One of the toughest, most challenging discussions that exists out there is the subject of abortion. It is inevitably emotive, and the topic is divisive.
Overlapping this is the subject of women’s rights, and religious beliefs. One of these issues bears a great of relevancy to abortion – the other depends entirely upon your personal beliefs and should not be used to force anyone down a particular route. You can probably guess as to where I stand.
Not for the first time, I find myself in disagreement with TA. One of his most recent articles speaks of the empowerment of women – but this is apparently not a good thing.
(on the idea that empowered women benefit families)
This is not biblical teaching and what has made us angry is that some woman has decided that she wants to play God and wants to lead women to do the same thing. We do not need empowered women. Those women ignore God’s teaching, willfully sin and disobey God’s instructions and such women are not building a strong family but destroying one.
The most obvious point I can make here is – what if the women (and for that matter, their partners) do not believe in God? Furthermore, is a woman who wants to be the master of her own destiny really a bad thing? If someone is not a believer, should a religious rule be forcibly imposed upon them?
We do not need wives and mothers kept imprisoned in sin and encouraged to be sinners.We do not need the hand that rocks the cradle to be thinking that it gets to decide who lives or dies before the child is born.That is not a choice granted to women by God. These type of women are destructive to their husbands, their children and to society in general. Their support of evil and calling it good places then in the path to face the wrath of God. And no husband or son, if they are decent people wants their mothers or wives to be placed in such a position.
This is where emotion plays a huge part in this argument. It would personally very difficult for me if my wife had said to me ‘I want an abortion’ when she was pregnant with our daughter. However, it is ultimately her body. It belongs to no one but her. She is the one who will undergo physical and psychological changes for several months, not me. Refusing to respect this and using religion to hide behind what is misogyny at its worst would make me the destructive one.
What I believe is the inalienable right of the woman to choose. I would like to believe a discussion would take place between the prospective parents, but ultimately the final say belongs to the person whose body (and indeed life, in most cases) will be affected the most.
Men you have to do something biblical about this and combat this rising tide of disobedience in women. You cannot take a pass and say that it is the woman’s body. It is no longer her body when she has mated with a man and the body she is disposing of is not hers to destroy. The woman was never given authority over reproduction in deciding who can or cannot be born. You need to stand up and be men instead of rolling over and appeasing the woman. You need to lead them to the right way to think, you need to lead them away from the path of destruction and to the path of life.
Emphasis mine. Where does this line of reasoning end? ‘It is no longer her body when she has mated with a man’? Seriously? Does this mean my body is not mine when I’ve ‘mated’? By the extension of his logic, this should be the case. Should we consider the case that by ‘mating’ I lose full authority over what I do with my body? I doubt very much TA would make this case. It is clearly intended to be a one-way system of male authority, over the most female of experiences. Women apparently have no authority over reproduction and who or who isn’t born. Does this mean that as men we have the authority to do so? That’s the implicit suggestion here, even though we should have no more authority to do so than women, since according to TA it’s up to God.
While abortion is not the unforgivable sin,it is not an action approved of God and we know how God hates the destruction of innocent people no matter their age or stage in life. Men have to get a backbone here and wisely say ‘no’ to women and their desire to sin.
Does blocking this desire force women into inferior and subservient roles in life? Of course not for God has already empowered women to levels they cannot imagine but he empowers them with the tools to be holy not sinful, arrogant, and masters of their own destinies.
What actually happens is that religious beliefs are allowed to greatly interfere, on a fundamental level, with what 50% of the human race can do with their bodies. It is the ultimate expression of misogyny, as mentioned earlier. It is also yet another demonstration of the desire to force a belief system upon people, whether they want to follow it or not.
There is more, but that is better saved for another time. Stand by for part 2 later
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Best post, Ben. Loved it!!! I don’t think religion should be used as an argument at all: there’s too many religions, all with different gods, many gods, one god, who spout different rules, different beliefs. We can’t base it off of one; that’s not fair. And as you so eloquently point out, that argument falls flat if the person in question does not believe in any god. Science is the answer to this question; the answer is that it’s not a baby people are aborting (unless there’s a serious reason for late-term abortion, and that usually means that either the baby or the mother will die – or both) it’s a bunch of cells. End of story. No one should be forced to have a child they don’t want – there’s already too many unwanted children in this world. More doesn’t help anyone.
