment answer. I don't have one. We are clearly more than cells and less than angels.

It think it is fair to say that Christians would regard abortion in not an acceptable for of birth control. In the main with the abundance of means of contraception one would imagine there should be little need for abortion. There are however a range of circumstances where in the early stages this may be appropriate medically.

The last thing I think we should want to to return to the bad old days where backyard abortions claimed the live of many women and unborn children. It does, in the main, take two to tango, and it seems really unreasonable that one should be criminalised while the other gets away with a 'boys will be boys remark'.

In Australia we legalised early abortions maybe some 40 years ago. In general this has been a better outcome than the earlier appalling situation. Law is good with property, and not so good with relationships and human reproductivity.

Whatever I choose to think will not change reality. However it is an area where I find it especially hard to hold hard set views either way. I kind of get Aquinas who looked to the quickening.

 

In a book entitled, Pro Life Answers to Pro Choice Arguments, author Randy Alcorn addresses the issues often raised concerning the question: when does life begin? I am linking here to an excerpt from the book in case anyone wants to read some of the reasoning why setting the beginning point at implantation, breathing, quickening, or viability aren't very sensible. It's not a long excerpt, but perhaps a bit too much to copy and paste here.

BTW, I have read numbers in the past (too far back to recall where) indicating that nearly all abortions are done as a matter of convenience for the mother, as opposed to issues of rape, incest, or threats to the mother's life or health.

 

Part of the issue in this country is that we have a loud and disproportionately influential minority that is 100% committed to not allowing the U.S. to join the rest of the civilized world when it comes to things like health care and child care. We also have a highly dysfunctional constitutional situation (which Australia seems determined to emulate, from what I can gather) that is very much in need of reform. Over the long term I'm not worried; the courts are ultimately going to eviscerate this new TX law, and the self-styled vigilantes who try to "enforce" it may very well end up getting prosecuted and jailed by the federal government. It's really just a question of how much damage extremists in some of the state legislatures will do in the short term.

 

Regarding the way in which the TX statute allows 'enforcement' via civil lawsuits by citizenry instead of state prosecutions, columnist Wesley J. Smith recently had this to say:

The New York Times’ very liberal columnist Michelle Goldberg huffed: “There’s a sinister brilliance to the way this whole thing has gone down. Texas fashioned an abortion prohibition whose bizarre, crowdsourced enforcement mechanism gave conservative courts a pretext not to enjoin it despite its conflict with Roe. And the Supreme Court has, with an unsigned, one-paragraph opinion issued in the middle of the night, made Roe momentarily useless without sparking the nationwide convulsion that would have come from overturning it outright.”

Oh, cry me a river. Texas didn’t originate the idea of enabling private citizens to enforce public policy. That tactic has been pursued by leftists and liberals for years.

Take Proposition 65 in California, a law approved by voters in 1986, that requires businesses to warn consumers if they may be exposed to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harms.

While the law permits the California attorney general or city attorneys to enforce its provisions, it also allows “any person acting in the public interest” to bring a civil lawsuit against any business the private citizen believes is violating the law, which includes the imposition of a civil penalty of $2,500 per day. In other words, the law authorizes private enforcement of state public policy in civil court—just like Texas.

More radical proposals and laws pushed by the left in recent years also rely on private civil court enforcement. Take the “nature rights” movement, which has been successfully passing local municipal laws in the country—mostly aimed at stopping oil extraction through fracking—that grant nature the rights to “exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.”

What’s that you say? Mother Nature isn’t sentient and is thus incapable of enforcing her rights? True. That is why these laws authorize private citizens to bring lawsuits to halt developments or projects they personally believe violate nature’s “rights.”

Pittsburgh’s statute puts it this way: “Residents of the City shall possess legal standing to enforce those rights on behalf of … natural communities and ecosystems.” A proposed constitutional amendment in Florida that seeks to grant “rights” to the state’s waters would similarly rely in large part on private civil lawsuit enforcement. How are these laws and proposals that purport to protect the environment materially different from what Texas did to save the lives of fetuses with beating hearts?

The animal rights movement has pursued the same advocacy strategy by seeking to enable what is known as “animal standing” in courts. Their goal is to enable animals to directly sue their owners. Of course, the animal litigants in such cases would be utterly oblivious of the lawsuits. But these proposed laws would allow animal rights fanatics to bring lawsuits on the animals’ behalf.

