>>622203
I'll bite.
Thou shalt not kill. It's as simple as that. The only exception is if you are from old testament Israel and God told you to do it.
Now at what point does the soul enter the body (that is, when does the fetus become alive)? I'll list out the possibilities based off of arguments I've heard of: sometime before conception (based off of Jeremiah 1:5), at conception (I'll get around to this one later), 40 days into pregnancy (it's plainly stated somewhere in the Talmud that until forty days after conception, the fetus is only 'water'. The ancient Greeks thought this also), 42 nights after conception (based off of one of the more reliable Hadiths), 40 to 43 days after conception (that's when the first brain activity starts. Kudos to Islam and Judaism to guessing that one right, and independently too!), at birth, 8 days after birth (because that's when circumcisions happened? Not my argument) 40 days after birth (based off of some passage in the old testament where the number of people in a group who are over 40 days old is given. The argument then goes that therefore people who aren't 40 days old yet don't count), and the much more complicated view where the fetus gains a soul in several parts. I'll come back to the last one.
We can rule out 40 and 42 days after conception out immediately, because we're in /christian/. It is also pretty simple to rule out the one before conception, because that would mean that not having sex would be murder, and we know that Jesus (and Mary if you're into that) did not sin, nor have sex.
I'll conveniently brush aside the arguments for 8 days and 40 days after birth because they're silly. (NOTE - NEVER EVER DO THIS. THIS LEADS TO REJECTING TEACHINGS OF JESUS BECAUSE THEY'RE 'SILLY' OR 'TOO DIFFICULT' OR 'SURELY HE DIDN'T MEAN WHAT HE SAID WHEN HE SAID THAT') If you really want to argue for these ideas, feel free to.
Now, let's move onto 'at birth'. I can think of four sub-possibilities here, namely when the baby is fully clear of the vagina, when the baby takes its first breath, when the umbilical cord is cut and finally the medical standard of 'whenever the nurse looks at the wall clock and writes the time down'.
The first one seems unlikely, because 'clear of the vagina' seems arbitrary, and it seems possible for a ceaseran baby to not have a soul. Cutting of the umbilical cord also isn't really feasible, because it is possible (and sometimes done) to leave the umbilical cord attached for a few minutes, and there is one example of a woman keeping the umbilical cord attaching her to her baby for six days (!). When the baby takes its first breath, specifically the instant it begins taking its first breath, is the most feasible option of the 'at birth' scenarios, and has extra credit of being linked to how often in the bible it uses 'breathed his last' to refer to death, linking breathing to being alive. There still exist several problems with this theory. The first one that came to mind is "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb" (Psalm 139:13), meaning that one's 'inmost being' was created in the mother's womb, rather than outside of it.
Now, we have 'whenever the neurons start firing'. The premise is good enough. It's actually an incredibly good one, and it's the belief that I had before I became Christian. The trouble is that it has no solid biblical arguments going for it. Now let's take a look at Genesis 21:2 "And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him" Note that it says 'conceived and bore' rather than 'conceived then bore', meaning that Abraham had a son right at conception.
Finally, we come to 'life begins at conception'. It happens to be the most popular Christian belief. If this is true, then all abortion is wrong.
However, what is the deal with identical twins? They start off being the same zygote, which then splits in two, which develop into two separate people. If life begins at conception, do twins share a soul? Of course not. Would a human chimera (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics) ) have two souls? It's a bit less silly than the previous example, but still a no. You may remember that I left out an option, the option that the fetus gains the soul not all at once, but in several parts. First the fetus would gain a soul equivalent to that of a plant, then the soul equivalent to that of an animal, and then a soul that truly is that of a human. Even then, it is not exactly three jumps, but a gradual process. Our beloved Augustine and also Thomas Aquinas believed this, as did many other church fathers (who weren't total heretics). This theory perfectly deals with all of the objections facing other theories.