BIBLE AND ABORTION AND HOW ITS VERSION OF GOD HATES FEMALE BODILY RIGHTS

 

Many in the Churches forbid abortion under all circumstances and even when it could save the mother's life. Some Catholics who believe in the ban think that abortion is never necessary to save a woman's life. But even if that is true, it has nothing to do with the ban on abortion. The Church would still ban abortion if say the vast majority of women needed abortion to live. There is a real hatred of women in the Church's attitude.
 
Christians who oppose abortion appeal to the Bible, for them it is the only book in the world that God authored, to find proof that abortion is against the will of God.

 

The Bible God emphasises that the life of the flesh is in the blood.  To remind the people of that, they were not allowed to eat an animal unless the blood was all out.  On that basis, some Christians allow abortion on demand before the circularity system appears.  It is certain that the Bible does not say life begins at conception for it does not even understand what conception is.  If you think an egg and sperm coming together starts off a potential life then you might see this not as conception but a progress to conception.  Conception could be redefined as when the entity becomes a person.  The Bible writers might have seen it that way but there are no grounds for holding that they would have considered a fertilised egg to be a person.

 

Exodus 21:22-23 is often used to argue for abortion being compliant with the Bible. The scenario is two men are fighting and the pregnant woman is hurt in their struggle.  She gives birth early.  The text says if there is no serious injury then the attacker must be fined whatever her husband asks for within the limit allowed by the court.  But if there is then God says the life for life, eye for eye rule takes full force.

 

Some say this means the baby was not considered to be a proper person for the rule was that a life must be taken for a life.  That is their imagination for the text jumps to that rule. 

 

Others say the chapter is not just about causing a miscarriage but about causing a premature birth where the baby is viable.  The text clearly thinks that a premature birth is not a serious injury which is why the fine must apply.  She must not be injured seriously either.  For the text to mean anything it means both mother and child.

 

Others say what happens is an accident so the man cannot be punished harshly or suffer death for causing the baby's death.  Now this would imply that if the man kills the unborn on purpose then the life for a life rule applies.  It would suggest the death penalty for abortion and it is a fact that legal systems of the time decreed that so why should Exodus be any different?

 

Those who say it refers to a premature delivery of a live baby need to be okay with saying that God does not mind abortion even a few seconds before birth.

 

The text has the fine being paid to the child's father.  Not the mother.  This is pure patriarchal bigotry.  A text that sees a baby as the mere property of its father is not really worried about the woman or the baby.  It is an insult to women to care about what it says about abortion.  The father is not even commanded to support her with the fine.  He can spend it like a singleton.

 

Exodus 21 does NOT give you a Bible argument for abortion at all or even for saying that the unborn child matters less than an adult.
 
Jeremiah 1:5 has God saying that before he made Jeremiah in the womb he knew him. But if God, who supposedly knows the future, said he knew you before you were conceived would that mean you had a right to life before you existed? Of course not. The text proves nothing.
 
Psalm 139 says that God knit its author together in the womb.   Verse 16 says that God seen my developing substance as imperfect as it was in the womb and in his book all my members, the plan for what I would be physically like, were written.
 
These passages are used to support the delusion that life begins at conception. But even a person who believes that a foetus only becomes a person say at three months after conception could agree with these statements.

 

Catholics think that God's word the Gospel of Luke implies that Mary though in the early stages of pregnancy was already carrying the person of Jesus Christ in her womb. She goes to Elizabeth who tells her the fruit of her womb is blessed and that she is the mother of the Lord.

If the unborn John the Baptist jumped in his mother's womb for joy when she met Mary about the five or sixth month that does not prove that life begins at conception. Jesus was still invisible at that point.  The Bible uses the Greek word brephos for a child before and after birth.  If this poses no problems then the reason is that a potential life is treated as the person for communication reasons but it is not a scientific assertion that Jesus was a baby then and a fully alive person.  But it does seem to be a stretch to argue that the Bible did not really mean that Jesus had full personal rights then. John and Elizabeth praised him as if he were fully in this world though in the womb.

The Torah, first five books of the Bible, says that a man who fights and hurts a pregnant woman so that she loses the baby must be fined by her husband though it says that to kill requires that you be killed yourself. This suggests that the Torah denies that babies are persons. It does not even say how far on the woman has to be so it is very liberal.
 
The Bible, supposedly written by God, says at Deuteronomy 21:18-21, that if a son is too much for the parents they can have him stoned to death if they wish. This is the abortion of an adult son not an unborn one! The Church may say there was no evidence that this law was ever used. But it still approves of such killing even if it never happened. The wish of the Church to defend itself by saying the law was never used shows that the Church is uncomfortable with the law and therefore sinning in trying to treat a law of God as a bad thing. The Church should be saying, "The law may never have been used but we would welcome it if it were needed". With this in mind, the Church's attitude towards abortion reeks of hypocrisy.
 
The Mormon Church uses similar hypocritical tactics in relation to the Mormon doctrine that certain sinners need to be ritually murdered so that their blood runs to atone for certain sins. They claim that the killings required by the doctrine never took place as if that absolves them for advocating and reverencing evil doctrine. They are trying to turn off people's revulsion and turn them on to Mormonism.
 
Strange that with Islam and Judaism and Christianity's obsession with opposing abortion the Bible is silent on the subject. No wonder for it never had any real respect for life anyway.
 
BOOKS CONSULTED
 
Abortion The Great Injustice, HP Dunn, Irish Messenger Publications, Dublin, 1979
Abortion, John R Rice Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1971
Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, Uta Ranke Heinmann, Penguin, London, 1991
Human Life is Sacred, Irish Bishops Pastoral, Veritas Dublin 1975
Is Abortion Sinful? Mike Willis, Guardian of Truth Publications, KY
Moral Questions, A Statement by the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1971
Practical Ethics, Peter Singer, Cambridge University Press, England, 1994
Reason and Religion, Anthony Kenny, Basil Blackwell Ltd, Oxford, 1987
The Catholic Church and Abortion, Catholic Press and Information Office Dublin, Irish Messenger Publications, Dublin, 1983
The Doctor's Dilemmas, Donal Murray, Veritas, Dublin, 1988
Vicars of Christ, Peter de Rosa, Corgi, London, 1993

BIBLE QUOTATIONS FROM:
 
The Amplified Bible