Abortion is NOT Condemned by the Bible. Not even close.

Wrong! That which requires "very creative Biblical interpretation" is your assertion that the Bible condones or encourages abortion. This is a very sad article, indeed. I hope that no one listens to your tirade. To be expected, nonetheless, in these last days (scoffer).

I completely agree with the article. Many conservative Christians are constantly trying to re-define the Old Testament, the Tanakh to be precise, to support their religious views. To the ancient Hebrews, the baby-fetus, whatever you like, wasn’t a human being until it took its first breath. They didn’t consider it a “human being” until this time.
Personally, I think the Christian Bible should only have the New Testament, as it’s the only relevant portion to their religion. If you speak to most of the Jewish individuals on this board, they’ll tell you they’re tired of Christians trying to reinterpret, redefine, recreate the Tanakh to support their religion.

To Jeffrey-
Thanks for reading this blog. But...

Hopefully your Biblical reading is better than your reading of my post, though from its sound, I have my doubts. Can you find anywhere where I say Bible condones or encourages abortion? I said it clearly does not condemn it as murder since it does not treat causing a miscarriage accidentally as murder though it makes no similar exceptions regarding accidents in causing other injuries. Your quarrel is with scripture, not me.

I have no idea what the authors felt about the subject other than that it was NOT murder and it was an injury of some sort when done as an (accidental) act of violence against a bystander. (Which obviously is not condoning it.)

To Tom:
Very thoughtful post - and thank you for the compliment!

I personally think that abortion is a morally complex issue that should be left to the woman involved. When the mother of my God son became a pregnant single woman, she chose to carry him to term despite my and other friends urges she abort the fetus.

He is a wonderful kid whom I love without reservation. I am glad she did not act on my recommendation, But this situation is not relevant to other women. Had she not had an earlier abortion, she would not have had this baby. Is he of lesser value than the prospective baby she did not have? I don't think so.

I hope this example shows this is not a simple intellectual argument for me. There is more to say here, but I don't have the time right now. Maybe we can discuss it later.

I think the issue of whether a fetus is a human in some morally significant sense is progressively less answerable the earlier in the pregnancy we go, and that the prospective mother should have complete authority over the issue.

Beyond that, I THINK that either the soul or spirit enters into the fetus at some point before birth, but is separate from the physical fetus, or that the human develops in stages beginning sometime before and also after birth. I dunno. But because neither I nor anyone else knows for sure, we should leave it to the pregnant woman to decide. She knows as much as me, and likely a lot more

Secondly, the culture warriors' target is not women, it is the feminine. Some women are on their side, and are even culture warriors themselves (Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin are the most visible examples), This is not relevant to me. Some women were members of the Nazi Party, some women support their kids blowing themselves up as suicide bombers, some women voted for George Bush. That they hold these positions does not in itself give their positions any more credibility. Women as well as men can screw up or be corrupt. To my mind it gives them less credibility, not their position moe credibility.

Thirdly, I have only superficially studied fetal development. I am personally happy with some version of the third trimester rule the Supreme Court adopted, or maybe a rule of 'quickening" as when restrictions might be levied. Not bans, restrictions.

Rights begin in my opinion with the creation of an individual distinct from its mother.

bb

Gus

What I find ironic about the culture warriors is that their main issue is abortion, which is not once mentioned in the Bible. You'd think if it were that important to God, he would have slipped it in somewhere (maybe in between the instructions on how to sacrifice a wide variety of animals). And their second issue is homosexuality, which is only mentioned in the Bible about six times (twelve if you're being really generous). The Bible mentions adultery far more than homosexuality, why don't the culture warriors focus more on cheating spouses than gay people? And the law of fair weights and measures appears six times in the Bible, why aren't Christians directing their wrath toward improperly calibrated truck weigh stations as well?

I find it interesting that most of the people arguing this problem are men. Have any of you been in the position to have to make a life or death choice in this matter? Well, I have. When pregnant with our second child, we were told that the baby would most likely be born with some sort of mental retardation. We were encouraged to get an abortion. We declined, and still lost the baby in the 5th month of pregnancy. And yet, I am pro-choice. Just because I decided to not have an abortion with that child, at that time, it doesn't mean I would make the same decision with another child at another time. And I most certainly would not dictate to another woman about what to do with her own body and child. And other women, and most certainly, not men, should have the right to do so either, simply based on a religious bias.

