Rigby5
Diamond Member
Children were not venerated as they are, or used to be, in America. They were basically work slaves or sex objects and when a society was conquered the boys would be killed and the women raped. Abortion is a step backward but, alas it is what it is.Humans used to be prey at one time.
Primates lived in trees, and for some reason we came down to the grass savanahs.
So then we had to have a high reproductive rate to prevent extinction.
But that is no longer the case.
No that we have become predators instead of prey, a high reproductive rate risks not only the extinction of our own species, but potentially of all other species as well.
So then were did this prohibition against abortion come from?
It certainly did not come from the Egyptians, Greeks, or Romans, who all regularly practiced abortion..
{...
That abortion could have been specifically in the mind of the authors of Galatians and the Apocalypse, and that it was specifically dealt with by the early Christian communities, is established by several contemporary writings. The most important is the Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. This ancient and authoritative statement of Christian principles in Syria was composed no later than 100 A.D. and may well have been written much .earlier.' 9 Here a list of precepts, was given for the instruction of the Christian:
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not corrupt boys.
You shall not fornicate.
You shall not steal.
You shall not make magic.
You shall not practice medicine (pharmakeia).
You shall not slay the child by abortions (phthora).
You shall not kill what is generated.
You shall not desire your neighbor's wife.
Didache 2.2.
...}
But you see the problem?
It commands Christians to not practice medicine.
But we do practice medicine.
Why?
Because we now know that was an old superstition, and only the Christian Scientists still believe that medicine is bad.
And that is the level of ignorance that is against abortion.
It is a step backwards and more ignorant than the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians even.
It is not true that when one society conquered another, the boys were killed and the women raped.
That very rarely ever happened.
One of the few instances was in the Old Testament, when Joshua defeats the Canaanites at Jericho.
The defeat of Troy by the Greeks is another.
And another would be the Roman defeat of Carthage.
These were obvious exceptions from extreme emotional feelings, and not the norm when it came to imperial expansion.
Normally when the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, etc., defeated someone, it is because they wanted to add the productivity, wealth, manpower, and skills to their own, in order to increase their economic capability.
Almost all empires in history include the separate conquered nations within the empire.
Abortion is not a step backward, but the realization that women have millions of ovum, so there is no reason to not wait until conditions are ideal, before committing them to the family.
What is barbaric is to insist on the birth of a fetus that is known to be painfully defective and nonviable, like with spinal bifida.