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WORLDVIEWS

Metaphysics: what is real (prime reality)?

– – Supernatural only Natural only – Supernatural & Natural

Epistemology: what is true (and how do you know)?

– – Absolute or Relative?

Determined by senses, logic, experience only?

– Determined by senses, logic, experience & Divine revelation?

Ethics: What is right and wrong (ought/ought not)?

– – Determined by individuals, cultures, evolution, or God?

How do you live?

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

• • • • • Christian Ethics In Plain Language – Kerby Anderson Moral Choices An Introduction to Ethics – Scott B. Rae Evangelical Ethics – John Jefferson Davis Bioethics and the Christian Life – David Vandrunen Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice – Francis J. Beckwith

Roe v. Wade

• • • January 22, 1973 Abortion on demand during first trimester After first trimester, abortion allowed to preserve the life or health of the mother

Doe v. Bolton

• • • January 22, 1973 The health of the mother included her psychological and emotional health Abortion legal throughout pregnancy if the mother’s psychological or emotional health was impaired

ROE VS. WADE DECISION

• • The Court held that a right to privacy existed and included the right to have an abortion. The court found that a mother had a right to abortion until viability, a point to be determined by the abortion doctor. After viability a woman can obtain an abortion for health reasons, which the Court defined broadly to include psychological well-being.

"We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins." Instead, it chose to point out that historically, under English and American common law, "the unborn have never been recognized ...as persons in the whole sense" and thus the fetuses are not legally entitled to the protection afforded by the right to life specifically enumerated in the Fourteenth Amendment.

CULTURAL ARGUMENTS FOR ABORTION

• Some human beings are not persons and therefore do not have rights • A woman cannot be forced to use her body to maintain the survival of a non-person human being

THE ISSUE

• Question: Can I kill this?

• Answer: What is it?

• What is the unborn?

PERSONHOOD: WHEN IS A HUMAN A PERSON?

• • SUBSTANCE BASED - BIBLICAL: – A human being is intrinsically valuable because of its nature, essence, substance and the human being remains that nature, essence, substance as long as they are alive PERFORMANCE BASED - CULTURAL: – A human being becomes a person after it has accomplished certain milestones and it loses personhood when cannot maintain those milestones

CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW

• • • Metaphysics: One Holy Creator Triune God and His creation Epistemology: God’s inerrant Word, and what corresponds to reality Ethics: God’s character and His revealed commands

CHRISTIAN ARGUMENTS AGAINST ABORTION

• Scientific • Logical • Biblical

SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENTS AGAINST ABORTION • • Before fertilization: – Egg and sperm – parts of two separate persons After fertilization: – The one-celled zygote is a new distinct living human organism with a new unique human genetic code that does not change – The only changes in the new human is its Size, Level of development, Environment, and Degree of dependency

SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENTS AGAINST ABORTION • • • • • • Produced by humans (Law of Biogenesis) Is alive (growth, metabolism) Has unique human DNA at conception Not different in kind from adult humans Is a separate, distinct human being and not a part of another human being.

It differs from adult human persons only in: – – Size Level of development – – Environment Degree of dependency

LOGICAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ABORTION • • • • • Apply all abortion reasoning to a 5 year old human being: privacy; freedom to choose; back-alley abortions; poverty; unwanted; handicapped; wrong sex; rape or incest Size Level of development Environment Degree of dependency

BIBLICAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ABORTION • • • • • • • All humans are made in God’s image Children are a gift from the Lord God knows people before they are born God is involved in the formation of infants God’s penalty for harming the unborn God commands protection of the weak The Lord Jesus Christ was an unborn infant

MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:26-27

PROTECTED BECAUSE OF IMAGE

• And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. Genesis 9:5-6

GOD’S GIFT

• Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Psalm 127:3

KNOWN BEFORE BIRTH

• • “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. Ephesians 1:4

GOD’S INVOLVEMENT

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. Psalm 139:13-16

PENALTY FOR HARMING THE UNBORN • 22 “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if there is harm, [49] then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. Exodus 21:22-25

PROTECTION FOR THE WEAK

• • Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” Psalm 82:3-4 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ Matthew 25:40

THE LORD JESUS CHRIST

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). Matthew 1:18-23

APPLICATIONS

• • It is the belief that people are made in the image of God that has motivated Christians through the centuries to combat slavery, poverty, genocide, infanticide, abortion on demand, and active euthanasia. “As missionaries circled the globe they established hospitals. They founded orphanages. They started rescue missions. They built almshouses. They opened soup kitchens. They changed laws. They lived as if people mattered.” George Grant, “The Last Crusader”

WHAT NOW?

• • • 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” Romans 1:16-17 Name the baby, grieve, be comforted, know that all infants who die are redeemed Hope Pregnancy Center, adoption, vote