Hey guys! I can't believe it has been a year. I miss you all so much! What a great year. I encourage you to look at your yearbooks! :)
I don't know how many of you know, but on Thursday, April 26, Canadian parliament is going to debate the personhood of unborn Canadians. They will be discussing / debating what a human is and abortion. Please pray for this! Pray that they may know that abortion is wrong and that a baby is a human even though it is unborn. Please be praying for what will be discussed.
Here is an attachment for an article that talks more about it :
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/canadian-parliament-to-debate-abortion-april-26
I encourage you to read it. There is more articles about this so look those up too.
Peace and love,
Mike
9 comments:
Thanks for posting this, I love your heart bro. Hope to talk to you sometime soon.
It is hard to believe that a year has passed by so quickly. Feels like yesterday that we were all saying our goodbyes. And thanks for the heads up about the debate and for the link Mike. I'll definitely be praying.
hey mike, thanks for your concern on this issue! you are an amazing man. but criminalizing abortion is not going to solve the issue of the termination of the lives of unborn babies. women are still going to do it, but they will have to either do it themselves or put themselves in compromising and dangerous situations out of desperation. many of them will end up successfully aborting anyway, but hurting themselves in the process. i am obviously anti-abortion, but i am pro-choice, because while this is a really really tragic infringement on the value of human life, we do not and should not have the power to remove choices from these women. if they want to get rid of the baby, they will get rid of the baby. in my opinion it would be more helpful for women considering abortion to go through mandatory counselling reviewing all their options and studying the long-term psychological effects of abortion (my mom had one when she was a teenager and as a result was seriously depressed my entire childhood). however, when it comes down to it, what gives us a right to strip women of the freedom to choose? nothing.
this is just an issue that's really close to my heart, i don't mean to undermine your honourable passion for human life. just wanted to broaden the debate. i love you guys!
Bret,
I'm not sure how I feel about your response. I think we need to first and foremost look to scripture in a situation like this and see what the Lord says about it and make our decision from there.
When we look at Psalms 139:13-16 it tells us that God formed our inmost being and knit us in our mother's womb. And that our days were shaped before one came to be.
We can see that life happens at conception and what does the bible say about taking a life, that it is murder. Exodus 20:13 "You shall not murder." and Genesis 9:6 "Whoever shall shed man's blood, his own blood shall be shed, for man was made in the image of God."
These unborn babies are life. They are human, they are being knitted and formed in the image of God. How are they any less of a person than I am? But yet if I was to be murdered it would be a crime worth prison and in some cases a death penalty. Why do these murderers not have the right to choice? A little extreme i know but true all the same.
I see your point on how if it did become illegal than women would do it anyways in an unsafe enviroment and how that could be a problem but ultimately it'd be thier choice just like it was their choice to have unprotected sex or pre-martial sex in the first place. Just like it is a drug addicts choice to cause harm to thier bodies by doing drugs.
There are other options such as adoption. there are countless women/couples wanting children because they are unable to.
I think the education has to start with the younger generation in teaching them about the option of obstaining from sex. Even if God was not factored into this teaching we could still tell these young men and women the benefits of waiting before marriage instead of slapping a condom in thier hands and telling them "be safe."
I could go on but i'll leave it at that. As you can tell i'm very passionate myself about pro-life. Being a mother of two and experiencing life being formed in my own womb I just can not see or comprehend the idea of abortion no matter the situation. Life is Life no matter what stage.
Shannon & Bret,
I love the conversation going on here ladies. It'll be interesting to see how Parliament defines a human life. That'll make all the difference.
One thing that comes to mind: 2 Corinthians 3: 16-18
" But when someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had the veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord--who is the Spirit--makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image."
We have been given a glorious gift--the Spirit--who will lead us into all truth. We are lost without Him. Much of the world is lost right now. Let's humble ourselves before the Lord, accept this gift of truth, and share it with those around us.