I agree, and in fact there’s yet another issue to this – I saw a post via Facebook – I wish I’d saved it – that explained how adoption can evoke the same emotions as losing a child. It is and remains a passionate subject, and I am honestly not sure what I would do if my wife had said she’d wanted an abortion – but I hope I would have had the conviction to respect her choice. And it would be, and would always be, her choice.
The injection of religious beliefs into what should be a personal decision is just plain wrong.
Great read, could not agree more!
Thank you!
Brilliant post!! The fact of the matter is, the Bible has been used – &, I believe very strongly, crafted – to keep women in a subservient & inferior role since its creation. The fact that TA tries to argue differently is almost as pathetic as the argument he puts forth. He just claims that G-d has given a role to women – as defined by the MEN who wrote the Bible – & skips any actual supporting evidence that women are meant to be more than wives & mothers.
This may be because there isn’t any in the Bible, which was written over a thousand years ago, long before women demanded the right to be more than wives & mothers, if they so choose, & way before two-family incomes were practically mandatory to survive. Additionally, I would like to point out, that during Biblical times & even before, women tried to find means of contraception &, yes, had abortions. The Old Testament even covers how a priest can perform an abortion… although I’m sure TA would claim that was the “will of G-d acting through his agent.”
But, can’t we reasonably say that G-d is acting through the woman (&, yes, hopefully her family) too?
I’m really glad you shared this post to Coalition of the Brave, otherwise I would have missed it. Unfortunately, WP dislikes me & it won’t send me email updates or allow me to follow your posts. Grrr…
I just find TA’s stance to be hypocritical on so many areas – his stance here is that women can be empowered – provided they follow specific rules, laid down by someone else? I’m not sure he grasps what empowerment is.
But then, this is someone who argues that denying Christians the right to discriminate is in itself a form of discrimination, and that parents who refuse to make use of medical treatment for their children should not face prosecution if their children die, because faith healing is a legitimate alternative.
I don’t know why you can’t follow this blog? Very weird. I’d certainly be happy for you to do so! I’ve just sent you an invite to join the Coalition BTW.
Apparently, to TA, female empowerment means that they can live exactly as they did in Biblical times! Perhaps they can hold a job, part-time, if their husband grants permission & it doesn’t interfere with their childcare, cooking, & cleaning duties. The problem is, as he’s a man, he has to try to make his interpretation of his religion sound like it’s not as misogynistic as it really is so that it doesn’t insult women with a functioning brain-stem, while simultaneously making it clear that he’s not giving up ANY power he says he’s been given by G-d – mainly because the latter sounds a lot better than “I wanna be in charge of everything & control women because… I WANNA.”
Yiiiikes. I’m not sure where TA is located, so I can’t really say what laws he wants violated. I know that’s not supposed to fly in the U.S., but that hasn’t been the case recently. I know (from reading your bio & some blog posts) that you’re in the UK, so I’m not sure how I could call his thoughts on discriminatory laws & child neglect are ludicrous from a legal standpoint. LOL
It’s funny… as soon as I posted that comment, I tried to copy & paste your link into the subscription area of WP & it worked this time. I tried at least a half a dozen times before & it kept telling me the link was invalid. However, when I try to subscribe to get comments to a single blog post, it still tells me that I can’t do it. So I’m currently receiving notifications for every comment on your blog. I’ll take what I can get at this point. LOL
I noticed the request to become an admin to Coalition of the Brave. To be honest, I thought it was a mistake! Since I’m really new to WP, & I’m not familiar with what helping admin a page would entail, could you give more info? Is it OK to add another person to the blog (I don’t want you getting in trouble with the other lovely admins, many of whom I follow religiously…)? I won’t inundate you with questions, but any information you wanna give would be greatly appreciated!