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Against abortion or assisted dying? No med school for you

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
That applies to you too. Most anti-abortion people ignore the verses of the Bible that clearly show that they are wrong and depend on a few verses taken out of context.

Surely you know that priests gave chemical abortions at times in the Old Testament. It is rather clear on that.
Please, tell me more (and I do hope you're not referring to Isha Sotah). o_O
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
And aren't all these things going smoothly now?
Not so much.

This bill working its way through the Alberta legislature is mainly about end-of-life care. One of the province's largest healthcare providers is a Catholic organization and it refuses to have anything to do with medically-assisted dying:

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/unassisted-death

All they'll do for patients who protest enough is allow them to be discharged, but they won't even allow consults in their facility to allow a smooth transfer. Instead, terminally ill patients have had to have their assessment on the sidewalk just off hospital property:

Patient wheeled outside Alberta Catholic hospital to have assisted death assessment

... and that's in the best case where a patient has found a responsible healthcare facility that will provide them with proper end-of-life care, and when they're stable enough to be transported. If the local hospice is also run by Covenant Health, or if they're too sick to be moved, then they're just out of luck.

That's the main issue here. Catholic healthcare providers have been giving a big middle finger to their duty to refer and to their responsibility for patient dignity. This has caused quite a bit of controversy and raised the possibility of legal penalties for Covenant Health and its practitioners, so this bill would legalize their - IMO unconscionable - practice.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
Not so much.

This bill working its way through the Alberta legislature is mainly about end-of-life care. One of the province's largest healthcare providers is a Catholic organization and it refuses to have anything to do with medically-assisted dying:

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/unassisted-death

All they'll do for patients who protest enough is allow them to be discharged, but they won't even allow consults in their facility to allow a smooth transfer. Instead, terminally ill patients have had to have their assessment on the sidewalk just off hospital property:

Patient wheeled outside Alberta Catholic hospital to have assisted death assessment

... and that's in the best case where a patient has found a responsible healthcare facility that will provide them with proper end-of-life care, and when they're stable enough to be transported. If the local hospice is also run by Covenant Health, or if they're too sick to be moved, then they're just out of luck.

That's the main issue here. Catholic healthcare providers have been giving a big middle finger to their duty to refer and to their responsibility for patient dignity. This has caused quite a bit of controversy and raised the possibility of legal penalties for Covenant Health and its practitioners, so this bill would legalize their - IMO unconscionable - practice.
In this case surely it seems wise to give more funding to non-Catholic healthcare providers and put the focus on them to do more, rather than telling the Catholic ones how to behave.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
In this case surely it seems wise to give more funding to non-Catholic healthcare providers and put the focus on them to do more, rather than telling the Catholic ones how to behave.
All health care providers in Canada are ultimately funded by government.

Some hospitals and other healthcare providers are religiously affiliated for historical reasons, but I agree: secularizing our healthcare system by phasing out these Catholic-affiliated institutions would go a long way in solving our problems.

However, I don't think we'll have the political will to do this any time soon.
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
That was a dodge. I asked you a question. It appears that you did not understand the verses that we are talking about.
I see the same thing I've always seen, every time I've studied this issue: a woman cheated on her husband, her husband becamse suspicious, she was sent to the priests to be checked. They used the special procedure, and at this point one of two things happened: If she actually cheated - she would burst to death (capital punishment isn't rare in the Bible). If she didn't cheat, she would be miraculously impregnated, The End.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I see the same thing I've always seen, every time I've studied this issue: a woman cheated on her husband, her husband becamse suspicious, she was sent to the priests to be checked. They used the special procedure, and at this point one of two things happened: If she actually cheated - she would burst to death (capital punishment isn't rare in the Bible). If she didn't cheat, she would be miraculously impregnated, The End.
That is now what the verse says. He suspects her of cheating. It specifically says that there were no witnesses. Now tell me, what would be one of the tell tale signs that a woman cheated on her husband? Please try to remember what the verses say will happen to her if she cheated. You are letting your personal prejudices keep you from interpreting those verse. If she cheated she would lose her baby and die. She would not be "mysteriously impregnated". That is one of the most extreme cases of grasping at straws that I have ever seen. One cannot allow their personal biases to force a poor interpretation of the Bible.
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
That is now what the verse says. He suspects her of cheating. It specifically says that there were no witnesses. Now tell me, what would be one of the tell tale signs that a woman cheated on her husband? Please try to remember what the verses say will happen to her if she cheated. You are letting your personal prejudices keep you from interpreting those verse. If she cheated she would lose her baby and die. She would not be "mysteriously impregnated". That is one of the most extreme cases of grasping at straws that I have ever seen. One cannot allow their personal biases to force a poor interpretation of the Bible.
I figured you would go down that route. And you clearly have your atheist biases, so so much for objectivity. Tell me, now. God abhors adulterous procreation that leads to illegitimate children. So this woman is supposedly pregnant with another man's child and in this one case He would make an exception and let her live and keep the baby? Seriously?
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
She would not be "mysteriously impregnated". That is one of the most extreme cases of grasping at straws that I have ever seen.
Numbers 5:28

But if the woman had not become defiled and she is clean, she shall be exempted and bear seed.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I figured you would go down that route. And you clearly have your atheist biases, so so much for objectivity. Tell me, now. God abhors adulterous procreation that leads to illegitimate children. So this woman is supposedly pregnant with another man's child and in this one case He would make an exception and let her live and keep the baby? Seriously?

Yes, and no. I try to read it for what it says. I do not try to place a false interpretation on it since I do not have a vested interest in the book. You do. It could say that abortion was banned and I would still not care. I simply would not use that argument then. If you read the Old Testament you will see that life was commonly not thought to occur util the "breath of life" entered the body. That started with the Adam and Eve myth and was repeated when it came to babies.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Numbers 5:28

But if the woman had not become defiled and she is clean, she shall be exempted and bear seed.
My objection was to the "mysteriously impregnated" line. That is what in reality is an admission that the abortion does not work 100% of the time. It gives one an out. Many verses have an excuse for when the Bible is obviously wrong at times.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
My objection was to the "mysteriously impregnated" line. That is what in reality is an admission that the abortion does not work 100% of the time. It gives one an out. Many verses have an excuse for when the Bible is obviously wrong at times.
To one who does not believe in G-d, I guess it may seem that way.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
To one who does not believe in G-d, I guess it may seem that way.

Or to anyone that does not read the Bible with a preset prejudice. There is nothing wrong with believing that abortion is wrong. It is simply not justified by the Bible. But then there is nothing wrong with believing that slavery is wrong, and the Bible endorses that if anything. One can make a moral argument against abortion. The Bible is simply not the best source for those morals.
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
Yes, and no. I try to read it for what it says. I do not try to place a false interpretation on it since I do not have a vested interest in the book. You do. It could say that abortion was banned and I would still not care. I simply would not use that argument then. If you read the Old Testament you will see that life was commonly not thought to occur util the "breath of life" entered the body. That started with the Adam and Eve myth and was repeated when it came to babies.
And this answers what I wrote about illegitimate kids, how exactly?
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
You do realize that NIV is the only one that mentions miscarry right? The other 6 (NLT, ESV, BSB, NAS, NKJ & KJV) do not mention it.

Numbers 5 NLT

The meaning is clear, in fact the people I am arguing against appear to accept that the woman was pregnant. More recent versions of the Bible also have changed some of the interpretations of the Bible due to an anti-abortion bias. One verse that was largely retranslated after Roe vs. Wade was Exodus 21:22, though some still describe the incident as a miscarriage:

Exodus 21:22 If men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband demands and as the court allows.
 
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