The Bible Tells Us When A Fetus Becomes A Living Being

[TeamProg]

The Bible Tells Us When A Fetus Becomes A Living Being


Many people think that a human being is created at the time of conception but this belief is not supported by the bible. The fact that a living sperm penetrates a living ovum resulting in the formation of a living fetus does not mean that the fetus is a living human being. According to the bible, a fetus is not a living person with a soul until after drawing its first breath.

After God formed man in Genesis 2, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and it was then that the man became a living being”. Although the man was fully formed by God in all respects, he was not a living being until after taking his first breath.

In Job 33:4, it states: “The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”

Again, to quote Ezekiel 37:5&6, “Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

In Exodus 21:22 it states that if a man causes a woman to have a miscarriage, he shall be fined; however, if the woman dies then he will be put to death. It should be apparent from this that the aborted fetus is not considered a living human being since the resulting punishment for the abortion is nothing more than a fine; it is not classified by the bible as a capital offense.

According to the bible, destroying a living fetus does not equate to killing a living human being even though the fetus has the potential of becoming a human being. One can not kill something that has not been born and taken a breath. This means that a stillborn would not be considered a human being either. Of course, every living sperm has the potential of becoming a human being although not one in a million will make it; the rest are aborted.



- Found in archives. Best abortion argument I could find here at DU. Originally posted by "Itchingcarpenter".

[Ocelot II]

1. Just like eating a pecan pie isn't the same as deforestation.

[erronis]

32. Cute! Or all those sesame seeds, fish roe, scrambled eggs.

I'm not sure I can come up with a good example of foods made out of pollen (sperm) but I had to look it up. Not much.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollen#In_humans

[mainer]

2. God destroys more fetuses than anything else

It’s called miscarriage and it ends the lives of about 1 in three embryos. God is the primary “abortionist.”

[TeamProg]

5. Wow, 1 in 3 ??

I guess if you accpet that God is in control then it would be God's abortion of "babies".

If you believe in nature, then it's just nature in control.

[mainer]

14. In med school I was taught 1/3 miscarriage rate

Starting at conception.

Estimates vary because many conception failures happen without the woman even being aware she conceived. Range of estimates is somewhere between 15% to 50%:

“As many as half of all pregnancies may end in miscarriage. We don’t know the exact number because a miscarriage may happen before a woman knows she’s pregnant. Most women who miscarry go on to have a healthy pregnancy later.” (March of Dimes)

If religious fundies want to throw their God at us in their argument against abortion rights, just ask them why, if God believes life starts at conception, God kills so many babies.

[Girard442]

24. They always have a retort: "Miscarriages only happen to defective fetuses that never had souls."

[Evolve Dammit]

40. That is disgusting. Never heard that before. My mom had multiple "miscarriages." Think she would

"take issue" with that bullshit.

[Girard442]

44. So sorry about your mom. It must have been difficult for her.

The point being that those people think that tossing off a glib and facile quip completely disposes of the issue.

[Evolve Dammit]

45. Thanks. I was too young to know. I believe there were 5 or more.

[calimary]

53. Pseudo-"religious" quackery.

In Catholic school I was taught that “no one may know the Mind of God.”

Who the hell are these people to declare who has a soul and who doesn’t?

Maybe THEY’RE the “soulless” ones.

[Cracklin Charlie]

11. What about all the eggs?

Hundreds of millions of human eggs, maybe billions, are removed every single month.

And the sperm? They can even swim! Yet, millions and millions are lost every single day. No one even cares about them, or tries to regulate their development or removal.

Sorry, I’m in a real snarky mood about the issue today.

[hedda_foil]

21. There are hundreds of millions if not billions of sperm released with each ejaculate. NOT eggs.

One egg, and very occasionally two are released each month. A woman is born with the total number of egg cells she will ever have.

At birth, there are approximately 1 million eggs; and by the time of puberty, only about 300,000 remain. Of these, only 300 to 400 will be ovulated during a woman's reproductive lifetime.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/9118-female-reproductive-system#:~:text=At%20birth%2C%20there%20are%20approximately,during%20a%20woman's%20reproductive%20lifetime.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

33. Elle Woods argued it this way in "Legally Blonde":

Elle: “For that matter, any masturbatory emissions, where the sperm is clearly not seeking an egg, could be termed reckless abandonment."

