Deliberately aborting a human fetus has always been homicide
#15 | POSTED BY SENTINEL
Wrong. It was considered homicide for many centuries to kill a fetus after it "quickened".
#39 | POSTED BY SENTINEL
...after it "quickened" is not always.
And there is plenty of historical, legal, and religious (not just Christian) precedent for abortion.
Official abortion laws did not appear on the books in the United States until 1821, and abortion before quickening did not become illegal until the 1860s. If a woman living in New England in the 17th or 18th centuries wanted an abortion, no legal, social, or religious force would have stopped her. www.americanprogress.org
Carla Spivack, a scholar of the law and English literature at the Oklahoma City University School of Law, argues that dating back to the 14th century in England, many sources suggest abortion was not considered illegal before the point of "quickening," or when the woman was able to feel the child move in her womb. www.theatlantic.com
Ben Franklin wasn't even the first issuer of a math textbook on either side of the Atlantic to include among its materials a recipe for abortion, though his book certainly had the most reliable and explicit one. William Mather's 1699 Young Man's Companion also has one. slate.com
Abortion before ensoulment was tolerated by the Catholic Church. Abortion was only declared illegal and condemned by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1800's. The Catholic Church condoned abortion until the fetus "quickened," meaning the time when a pregnant woman first feels the unborn child moving. www.ewtn.com
Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) scholars have given a range of time during which they said it is appropriate for a Muslim to have an abortion " from a few weeks to a few months. But the key reason they said the procedure is allowed at all is that verses in the Quran " the Islamic holy book " indicate that a fetus is not a "life" until the soul is breathed into it; that does not happen at conception, but at some later time.More conservative scholars of Islamic law said that after 120 days, abortion is prohibited, except in a case where the mother's life is in danger. www.aljazeera.com
The Talmud, a two-part Jewish text comprised of centuries worth of thought, debate and discussion, is also helpful when discussing abortion. The Talmud explains that for the first 40 days of a woman's pregnancy, the fetus is considered "mere fluid" and considered part of the mother until birth. The baby is considered a nefesh " Hebrew for "soul" or "spirit" " once its head has emerged, and not before. Jewish tradition and scholars have also acknowledged a pregnant woman's potential "great need" to terminate a pregnancy. www.usatoday.com