It makes me so angry that people push and push and push women to do what they want her to do, simply based on their religious beliefs. And then they pat themselves on the back and congratulate one another for saving another life and go back home. And who is left to help this scared and confused mother? Do these people stay with her, give her moral support, financial support, emotional support, during her pregnancy, when she goes in labor and after the child is born? Are they there when she is so stressed out about money, childcare, work, the father or lack of one; when she is so tired and can't deal with the crying and care and demands?

If you oppose abortion for religious reasons, then don't have one. It's that simple. But if you insist that everyone else do the same thing, you'd damn well better be there for the women who need the extra help. Will you be?

Apparently saving unborn babies is the right thing to do, but when that child gets older, being abused by unprepared parents is okay, being killed as a soldier is acceptable, and being blown up as a doctor at an abortion clinic is a win. In all cases these are someone's children, and children of God. God does not just love born again believers. He/she/they love all of us no matter what our beliefs.

If you are going to campaign against abortion, they you'd better be willing to do something to follow up with the child who will be born and his/her mother.

Gus, these comments are not actually directed at you. I know you are trying to find in the Bible something that says that abortions are ordained by God. As a student of comparative religions, I agree that they are not. It's individual's interpretations of the Bible (which was written by man, anyway), and those people will look for anything that supports their own personal beliefs... even if they are not true or right.

Namaste...

Every single pregnancy is different. Period. If you're a woman who has had a child or two (or ended the pregnancies) you know this as a truth. No man could.

Of course abortion isn't in the bible! I'm betting it was left out during the ecumenical counsel that decided - thru the [male] holy spirit - what books and letters were to be included in the Christian holy scriptures. Or perhaps it was left out because the Wise Women who knew the herbs to use to safely end a pregnancy weren't held in respect by these men (find me a woman with a voice at the counsel). Surely the male leaders for the most part didn't give a flying you- know-what about the women and their desires. Husband: "Of course you want to have 11 children! It doesn't matter if you don't have any teeth left, or bone density, or even hair! You *must* help populate the earth with more Christians! We don't have enough. I'm smarter and wiser, get in my bed and spread your legs now!"

Abortion can be legal, safe and rare. Especially with sex education that teaches birth control! Blessed be the Pill, condoms, etc.

I believe orgasm helps us experience deity. Why not? Orgasm is something everyone can do (even though some need practice), with a lover or even alone! Orgasm is quite equitable! Enjoy and use the wonderful tools we have available today so you won't get pregnant!

There's no way our ancient ancestors could have envisioned the world we are in today with its complexities and overload. It's simply wrong for one person to tell another what to with their body and inflict their beliefs on others. The right-to-lifer's are no different in their stance than are other extreme religion-based philosophies operating out there across the world. We need a live and let live attitude instead of "do it my way because. . ." mentality that causes so much suffering. I've never had an abortion but I will defend to the end my divine right to have one if I wanted it. No wonder the Bible doesn't talk about abortion. They were probably wise enough to back away from that issue slowly and say "use your own judgment."

"It's simply wrong for one person to tell another what to with their body"

But it's not just their body.. Their destroying another's body in the process.. And that's murder.

It's amazing. A woman will acknowledge the other life inside her when she wants to pig out because after all "eating for two", but she can't make the same distinction when it comes to abortion.

Mind blowing.

"A parallel could be drawn with the U.S. Constitution. It doesn't explicitly spell out a right to privacy, for example, but our nation has traditionally held firm to the belief and connects the idea easily to Founding fathers even if they didn't spell it out word for word in any of the founding documents."

Actually, you can defend the Right to Privacy in each of the following amendments to the US Constitution: 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th.
Would you be willing to live in the USA without these amendments protecting your rights?

People are going to believe what they want to believe regardless of what others say. And it is everyone's right to do so. It's when the beliefs of others cross the line and infringe upon the free will of other people, by trying to take away their right to choose, that it must stop. What goes on with another's body is nobody elses business. I was an unwanted child who bore the brunt of a mother forced to keep me before abortions were legal. She didn't want me, I wasn't loved, and she made it clear early on that her relatives interefered and talked her into keeping me because they thought later she would feel differently. She never did. She knew she wasn't ready to be a mom and she hated me for being alive. I can't tell you how many times I wished I was dead or had never been born because of my enviornment. Her family may have had good intentions, but in the end the scope of suffering caused by her being forced by others to do what they wanted, rather than what she intuitively knew was best, ruined lives. My fate was sealed by others noble ideals. Family members talked about taking me but in the end nobody wanted me so I suffered and finally grew up. All you people out there saying abortion is murder--maybe, but take it from the person who lived it, there are things worse than death because I've been there. If a mom doesn't want to give birth, leave her alone. Tend to your own lives and stop sticking your noses in where they don't belong. Wait until it happens in your family.

