[41] When is abortion murder?

President Bill Clinton asks the following question in his book: My Life...

"Everyone knows life begins biologically at conception. No one knows when biology turns into humanity. Most abortions that don't involve the life or health of the mother are chosen by scared young women and girls who don't know what else to do. It is hard to apply the criminal law to acts that a substantial portion of the citizenry doesn't believe should be labelled crimes."

But there is one who knows when biology turns into humanity, when a body becomes a soul. That same one has commanded us not to kill, and since under the law of Moses a man who even accidentally hit a pregnant woman and caused a miscarriage was to be stoned, it would be negligent of God not to include in the scriptures a way of determining at what point the embryo or foetus becomes a soul, having a human spirit within it. 

22 And in case men should struggle with each other and they really hurt a pregnant woman and her children do come out but no fatal accident occurs, he is to have damages imposed upon him without fail according to what the owner of the woman may lay upon him; and he must give it through the justices.
23 But if a fatal accident should occur, then you must give soul for soul (Exodus 21).

Now the way that Bill Clinton and most other politicians have gone about solving this problem is by consulting doctors, biologists and opinion pollsters. The way that George Bush and a few other politicians have gone about solving this problem is by consulting blind religious leaders. What we are going to do is consult God directly, and cut out every middle man. We will do this by looking at his book, knowing in faith that a loving God would not leave us in the dark as regards matters involving the life and death of our kids.

At first sight, a read of Exodus 21 would indicate that all abortion is murder. But the scripture says you must give soul for soul and we know that a soul is a body with a spirit within it - I9. So actually Exodus 21 is saying that abortion is murder once the embryo or foetus has become a soul (once God has downloaded his spirit into the foetus). So Bill Clinton, the President who is represented by the media as being less religious than George Bush, has actually quoted the Law of Moses directly, not because he knew that Law, but because he knows a bit about people and about fairness and about common sense (and about women).

So where do we start our search for the soul of a baby? Well, consider this...

21 When Reuben heard this he tried to deliver him out of their hand. So he said: Let us not strike his soul fatally.
22 And Reuben went on to say to them: Do not spill blood. Pitch him into this waterpit which is in the wilderness and do not lay a violent hand upon him. His purpose was to deliver him out of their hand in order to return him to his father (Genesis 37).

So striking a soul fatally, is spilling blood. If you kill a soul, if you spill blood in this way, you become bloodguilty...

19 Oh that you, Oh God, would slay the wicked one! Then even the bloodguilty men will certainly depart from me (Psalm 139). 

But how can you be bloodguilty for killing an embryo before it develops any blood? How do you spill the blood of a bloodless embryo? Evidently you cannot. So there is no bloodguilt for murder before the embryo develops a blood supply. If you visit www.pregnancy.org or www.babycentre.co.uk you will discover that the heart starts to pump blood around the embryo in week 5. These weeks are measured from the last menstruation that actually occurred. So this is week 3 after conception. So before week 5, abortion is not murder. The heartbeat becomes regular and the 4 chambers of the heart are formed in week 6 and the brain starts growing, presumably thanks to the blood supply. So week 6 looks like a good candidate for the week in which the embryo becomes a soul at this point. But the spirit of a human being is determined not by the body but by the head. The body is merely a vehicle for the head. So once the heart is pumping blood around the brain, then we have a human soul. But there is more to consider...

7 And Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of lives [plural], and the man came to be a living soul (Genesis 2).

The first time you read this you imagine yourself in a Sci-Fi movie with God creating the body of Adam fully formed as a man and then lifting his limp lifeless flesh up onto its feet and blowing into its nostrils at which point the body comes to life, wakes up and says: I am carbon unit 3 of 7.

But we know that it did not happen like that. We know that Adam was created in the same manner that Jesus was - I6. So God formed Adam in the womb of his surrogate mother by in vivo fertilisation - Intro17. Then later, in the womb, he blew the spirit of lives into his nostrils. But you cannot blow life into a baby's nostrils before the baby has developed any nostrils. So when does the human embryo develop nostrils? Well the answer is that they start being formed in the 6th week, but they are fully formed in the 9th/10th week www.pregnancy.org

To summarize the above...

11 For the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I myself have put it upon the altar for you to make atonement for your souls, because it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul [in it] (Leviticus 17).

So before the foetus develops a blood supply, it has no soul. It is obvious that one cannot be held bloodguilty for killing an organism which has no blood. This is why Gabriel said to Mary:

Through which also the holy [thing] being generated will be called, Son of God. (Luke 1:35).

