Explain the beliefs Christians hold about their responsibility for those at the beginning and end of their lives.

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

Ciara Devlin 11F

AO1

Explain the beliefs Christians hold about their responsibility for those at the beginning and end of their lives

All Christians believe that life is a gift from God! As Pope Paul V1 says “life is sacred and all men must recognise that fact”

On this earth God values everything! From a grain of salt, to a human being. In the eyes of God an unborn child is not a foetus! But a living, breathing child. Although the child cannot speak it still has the same dignity and rights as any human who can speak for themselves and who have entered the world! Jesus said; “ Unless you become a child you can not come to me.” This quote means that if we didn’t start off with the innocence and purity of a child we wouldn’t be able to enter the Kingdom of God because to enter the Kingdom of God you need to be pure in body, mind and soul. This is exactly what a child is. This also shows us how much God loved children.

In Jeremiah 1:4-5 it says “ I chose you before I gave you life.” This means that before we were conceived God had us planned. Even before your parents knew they were going to have a baby, God knew! It is Gods will for us to be born and to fulfil his plans that he had for us.

Although God has our life designed for us before we are conceived, it doesn’t always go to plan! I’m referring to ‘Abortion’. We as Christians believe it’s God who gives life and it should only be God who takes it away. If we believe this then why do so many of us take life away through abortion and euthanasia?

Abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy. The baby (foetus) is KILLED usually before the 24th week of the pregnancy. There are many reasons why women chose to have an abortion. Some examples of these are:

* The mother is underage ...

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* The mother is underage and would not be able to look after the baby.

* The baby wasn’t planned.

These may seem like good enough reasons to some people to have an abortion. But no excuse will ever be good enough in the eyes of God to end a human beings life. If the unborn child is really unwanted there are always alternatives. An example of this is having the child adopted. This way the child lives and gets the chance to be a full member of society and the child would give comfort to the chid-less couple that have longed for a baby.

The Roman Catholic view of abortion is if you have an abortion you are breaking the Fifth Commandment ‘ Do not KILL’. In other words you are committing murder. Roman Catholics believe life begins at conception not at birth. In 1968, Pope Paul V1 wrote in a Human Vitae that it was a rule for Roman Catholics that abortion was wrong and that they should not have an abortion because it would be going behind the great, strong belief of the church on that matter.

Although the Roman Catholic Church is strict about abortion because it is committing murder and breaking one of the main commandments the Church of England shares different views. They do strongly oppose to the procedure-taking place, but unlike the Roman Catholic Church they feel there can be strictly limited conditions under which it may be morally preferable for the procedure to take place. An example of this might be that there would be a good chance that the unborn child would not survive birth for whatever reason.

The Church of England feels that they would not want the mother to go through any unnecessary bereavement. But what they have to remember is that when you have an abortion you are killing a child. It is known that most women who have an abortion have regrets and feel guilty. They feel as if they want to go back and change what happened but the reality is that it can’t be changed. Once an abortion has been performed it is irreversible. There would always be the thought in the mothers’ head of what if she did things differently and the child survived. She would be guilt stricken. In some cases it leads to the mother becoming mentally ill and always thinking what if?

Most Christians don’t believe in abortion. They also don’t believe in euthanasia because they see life as a gift from God and believe only God can give life, so only God can take it away. When you die you are about to make the entrance into the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of eternal life. This is an important decision. A decision too important to be taken out of Gods hands.

We are all going to die at some stage in our lives; it is unavoidable. People as Christians know this, but some people feel at stages in their lives their going to die anyway, so why not when there on the edge of suffering! Suffering is a normal part of life. Jesus suffered on the cross for many hours to open the gates of heaven for those who believed in him. He always knew what was going to happen to him. He could have fled at any time. But he didn’t. He stayed on earth until it was his time to leave. This is exactly what we as Christians should do. Stay on earth until our time is up. Until we are ready to enter into the Kingdom of God.

We as Christians also believe we should never disobey God. But this is exactly what we are doing when we commit abortion or euthanasia, because by doing these two things we are ending a human beings life before their time.

We as Christians also have a responsibility to the unborn child and to the dying person. We have the responsibility of keeping the unborn child from harm and death and we have the responsibility of keeping the dying person alive until his last day on earth has arrived.

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