The Biblical justification for abortion?
She further stated that: “The angel did not say that you are going to be the mother of God, the angel said: are you willing to do this? She had the choice”.
Thereby, pro-choice is encouraged in the Bible and is definitely accepted.
~ Feminists for Choice blogger Elin, quoting Kentucky Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice board member Jo Ann Dale to make a point that “a pro-choice attitude is definitely compatible with religion and religious views,” October 2
Oct.05, 2012 6:00 am |
The Church |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
#1 That is blasphemous, and I’m going to have to fast or something to make reparations for that evil. #2 Our Lady gave her “Fiat” to the pregnancy BEFORE she was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and the human life of Our Lord began. So, wrong again.
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! The Virgin Mary was NOT given a choice but told the mission that was placed upon her. The true parallel is found in the novel “Son of the Morning” by Joyce Carol Oates in which 15-year-old Elsa Vickery is gang-raped by a group of men. She didn’t choose the pregnancy but ACCEPTS the pregnancy. The viciously gang-raped teenager gives birth to a child who grows up to become a famous Christian minister.
Juust wished she actually believed what she was saying, because what she is saying is the pro-life position: choice happens BEFORE action. Being ‘pro-choice’ concerning reproduction happens BEFORE one gets pregnant, once you’re pregnant action, and choice, have already occured. Now you’re ‘choice’ is a PARENTING one, and if the ‘pro-choice’ crowd actually was honest enough to stand up and say ‘we support a mother’s right to choose to kill her child’ they’d lose a lot of their deceived fan base.
Humans are stupid and Jo Ann Dale is dumber than most.
Like Jesus, Mary made an informed decision to do GOD’s will. She counted the costs and reckoned it all as lost compared to the incomparable riches of knowing the Christ.
The key here is that the Blessed Virgin chose prior to conceiving. That is how it is suppose to work. The choice comes first.
I think it’s safe to say that they’ve officially jumped the shark.
So that’s the best they’ve got? An argument that can be debunked by anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of the Bible? Really?
There is a much more lucid argument for biblically supported abortion which is based on Exodus 21:22. A good defense against that argument can be found at this link: http://www.personhoodinitiative.com/a-letter-to-dr-prescott.html
Except she didn’t “choose before conceiving” because Mary didn’t choose at all. Gabriel told her “This is how it’s going to be.” and Mary replied, “‘Kay.” She didn’t ask to be pregnant, she probably didn’t want to be pregnant, and we know that being pregnant brought her a whole mess of trouble that she probably would have liked to skip out on if it had been up to her. All on top of the fact that she had no reason to expect possible pregnancy because she hadn’t even had sex! Jesus’ conception is the ultimate in unplanned pregnancies. Has this lady ever even read the Bible? At all? Because they print them in English now. She doesn’t have to learn Latin to read it anymore.
Yeah, umm… Mary’s saying “yes” to becoming the mother of the Messiah was prior to His conception. So it’s actually nowhere CLOSE to being the same thing.
Would it have been acceptable for Mary to choose to abort the Messiah? I. don’t. think. so.
No Bill, that is such a TIRED argument. That verse (and I knew what it was before I even look it up because you pro-aborts all cling to it) is talking about if a woman is pregnant and two men are fighting and accidentally hit her and she gives birth early AND NO MISCHIEF FOLLOWS. That means the baby doesn’t die. It is not a verse stating that miscarriage occurs and God doesn’t care about the loss of life.
Proverbs 6: 16, 17
These 6 things doth the Lord hate…hands that shed innocent blood.
Thats a better one for you pro-aborts, don’t you think Bill?
Mary chose to accept Christ and to accept the child. Which is a very good thing, because if she had not done so, then there would be no Jesus for us to know and accept.
Eve had a choice when she decided to disobey — and her curse was handed down to all of us.
Mary had a choice when she decided to accept Christ, for herself and for the world — and her blessing has been handed down to all of us.
“Choice” is indeed at the heart of both individual salvation and all of salvation history.
The point that blogger Eiin misses is this: Bad choices lead to pain and sadness. The ultimate choice is repentance or damnation.
Elin seems to think that all choices are equally good, and perhaps there are no bad choices. She is particularly blind in using Mary’s choice (of accepting life for the world) as her prime example, as if Mary’s refusal would have been just as same.
Mary’s fiat, her positive Choice, guided by the Grace she was full with, is model of servitude that each Mother confronted with the news of a pregnancy should follow. Saying “Yes” to life is the way to follow the Lord. God gave human beings free will so that they could choose life, so that they could say “Yes” to the spiritual life, yes to the eternal life that awaits all those who are obedient to the laws of the faith. Free will must be guided by the Holy Spirit, free will is the reason we must believe and have faith. When guided by the Holy Spirit your free will can say “Yes.” Choose abortion, and you choose death, death to the spiritual life – then your second death – the death of the flesh – will be a real torment onto you. Don’t choose spiritual death for yourself nor the death of your child, choose Life for both of you. Mary was the Handmaid of the Lord, you can be too with your “Yes.”
