It is not for me to judge as the story in John 8 where the Pharisees laid a trap for a married woman who they physically watched have sex with another man and they dragged her (notice not the man) to Jesus and informed Jesus that they caught this woman committing adultery and under Jewish law she was to be stoned to death. Jesus answer and response can be found in John 8: 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said “All right, but let the one who has never sinned cast the first stone!”. If you are unable to comment in a loving manner please refrain from commenting as you truly are not showing the love of Christ. God Bless

John 4:

1 Jesus[a] knew the Pharisees had heard that he was baptizing and making more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus himself didn’t baptize them—his disciples did). 3 So he left Judea and returned to Galilee.

4 He had to go through Samaria on the way. 5 Eventually he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. 7 Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” 8 He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.

9 The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans.[b] She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?”

10 Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”

11 “But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? 12 And besides, do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?”

13 Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. 14 But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

15 “Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”

16 “Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.

17 “I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.

Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband— 18 for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!”

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. 20 So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim,[c] where our ancestors worshiped?”

21 Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. 23 But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. 24 For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus told her, “I AM the Messiah!”[d]

27 Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked to find him talking to a woman, but none of them had the nerve to ask, “What do you want with her?” or “Why are you talking to her?” 28 The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?” 30 So the people came streaming from the village to see him.

31 Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus, “Rabbi, eat something.”

32 But Jesus replied, “I have a kind of food you know nothing about.”

33 “Did someone bring him food while we were gone?” the disciples asked each other.

34 Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. 35 You know the saying, ‘Four months between planting and harvest.’ But I say, wake up and look around. The fields are already ripe[e] for harvest. 36 The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike! 37 You know the saying, ‘One plants and another harvests.’ And it’s true. 38 I sent you to harvest where you didn’t plant; others had already done the work, and now you will get to gather the harvest.”

Apply your opinion to your life, allow those who are seek to be healed, to be heal (not receiving more guilt than is already suffocating them). Mark 2:17 “On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

God loves us all, let us love each other. Please have a blessed day, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us.

Angie, I’m pretty much asexual, so I had more of a choice than most of the population about whether or not to become sexually active. I did, however, find someone I loved enough to make an exception for. Neither of us want children, ever, but I don’t think that it’s reasonable to expect two people in a longterm relationship to remain absolutely chaste for that reason.

But I do have to wonder about the people who take ideological positions that prescribe lifelong chastity for other people. Would you yourself be prepared to take that step for the rest of your life? Or are you expecting eventual fulfillment through the Christian-approved medium of procreative heterosexual marriage?

As for the difference between an eighteen-year-old and a fetus, it’s a lot more than just a temporal difference. Even a newborn baby, with a virtually complete nervous system, isn’t as intelligent or self-aware as most of the animals we eat for food. (Note: I am NOT saying that babies are expendable; just that even at birth, they bear less cognitive resemblance to an eighteen-year-old than a lot of creatures that we DO consider expendable.) A fetus, at the age that the overwhelming majority of abortions are performed, has only the most rudimentary of nervous systems, but more to the point, it is utterly incapable of surviving apart from a woman’s body. Unlike an eighteen-year-old, a fetus is, biologically speaking, a parasite: a benign parasite, if you want children; a very un-benign parasite, if you don’t.

As for motherly instincts, I don’t have any. I’ve lived with myself my whole life–trust me on this. I’ve been around babies, and they don’t make me smile. Neither do small children. I’m really not capable of smiling at them until they turn eleven or so, and can carry on a decent conversation. You assure me that I’d change my mind if it was my own, but would you really want to stake a child’s life on that?

You ask, “why throw a childs life away because you are not ready to have a kid and because you are not mature enough to take responsibility for your actions. when later in life you will end up having a kid because your spouse wants one.”

This makes some problematic assumptions. First of all, I’m 34, and I do take responsibility for my actions–which is one of the reasons why, if I got pregnant, I would get an abortion rather than have a child that I know I don’t want and can’t support. As for having a kid later in life because my spouse wants one, as I mentioned, my partner does not want children–even if he wanted them, I wouldn’t have them–and before I get too much later in life I hope to hit menopause!

Even if it was the case–if I was just starting out, lacked maturity, and thought I might want children later but not now–all this would still not be a good reason to compel me to have a child. If I knew I lacked maturity, knew I lacked resources, and didn’t want kids yet, it would be wildly irresponsible of me to have a kid. Yes, yes, there’s adoption, but that’s nine months of discomfort, danger, economic hardship, and potential humiliation. If people want to do that, that’s admirable, but you can’t require it of them. The ones who really don’t want to carry a fetus to term will find a way to get rid of it. The question is whether they can do it safely and legally, or have to risk their lives in a back alley somewhere.

In response to your letter from a fetus–having someone to love you unconditionally isn’t really a good reason to have a child. Especially if, as the speaker suggests, you don’t have a lot of resources. Raising children takes a huge amount of time and money. You have to be able to give them that, before you ever start thinking about what you can get from them.

You suggest that abortion is tantamount to murder–that it should either be punishable with jail time, or that murderers might as well be let free. This is a faulty analogy. For one thing, they are radically different acts: murder is the act of willfully causing the death of a human being, while abortion is the removal of unwanted, non-sentient tissue from one’s own body. Secondly, one of the reasons we jail murderers is to protect the rest of the population. Presumably, a woman who gets an abortion is not a danger to the population at large. Finally, if we are going to evaluate abortions as murders, then the woman can claim, in every single case, that she acted in self-defence, to prevent the invasion and hijacking of her body.

Doris–I’m sorry about the amount of loss in your life, but I respectfully disagree. If I found myself pregnant, and legal abortions were not an available option, the outcome would not be one more child alive in the world and waiting to be adopted by a loving family. I–and many other women–would have to resort to an illegal abortion. We’d be risking our lives. We’d be risking jail, too, but I would honestly rather go to jail than be forced to bear a child.

But I appreciate, and will honour, the admonition not to let this discussion descend into yelling and name-calling. I feel very strongly about this issue, but there are some things that are too important not to discuss civilly.

Having said that, arguments generate heat, and not light so let’s not call each other names or yell at one another on these comments.