The Roman Catholic Church view is so strong for a few main reasons, 1) that life begins at fertilisation, when the sperm meets the egg. This is when the Roman Catholics believe life begins and a human is formed.
The second reason, which makes it so bad for Roman Catholics to kill a ‘life’, is that they have been taught the life is a gift from God. Life is on loan to us and is not our property and must be protected as it not our own.
“Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives inside you and who was given to you by God. You do not belong to your selves but to God: he bought you for a price so use your bodies for Gods glory” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
This teaches Roman Catholics that if life is a gift which God has created then it is worth protecting.
They have also been taught from the bible that life reflects something of God, that each person has something of God inside them.
“Let us make men in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis. Gen 1:26)
Human life is special because it reflects some thing of God.
Human life has a purpose and needed on the planet. The book of Genesis The creation story says that men and women are to “Have domination over that animals “. In other word God has put human is charge. We have the task of caring and being responsible for the world. Life is too important because we have a responsibility. To kill of humans would be killing Gods art. He forms us and that means if God has created us then we must be special and worthy of protection.
“We are Gods work of art, created in Jesus Christ to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it”. (St Paul Ephesians 2:10)
Roman Catholics believe that life starts at fertilisation. They are told in the Ten Commandments “thou shall not kill”. This forbids them from aborting a child from the mother’s womb. Their view is that abortion or to bring about the death of the mother or child is “against the voice of nature and the commandments of God”
When their theory of human life and when it begins is tested they use this argument to back up what they believe.
“it is the life of a new human being with its own growth. It would never be a human if it were not human already”.
One more reason why the Roman Catholics are reluctant to accept abortion as a method of birth control that they believe God has chosen you to live before you are even born.
The Lord said “ I choose you before I give you life, and before you were born I I selected you to be a prophet to the nations”. (Jermiah 1:4)
Roman Catholics believe so strongly in the view that life is sacred that they don’t want to risk any chance of killing off Gods wishes for them not to have children that they don’t use contraception or birth control at all.
All Christians believe in the sanctity of life. This means they believe life is holy, sacred and pure and should be protected.
A denomination of the Christian faith that does allows abortion is the Church of England. The Church of England does not allow abortion in all circumstances. This means it may agree, in some situations “There are times when it would be better for a child not to be born” in the context of abortion.
The reasons allowing abortion are:
A risk to the mother bearing the child, if the child is going to be severely handicapped and does not stand a chance of living a happy life or if the mother of the child has been raped as this may cause further and longer term emotional damage if she now has the child.
The Church of England stress’ that abortion may never be used for the convenience of the mother, there must always be a valid or one of the above-mentioned reasons.
In the Church of England abortion is still a bad thing and is believed to be “killing a child” and “Abortion is evil but may be acceptable in some circumstances”.
Although abortion may be allowed at times it is not a subject taken lightly, and has been debated over many times.
In 1993 a Synod produced a report on the feelings and the precautions taken on abortion. In it, it states such things as: They believe that abortion rates are too high and they do not agree with the statistics being that high and that abortion should only be used “after the most serious moral reflection”. It ensures that the Church and society works together creating “a caring climate in which real alternatives to abortion are available, and to develop educational programs which promote the understanding of human sexuality and relationships”. The Church also recognises “the particular responsibility of the Church to offer spiritual advice, moral and practical support to those who choose not to abort their children in difficult situations”.
The Church of England also believes that life is sacred and must be protected and like the Roman Catholics believe in the commandment “ Thou shall not kill” and believe human life is important. They think all this yet they still allow abortions. This may seem confusing but the theory behind it is that each case of abortion is special and that is what Jesus would have done.
If the woman is found to be suffering, mentally, physically or both it is believed that Jesus would have stopped the woman’s suffering by condoning the abortion.
John 9:1-12 Jesus heals a blind man.
Mark 7:32-37 Jesus heals a deaf and dumb man.
Mark 5:21-43 Jesus raises the daughter of a man called Jarius from the dead.
There are many more examples of this type of work that Jesus performed.
I therefore think that the response to the afore mentioned statement would be that each case is special and should be treated with great thought and individuality.
So far I have looked at the Roman Catholic Church, who are dead against abortion and the Church of England who are more “middle of the road” in their beliefs on abortion. Now I will look at the Pro-Choice Christian groups.
This is a group, which has a minority of Christian support, mainly because their views are totally different from larger Christian denominations.
Their attitude to the operation is that it is an acceptable thing to do if you should wish to. They believe abortion is “A valuable medical strategy which can empower women to exercise their rights over their own bodies”
This mean abortion is allowed in any circumstance the only time abortion is not allowed is where the woman is being forced to abort, against her will. The decision must always be down to the mother and that each woman has the right to control her own fertility.
Although they are Christians and do believe in God they take the bible teachings very liberally. This means as time goes along and society changes so must the morals and the teachings of the bible. The things Pro- Choice groups focus on are that woman is individual and an equal in the world.
2woman will only be able to take a full and equal role in society when we can all decide for our selves whether and when we have children”
they believe the lord would have wanted them to be equal and also believe that Jesus may have allowed abortion in some cases because of his stories of healing the suffering. They think the only person who can choose and make the correct decision for her.