MARY OFFERS SUBLIME MODEL OF SERVICE
Pope John Paul II
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In declaring herself ‘the handmaid of the Lord’, the Blessed Virgin shows total obedience to God’s will and makes it her own with all her personal resources
“Mary makes the Father’s will the inspiring principle of her whole life, seeking in it the necessary strength to fulfil the mission entrusted to her”, the Holy Father said at the General Audience of Wednesday, 4 September, as he reflected on Mary’s response to the angel at the Annunciation, an act of free submission to God. Here is a translation of his catechesis, which was the 32nd in the series on the Blessed Mother and was given in Italian.
1. Mary’s words at the Annunciation “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38), indicate an attitude characteristic of Jewish piety. At the beginning of the Old Covenant, Moses, in response to the Lord’s call, proclaims himself his servant (cf. Ex 4:10; 14:31). With the coming of the New Covenant, Mary also responds to God with an act of free submission and conscious abandonment to his will, showing her complete availability to be the “handmaid of the Lord”.
In the Old Testament, the qualification “servant” of God links all those who are called to exercise a mission for the sake of the Chosen People: Abraham (Gn 26:24), Isaac (Gn 24:14) Jacob (Ex 32:13; Ez 37:25), Joshua (Jos 24:29), David (2 Sam 7, 8, etc.). Prophets and priests, who have been entrusted with the task of forming the people in the faithful service of the Lord, are also servants. The Book of the Prophet Isaiah exalts, in the docility of the “suffering Servant”, a model of fidelity to God in the hope of redemption for the sins of the many (cf. Is 42:53). Some women also offer examples of fidelity, such as Queen Esther who, before interceding for the salvation of the Jews, addresses a prayer to God, calling herself many times “your servant” (Est 4:17).
Mary’s ‘fiat’ expresses total obedience
2. Mary, “full of grace”, by proclaiming herself “handmaid of the Lord” intends to commit herself to fulfil personally and in a perfect manner the service God expects of all his people. The words: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord”, foretell the One who will say of himself: “The Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45: cf. Mt 20:28). Thus the Holy Spirit brings about a harmony of intimate dispositions between the Mother and the Son, which will allow Mary to assume fully her maternal role to Jesus, as she accompanies him in his mission as Servant. In Jesus’ life the will to serve is constant and surprising: as Son of God, he could rightly have demanded to be served. Attributing to himself the title “Son of Man”, whom, according to the Book of Daniel, “all peoples, nations, and languages should serve” (Dn 7:14), he could have claimed mastery over others. Instead, combating the mentality of the time which was expressed in the disciples’ ambition for the first places (cf. Mk 9:34) and in Peter’s protest during the washing of the feet (cf. Jn 13:6), Jesus does not want to be served, but desires to serve to the point of totally giving his life in the work of redemption.
3. Furthermore, Mary, although aware of the lofty dignity conferred upon her at the angel’s announcement, spontaneously declares herself “the handmaid of the Lord”. In this commitment of service she also includes the intention to serve her neighbour, as the link between the episodes of the Annunciation and the Visitation show: informed by the angel of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, Mary sets out “with haste” (Lk 1:39) for Judah, with total availability to help her relative prepare for the birth. She thus offers Christians of all times a sublime model of service.
The words: “Let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38), show in her who declared herself handmaid of the Lord, a total obedience to God’s will.
The optative genoito, “let it be done”, used by Luke, expresses not only acceptance but staunch assumption of the divine plan, making it her own with the involvement of all her personal resources.
By conforming to God’s will, Mary anticipates attitude of Christ
4. By conforming to the divine will, Mary anticipates and makes her own the attitude of Christ who, according to the Letter to the Hebrews, coming into the world, says: “Sacrifice and offerings you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me … Then I said … ‘Behold, I come to do your will, O God’” (Heb 10:5-7; Ps 40 [39]: 7-9).
Mary’s docility likewise announces and prefigures that expressed by Jesus in the course of his public life until Calvary. Christ would say: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work” (Jn 4:34). On these same lines, Mary makes the Father’s will the inspiring principle of her whole life, seeking in it the necessary strength to fulfil the mission entrusted to her.
If at the moment of the Annunciation, Mary does not yet know of the sacrifice which will mark Christ’s mission, Simeon’s prophecy will enable her to glimpse her Son’s tragic destiny (cf. Lk 3:34-35). The Virgin will be associated with him in intimate sharing. With her total obedience to God’s will, Mary is ready to live all that divine love may plan for her life, even to the “sword” that will pierce her soul.
