==Overview==
==Official Statements==Abortion has been a major political, moral and emotional issue in the United States for decades now. We have seen too often political slogans such as: ‘It’s a child, not a choice;’ ‘Abortion stops a beating heart;’ ‘Against Abortion? Don’t have one;’ and ‘I’m pro choice and I vote.’ Abortion has been legal since the 1973 with the now famous decision in the Roe v. Wade case of the US Supreme Court. The justices by split decision declared that a fetus in the early stages of pregnancy is considered a nonperson and therefore part of the woman’s body. The woman was then given the choice, the right, to keep or remove the fetus.
==Bibilical & Patristic Quotations==This decision and the development of abortion clinics has divided the nation into pro-choice and pro-life constituents. These constituents have created catchy but divisive slogans such as the ones above. The purpose of this reflection is to draw from Orthodox Christian ethical principles and comment on abortion in general, the meaning behind abortion slogans, making the right ethical choices, and community support for neighbors. Finally I will propose a slogan that reflects the heart of the Christian message of life and thus is healing rather than divisive.
From We are human beings made after the earliest image of ChristianityGod. Does that image of God come to human beings at the moment of conception, implantation, medical viability, there was or birth? It is the Orthodox Christian belief that a strong opposition to abortionhuman is made after the image of God at the moment of conception. Very early on in Canon law The Orthodox Church has feast days celebrating the conceptions of Jesus the Son of God (March 25th), those who committed abortion the Theotokos (December 9th), and the Forerunner John the Baptist. They were excommunicated for life – this was all filled with the same penalty as for murderHoly Spirit from the time of conception. Later on In fact, out all people are Temples of mercy, excommunication was limited to ten yearsthe Holy Spirit once they are conceived.
In Father Stanley Harakas (For the second century, Athenagoras, a philosopher Health of Body and a convert to Christianity addressed charges of cannibalism among Christians by sayingSoul:What reason would we have An Eastern Orthodox Introduction to commit murder when we say that women who induce abortions are murderersBioethics, and will have to give account of it to God? For 2002) states the same person would not regard following about the fetus in the womb as a living thing and therefore an object question of God’s care, and at the same time slay it, once it had come to life. Nor would he refuse to [leave infants out in the woods to die], on the ground that those who expose them are murderers of children, and at the same time do away with the child he has reared. But we are altogether consistent in our conduct. We obey reason and do not override it. abortion:
Tertullian#“Because our humanity is a psychosomatic unity and because Orthodox Christians see all of life as a continuous and never ending development of the image and likeness toward theosis and full humanity, who died around 240, described how Christians thought about the achievement of particular stages of development of the conceptus is not ethically relevant to the question of abortion in this way: “For us. #“In his second canon, we may not destroy even St. Basil specifically rules out the fetus in artificial distinction between the womb"formed" and "unformed" conceptus (The Rudder, pp. 789-790). Thus, while any abortion is seen as yet an evil. Since the physical and the personal aspects of human being derives blood from other parts existence are understood as essential constitutive elements of our humanity, the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier manconceptus -killing; nor does unfulfilled and incomplete as it matter when you take away a life that is bornmay be - may not be destroyed under normal circumstances. Eastern Orthodox ethicists reject as unworthy those counterarguments which appeal to economic and social reasons and so hold fife to be less valuable than money, pride, or destroy one convenience. Armed with modem genetic information, they also reject the argument that an abortion may be justified because a woman is coming entitled to birthcontrol her own body. That basic affirmation of self-determination is not rejected; what is rejected is the claim that the conceptus is a man which part of the mother's tissue. It is not her body; it is going the body and life of another human being entrusted to be one: you have the fruit already in the seedher for care and nurture.
