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

As you might have guessed, this is not coming from me.

If you want to work out why adversarial politics is flawed, I highly recommend a reflective reading of Edward de Bono's 'Six Thinking Hats'. There is another way.

 

I have also heard this argument used for those who do not have sex, and are thereby preventing a person whom God foreknew coming to be. I don't think we should try to legislate our theology.

 

Although I tend to observe that is often the case in the United States (I still haven't worked out why the US system pushes politics so far to the extremes compared to similar systems elsewhere - and that applies to both parties), I wouldn't be so quick to say so on abortion. I would say the US moved much sooner than most countries with respect to abortion, thanks to Roe v Wade, and is now in a similar spot to a lot of federalised states, where some states allow it and some do not.

In Australia we didn't actually "legalise" abortion 40 years ago, nation wide. Abortion is a state issue, and not all states legalised abortion soon after the US started. What Botolph referenced, if I had to guess, is a court case that said abortion was legal in cases not only where the mother's life was in danger, but also where her mental health was at risk, including from economic factors. This effectively decriminalised abortion in all states, if you could find a doctor willing to say your pregnancy put your mental health at a sufficient enough risk to justify an abortion. Some states had other barriers like requiring two separate doctors to approve it, only allowing invasive surgical abortions, and other very reasonable non-abortion related laws related to medical procedures that create unexpected barriers like the requirement for parental consent for medical procedures for minors.

This was usually pretty easy to do if you lived in a city and had a healthy relationship with your parents, but in the rural town where I grew up it was not so easy. Girls wouldn't get approval from any local doctors, and so had to travel to the city, talk to a stranger about very personal issues, and convince a doctor who may not support abortions anyway to let a young woman they've only just met have an abortion. If they said no they'd have to go to another doctor, and so on. If they got through that ordeal and found a progressive doctor, when they came home most of the very conservative small town had worked out why they had left, which was humiliating for a number of reasons. Kids at school could be particularly cruel. This is all going through the head of a teenage girl undergoing a seriously emotional decision already. I'm not sure this is what most pro-choice advocates would be thinking of when they say they want to emulate "the rest of the civilised world". Short of perhaps abortions being free in Australia since 1984 (as an aside imagine the pro-life taxpayers of the US happily paying for someone else's abortion because everyone agrees universal healthcare is important, whilst openly advocating abortions should be banned. It's like a different world over there).

The state I live in, Queensland (relevantly to this thread, often referred to as the Texas of Australia), decriminalised abortion in 2018. The most populous state, New South Wales, decriminalised abortion in 2019. South Australia decriminalised it a few months ago. I believe that means it's legal everywhere now, but there's no guarantee how long that will hold for - especially if the conservative party wins the next election in Queensland.

 

The problem with these is they are not fixed as indicated by the fact you give a range. Even the ones you quote are not agreed on. Take, for example, what you term the 'quickening'. The UK's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists say that a mother should first notice her unborn child moving between 18 and 20 weeks.

With monozygotic ('identical') twins the zygote tends to split earlier than two weeks. Indeed, if it happens that late the split is often incomplete and the result is conjoined twins.

 

LOL, if a couple abstains from relations, surely God foreknew that no offspring would result! The same is true for intercourse at times when the woman was not fertile. Whereas, by contrast, God foreknew the particular offspring who do begin life via intercourse engaged in during fertility. So I don't see how the rationale you stated could hold up under scrutiny.

Incidentally, on the morning news I heard a statement to the effect that opponents of the TX law characterize it as an affront to "reproductive health." That strikes me as ironing, for whenever abortion is performed there is a complete absence of healthy reproduction!

What abortion advocates really want is a healthy, pleasure-filled sex life without the reproductive responsibilities it normally entails.

 

Indeed, glad to see someone here know this. Even most Roman Catholics don't know this.

The thing is: how do we know? It is my belief that many of the most powerful Anglican texts have been forgotten or covered up by the Broad Church party which assumed the leadership of the Church at the turn of the 20th century. For instance I never knew if Anglicans had firebreathing texts against homosexuality, sure seemed like we didn't, until I saw them on this site. So what are the 5-10 classic Anglican texts on ensoulement, on abortion, on life, etc?

