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From: li@uw-vlsi.UUCP
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Feminism and Abortion
Message-ID: <360@uw-vlsi.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 13-Oct-86 20:44:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: uw-vlsi.360
Posted: Mon Oct 13 20:44:15 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 19:36:18 EDT
References: <2710@burdvax.UUCP> <5833@ut-sally.UUCP>
Reply-To: li@uw-vlsi.UUCP (Liralen Li)
Distribution: world
Organization: UW/NW VLSI Consortium, Seattle
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Xref: linus talk.religion.misc:534 talk.abortion:146
Summary: No one Truth

In article <1513@oddjob.UUCP> matt@oddjob.UUCP (Matt Crawford) writes:
>In article <313@isieng.UUCP> kiki@isieng.UUCP (Kiki Herbst) writes:
>
>>  If Jesus is God (like he said) than He knows what is right.
>
>And if he isn't, then look at the pickle we're in if we stamp
>out all other philosophies!  Just as in agriculture, we'd better
>keep many strains of thought alive in case some of them should
>prove to have hidden weaknesses later on.
>

That was what turned me away from Christianity for SOOOoooo long (better
than 21 of my years).  The concept that Christ and God would encourage
everyone to be the same, to smear all the varied and beautiful colors of
human endeavour and thought and faith into one runny mess really repulsed
me.  The thought that there would only be one truth, that could actually be
seen and interpreted by a failable human elected by failable humans, would
be the only truth for all humans was something that I could not accept.  Not
on faith nor on hope.  If I had accepted that as the basis of my faith it
would crumble to nothing.

Then one day, someone showed me Corinthians I, 12 and 13.  I'm going to take
lines out of them.

12.4-7 "There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit
gives them. There are different ways of serving, but the same Lord is
served.  There are different abilities to perform service, but the same God
gives ability to everyone for their particular service.  The Spirit's
presense is shown in some way to each person for the good of all."

12.14-20
	"Christ is like a single body, which has many parts; it is still one
body, even though it is made up of different parts.  In the same way, all of
us, wheither Jews or Gentiles, whether slaves or free, have been baptized
into the one body by the same Spirit, and we have all been given the one
Spirit to drink.
	For the body itself is no made up of only one part, but of many
parts.  If the foot were to say, "Because I am not a hand, I don't belong to
the body." that would not keep it frombeing a part of the body.  And if the
ear were to say, "Because I am not an eye, I don't belong to the body," that
would not keep it from being a part of the body.  If the whole body were
just an eye, how could it hear?  And if it were only an ear, how could it
smell?  As it is, however, God put every different part in the body just as
he wanted it to be.  There would not be a body if it were all only one part!
As it is there are many parts but one body."

We are all needed.  I am a Christian, first a Catholic baptised and
confirmed as a child, then, repulsing the human element, failings and
bigotry of that section of that Church that I was involved with I declared
myself NOT a Christian.  Now, I am back.  Accepted as a part that is
different, yet still a PART of Christ's body.

13.8-10
	"Love is eternal.  There are inspired messages, but they are
temporary; there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will
cease, there is knowledge, but it will pass.  For our gifts of knowledge and
of inspired messages are only partial; but when what is perfect comes, then
what is partial will disappear."

The Bible is a series of "inspired messages", something that must be
interpreted to adapt to present day situations, otherwise it stagnates and
dies and is no longer relavent.  There is a Truth that is eternal, but I do
not really believe that any one person can perceive or interprete it, at
least I know that I cannot, you may be gifted enough to perceive the whole,
and able to judge all who might abort an innocent.

All I know is what I have seen.  And from that view I have seen what
unwanted children go through, from seeing the terrible emotional scars that
led to physical scars on one of my boyfriends, to hearing with horror the
death of a sister of a friend who was an unwed mother, to reading of the
terrible storys of child abuse from elementary school teachers.  Every
teacher of children that I have known has agreed with me on my view of
the issue of abortion.  And from what I have seen and experienced and been
told and felt, the terrible price of a childhood unwanted is not paid by
just the mother, it is also paid by the child, the father, the teachers of
the child, the social workers that have to deal with child abuse, all the
friends the child may have, and the lover that child may wish to love later.
No, I know, not all unwanted childhoods turn into these feast of horror, but
enough have that I am conviced that to make *all* abortions illegal is a Bad
Thing.

Mostly because anyone who can make the decision to go through the grief,
risk and clinical horror of an abortion in order to get rid of a child, will
NOT make a good mother at that time.

I cannot condone abortion as a method of contraception, nor can I condone
abortions after the first trimester.  But I also cannot condemn all
abortions as a crime against an innocent, because a childhood unwanted is a
penalty no innocent should have to pay just to exist.  I, personally, will
never and have never had an abortion, I love kids too much to even think of
it.  However, and this is also a personal view, I cannot think that He who
loved children so much could actively condone and help those that which
could make their lives a living hell.

Liralen Li
-- 
"A closed mouth gathers no foot."

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