MajGenl.Meade wrote:Oh rubato - those pesky facts - not to mention history and math.
http://www.babiesonline.com/articles/pr ... kening.asp...and as late as the 26th week of pregnancy for women who are in their first pregnancy or might be a little overweight.
Wikipedia "quickening"The word "quick" originally meant "alive". Historically, quickening has sometimes been considered to be the beginning of the possession of "individual life" by the fetus. British legal scholar William Blackstone explained the subject of quickening in the eighteenth century, relative to feticide and abortion:
Life… begins in contemplation of law as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother's womb. For if a woman is quick with child, and by a potion, or otherwise, killeth it in her womb; or if any one beat her, whereby the child dieth in her body, and she is delivered of a dead child; this, though not murder, was by the ancient law homicide or manslaughter. But at present it is not looked upon in quite so atrocious a light, though it remains a very heinous misdemeanor.
Nevertheless, quickening was only one of several standards that were used historically to determine when the right to life attaches to a fetus. According to the "ancient law" mentioned by Blackstone, another standard was formation of the fetus, which occurs weeks before quickening. Henry de Bracton explained the ancient law, about five hundred years before Blackstone:
If one strikes a pregnant woman or gives her poison in order to procure an abortion, if the fetus is already formed or quickened, especially if it is quickened, he commits homicide. The rule that a fetus was considered alive upon formation dates back at least another millennium before Bracton.
The Bible of course says in Exod 21:22 "If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her and yet no mischief follow" i.e. the child and mother survive the experience, the offender pays a fine. If however, either dies, its eye for an eye time. In other words, the Bible considers the potential child of equal human value as the woman. OTOH the Bible nowhere explicity forbids abortion as far as I am aware.
I don't know what the "Christian" church believed and regard that as a matter of minor interest. Nor am I convinced that what any church believes at a given moment of historical time is of necessity synonymous with God's word - far less His contentment. The issue of slavery immediately leaps to mind.
FWIW neither of my two posts mentioned God or the Bible and both suggested that the legislative action(s) were probably not justified.
Meade
Yawn, your own posts confirm my statement. A fetus is not a 'person' at conception but at a much later date. There is general agreement that 'quickening' occurs at the end of the 2nd trimester but a few people move the date slightly further back, 20 rather than 24 weeks. No one places it in the 1st trimester.
And your own god kills one out of six fetuses by stillbirth or spontaneous abortion even in planned pregnancies with all of modern medical science trying to keep it going.
yrs,
rubato
