From: Simon@censis.utas.edu.au (Simon G. Greener)
Subject: Re: Uniting Church
Organization: CenSIS, Universiry of Tasmania
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 03:16:51 GMT

In response to C. G. Albone's posting Callum says:

>I think I agree with what you're getting at here.  In general we don't like
>people being killed yet the bible seems to portray occasions where it's
>appropriate.  Yes, that probably should apply to abortion as well.  The same
>difficulty exists in trying to determine what is a "good" reason", however.

Firstly, give us some examples where the Bible allows killing and then
let's discuss its applicability to Abortion. Sure, you can find biblical 
support for "Just wars" and "Capital punishment" but these related to 
societal rights and involved at least two parties: both of whom are 
implicitly recognised to exist and between which a judgement needs to be 
determined. Eg. You have killed 6 people on the Central Coasts we (society) 
have determined that for the safety of all others (to guarantee their 
right to exist and be free from possiblities of murder) we remove your right 
to exist: hence hanging etc. I'd be careful in attempting to extend this 
argument to abortion in that we cannot yet agree on the status of the foetus 
and to discuss women's rights without actually attacking the problem that
rights involve parties (and if the foetus is nothing but an appendage of
the woman then there is no question of a right - only a want). 

Cf Professor Lauchlin Chipman's article. Most of the debate still fits
into the Jews and Hitler problem of the allocation of "personhood" and
rights. We still condemn peoples and churches for their standing back and
doing nothing then but we today effectively say: "Mr Hitler, if you say 
they aren't people, then although we disagree (or can't decide their 
"personhood" as we aren't really involved) we won't interfere with your 
right to believe this" Result: 6,000,000 people down the plug hole. What 
about today? What's the difference? What is a person? Sure let's discuss it, 
but let's be wary that that doesn't give us a nice "out" in today's debate 
for until we can get societal agreement we cannot allow people WITH A VESTED 
INTEREST to unilaterally decide the issue. For how do you stop youself and 
everyone else from falling into the trap Mr Hitler fell in? (Peter Singer is 
NOT a welcome visitor to Germany even today).

You also said in your posting that you are 'a christian'. The implied
comment being that a good reason for an abortion is when the woman has 
been raped or would be in a position of 'suffering'. Now I'm not a fan of 
suffering for its own sake (who is) but as a christian also I can ask you 
to consider what you are saying. And that appears to be "Nothing good can 
come from suffering". If all of christendom believed this then the
whole of the Christian religion would cease to exist as one of its core 
insights into Christ's redemptive suffering (and our partaking of 
that) would be undermined.

This assumption is used by society to force home the abortion debate. We
are always given the examples that will most pull our heart strings -
foetuses that MAY be handicapped, rape victims etc - and to guarantee
our agreement that abortion is the only acceptable answer to these problems.
The fact that 60,000+ foetuses are aborted every year indicates that we
either have very high rape and handicap statistics (not every rape leads to 
conception - in fact I think there is a school of thought that indicates
that rape does not provide a suitable emotional basis for conception: 
too much stress) or that people are using it for reasons that normally we
would find hard to justify.

I think that the Uniting Church has not delivered an well reasoned or
defensible position on its abortion stance. Chipman indicates the same.
Newsgroups: aus.religion