A difficult subject to approach, so fraught with the horror of abortion as we know it in this day and age, when women use the law to murder children they need not have conceived.
In my view, America, and indeed, all the nations, will be judged on the sacrifice of the unborn to the worship of convenience and a good life style, as if that should matter when men and women everywhere in America are desperate to adopt a child.
But the question Dorcas raises is not one of abortion as contraception, nor even as something that is commonly to be done, but as an exception to a rule on murder, if indeed murder is the term.
In the Old and New Testaments, self defense is not forbidden.
And it is law that we speak of here. If you will claim grace, then why do you place women under men as a law?
And under Jewish law, a child that endangers the life of it's mother is an attacker, and is therefore trefe, I believe the word is, denoting something that is accursed or unclean for attacking the innocent.
For a mother is a viable member of the community, a part of her husband, and to be valued and cherished against any attacker, even a child that is half formed, and even innocent of intent to kill for it's own survival. Yet by the life that is in it, the child has an instinct to live, even at the expense of it's host.
And that the attack may come from an unborn child in the womb does not make the danger less of an attack on the mother, for it is the mother who gives life, and can give life to many. And if she cannot bear children, she has other value.
She is already a given producer, at least as a wife, as a member of a family, as a member of a community, and possibly as mother of many children already. The fact that many a mother will indeed, from the pressure they feel to fulfill a misunderstanding of their role in life by God, seek to give up their own life for the child they are bearing, is not generousity.
It is self immolation.
But if she, the wife, has no value except as a producer of children, man makes her less than human, and disposable.
All well and good in a time when there was not choice, as a law, and a bad 'choice' it is, too...but there has always been choice, to save the life of a woman from the attack of the child within her.
God made herbs and fungi that have a specific effect on the human body, to the cleanse the womb of a woman who cannot bear a child safely, ergot being the most common.
Oddly, there has always been a choice for women to bear or not to bear, if their life was in danger. That they have been made to feel guilt for what is an act of self defense is due to the pressure of some men to have large families at the expense of their wife's frailties.
And it relates to God's decree's as to what is killing, and what is murder.
Killing in war is not murder, but justifiable homicide.
Killing to protect others is not murder, but justifiable homicide.
Killing in self defense is not murder, but justifiable homicide.
Why then, if the child in your womb is going to kill you are you not allowed to defend yourself?
I will go farther. Being burdened by many children, and physically drained by the demands of the man upon the woman in many societies, despite her inability to bear children safely, many women are bled of strength by the over bearing of children into an early death.
Is this what God intends of a marriage where two are to beome one?
Particularly now, when we can see the problems ahead of time, with ultrasound, and other medical tests and techniques, what the exact problem is? Most dangers in bearing children these days are gotten around by a caeserian birth, a literal operation to take the child from the body of the woman without killing her.
If a child cannot live, or live long, yet will not endanger the life or sanity of the mother by being born, God uses such agony of pain for parents and child to refine the spirit. The birth should go forward, that the few days of life for the child, or the few years, shall become a blessing to all.
But if the child does endanger the life of the mother, and cannot live? What then? If it will kill both mother and child, and the child would die anyway, there is blame in plenty to go around for those that will not protect the wife from her husband.
And there are reasons that a woman should not bear children. To give an example would be a diabetic, who would experience kidney failure, and death if she pressed on in pursuit of a child. Well, if that is her choice, and her husband's choice, to exchange her life for a child, it is not a man dying in a Christlike manner to save others from damnation. But is it a sacrifice to be made? Is it necessary that a woman give up her life to bear children when it is not safe for her to do so?
Is a woman, delicate,and to be cherished by her husband, although willing, due to custom, and the pressure to produce a child, to die merely to produce a son and heir for a beloved husband, even though she leaves the child bereft of a mother, and the husband bereft of a wife?
What if it is murder by childbearing, a disposal of the wife of your youth for a newer, stronger woman? What then, oh man?
This is not the curse laid on Eve.
[color=993300]Genesis 3:16. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.[/color]
God said woman would bring forth children in sorrow, and to any man that has witnessed his wife give birth, he knows that he could not take such a burden of distress and pain and travail, for travail it is. Childbearing is a work of pain beyond your imagination.
But the curse on the daughters of Eve is in bringing children forth in pain and suffering, not as a death sentence, and not dying from harboring them in your body.
To force a woman to give up her life to bear life is murder. It is murder by the husband who chooses the life of an unknown child over the wife of his youth. Better he should divorce her for being barren, and commit adultury...the sin is the same - an essential betrayal of the union of the man and his wife.
And the child? The child has a soul and a destiny, but God permits mankind to make decisions that affect other people's lives. And those decisions are often the destiny that God has chosen for all. We do not serve an unseeing, unfeeling God, and what we choose is often what God will use to teach and chastise us.
The soul of the child will not suffer for not being born. The child will experience little of life except the life within the womb, but even if killed to save the life of the mother, it does not suffer the loss of salvation, for the child is innocent.
And what a life for the child, later living with the knowledge that his or her birth murdered a loving mother, is that child not saddled with the very real desire to turn back the clock? Most children would generously offer up his or her life for the mother, particularly if it were before they were able to understand the pain of living without a mother, and the anguish of being blamed for her death. This at least is sacrifice for a right reason, if indeed their birth was the only reason for the woman's death.
Yet, if a woman wishes, without pressure, to give her life to produce life, should it be so? Yes, it is a sacrifice of self, and could be viewed as giving a life for a life, even as Christ gave His life for us. Yet God may view it as suicide by childbirth, a sin unto God.
So be very sure that only a woman's personal desire to produce life for the sake of producing life is in view, for otherwise, she is doing it to satisfy the desires of the husband, or the customs of her community, who will lie to himself or themselves, that he or they had no choice in the matter.
For in all things, God has given us the ability to reason, and to choose what is our desire, yet commanding that man is to love his wife as Christ loved the Church, and gave His life willingly for her.
[color=993300]Ecclesiastes 9: 9. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.
Ephesians 5: 28. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
29. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
30. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
31. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
32. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
33. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.[/color]
Blessings,
Forrest