Let's see the people who say abortion is murder take on all these unwanted children and go to the expence and do the psychological work of raising them properly. How many hundreds of children will you take in this week alone to add to your family? Actions speak louder than words. Walk the talk. It's easy to be holy up on the mountain. Let's see what you do down in the marketplace when the time comes. If all these unwanted children are born and just so many are adopted, the rest end up in foster care, or worse. You call that living?

Not meaning to double-up, but because it's a separate point:

Gus has an excellent point in making this a religious issue. It's not (as would cite) a matter of detailed holy text or its interpretation, nor is it about general takes on morality -- by which I mean to say that my being a "pagan" does not give anyone the right to assume what my beliefs are, any more than one can assume the beliefs of the member of a Christian sect simply by seeing the word "Christian". It is much more fundamental than any of that.

Christianity is directly opposed to individual sovereignty. This is supported by much more than holy text. It is founded in centuries of practice and doctrine. The logic is simple, and I regret that this will be offensive to some: if abortion were required by dogma in the case of adultery or out-of-wedlock pregnancy, we would be arguing about a woman's right to not have an abortion.

Fall, you must still value life very much, cause after all you're still here. And FYI, I've been involved in practically every facet of the pro-life movement including fundraising for expecting mother's, moving furniture, the choose-life license plate initiative in my own state. No we don't just tell women not to have abortions and then leave them flapping in the breeze. There are, however, plenty of couples willing to adopt, just not enough adoption agencies who work in placement and referrals, so the waiting period is long. The fact that I'm not personally involved in raising adopted children frees me to address and facilitate many other processes vital to making the experience of motherhood barable.

"...the rest end up in foster care, or worse. You call that living?"

Some foster cares are better than others. In any event, I doubt that a high percentage of ex-foster children would say that they wished they were aborted. The trials and tribulations help to mold us so we can better appreciate the finer things in life.

To Anita-
I looked at the article you cited and it does not support what you claim. No Biblical verse is cited.

It does however strongly if unintentionally support my argument that the attacks on abortion in all its forms are an attack on the feminine as equal to the masculine.

Back before Roe v. Wade I was a young Lutheran trying to decide if I should accept a scholarship to seminary. I was starting to have serious doubts about some doctrine,(I didn't discover Paganism until many years later), but the Church was still in its liberal activist form back then and a lot of us would have reasoned discussions about abortion.Most of us conceded that the Bible wasn't any help at all except as a starting point. It came down to the twin issues of viability and sentience. It was obvious that viability was going to keep changing as science progressed and eventually it would be possible to grow a child to term without a womb at all. Thus the question ultimately became "When does sentience begin?"
I just wanted to remind some of the Fundimentalist posters that a lot of us were Christians once who came to the place we are now through a long process of struggling with important questions of faith, spirituality and philosophy.

Anita, it's a bit unfair to claim Biblical citation on a work that does not appear in the Bible, and is not considered canonical outside the Catholic view. To be fair on my part, I'd like to know how the Didache can be cited as a source in this context. It would seem to be rather esoteric for the vast majority of believers.

Be that as it may, you hit a nerve that deserves examination: the "sin" of witchcraft/sorcery. I suggest you reconsider any modern view that abortion be counted under that particular sin. The witchcraft/sorcery of the past has been replaced and explained by modern technology and science, there being nothing supernatural or demonic about what midwives and herbalists did in the past.

One of the true problems I have with abortion is the mentality that we can decide that a human being isn't "alive enough to be killed."

Human beings tend to be very cavalier with the lives of things they do not value.

Tom - Who cares about the finer things in life even if you have them if you're going through hell on a moment by moment basis? Money isn't love, even life itself isn't being loved, love is love and without it life is meaningless. No one should have to endure their life with the idea that they're being spiritually molded to enjoy the finer things in life. That's rediculous. I grew up in a 5,000 square foot house and the misplaced values my family operated with did them no good whatsoever as they became old and got sick. I was an obligation they didn't want and they didn't care how I felt about anything. I was born in an era where women had no choices and my mother was trapped with a child she hated. If suffering molded me for the finer things in life then I must be a billionnaire spiritual Avatar. You and Buddha may think suffering is growth, and maybe it is, but neither of you ever knew my mother.

