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From: ggw@ethos.UUCP (Gregory Woodbury)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Best for Others?
Message-ID: <815@ethos.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Oct-86 03:36:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: ethos.815
Posted: Sun Oct 12 03:36:43 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 07:11:44 EDT
References: <2710@burdvax.UUCP> <5833@ut-sally.UUCP>
Reply-To: ggw@ethos.UUCP (Gregory Woodbury)
Followup-To: talk.religion.misc,talk.abortion
Distribution: talk
Organization: The Humanities Forum @ ethos, Durham, NC
Lines: 35
Keywords: fetus spirit incarnation
Xref: linus talk.religion.misc:506 talk.abortion:137
Summary: How do YOU know?

In article <1180@hoptoad.uucp> sunny@hoptoad.UUCP (Sunny Kirsten) writes:
>><referring to:>
>>   "Morally, I cannot do anything but consider a fetus a 'person'."
>> It is fine for the poster to feel this way.  No arguments there. But he does
>> not have agreement from the whole society.
>
>A fetus is a body which is going to die anyway.
>The spirit lives eternally.
>There are more spirits waiting to incarnate than there are bodies to hold them.
>Normally, the spirit takes the body between birth and 10 days after.
>Therefore, abortion is not murder, where I'm defining murder to be depriving
>a spirit of a body it already possesses prior to it's being willing to depart
>its body.
>				Sunny
>-- 

Specifically, ''the spirit takes the body between birth and 10 days after'',
OH REALLY!  Despite my feelings on the matter (pro-choice), I am NOT willing
to let this pass.  To blindly assert that the spirit comes to the body after
birth (besides, the spirit is -in christian terms- of god: do you possibly
mean the soul?)  is just too much.

It involves assumptions about the deity's actions; the nature of the spirit;
the relationship between the flesh and the spirit/soul; and several other
topics.  The issue of abortion has many facets, but to try to lay this one
aside by saying that the spirit/soul comes after birth doesn't work.

I am not saying that the spirit is present from conception (that is just as
arrogant), but that nobody can be absolutely sure when or where it does arise.

				Greg Woodbury
------------------------------------------
Gregory G. Woodbury				The usual disclaimers apply
Red Wolfe Software and Services, Durham, NC
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