An InconvenientLife

Part II

What is the unborn?Are some humans expendable?

Only TwoQuestions

Are some humans expendable?

Peter Singer, “Bioethics: The Case of the Fetus,” The New York Review of Books 23, no. 13 (August 5, 1976).

“The pro-life groups were right about one thing, the location of the baby inside or outside the womb cannot make much of a moral difference.”

Peter Singer, “Bioethics: The Case of the Fetus,” The New York Review of Books 23, no. 13 (August 5, 1976).

“The solution, however, is not to accept the pro-life view that the fetus is a human being with the same moral status as yours or mine.”

Peter Singer, “Bioethics: The Case of the Fetus,” The New York Review of Books 23, no. 13 (August 5, 1976).

“The solution is the very opposite, to abandon the idea that all human life is of equal worth.”

Genesis 1:27 ESV

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

“It says on your resumé that you were created in God’s image. Very impressive.”

Copyright 2007 by Randy Glasbergen. www.Glasbergen.com

Genesis 9:6 ESV

6 Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

Exodus 20:13 ESV

13 You shall not murder.

Exodus 21:22 ESV

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.

Exodus 21:23-25 ESV

23 But if there is harm, 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.

What is the difference betweena human being and a human person?

“newborn-infants, especially if unwanted, are not yet full members of the moral community”

Peter Singer, Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics, (New York: Prometheus Books, 1995), 130.

“The Jew has never been a nomad, but always a parasite, battening on the substance of others.”

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (1925), 261.

“Why are sexism and racism wrong? Isn’t it because they pick out a surface difference… and ignore the underlying similarity all of us share?”

Steve Wagner, “Common Ground and Uncommon Conversation,” Stand to Reason Newsletter (Dec. 5, 2005).http://www.str.org/site/DocServer/stevewagnernews0512.pdf?docID=681

“We should treat women and men, African-Americans and whites, as equals and protect them from discrimination. Why? Because they all have a human nature.”

Steve Wagner, “Common Ground and Uncommon Conversation,” Stand to Reason Newsletter (Dec. 5, 2005).http://www.str.org/site/DocServer/stevewagnernews0512.pdf?docID=681

“But if the unborn also has that same human nature, shouldn’t we protect her as well?”

Steve Wagner, “Common Ground and Uncommon Conversation,” Stand to Reason Newsletter (Dec. 5, 2005).http://www.str.org/site/DocServer/stevewagnernews0512.pdf?docID=681

Scott PetersonConvicted of double homicide for murdering his wife and his unborn child in Modesto, CA, in 2002.

God forgives

1 John 1:9 ESV

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

12 weeks

Images help our case

• Disability or deformity (like Down Syndrome)

• Conception by rape

Difficult cases?

Can a woman shoot her rapist?

Is it murder to kill a 2-year-old that was conceived by rape?

The right thing to do is not always easy.

Exodus 18:20a ESV

20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son.

The life of the mother

“…in such cases, the physician must save the mother’s life even if it results in the death of the unborn.”

Francis J. Beckwith, Defending Life (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 165.

“The physician’s intention is not to kill the child but to save the mother. But because salvaging both is impossible… better that one should live rather than two die.”

Francis J. Beckwith, Defending Life (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 165.

Matthew 12:3-4 ESV

3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?

Wreckage from Israeli air strikes targeting Hamas terrorists

Collateral Damage

Moral Confusion

October 11, 2012 - Vice President Joe Biden on Abortion

I personally oppose kidnapping, but I refuse to impose that on kidnappers.

Matthew 5:13 ESV

13 You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.