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Taken from:
L’Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
11 September 1996, page 15
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Mary’s acceptance of pregnancy is akin to elective surrogacy. In no way, shape or form can it be construed to be consequence free fornication. There’s a distinct difference between enforcement of a condition, free will etc. and elimination of the consequences (the living child) after the intercourse. Life trumps liberty. You are not free to kill, but you are free to not engage in sex that will cause pregnancy. You are not free to engage in heterosexual intercourse without any possibility of conception save medical sterilization – basically you’re not free to alter human nature. We would think it absurd to think we are free to dive to incredible ocean depths or jump out of an airplane at an incredible height and not expect a harmful/fatal consequence of such decisions. Such consequences aren’t only natural, but also social – one is not free to rob a bank at gunpoint and not expect to get shot. Just because an act was freely entered, should there be an expectation such freedom from consequences should continue to exist.
What about rape? Rape is wrong because it imposes force upon another against their will – precisely the act which happens during abortion.
Leftists play with the word choice so much, they have no actual clue what it really means any more.
A final comment about freedom and choice. One of the most logical arguments for abortion I’ve ever read had to do with impregnated sex slaves giving birth to a child to serve as a human ball and chain, and later as a generational sex slave. The mother’s choice to abort the child can be seen as a mercy killing among other things. (I reject the argument because it presupposes there are no other conditions which can change the outcome for the mother – whereas abortion permanently kills the child.)
Life always trumps liberty.
At the heart of this argument is the contention that disobeying God’s will is a perfectly valid choice. It’s one thing for some pro-choice “christian” to say “well, maybe god doesn’t want me to continue this pregnancy.” It’s something else entirely to say that an express wish of God personally delivered by an angel could have been ignored.
It’s the logic of reading the admonition in Deuteronomy 30:19 to “choose life,” and saying “See? this proves that god allows us to choose death if we think it’s right for us!”
One of my favorite prayers:
Hail, Holy Queen
Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy,
Our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry,
Poor banished children of Eve.
To thee do we send up our sighs,
Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, Oh most gracious advocate,
Thine eyes of mercy towards us,
And after this our exile,
Show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, o loving,
O sweet Virgin Mary.
Pray for us, O holy Mother of God
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Sydney, I think you misunderstood Bill. His link is him arguing AGAINST the pro-abort argument.
“Then Mary said, Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be done to me according to what you have said.”
“And Mary said, My soul magnifies and extols the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has looked upon the low station and humiliation of His handmaiden. For behold, from now on all generations [of all ages] will call me blessed and declare me happy and to be envied!”
Obviously Mary never met Feminists for Choice, Elin, the Kentucky Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and most especially board member Jo Ann Dale.
Say what????
No one knows what angels look like — I suspect they come in all sizes, shapes, and colors — but Mary was not blonde and blue-eyed. Jews in first century AD Palestine just didn’t look like thsat.
Anyway, good news — the Moroccan government has sent WARSHIPS to surround the abortion ship, Women on Waves:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19829889
Most Gracious Mother, please forgive this terribly blasphemy and insult against you and your Divine Son.
To those who say that Mary had no choice, but was simply told what would be done, that is wrong. God does not force Himself on anyone, including the Virgin Mary. She absolutely had to give the consent of her will, or the Incarnation would not have taken place. God does not use people nor treat us like puppets. Mary’s free will was never violated or coerced. She gave her assent to God’s plan after Gabriel had told it to her.
That is one of the ways Ms. Dale is very wrong in her assertion that “choice” is approved by the Bible. Cut the euphemistic bull, Ms. Dale. The “choice” you speak of is killing an innocent human being. Twist all you want, but you cannot make the Word of God support abortion.
The “choice” Mary had was whether to cooperate with God’s plan of salvation as she was being asked by the Almighty, or not. She never had the “choice” to abort the Son of God.
Blessed be the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Blessed be Jesus Christ, her Son.
“Anyway, good news — the Moroccan government has sent WARSHIPS to surround the abortion ship, Women on Waves:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19829889“
Glad to hear it! I give Morocco a lot of credit for actually standing up to these nutjobs.
I have just read the post about how a “religious” pro-choice (or pro-abortion) group is attempting to twist the Scriptural account of the Virgin Mary and the conception and birth of Christ to fit their own pro-death ideology and agenda. And I have read over the many thoughtful pro-life replies. I am a Biblical protestant—but thanks to all of you, either Roman Catholic or of different Christian affiliations who have refuted this pro-abortion attack upon not only the pro-life position and the Virgin Mary, but upon a basic Christian doctrine and truth.
I have noted many times in recent years that the homosexual movement in particular and the sexual anarchists in general have used this same approach of attempting to either deny, question, undermine, mock, or pervert Scriptural teaching pertaining to sexual purity and sanctity in general.