Women who don't want to be pregnant should have options. To abort rather than put a living being through hell is being responsible.

What most of the posters seem to miss (and Gus points out over and over again) is the fact that no one here is saying abortion is a GOOD thing, the Pagan mindset just allows the individual to make this decision (and accept any 'return' energy) based on their own knowledge and interpretation of their situation. And on the other hand, the fundamentalist right-to-life folks say, "We think it is wrong for us, so the rest of you MUST fall into line with us." The difference is that Pagans are not willing to accept every statement (or even a single interpretation of a NON-statement) as an 'unbreakable law of God.' Fundamentalists seem to be saying that because the Bible condemns any form of 'witchcraft' that if a fundamentalist says that breathing is a form of witchcraft, all good "Christians" will immediately be expected to hold their breath. Hmmmm, that COULD solve a few issues...

"Christianity is directly opposed to individual sovereignty. This is supported by much more than holy text. It is founded in centuries of practice and doctrine. The logic is simple, and I regret that this will be offensive to some: if abortion were required by dogma in the case of adultery or out-of-wedlock pregnancy, we would be arguing about a woman's right to not have an abortion."

Well, no.

You might be shocked to learn that the Baptists, of all people, started their churches as communities supportive of each human being finding his or her own path to Divinity. Before them there was, for instance, the Jednota Bratrska in Bohemia. The thing is, Christian movements that are all about individual decision making keep springing up, and they almost always are subverted into becoming organizations like Southern Baptists today. It would be more helpful to understand why this happens than to paint all of Christianity with a single broad brush.

Not Deuteronomy...Exodus... Apologies

I'm not going through 40-odd replies in this post. But I will give you my two cents.

You've missed some verses that can support "God is pro-life/anti-abortion". One is Psalm 139:13 - 16. The author is praising God for His love, care and guidance while in the womb. So obviously, every baby still in the womb is known by God. The others are Matt 6:26 & 30. They state that God thinks of people, despite their sins, are more cherished than other creations. One other one to ponder is Matt. 25:40. The verse states that the "least you do unto the least of these, you've done unto Me." So, if I kill my unborn baby, I'm theoretically killing Jesus.

Granted there are times when the mother's health is at risk if she continues the pregnancy; but they are rare.

The one thing I find sick are all the Pagans who bow down to fertility goddesses, the "Blessed Mothers"; and then--Butcher the Goddess' blessed creation. WHY?!!??!?!! And here I thought that great egg in the sky we technically call the moon loved and mothered all life, including people.... "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer : therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation." Matt. 23:14, KJV

"Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.”~Jedi Master Yoda SW II: AotC

It doesn't matter what scripture says or doesn't say, whether contemporary or societies of old approve or not, the taking of innocent life is WRONG, and everyone knows it. By quoting others and discussing what holy books say or imply is talking OVER the issue. This quite frankly puts the innocent in more jeopardy by turning them from human beings into the subject of a wasteful and self-righteous argument.

I find it a rather irksome fact within the Pagan community (such as it is) that statements of our beliefs often include a definition contrasted with Christianity.

Perhaps this is because, as the dominant religion, we know that our points may be better received if given a basis most people can relate to. Perhaps some of us, having been raised in Christian homes, yet feel the need to seek definition by their standards. Perhaps some of us just want to find flaws in their ways, such as Biblical contradictions, and thumb our nose.

I for one am very tired of it.

Mr. diZerega , this is not directed at you personally. I understand the context in which you presented your points. However, in the discussion that has followed, I feel that, yet again, I see the Christian Comparison (for validation, mockery, et al) flowing all too freely.

Christians, at least none I have spoke with, do not define themselves by any other faith. For the most part, they hold their faith and their beliefs as a unique, separate entity and approach arguments and debates from that basis. The need to compare themselves to others, for whatever reason, almost never comes up.

I for one would love to see a similar solidarity within the Pagan community.

Personally, I don’t care what the Bible has to say about virtually any topic. Not insofar as it pertains to my personal faith, belief system and way of life.

