Revision as of 21:38, 7 November 2018

Objectives

Main Objective

• Students will evaluate abortion using a biblical lens.
• Students will evaluate euthanasia using a biblical lens.

Introduction

Main Body

Euthanasia

• Imagine that someone suggested to you

Abortion

Sproul, states that “No teaching in the Old Testament or New Testament explicitly condemns or condones abortion.” ^[1]. However, this does not mean the Bible is silent on the issue. The key to a biblical ethic or morality is to carefully weigh what the biblical text actually states.

An Old Testament Passage

• One passage that appears to at least be related to abortion is Exodus 21:22-24. How might this passage be interpreted?
  • there are two basic approaches to interpreting this passage, a minimalist and a maximalist approach.

    The Old Testament scholar C. F. Keil adopts the maximum view, arguing that the “there is no harm” clause refers to both mother and child. The idea is that if the premature baby survives, recompense is limited to damages paid for the inconvenience and mental anguish suffered by the mother, as claimed by the husband and awarded by the judge. But if the child is harmed or dies, the full measure of the lex talonis (eye for eye) is to apply. In this reading, the unborn fetus is so highly valued by Scripture that the life-for-life principle is applied, and the unintentional causing of abortion in the midst of an unrelated violent act warrants the death penalty. If this interpretation is correct, we would have decisive evidence that Scripture considers the unborn fetus as “life” in the fullest legal sense.^[2]

    The Old Testament scholar C. F. Keil adopts the maximum view, arguing that the “there is no harm” clause refers to both mother and child. The idea is that if the premature baby survives, recompense is limited to damages paid for the inconvenience and mental anguish suffered by the mother, as claimed by the husband and awarded by the judge. But if the child is harmed or dies, the full measure of the lex talonis (eye for eye) is to apply. In this reading, the unborn fetus is so highly valued by Scripture that the life-for-life principle is applied, and the unintentional causing of abortion in the midst of an unrelated violent act warrants the death penalty. If this interpretation is correct, we would have decisive evidence that Scripture considers the unborn fetus as “life” in the fullest legal sense.^[3]

• • What does all of this mean? In effect what we need is to apply the entire Bible to the debate instead of looking at a single passage. I am convinced that once we look at the rest of scripture we see that a consistent perspective from scripture is that of a maximum interpretation of the passage.

A Biblical Principle

• What does Genesis 9:4-7 teach ?
  • The passage sets a standard, namely, God considers murder as a capital offense.

• According Genesis 9:4-7, why does God have such a strong position on the taking of human life? How does this compare with

Genesis 1:26-27?

What Is Human?

• What do the following Old Testament passages say about life? Psalm 22:9-10, Jeremiah 1:5
  • The passages teach us that God has been working even in the womb.

• How can you respond to someone who states that a fetus is merely a parasite, or a blob of protoplasm, something like cancer, a foreign body growing within the mother?
  • Parasites have a course of life that moves from birth to reproduction all while living within the host, this is not the case for a fetus. Protoplasm does not develop the complex structures that mark development of a fetus. The development of cancer results in more cancer not the complex organism that is a human. All of the arguments are reductionist and frankly ignorant attempts to beg the question.

• When does a fetus become a human?
  • I have purposely worded the question a little more liberally, the statement should rally be when does life begin but I want the point of emphasis to be that asking the question when does a fetus become human presupposes the position that a fetus is not initially human. We need to be prepared to point out this presupposition. The only one who could know when personhood begins is God and the best answer we have is probably coming from Jeremiah 1:5.

The Selfishness of Abortion

• What condition is necessary for someone to have an abortion?
  • The ultimate answer we are looking for in this question is that a women must be pregnant.

1. The following questions should be adjusted depending on the age and maturity of the group.

• What must happen for a women to be pregnant?
  • The woman must have had a relationship with a man that God has reserved exclusively for marriage. Such actions are not absolutely necessary and have natural consequences. If a women is completely unwilling to have a child or is not ready to have a child then abstinence is the only fool-proof approach. As a note, this is not an argument for or against preventative birth control. The simple fact is that the only guaranteed method of birth control is abstinence.

Some Arguments For Abortion

• How would you respond to someone who told you that legalizing abortion is a good thing because it prevents women from performing illegal abortions on themselves.
  • First, we cannot dismiss this argument without addressing the argument. Many believe this argument is largely the argument the Supreme Court accepted when abortion was legalized. There are certainly reductio ad absurdism arguments that we can make “armed robbery is dangerous therefore we should remove security guards so that robbers do not need to be armed.” Besides reducing the argument to the absurd (a dangerous approach to any argument), we can also look at the effect that legalizing abortion has on human physiology. By legalizing abortion we have moved perceived responsibility from the mother to a physician. A mother can have an abortion believing she will not be the one who has to commit the act. Never the less, the act will have a lasting effect on the mother.

• How would you argue against someone who states that “there are cases where not aborting the fetus presents a significant health risk to the mother?”
  • Even if the mother only has a 1 in 100 chance of surviving, the fetus has a 100% chance of dying if aborted. This approach also seems to ignore the roll that God plays in determining life. There is also an argument that in the case of rape abortion should be allowed. We should not in any way minimize the psychological effects of rape. However, we don’t actually execute the rapist, why is it right to execute the baby? We should not pretend that allowing abortion is going to provide even a small amount of healing to the victim, instead it falls on society to provide meaningful counseling to help the victim deal with the atrocity that committed.