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The Moral and Legal Status of Abortion: A Christian Perspective

From the perspective of Jesus, what makes an act wrong is the lack of love that ought to motivate one’s treatment of another. All humans (including fetuses, mentally disabled people, and terminally ill patients) and animals who can obviously relate with humans ought to be treated with love. So, Christians are not really expected to treat humans morally as an expression of respect for human rights. Jesus does not use “rights” as the bases for establishing good human relationships. Rather, he uses love as the basis for establishing good human relationships. Most cases of abortion are not acts that are motivated by love. Rather, they are motivated by selfishness or unwillingness to take responsibility for voluntary engagements in sexual affairs. So, most cases of abortion, from a Christian perspective, are wrong or immoral.

However, it is impractical and unrealistic for a state to legislate love as the motivating factor for the voluntary actions of the citizenry. Rather, such actions, from the perspective of the state, must respect the rights of all legal residents who voluntarily or involuntarily participate in contractual agreements for the promotion of peace, security, social stability, fairness, and equality. There is no conclusive case for justifying the superiority of the right to life of a fetus over the right to choose of a mother. There is no conclusive case for justifying the recognition of the right to life of a fetus as a legitimate right that must be considered. Considering that the mother is actually a participant in contractual agreements, the state must favor her right to choose, whether or not her choice is motivated by love.

So, it is appropriate for a Christian to recognize his or her legal right to have an abortion, just like the other citizens. However, it is morally inappropriate for a Christian to have an abortion. A Christian must give up his or her legal right to have an abortion. From a Christian standpoint, most cases of abortion are immoral. From the standpoint of a liberal democratic state, a mother should be given the right to choose to have an abortion.

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