I am not advocating ignorance of the Christian religion, or any religion for that matter. I believe we can learn about, and even appreciate, the different approaches to Faith and the Divine our brothers and sisters on Earth take.

Yet when it comes to defining my beliefs, my faith, my understanding of the Divine... I will stand apart and do so on my own terms: no need to gravitate around a Christian [or any other] sun. Pun intended. ;)

I think too that because the Dominionist faction of Fundamentalist Christianity has been the loudest and most politically powerful voice in Christianity in America for the last decade or so they have become the image of Christianity in many younger non-Christian minds. Christianity needs to reclaim its own name from the narrow-minded definition its own extreme but politically powerful wing is giving it.

Sir, please let me thank you for titling your article so well. Abortion certainly is not prohibited in the Torah. In fact, the Torah prescribes abortion in certain situations. Christians simply don't know how to read Torah and so they end up making a lot of bogus assertions. Jews don't engage in attempts to educate the cretans, for obvious reasons, we know it will always foster anti-Semitism if we explain things to them that does't match their theology. It's always a no win situation for us.

The plain text of the Bible, in English, mentions in several different ways that the one and only suitable punishment for murdering a person is execution. Absolutely no monetary substitution allowed! Yet the punishment for killing a fetus is a fine. The writers are telling you plainly that a fetus is not a person.

Rabbi's interpretting the Torah understood this thousands of years ago. That is why it has always been Jewish law that contraception is the womans' right AND responsibility, even back in the days when many forms of birth control were herbal abortants.

Abortion is still required under Jewish law today if necessary to save the life of the mother. Our Sages reasoned long ago that a woman under extreme duress should not chose to leave the rest of her children motherless for the sake of a sibling they never knew. Like most Jewish law, the reasoning is very pragmatic.

Everytime I here someone claim that the Bible prohibits abortion I WANT TO SCREAM. The truth is that Rome prohibited abortion long before the Christian era, and it did so for purely racist reasons. The Romans were faced with a starkly declining birth rate among ethnic Roman women. Like educated upper class women everywhere, they produced fewer children. At the same time, Rome had absorbed tremendous masses of foreigners as the Empire spread. Most of them wanted to live in Rome. In short, the Romans soon found themselves vastly outnumbered by aliens. They sought to solve the problem by outlawing contraception and abortion for Roman women.

The custom was maintained zealously when Rome became Christian. In fact we have records of Jewish Ebionite Christians being reviled, persecuted and murdered by Greco-Roman Christians specifically because the Ebionites allowed abortion, as per Jewish law.

So, the next time a Bible-thumper screams about abortion, just try telling them that prohibiting abortion is an entirely Pagan Roman custom!

BTW- I am a very religious Jew. My Torah doesn't say not to practice astrology either. The Bible is filled with astrology. It tells us not to worship it- there is a difference. And it also doesn't say to kill witches- it tells US not to bring them into the covenant. There's nothing wrong with a non-Jew practicing magic from the Biblical perspective, any more than it would be considered a sin for a non-Jew to eat shrimp (LOL). I hope everyone will please try not to pre-judge Jewish people or theology based on absurd translations of English Christian Bibles.

Thanks, Leah

Leah made some valid points, but I do wish she would "please try not to pre-judge" Christians. In her first paragraph she groups all Christians together as cretans who are so ignorant that they(we) don't know how to read Torah and so make bogus assertions. Exactly how is being prejudiced against all Christians any better than being an anti-Semite?

Thank you for your comments, Gwyddion9, but I did not say that I disagreed with anything else that Leah wrote, other than her presumption that all Christians are ignorant cretans. I actually do agree with everything else in her comment above. I also agree with everything in your comment, and I wholeheartedly agree with Gus' article. (Did you assume that I disagreed with Gus as well?) I too know many ignorant and closed-minded Christians, but that does not justify prejudice against the religion as a whole.

I do agree that biblical or theological arguments for abortion being murder are futile since so few of us ascribe to the same theology. Hopefully we can take the argument to a scientific level and discuss various procedures and physiological aspects of the fetus to acertain whether or not abortion is murder or the fetus is an actual human being.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJzSiAPXTiQ

I have a strong interest in cross-medium "translations". I enjoy movie adaptations of books (for example) as much for the writer/director choices on how to cinematically present something that will just not work on the screen in its original written form.

It's the value of the story being told.