I don't know them. But I think that is our fault.

Our forefathers in the faith fought the fight, and have finished the race of protecting life and spreading the gospel in their times; we are the drags of Cranmer who are too lazy and fat to even understand what our fathers had believed. And sure, other Christian traditions are also far weaker than they were 100 years ago. But because the Anglicans have had the peak understandings on all of these important questions, the fact that we lazily eschew the responsibility of carrying on their wisdom makes our burden even heavier.

But the one document I do know, the Offences Against the Person Act of 1828, is incredibly stark and forthright precisely on all these questions of life, abortion, penalties (including felony and capital punishment). It is an artifact of the civil jurisprudence in England, but during at time when the Church and the State were still one, so the Church had laid a full approbation on this law, and it flowed out of the principles that she had taught.

Scriptures don't have to give us a clear answer. Scriptures are not the teaching organ of the Church. They are the Revelation, the Word of God and the basis for our whole faith, but they can't possibly encompass all questions Christians would have for millennia to come. That's why Christ has left us the Church, the pillar and foundation of the truth. Therefore the Church always had the duty to teach the faithful on these matters: as in 1828, so today, and in the future.

 

Well, by way of explanation for folks who aren't from the US, over here prior to Roe v Wade just about every state (and there's 50 of 'em) had duly debated and legislated the issue, and had outlawed abortion. I think 30 states banned all abortions, 16 had a general ban but excepted rape, incest and health of the mother, another 3 states allowed general abortions to all state residents, and 1 state (NY) allowed anyone at all to get an abortion. This was the 'democratic republic' at work, wherein legislators and governors were responsive to the beliefs and desires of the citizens they represented, and it reflected the will of the people in those states (those laws were created at a time when most citizens were Christians and public school teachers could quote the Bible and lead prayers to God in our schools).

Then along came Roe v Wade, a case concocted by abortion advocates (the plaintiff years later said she was used as a tool by those advocates) which resulted in the highest court nullifying the will of the people in at least 46 of the 50 states based upon a never-before-heard-of, unenumerated "privacy right" of a woman to have an abortion without the states' interference.

So it was never a matter of politics pushing to the extreme. The issue got pushed to the extreme upon us by a handful of men in black robes, and our primary tool for pushing things back away from the current extreme of 'abortion on demand' (a/k/a/ putting unborn children to death at the whim of the mother) is the political realm: advocate for laws that limit abortions. It's an attempt to restore the people's will and to reject an arbitrary judicial fiat.

 

Abortion in the U.S. was a legal procedure until the early twentieth century. What Roe quashed was a system of state-level laws of varying extent, scope, and severity, that had only been around for several decades at that point, and which had no firm precedent in the first hundred years of our country's history, or in the prior colonial era. That the opposite, ahistorical narrative continues to get repeated in popular discourse is a most curious phenomenon.

The Supreme Court with its assumed power of judicial review is certainly not the most democratic of our institutions, but at the same time the Court has always been aware that its legitimacy cannot be maintained if it is consistently overriding what the majority wants. The Court discovered this in the New Deal era, and it was brought home to the Eisenhower administration during the 1950s, as well as at other times in our history, before and since. Polling data from Gallup going back decades consistently show that only about one-third of Americans want to see Roe overturned, and an even smaller minority want abortion to be illegal in all circumstances. This means that even those who identify as "pro-life" include a significant number who think abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances, and who do not want to see Roe overturned. Viewed in that light alone, the new TX law represents an extremist view, including (probably) for Texans themselves.

As a matter of constitutional jurisprudence, one state legislature does not get to negate what the common law at the federal level has already ruled to be a fundamental right, rooted in the Constitution, and which has been the settled law of the land for nearly 50 years. Federal law trumps state law in this country, and the constitution means what the federal courts say it means, not what activists want it to mean. For this and other reasons, I do not see much chance that this new law survives the storm of litigation that's coming.