I think a great way of sharing this truth--this truth of who we are, and how God made us, is through education. If we live our lives in truth and obedience and influence/lead those around us who are not of the faith, it is their decision to accept or reject the truth.
shannon,
even if a foetus is a "human" from the moment of conception and therefore has a "right to life," it does not necessarily follow that abortion is impermissible. for example, when the woman's life is at stake, it is comparable to self-defence to carry through with the termination of the baby's life. just because something attaches itself to your body, whether it be a foetus or a violinist, does NOT give it the "right" to drain you of life for the sake of its own survival. furthermore, it is permissible to go through with abortion even when the mother's life is not at stake. according to your insinuations, "right to life" involves the right to be given at least the care minimum one needs for continued life. but this is not what the right to life is, since there are cases in which a person BOTH has a right to life AND does not have the right to be given at least the bare minimum needed for survival, for example if a violinist were surgically attached to you because he needed your functioning kidney in order to survive. yes, he is a human being, and as such, yes he has the right to life; but does he have the right to be given the bare minimum he needs for survival (ie the use of your kidneys)? no. the woman does not give the fetus the right to use her body simply by being aware that it is possible, but improbable (say in the case of being on the pill or wearing a condom and having it break) that a pregnancy could occur if she engages in certain kinds of behaviours. (sidenote: it's not just those involved in pre-marital or unprotected sex who get pregnant and decide to have abortions). to put this another way, let's say that one brother is given a box of chocolates, and his brother wants some. while it would be indecent for one brother to refuse to share his chocolates, that does not entail that his brother has a right to the chocolates. in other words, the general idea that "P ought to do X to S" does not entail "S has a right to have X done to it by P." it's sort of a case of the good samaritan vs. the minimally decent samaritan. the fact that in some cases the mother may be indecent or blameworthy for having an abortion does not entail that the foetus has a right not to have the abortion performed.
i am anti-abortion, but pro-choice, as i said. my conscience and studies have urged me that there is no rational moral reason on earth to encourage the criminalization of abortion, at least i have yet to discover one at this point in my life. of course i believe in the intrinsic value of every human being. but we need to find a way to defend life apart from pulling out bible verses, because frankly most people do not want to hear them. i do wish to defend the life of unborn children but i also wish to defend the rights of women. we all have the right to CHOOSE. why do you think god gave us freewill? for us to take the choice of abortion away from women is archaic and chauvinistic and not relevant to our society.
We never chose Jesus, He always chooses us. "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit - fruit that will last." John 15:16
The only choice/freewill that we do have is our choice to sin.
More often than not we do chose to sin when our eyes are not fixed on Jesus and the truth of God and His word.
I was speaking to you and your decision as a follower of Jesus Christ, which is why I used scripture. And even if people don't want to hear it Bret, they need to. The gospel and God's word is offending but it's truth.
None of us have the right to take a human life I believe. That is God's right and His alone. But we often look at our life as if it is our own, it's not, it's His. We were created for Him. So those who chose abortion even in a marriage are selfish. Doing it because it's not right for them, it wasn't in their plan, wanted a career first, they wanted to travel see the world; all selfish.
But that's the problem isn't it. We humans are selfish putting too much worth on our own life rather than on others.
Fight to the fittest, that's what Darwin taught us and that's what most of our society lives by but what did Jesus teach? "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13
If I had to choose right now to save my 2 year olds life over mine I'd chose her life. And it's the same decision I’d make if SHE was in my womb.
And the word foetus is incorrect in my eyes. A word used to lie about what it really is, a life, a human, a baby. I don't think God would view a baby as just a foetus who attaches itself and drains the life out of a woman. He views children a gift and every child was once a "foetus."
Psalm 127:3-5
"Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate."
Mark 10:14
"When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them " Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these."
Matthew 18:10
"See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven."
The likeliness of a violinist attaching themselves to you for survival is pretty out there and silly and not a valid example or even comes into comparison to the miracle and gift of life.
Bret, I’ll be praying for you to seek God in your decision and your view of what a human life is. And I do not mean this in a condescending way but in love.
Jan said it beautifully:
"But when someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had the veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord--who is the Spirit--makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image."
Blessings,
Shannon K6
the example of the violinist was a thought experiment used to illustrate a point. i was using logical reasoning to validly show an argument's flaws. i admire your passion for this issue shannon, and the scripture you back it up with is powerful. perhaps i am just twenty years old and haughty, but until i am further enlightened, we can agree to disagree.
hey bret,
I know we kind of closed our discussion but i came across this sermon from John Piper. Watch, don't watch, but I wanted to post it anyways..lol. But I hope you do.
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/the-baby-in-my-womb-leaped-for-joy
blessings,
shannon
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