Don’t think it will never happen. A case brought by “Happy”—an elephant seeking a writ of habeas corpus against the Bronx Zoo—will soon be heard in New York’s highest state court. If “Happy” wins, at least some animals will be granted the right to sue, which would really mean declaring open season on animal industries in civil courts. Again, how is this animal rights litigation approach materially different from what Texas has done? It isn’t.

Look, I’m not particularly comfortable with private citizens being authorized by law to act as a civil litigation posse to enforce state public policies. But please, leftists, spare me all the gnashing of teeth. What goes around, comes around. You devised this innovative advocacy tactic. You shouldn’t be surprised that social conservatives also understand its powerful potential and have acted accordingly.
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I guess if the law already allows citizens to sue on behalf of the rights of animals or of Mother Nature, lawsuits on behalf of unborn children might be a slam-dunk by comparison! When trying to fix a problem and some tools are withheld, one must use the tools that are still available.

 

Translated: anti-abortion activists now see themselves as morally equivalent to their opponents, and they’re really proud of it. Principles apparently no longer matter to the party that likes to (falsely) claim the “conservative” mantle.

 

or not, as it may happen.

Our constitution provides for the sovereignty of the states, very much in line with the 10th amendment to the US Constitution. For us that means that Public Health is a State Issue, and Quarantine is a Federal Issue. The current Covid19 Crisis has seen the issue of State Borders raised, challenged in the High Court, and like to be challenged again.

It is the task of the High Court to interpret the application of Statute Law and the Constitution. In a number of instances I believe that the Court has interpreted in such as way as to suggest that they were re-drafting the legislation. There are numbers of parts of our Constitution which I believe should be re-evaluated, however the complexity of needing not just a majority which you need but also a majority of people in a majority of states to effect change.

The Commonwealth could not pass laws on Public Health matters, unless the States relinquished their authority in part or in whole on these matters. The Common wealth can however pass Public Health Laws in relation to the Northern Territory and The Australian Capital Territory, though in general they would be unlikely to do so in that both Territories have their own Territorial Government and behave essentially like States in most matters.

In NSW not only do we have Statute Law that allows Abortion in certain proscribed circumstances, we also have case law that has recognised 'in utero homicide' as a crime, and it is distinguished from regular homicide - This is a common law rule that states that a homicide can only be committed on a legally recognised person, and that a person is not legally recognised until they are “fully born in a living state.

We are likely to be re-visiting this debate as there are moves afoot for late term abortions, a matter on which Our Diocesan and myself have formed different views on. In general the matter is much quieter in Australia than it appears to be in the US.

Our Prime Minister assembled a regular meeting of State Premiers and Himself, in a thing referred to as 'The National Cabinet' in order to handle the Pandemic, and somehow wade the the issues. It has been to some extent successful, however State Premiers have also discovered a new found power to Tribalize the States, and gain a lot of local traction for their various positions. It may well be a virus that proves to be Federation's undoing.

 

To clarify, I was referring to Australia’s mixture of Washington and Westminster elements in its Constitution at the federal level (what some have called a “Washminster system), which in the past has resulted in bizarre events such as the Australian Senate effectively blocking supply despite the government’s theoretical dependence on the lower House. And also there is the ongoing push toward republicanism, which as an American I can tell you with confidence is an outcome Australians should not desire. I wasn’t referring specifically to abortion policy in Australia, which I have no doubt is more democratically determined than here in the U.S.

 

This evening I was contemplating Jeremiah 1:4-5. Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. It says that God knew Jeremiah (the person, the human being) before He formed him in the uterus. When a child begins to take form, even at the very beginning of the process, God is the One who is ultimately causing that to take place (He is the author, the Creator, of life and of the physical processes He uses to nurture the life). God knew in advance the person He was creating inside the woman's womb.

The thought came to me: was Jeremiah unique in this? Or does God know in advance every person He creates inside every woman's womb?

God similarly knew John the Baptist in the womb (Luke 1:11-17) and He even filled John with the Holy Spirit prior to birth, while in his mother's uterus.

It seems probable to me that God, who creates and forms each new unborn child in the womb, most likely knows each and every one of them as a person even before the physical process begins.

Can this physical process even begin without the power of God? Not if we accept that it is God who forms the child in the womb, that it is God who enables the sperm to join with the egg to fertilize it. All life is a gift of God, enabled and supported by Him. If God withdrew His life-giving power (His 'breath' if you will), then all life would cease.

If a mother aborts her unborn, perhaps even at a very early stage in the pregnancy, what happens to the person whom God foreknew?