As for the religious component, neither the law nor the biblical texts themselves know of concepts like "ensoulment". We can talk about them as matters of belief, but in terms of law, they simply aren't there. "Soul" is now a primarily moral concept, an assumption that we make so that we can assign responsibility for actions to entities ("persons") that empirically change over time. In terms of law, being a non-empirical concept, concepts like "ensoulment" have no metaphysical import (and I'm not sure it's even legitimate to talk about the biblical witness in terms of Platonic philosophy at all here...the scriptures know nothing of immortal souls temporarily trapped in bodies while awaiting their liberation, and instead speak in both Testaments of wholistic "living beings", and of things like the afterlife as something supernatural and beyond understanding or ordinary categories of thought or experience). Even if concepts like "ensoulment" could have some sort of legal meaning, it still remains to be seen what relevance it would have to the discussion at hand. The issue is ultimately not when personhood begins, but rather what the extent of bodily autonomy is. If another person does not have the right to one of my kidneys because their own are failing, and otherwise that person will die, then it does not matter that the other person is a person or "has a soul". What matters is that the use of my body by another must involve my consent, or it is a violation of my personal autonomy (that is not in itself a punishment for a previous crime), and is thus a crime in itself. And that may very well be how the Justice Department ends up pursuing prosecutions. We will see.

Since this is matter of law, not belief, and that the only biblical texts that touch even tangentially on the issue at all are found in the Pentateuch, my default position, for a number of what I consider to be cogent and compelling reasons, is to defer to the historical interpretation of the Rabbis unless I have an even more compelling reason not to, and I am aware of no such reason in this case. Relying on time-honored exegesis of the biblical texts by those who emphatically believe in the God who revealed them has nothing to do with "atheism", nor does an attitude of deference toward Judaism in this particular area have anything to do with being Episcopalian. I dare say many Episcopalians would find my approach just as baffling as many other Anglicans do, and I'm completely ok with that, as I believe my position is the correct and responsible one to take in this instance. The result is that while I do not believe abortion to be tantamount to murder, and that I do not believe the fetus is a full person, I do recognize that in most (but certainly not all) instances that abortion is morally impermissible, but that such a conviction cannot override a woman's bodily autonomy and thus that the procedure should nonetheless be legal in most cases (certainly prior to viability). The proper way to address the issue is to address the underlying causes, through better health care, child care, and education, among other things, and by changing hearts and minds through positive engagement, outreach, charity, and persuasion (which should include, but not be limited to, promoting both contraceptives and abstinence, rather than adopt a rigid either/or position).

 

Compared to the historic legal rulings of the past, the Texas law is extremely liberal and lax. It does not punish any stage of abortion with felony and capital punishment, etc.

What is freely asserted can be freely rejected. You keep asserting this, as if an article of belief. I simply reject it. It’s as simple as that, whatever can be freely asserted, can be freely rejected.

I have in fact provided evidence of centuries of jurisprudence where “soul” plays a key judicial and scientific/philosophic role for establishing the law, in accord with natural law (as Andrew Wilson the founder of American Jurisprudence) was very passionate to extoll in his Lectures Upon Law in the 1790s.

So both the judicial facticity of the “soul”, as well as the absolutely demand that laws conform to natural law, are at the bedrock of American jurisprudence. To undo them would be to undo America itself (itself not a problem for those advocating for an atheist/positivist theory of law).

I don’t know; a Christian would prefer the approach in accord with a real and historical Jesus of Nazareth, who was the Messiah the rabbis had been praying for, who crossed the laws of nature, actually and really resurrected after having been crucified, and descended into an actual and real Hell, where he rescued the souls of the Patriarchs, etc etc.

The methods we choose expose us for who we are.

 

The extremism is in the goal, not just the methods. They are pursuing an objective that the vast majority of American citizens do not want. Ruination is certainly preferable to execution, but that doesn’t alter the injustice of either as a remedy in this case.