The printing of the Bible in vernacular is probably the most important event in the history of Christianity. It made holy text available outside the close control of a small clerical hierarchy. That it also gave rise to the fallacies of literal interpretation does not change that importance.

In regards to the original post. The Bible says that God knew us and formed us in our mothers womb.

Psalm 139:13
For it was You who created my inward parts; You knit me together in my mother's womb.

Job 10:11
You clothed me with skin and flesh, and wove me together with bones and tendons.

Psalm 119:73
Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding so that I can learn Your commands.

It makes no mention of WHEN He did that. Therefore, saying that life only begins after a certain amount of time is an arbitrary human decision. We now know that the method God uses to knit us together in our mother's womb is cellular mitosis (I think that's right...). And that begins at conception.

If God takes the time to knit us together inside our mother's womb, He obviously considers us alive, or at least worth something. Hence, killing a baby in the womb is murder.

Quote from Gus: "For example, IF God knew us and protected us in the womb, that does not necessarily mean we were there from conception."
Um, that doesn't make sense, you can come to both conclusions. God knowing us and protecting us in the womb could mean that He did so from conception, OR some arbitrary point of time after conception. Thus, saying one way or another is human interpretation. Which means you have to take the whole Bible into account. Taking the Bible as a whole leads me believe that God is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Bible quote), and since we are made in the image of God, we are just as alive now as we were at conception.

The passage quoted in the OP is obviously referring to an accident. Which is why only a fine was required. Also, when speaking about the Old Testament Law in regards to Christianity, you have to remember that most Christians consider it fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Basically, the Law was given to demonstrate how utterly impossible it is for humans to be right with God on their own. We can only become right with God through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. It's the old covenant versus the new covenant. Judgment versus Grace. In the case of the man who caused the baby's death, grace is extended to him because he did not kill the baby intentionally. Abortion is most definitely intentional.

Also, the Bible doesn't have to outright condemn abortion. It is painfully obvious that life begins at conception, and the fact that people have been able to confuse that amazes me. The only difference between a grown up human and an unborn human is that the unborn human needs the womb to survive, and the grown up needs the Earth's atmosphere to survive...

A couple other points. There are lots of Christians who help mothers who choose not to have an abortion. And I wish there were more.

Also, I personally believe that trying to use the Bible in a debate with people who are not Christian is utterly stupid. I only used it in this post because the OP was about the Bible. I also have spent quite a bit of time formulating the beliefs I learned from the Bible in a non-religious manner so that I could talk to people who are not Christian.

If had been aborted you wouldn't be here to spew your terribly misleading beliefs. Good thing for you that your mother thought abortion wasn't a good idea.
jon

Jon,
My mother had both of her legs amputated, up to the hip, for carrying a high-risk pregnancy when abortion was illegal (illegal due to someone elses religious beliefs!). Her baby was taken away from her because she not care for it. She lingered for a long time before finally dying of sepsis.

I can't say it was a good thing for me that my mother didn't have an abortion. In my religion, "I" am not my body. "I" am a soul. "I" am a soul who has been reincarnated into the body of a mammal many times before. I am sure G-d could have found a place to put me.

Thanks for responding to me! I've posted similar comments a few times before on other blogs and usually was just ignored... :D

“When I knit a sweater the sweater does not exist till I finish it. I think the stuff you cite supports me better than you.”

But it will still end up as a sweater unless you stop working on it, or someone forces you to stop working on it.

A fertilized egg, a zygote, embryo, etcetera, will all end up as a full grown person unless something happens to it. This is one of the reasons I am amazed that people don't consider conception as the beginning of a human life. As soon as an egg is fertilized, it will become a fully functioning human. The only way it doesn't is if something bad happens.

“Second, you still ignore the rather longer and much more detailed piece I quoted. Till you do, why do you think short poetic pieces that can be interpreted in other ways, as I have done, are so much more accurate than straightforward commands? HOW can you say you read the Bible to seewhat it says rather than what you want it to say?”

Erm, what more detailed piece? I did address the verses from Exodus. Did I miss something? I'll expand on them a bit anyway...

The verses from Exodus actually support the idea that unborn babies have value. Yes, it seems like it places less value on them, but that is because of human failings. Which brings me to how I reconcile the Law with the teachings of Jesus.