Professor Callahan: "You’ve just won your case.”

[erronis]

35. And a lot more that just die of sensescene before becoming a "gleam in the father's eye"

and making it out into the raw world, fighting against all those other zygotes. Most of which end up flushed down the toilet.

[Cracklin Charlie]

47. There are hundreds of millions of women.

Therefore, hundreds of millions gone every month.

[Happy Hoosier]

12. More like 2 in 3

If you count fertilized zygotes that never implant.

[evolves]

39. I've been saying this very thing for years.

Actually, the percentage of fertilized eggs that never implant is estimated to be about 70%.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

3. It's not about what "God" did or did not do, though... it's about punishing women for having

non-procreative sex by forcing them to give birth (or die/damage their health trying to).

[mopinko]

4. not wrong but

outdated. breath was long the marker of life, but in this modern world, it's brain activity.
but we dont know enough about fetal brain activity to move that marker now. they are trying, tho.
that's why they made up the whole 'fetal pain' thing.

but from the standpoint of- 'you are using this book to defend you stance', you are dead on.

[TeamProg]

7. The piece is strictly about what the Bible has said.. Not modern thought.

The two are antithetical, anyway.

[mopinko]

9. true.

i'm just pointing out that tho their book hasnt changed, their arguments have.

[multigraincracker]

19. Updated, it would call Eve

a transgender clone.

[keithbvadu2]

54. Eve first transgender - It's in the Bible.

toon

[uponit7771]

6. Their lord is Putin's Whore and their bible is whatever tripe he speaks

[Nay]

26. Thank you. They never gave a shit about what the Bible says -- they'll tell YOU what

the Bible says, and you'd better jump to it.

[keithbvadu2]

8. 1+

[RussBLib]

10. as if they REALLY rely on the bible

most GOP have long since discarded the moral tenets from the bible, if they were ever even aware of them in the first place

then many turn right around and say every word in that goatherders guide to the galaxy is the truth, and wear their piousness on their sleeves

hypocritical motherfuckers

[ms liberty]

13. An oldie but goodie. FYI, the DU'er is "Ichingcarpenter" as in I Ching not itching

Good on you for finding this post!

[sl8]

52. +1 n/t

[Happy Hoosier]

15. What does the Bible have to do with this?

I could not care less what some religious text says in the matter. We should not be using ancient religions as a basis for our government.

[Six117]

29. Amen

And thank you very much!

[RANDYWILDMAN]

16. ABORTION is about controlling women PERIOD!

and that's all it's ever been about.

I told my 73 mother this other and she lost her stuff, thought about it or a few days and came and said damn, I agree.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

17. On demand, without apology, at any time, without restriction.

[Fla Dem]

18. Religions of all faith interpret "GOD's Words" to suit their agenda. Been going on for centuries. nt

.

[multigraincracker]

20. Yes indeed. In the beginning God created

the loop hole.

[Lonestarblue]

31. And while Biblical scholars disagree about when the various parts of the Bible were written,

the basis for the evangelical religion is the New Testament, none of which was written contemporaneously while Jesus was living and his words could be recorded and quoted. At the earliest, books in the New Testament have been dated to having been written 50-60 years AD. I remember a lot from 50 years ago, but there is no way I could accurately quote statements I heard from then, which the Bible purports to do. While religious scholars would say that the words of the Bible were from divine inspiration, they were still written by men and were based as much on hearsay and the religious teachings of the day as on the actual words of Jesus. Just my belief, anyway.

As for the Old Testament, written much earlier, much of it relied on oral tradition before religious scholars recorded it in writing. And as anyone who has ever played the telephone game, the accuracy of oral retellings becomes quite suspect.

[Mr.Bill]

22. I've also noticed that the framers of the Constitution

made it clear that you must be BORN (not conceived) in the United States to be a citizen.

[mjvpi]

27. I like this. So we need to stop tourists from having sex while in the US.

Anchor zygote

[crickets]

37. Good point. nt

[meadowlander]

23. They'll just argue that breath comes through the umbilical cord or some other bullshit.

Technically fetuses do "breath" amniotic fluid to help build up the strength in their lungs.

You can't reason with someone determined not to see reason because it's a political cash cow when they are prepared to draw arguments from whatever is most convenient to back their preconceived narrative.