It is no less impossible to prevent unintended pregnancies by banning abortions than it is to prevent murders by banning guns. It’s the same logic at work. The presumption should be in favor of liberty, within the framework of the common good. Abortions should be regulated; so should guns. Certain kinds of abortions should be restricted; so should certain kinds of firearms. And violations of the law should be punished. But that approach will only get one so far. Society is sick, and if it’s going to be healed even partially, the law is a very poor mechanism for accomplishing that, and it can’t be healed at all if the laws themselves commit new crimes of their own. I find it deeply ironic that self-styled anti-government “conservatives” in this case think that government-led or government-sponsored intervention is the way to address a social and societal ill. It’s hard to think of anything more genuinely unconservative than that.

 

The assertion that can be freely dismissed here is your own. The burden of proof is on the one making the affirmation. So, quote the verse that mentions and defines “ensoulment”, and that tells us precisely when it occurs. Please, enlighten all of us. Then, tell us why such a verse should be relevant in a pluralistic society whose laws are based on common consent rather than religious tradition. If you can’t do better than quote a defunct 1828 English statute for the dozenth time, then in no sense have you come close to actually refuting the view I have laid out, whether you want to admit that or not. But if I’m wrong I certainly want to be corrected. Show us the verse.

 

You have called me an “atheist” without evidence, and you have called me a “heretic” without evidence. I am neither of those things. You have consistently refused to interact with the actual substance of the argument I have been patiently making - an argument which defies simplistic categorization - all while continually hurling epithets at me and at my Anglican jurisdiction, despite the fact that this is an Anglican site. Enough is enough.

 

One thing that has not been said that Texas also gave 100 million to non abortion pregnancy centers.

 

We understand it all in the context of the church though, do we not?
It would be wrong to rip out the biblical message from the context of the church... Otherwise there will be as many 'biblical messages' as there are people on the earth

 

We do indeed. The tricky part is figuring out exactly what that context is. Consider Exodus 21, the most relevant passage for the topic at hand. The Hebrew is widely considered to be somewhat obscure. I'll give the LXX first, before giving the Vulgate and a modern English translation of the MT.

Notice that there's nothing here about "souls" or "ensoulment" or "conception" or "persons"; the categories are empirical things like "formed", "fully formed", "not fully formed", "coming forth" (i.e., birth), etc. Notice also that it appears to apply the death penalty to the case of a stillborn yet fully formed fetus if the premature labor was the result of a strike. The text does not specify whether the strike is accidental or deliberate.

Now let's look at the Douay-Rheims, translating the Vulgate:

This translation reads rather differently in certain important respects. In this instance, it is the death of the mother, not the fetus - whether fully formed or not - that is decisive. Now let's look at a modern English translation of the MT, the New JPS translation:

The modern Jewish translation appears rather to agree more with the Vulgate's translation - which formed the scriptural basis of canon law in the West - than with the LXX. Here are some of Rashi's comments on vv. 22-24:

Lastly, although Jesus did not deal directly with vv. 22-23, he did address vv. 24-26 (the lex talionis), which the context itself and subsequent Jewish tradition as well make clear is referring to monetary compensation, at least in cases that don't involve intentional homicide (of the mother, in this case), a fact which we can assume Jesus would have been fully aware of:

For an example of the (later) ecclesiastical context, here is St. John Chrysostom on this passage:

Lastly, here is Jesus, in the same Gospel, regarding the normative value of tradition itself:

Thus we have seen that the understanding of modern Jewish interpreters as well as the medieval Rabbis agrees with the officially recognized translation of the same passage employed by the majority of the Western Church for over 1,000 years, and that Jesus exhorted his followers to pay close attention to the interpretation of the law given by those trained, qualified, and authorized within Judaism to interpret it. We have also seen that the thrust of the passage itself and of its later interpreters, including Jesus himself, was in the direction of leniency, rather than stringency. Quoting the very passage under discussion, Jesus exhorted his followers not to take each other to court over such things. It is easy to surmise, given the above, what his reaction might be to the events we are witnessing in our own day.

