[Thanks to Rowland Cocks at Men’s Fraternity for pointing me in this direction.]
This Tuesday will be the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade ruling, and I very much appreciate President Obama’s words in preparation for the anniversary, mourning that tragic ruling.
“I think about … the life that lay ahead of her. And most of all, I think about how when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable among us, we must act now.
“So what we should be thinking about is our responsibility to care for them, and shield them from harm, and give them the tools they need to grow up, and do everything that they’re capable of doing. Not just to pursue their own dreams, but to help build this country. This is our first task as a society, keeping our children safe. This is how we will be judged. And their voices should compel us to change.”
In truth, those are his words, but the context was different. President Obama spoke eloquently last week about the twenty young students tragically killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, not the 55 million babies, six years younger, who have been killed by abortions over these forty years. More will be killed today.
Although he talked about the twenty Sandy Hook children’s goals and aspirations, he did not mention the potential of 100 million or more citizens, contributors, workers, even taxpayers represented by the equally real children, and their children, lost to abortion.
Our God is the God of personal transformation. He utterly changed me. I pray that God will transform our President and those who think like him. Since the President is clearly committed to protecting the most vulnerable among us, I pray that in his second term he will help stop abortion as well. Surely there is no one more vulnerable than a baby in his or her mother’s womb.As terrible and outrageous as it is to imagine children being killed by a gunman, how much more outrageous is it for children to be killed by their mothers?
We must do everything to stop both. Not one or the other.
May God connect, as only He can, our leaders’ reaction to the tragedies of Sandy Hook and abortion, to create good from what others intend for evil.
This is a great declaration of your values, but since you venture into law, what are your specific recommendations?
“Ban abortion” is not enough, bc there are a huge range of issues raised.
What are some implications of this?
Women who would otherwise have gone to a doctor will go somewhere else.
One of those places will be terrible, others less terrible, like the ancient techniques used for centuries before modern medicine, like herbal remedies.
**How will the authorities be able to distinguish between a purposefully aborted fetus and a miscarriage?
**So should every woman who has a miscarriage (1/3 of all pregnancies) have to prove they did not abort it? Who sits on that committee?
Apparently God himself aborts 1/3 of all pregnancies as a miscarriage. He seems like an even pickier parent than most humans.
Grappling with the same issues, in traditional Jewish law, abortions during the first 3 months carried no penalty as the fetus was considered ‘like water’ as a literal translation. The question of the fetus’s viability is addressed in two sources in the Talmud: in Yevamot 69, 2 the fetus in the first forty days of pregnancy is likened to water, “עד ארבעים יום מיא בעלמא”; in Nida 8, 2 the fetus is recognized from the second trimester, three months into the pregnancy, “וכמה הכרת עובר … שלשה חדשים”.
So while I agree with your values, you have not gone far enough in resolving how the law should be changed, and how justice and life will be protected.