[Bev54]

25. It doesn't matter what the Bible says, it is not the constitution and no

legal or political decisions should ever be made because of the "Bible"

[IbogaProject]

28. I'm in favor of their ability to picket

I'm in favor of their ability to picket. Although I don't like it, I feel the first amendment gives them a right to make their case. And we can make the case that rape, child and incest pregnancies should be terminated.

[FakeNoose]

30. It's not the baby's heartbeat, nor is it the brain activity

The baby's soul enters its body when the baby takes its first breath. Before a live birth, there is no human soul in the fetus. The baby become a human being when its soul enters with the drawing of the first breath.

I think that concept is clearly stated in the Genesis passage. It is also a core belief of many spiritual, psychic and religious groups in the US and elsewhere. It has been wrong of the Catholic Church to deliberately twist this teaching into controlling the power of women, but that's what they've done for over a thousand years.

[paleotn]

34. Exactly. By there standards....

the female reproductive system is the greatest mass murderer of all time. Fetuses abort for reasons or sometimes no apparent reasons at all. It just happens. God, I despise religious types trying to mold their bronze and iron age myths around things they knew nothing about at the time the myths were dreamed up.

[KentuckyWoman]

36. Numbers 5 details an abortion ordered by the court

Outside of that, anyone reading the Old Testament and still claims God is "pro life" is not being honest.

[SYFROYH]

38. As an athiest i try to keep it simple.

Yes, at conception the entity is a genetically complete human organism.

It isn’t granted legal personhood until it is born alive.

[twodogsbarking]

41. You lost me at bible.

[Iggo]

42. Yeah, but what does The Lord Of The Rings have to say about it?

[halfulglas]

46. It's not just the bible.

In most societies on the planet personhood begins at first breath. It was the Christian religions for the most part that instituted this because of politics. Even in the early Christian church abortion and killing of the fetus isn't mentioned. Only much later when men were exerting more control over property rights, etc. it became important to control who inherits what it became more important to control the women.

[mike_c]

48. this is a bunch of superstitous hooey

Life on Earth began some 2 billion-ish years ago and has continued in an unbroken chain ever since. Human life evolved some hundreds of thousands of years ago and has continued, unbroken, ever since, at least for H. sapiens' lineage. Life does not "begin" during any portion of modern human life history. Anything else is just semantics and religious nonsense.

"The Bible Tells Us When A Fetus Becomes A Living Being." That's a bunch of hooey on first principles. No human fetus (or any other kind) is ever anything but a living being. The gametes that join to produce a zygote are just as alive as any other cells in our bodies.

Are fetuses "persons?" What else can they be? What rational definition of personhood excludes the developmental stages common to all persons since the very evolution of human personhood? They are the roots of human identity. If they're not persons, what are they? We can't simply define them by what they're not. If they're not persons then they must be something else. What's the difference between a human person and a human non-person? If the answer is framed simply, in terms of fetal viability, then the boundaries of personhood are fluid, and beginning earlier and earlier with the advent of modern neonatal care. Is a premie in the NICU a person before a fetus carried to full term? Do dead people cease being human when they no longer draw breath?

This is not justification for dictating women's reproductive choices. However, any religious claptrap that seeks to define the origins of human life in modern times is just butt ignorant superstition.

[TeamProg]

50. I (O/P) am not a religous person in the slightest. The info presented is only an argument against

those who use religion / God as a reason to control women.


IMHO - Religion is superstition and therefore a form of mental illness.

[roamer65]

49. I support woman's right to choose all the way up to childbirth.

Their body, their choice.

The goal of the mainly white fundamentalist cultists is to force the birth of white babies in order to maintain the dominance of the white race.

Just like Hitler did in Nazi Germany.

[Retrograde]

51. The great thing about the bible

is that you can pick and choose which parts support your viewpoint. Aside from the Old Testament vs New Testament debates, you can also argue the Catholic version vs the more mainstream Protestant versions - and I'm not even thinking about the other apochrypha. Then there's the whole business of which translation to trust - it'd be a lot of fun were it not literally a matter of life and death for some people.

[keithbvadu2]

55. OOPS! Right subject. Wrong forum. Sorry.

According to the bible, a fetus is not a living person with a soul until after drawing its first breath.

'God's word' becomes irrelevant when it's inconvenient.
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The Bible Tells Us When A Fetus Becomes A Living Being

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