In order to properly come to better and clearer conclusions, I think it may be necessary (perhaps absurdly so) to define a few terms.

Define: life.

For a discussion as pertinent as that for pro-life/pro-choice, if the definitions and expectations of this term differ, then the decisions and choices may differ.

Some of you may be thinking - “this is incredulous, why can’t Silas even define life?”

I’m trying to pull it way back.  I want to engage with people who do not define their terms in the same way I define my terms.

Questions to clarify the definition of “life”:

Does life begin when a human is self-aware?
Does life begin when a human is physiologically self-sustaining?
Does life begin when an egg begins being “not just an egg” and is being fertilized?
Does life begin when distinct human features and organs are detectable?

PS. I’m talking about human life.  For some good reason, most people are not concerned about the termination of plant life.

I rarely post about contemporary moral issues.  Sometimes it’s because I don’t want to make it seem like my opinions are representative of my work and organization (see disclaimer to the right).  However, usually it’s because I don’t actually hold a deep enough conviction on matters to make my thoughts known.

Recently, I posted an article on Facebook about a woman whose baby was thrown into a bag and left to die in a biohazard container after she gave birth to the child at a clinic where she had requested an abortion.  A few friends commented on it, including a friend who is an adamant atheist.  This faithless friend commented that it’s not possible to describe a society’s moral compass, since it is only the actions of individuals that can be judged.  I conceded some truth to that, but I also tried to ask the question about the actions of politicians as individuals who represent their “components” of the society.

This abortion issue in itself is starting to cut into me.  Obama seems like he is near signing the Freedom of Choice Act in America which will reverse many of the good moves that were made in the past decade to protect the rights of the unborn.  In Canada I think we have it worse in that it’s not really a prominent political issue even.  I do believe that the unborn should be protected from the moment of conception.  I do believe that women who do not have the capability to care for a child should be given the choice to give up the baby — to an adoption agency or close relative, perhaps.  However, I do believe that women and their partners should make wiser choices about their actions and sexual conduct so as to prevent (as much as is possible in their ability) the birth of an unwanted or unsupportable child. Children should be given the opportunity to live life, as it is God who gives life; thus, God should be the one to take it away.

The questions that I suggest that we ask our pro-choice friends are these:

“What are the rights of an unborn child?”

“How does an unborn child claim the right to live?”

“At what point do we consider the taking of a life to be an abortion or a murder?  Is there a difference if the baby is being sustained by the mother’s energies or by his/her own systems?”

Frankly, I don’t think that demonstrations or discussions that involve “preaching” or “telling” someone about this issue gets very far.  We need to ask questions and help people discover the answers that are sometimes deeply buried in their own hearts.  And we need to challenge people’s notions of how they measure the value of human lives.

I just read some more of “Orthodoxy” by G.K. Chesterton.  I’ve been working at this for over a year now.  And like in Roz’s blog post about reading, a lot of it is way over my head!

But here is one analogy that I just understood: human joy and life is like a mirror, that if you were to strike it, in an instant it would be broken; however, if you were to leave it be, it could last forever.

This is interesting when thought of from the point of view of sin and free-will.  The picture he’s painting in this chapter is way bigger than that, but for now that’s as much as I can actually describe!

Enjoy that image.

I don’t know that much about Dietrich Bonhoeffer but I know he is a man quite respected. For some reason the Boundless Line blog keeps referencing a lot of great articles from the past on Boundless. Because today is the anniversary of Bonhoeffer’s death in a concentration camp, they linked to this article about Bonhoeffer’s perspective on pacifism, marriage, and loving one another completely. Here is an interesting quote of Bonhoeffer:

Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal — it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. As you gave the ring to one another and have now received it a second time from the hand of the pastor, so love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God. As high as God is above man, so high are the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of love. It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

How does a man facing imminent death have such a grand and deep view of God’s gift of marriage!? Recently as I was reading through A.W. Tozer’s Knowledge of the Holy, I started understanding a fine balance of life that was a bit hazy before.

If one has a proper perspective that God is eternal and outside of the bounds of time, we realize that our life spans are very short and limited compared to God who is not bound by time. To a Christian, the fleetingness of life provides no threat since our hope is entirely in Christ, who has saved us and provides eternal life. He also provides meaning and sustenance for each and every short day.

However, for one with the improper perspective that there is no God, every day goes by slowly and slower, since there is nothing to look forward to for tomorrow. There is nothing after this life. A day without meaning or purpose becomes strikingly and painfully slow. And then five years, ten years from now even pleasure itself will lose its appeal. The only way to end the meaninglessness is by ending life.

Do you think this is realistic? Is this how people view life? How else can we view each and every day of life as precious and appreciate each moment unless we realize how quickly it goes by?

Brethren, I beseech you, in all you do, in everything, to let this day be a Good day. Allow the goodness Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross to flow through your own blood and course through the innermost recesses of your mind. Think upon the One Death that made death His servant. One Good Death to pay for it all; the sins of a lost world paid for once and for all. The Only Death that brings life.

The sun that shines now was blotted out That Good Day. The condemnation for a world, the most distance the Father ever placed as He turned away from His Son. That Good Day was a day when His love was so great that He gave up His Only Son so that anyone — ANYONE — who receives this Sacrifice shan’t be separated from the Source of Light, Life, and Love ever again. (cf)