 

But I do not see you interpreting any of this in the context of the church... only in the context of Invictus, what seems right to you, what seems right to me, what seems right to a million different people..... that's the error of private judgment is it not?

 

It’s not clear to me what the precise nature of your objection is. The Anglican tradition is clear that private judgment (is there another kind?), is an inescapable part of process. Common sense tells us this as well. When a Church Father gives his opinion, that’s his private judgment. When a Rabbi gives his opinion, that’s his private judgment. A commentator gives his or her private judgment. And so on. No one interpreter is infallible, but nor are all private judgments created equal. Consensus can be useful but it’s not infallible either. We have to assume that words have some objective meaning, to which ordinary rules of interpretation apply - i.e., that exegesis is possible - and then we evaluate each argument on its merits. I quoted three different translations of Exodus (none of which were done by me), I quoted a Church Father, a Rabbi, and Jesus himself, twice. None of this is “the Bible according to Invictus”. I’m simply citing recognized authorities to illustrate the nature of the problem. The history of the interpretation of this passage - which I’ve just barely scratched the surface of here - is simply fascinating, apart from the exegetical and ethical implications. It deserves more thoughtful consideration than a crude ad hominem attack. If there is a more appropriate way to get such a discussion off the ground than to begin with Scripture and pay close attention to what it’s saying and not saying, I’d love to hear it.

 

All i am saying is, there is the historic tradition of the church on these points, and should we not consult it, rather than trying to draw interpretations from rabbis, muslims, secular historians and others who are not in the Church, yet whom the more liberal Christians prefer as their authorities

There is the judgment of the church.. I believe we as Anglicans belong to this camp, and not the baptist camp of private judgment and rebellion angainst the church, of doing what seems right to us, interpreting from the top of our own enlightened heads

 

The basis of your objection continues to elude me. What “Muslims”, “secular historians”, or “liberal Christians” did I cite? And why does that even matter? The point was to illustrate in microcosm the history of the interpretation of a contested passage that’s relevant to the topic at hand. I did cite a Rabbi, but I also provided a biblical justification for doing so, from the recorded words of Jesus himself. I suppose we could comb through some biblical commentaries by Anglicans through the centuries, that deal with the passage (for example, the late 19th cent. Cambridge Bible for Colleges and Schools), but what would that prove? There is no central authority in Anglicanism that can render a morally binding interpretation of a scriptural passage across the communion. There’s no Anglican Pope. There’s not even an Anglican Ecumenical Synod. It’s fine to talk about the judgment of the Church as an ideal standard but it’s not equally applicable in every imaginable case. At the end of the day, one is still dealing with the private judgments of individuals or the aggregation of the private judgments of individuals, and at some point the work of historical interpretation has to occur. The passages I cited and their connection with one another deserve a more thoughtful response than an ad hominem argument or a Straw Man objection. The differences between the LXX, the Vulgate, and the MT are intriguing, are they not? Do the words of Jesus, as well as subsequent Jewish and Christian tradition, not provide some clues as to how the meaning might be understood and applied today? That’s what we’re talking about.

Also, I did cite the historic tradition of the Church. The LXX is and always been the Bible of Greek/Eastern Churches, and the Vulgate was the Bible of the Western Church and the scriptural basis of its canon law for nearly a millennium and a half. The verses of Leviticus cited in Henry VIII’s conflict with the Pope over his divorce were those of the Vulgate. The Anglican canon of the OT + Apocrypha consists exactly of the OT books of the Vulgate, and includes 3 books not even included in the RC canon. The tradition of the Church was front-and-center of what I outlined.

Like I said, looking at the history of interpretation is a required component of the responsible exegesis of any text. That’s what I was doing, albeit in an abbreviated form suitable to a forum. Beyond that, I don’t know what else to tell you, except to consider the facts presented on their merits.

 

well take the question of divorce for instance:

the medieval rabbis ruled that it was acceptable and the Old Testament permitted it
The Church of England ruled that divorce was not allowed, and that the Old Testament (or the new) did not permit it

And it was not left up to the private judgment of individuals about whether they could or not