At conception the embryo is a 'thing' neuter in the Greek. It has no soul, no spirit exists in it.

But there is much more to consider.

For our human bodies are hardware but our spirits are software. Our spirits are a self writing operating system designed by God himself. For Adam was made in the image of God alone. not in the image of us (God and his first wife, the 1st Holy Spirit). 

So when God blew his spirit of life into Adam's nostrils. He was actually downloading his new operating system into Adam's brain. We can take the two nostrils as portals into the two hemispheres in this symbolism. So we does this download occur? For the spirit of God is what makes us all human.

5 Or does it seem to you that the scripture says to no purpose: It is with a tendency to envy that the spirit which has taken up residence within us [our divinely given personal spirit] keeps longing? (James 4).

The Spirit of God enters a foetus in the Midst of its Gestation

Day0                                                     Day133                                       Day266 (38 weeks)
Conception                                           God's spirit is downloaded          Baby born
X________________________________________________________X
   133 days
(19 weeks) on average  X 133 (19 weeks) days on average

7 And Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath/spirit of lives [plural], and the man came to be a living soul (Genesis 2).

3 While my breath is yet whole within me, And the spirit of God is in my nostrils (Job 27).

22 Everything in which the breath of the force of life was active in its nostrils, namely, all that were on the dry ground, died (Genesis 7).

4 God's own spirit made me, And the Almighty's own breath proceeded to bring me to life (Job 33).

45 It is even so written: The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam [Jesus] became a life-giving spirit [a spirit of life] (1 Corinthians15).

Jesus was blown into Abraham's nostrils at his baptism by John, on 29Tishri10, when his spirit, his software, as represented by the dove, came down from heaven and possessed Immanuel, the son of Joseph and Mary and God. This was 3½ years before the midst of the Abrahamic covenant. All Jews are sons of Abraham and therefore are Abraham to God. Everyone in the Kingdom of God who was born after 1943Nisan14 BC is a son of the 1AC. So Abraham is an adamic 'fetus' who is born into the Kingdom of God via resurrection into an ageless non adamic body.

So God himself may well send his spirit in to the foetus just before the mid point of the 38 week gestational period. If so then the foetus becomes a human at 133 days, i.e. 19 weeks after conception. This would fit nicely with big EEG activity begins at 22 weeks. Also at 19 weeks a foetus looks sufficiently like a human for a Hebrew under law to regard its death as murder of a human. So the LW position is that abortion for a 266 day gestation standard baby is not murder up to the 132nd day of gestation and it is murder on the 134th day of gestation. However, there is variation between the development of human babies so we need to insert a margin of uncertainty here.

Let us introduce a margin of error of plus or minus 1 week here for the sake of safe legislation. It is true that babies are delivered sometimes 3 weeks early and sometime 5 weeks late, but their development does not lag or lead by anything like these figures. So the LWs will not regard an abortion as murder if it is carried out up to the 126th day (18 complete weeks). We will regard it as murder if it is carried out on or after the 140th day (20 complete weeks). It may or may not be murder in the intervening period, but we do not have enough data to make that charge so we will not ourselves legislate for abortions in that period. But be sure that the angels will, one way or the other. So we recommend in the strongest possible terms that the 18th week is the last opportunity for a termination. 

We would also recommend to governments that they set the limit at 18 weeks. The UK recently debated a reduction from 24 to 16 weeks, that failed. A reduction to 18 weeks would be a very good idea. We have to say that God is very pragmatic and it appears that medical science was pretty near to the mark with the 16 week suggestion. The LWs would like to take this opportunity to thank the medical people behind this sensible suggestion.

However our overall advice would be do not have an abortion, have the baby and get it adopted, there are thousands of parents looking for babies. Jesus was to some extent adopted by his parents.

"Although the foetus can move at week 14, the movements are little more than jerky reflexes. They are not driven by higher cortical functioning. Therefore, another school of thought is that life begins at week 20, when the thalamus is completely formed. The thalamus is the relay centre of the brain, and helps to connect the cerebral cortex to the spinal cord and peripheral nerves." - https://www.brainblogger.com/2009/05/10/medical-controversy-when-does-life-begin/

So basically once the foetus is fully neurologically connected, then the spirit of God can enter into it (the DI, the Divine Intelligence is downloaded) and then and only then is it HUMAN.