Bill Fortenberry – excellent, spot-on analysis with your exegesis of Exodus 21:22-25 in your letter to Dr. Prescott.
I came to the same interpretation when I dug into the same passage a few years ago.
That’s not how I read it. I just reread it to be sure, and I was right. At no point does the angel ask if Mary’s willing to mother the Son of God. He just tells Mary what’s going to happen, she will become the mother of God’s Son. When Mary realizes it’s an angel of God, she accepts him. She never protests it, just asks how it could be possible. Then, after Mary hears what God’s plan is, she submits and says, “be it unto me according to thy word.”
This woman who wrote the above quote is lying about what the Bible says, because she’s trying to make Christianity say something it doesn’t. They want to deceive Christians into thinking God is OK with abortion. This is important to them for two reasons, 1) decrease opposition to abortion in the society 2) selling abortion to Christian women who find themselves pregnant. By denying that opposition to abortion is part of the Cbhristian witness, abortion clinics can more easily pressure Christian women into having unwanted abortions. They simply tell the woman that her reluctance comes from a wrong interpretation of Christianity, as they pressure her and disrespect her NO.
This is why it is important to read the Bible for yourself, and not rely on others to tell you what it says. They might lie to you about what the Bible says because they have an agenda that they want you to follow. If you read the Bible for yourself, you can find out what God’s agenda is.
God is pro-choice. Free will is an integral part of God’s plan for the salvation of mankind. But God is not pro-choice for mother’s to kill their children. I am pro-choice to stop calling pro-aborts pro-choice. Call them what they are….pro-aborts.
Love all the responses on here.
I don’t know that there’s much to add, but I’ll try.
What would the outcome have been, had Mary, rather than saying yes to God, turned her back on Him? What would the outcome have been if she had run away, or argued, or sought out a way out of her situation? We do not have to speculate long to know the answer, for Eve has exemplified the wrong decision for us.
Refusal to follow God’s path has the catastrophic result of separation from Him. Choosing to say, “no” when He calls you to Him, when He gives you a glimpse of His plan, results in a further isolation from the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Had Mary said “No” to God, the natural consequences would have been separation and isolation from Him for the world. Praise God, she chose the path which brought our world closer to His, which redeemed mankind, and which invited His Son into our midst.
Yes, Elin, Mary was given a choice of how to respond to God’s directive, as was Eve. One chose the Tree of Knowledge, the other chose The Tree of Life. Which decision was laudable? Which should we, as a nation, strive to exemplify?
Sweet Marmot says:
October 5, 2012 at 4:31 pm
That’s not how I read it. I just reread it to be sure, and I was right. At no point does the angel ask if Mary’s willing to mother the Son of God. He just tells Mary what’s going to happen, she will become the mother of God’s Son. When Mary realizes it’s an angel of God, she accepts him. She never protests it, just asks how it could be possible. Then, after Mary hears what God’s plan is, she submits and says, “be it unto me according to thy word.”
(Denise) This is exactly right. A special mission was placed on the Virgin Mary by God. She was given no choice but accepted the mission that was placed on her.
Interestingly, this most extraordinary mission was placed on the frail shoulders of a teenaged girl. She had to be confused and terrified.
But she accepted the mission. That is why there is a valid parallel in the novel “Son of the Morning” by Joyce Carol Oates. Poor, victimized Elsa Vickery was brutally raped but she accepted the pregnancy even though it meant she was ostracized and isolated. The baby she delivered became a famous Christian minister.
Sweet Marmot says:
October 5, 2012 at 4:31 pm
That’s not how I read it. I just reread it to be sure, and I was right. At no point does the angel ask if Mary’s willing to mother the Son of God. He just tells Mary what’s going to happen, she will become the mother of God’s Son. When Mary realizes it’s an angel of God, she accepts him. She never protests it, just asks how it could be possible. Then, after Mary hears what God’s plan is, she submits and says, “be it unto me according to thy word.”
This woman who wrote the above quote is lying about what the Bible says, because she’s trying to make Christianity say something it doesn’t. They want to deceive Christians into thinking God is OK with abortion. This is important to them for two reasons, 1) decrease opposition to abortion in the society 2) selling abortion to Christian women who find themselves pregnant. By denying that opposition to abortion is part of the Cbhristian witness, abortion clinics can more easily pressure Christian women into having unwanted abortions. They simply tell the woman that her reluctance comes from a wrong interpretation of Christianity, as they pressure her and disrespect her NO.
This is why it is important to read the Bible for yourself, and not rely on others to tell you what it says.
(Denise) One reason I read the Bible cover to cover was because I thought any “Bible Study Plan” would inevitably filter it. Everyone should read the Bible all the way through at least once in his or her life to get what it actually says and not what people claim it says or want it to say.