Number 94 : November 1998 |
In western societies birth control, and abortion, have become widespread, and generally legal, in spite of the Catholic Church being against both. Most other religions are also against these (such as the Muslim religion, etc.).
There is no question that abortion is killing a living being, whether one considers the foetus to be human, or not, at such an early stage of development in the womb. It is certainly true that if you look at a human foetus very early in development it has the same shape as most animals do, but, in any case, most abortions are carried out past this stage.
The foetus could not feel pain until the nervous system is developed, but is pain the issue as to whether one can kill a living being ?
Once the first brain cells have developed, one must assume that the spirit has entered the body so at that point it is certainly killing.
The strongest evidence that abortion is wrong is the serious depression that most women experience afterwards, which is either their bodies telling them that it is wrong, but more likely it is spirit telling them through their consciences.
Of course, the child may have a poor quality of life if it was unwanted, but there is a long list of couples wanting to adopt.
If there is something definitely wrong with the baby, the body will usually miscarry anyway, but if it does not we should probably help nature with this. But this is even more difficult if there is only a possibility that something is wrong. If we had the courage of our convictions we would let nature take its course, give birth, and then decide whether to kill the baby if something is wrong, but the law does not allow this, even though evolution by natural selection has ensured this in the past. The only answer is to follow our consciences, and ask spirit to help.
In the case of contraception, the key question is whether using the contraceptive pill (or anti-spermicidal solutions (sic, Ed)) we are killing a sperm, which is swimming along, and therefore presumably alive (possibly having a spirit inside it already) that would have fertilised the egg and lived to form a human being. Physical barriers do not have this problem so directly. But on the other hand we look at Catholic South American countries which have so many unwanted children that live on the streets. We must therefore think carefully about contraception and what method, if any, we use.
Editor’s note : Graham writes from and for Battersea Spiritualist Church, which gives the background to the otherwise unexplained allusions to "spirit" in the above.