The Law was given to mankind when he had no way of being saved. Mankind was completely cut off from God. The Law was given to them as a bandage to that wound. While it gave them a way to seek forgiveness from God through sacrifices and guidelines on how to live, God never expected them to succeed. Thus, in the case of a fight accidentally causing a miscarriage, God was lenient.
Now, after the death and resurrection of Jesus, we can see the full purpose of the Law. It was designed to show us how sinful we are, and to point the way to Jesus. The Law shows us that there is no way to bridge the gap between us and God except by blood. It also shows that there is no sacrifice we can make that would bridge the gap permanently. Thus, Jesus had to be sacrificed as a perfect sacrifice. He had no sin, thus was perfect, and thus his death was able to bridge the gap.

As for the verses I posted, they demonstrate how God sees us. And, to be honest, they seem pretty literal to me. So, why do you see the verses from Exodus as more straightforward than the ones form Job and Psalms?

So, how do I read the Bible and know that what I am getting from it is what God intended? Um, well, most of the Bible is pretty straightforward. As long as you don't take things out of context, you can pretty much just read it as literally what it says. I guess the biggest thing to reading the Bible correctly is not to let yourself take things out of context. You have to consider was the book of Matthew says at the same time as what Leviticus says. You can't just pull a verse or two out of the middle of a chapter and say that it supports your position. You have to also take the chapter and book and the whole Bible.

“Third, that we humans do not have perfect knowledge does not make our choices 'arbitrary.' What matters is that we can give reasons for them that others can question, and over time either we change our views or deepen our understanding - without ever saying we have it all. That works for science, for democracy, and I would argue for Paganism.”

Hmm... So maybe I used the wrong word there. Just take it out if it bothers you, that won't change my point. As far as God is concerned, baby cells inside the womb are alive at some point in time. If God hasn't explicitly stated that life only begins after such and such a time period, then the best time to consider something alive is conception. When there is uncertainty, you always err on the side of caution.

Thanks jaundicedi,

You beat me to the punch.
I agree with you, that Jerrac is arguing the "potential life."
One of the issues, i guess is the best word, is the contradictions in the Old Testament. As has already been stated, verses can be found that can be interpreted to support abortion and verses can be found that can be interpreted that do not support abortion. That's one of the issues i see with the Bible, it isn't honestly clear on many things.

Jerrac,

What Does The Bible Say About Abortion?
Absolutely nothing! The word "abortion" does not appear in any translation of the bible!
Out of more than 600 laws of Moses, none comments on abortion. One Mosaic law about miscarriage specifically contradicts the claim that the bible is antiabortion, clearly stating that miscarriage does not involve the death of a human being. If a woman has a miscarriage as the result of a fight, the man who caused it should be fined. If the woman dies, however, the culprit must be killed:
- Ex 21:22-25:
"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth ...

The bible orders the death penalty for murder of a human being, but not for the expulsion of a fetus.
When Does Life Begin?
According to the Old Testament, life begins at birth--when a baby draws its first breath. The bible defines life as "breath" in several significant passages, including the story of Adam's creation in Genesis 2:7, when God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Jewish law traditionally considers that personhood begins at birth.
Desperate for a biblical basis for their beliefs, some antiabortionists cite obscure passages, usually metaphors or poetic phrasing, such as:
- Psalm 51:5:Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
This is sexist, but does nothing other than to invoke original sin. It says nothing about abortion.
The Commandments, Moses, Jesus and Paul ignored every chance to condemn abortion. If abortion was an important concern, why didn't the bible say so?

Many antiabortionists quote the sixth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" (Ex. 20:13) as evidence that the bible is antiabortion. They fail to investigate the bible's definition of life (breath) or its deafening silence on abortion. Moreover, the Mosaic law in Exodus 21:22-25, directly following the Ten Commandments, makes it clear that an embryo or fetus is not a human being.
An honest reader must admit that the bible contradicts itself. "Thou shalt not kill" did not apply to many living, breathing human beings, including children, who are routinely massacred in the bible. The Mosaic law orders "Thou shalt kill" people for committing such "crimes" as cursing one's father or mother (Ex. 21:17), for being a "stubborn son" (Deut. 21:18-21), for being a homosexual (Lev. 20:13), or even for picking up sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-35). Far from protecting the sanctity of life, the bible promotes capital punishment for conduct which no civilized person or nation would regard as criminal.
Mass killings were routinely ordered, committed or approved by the God of the bible. One typical example is Numbers 25:4-9, when the Lord casually orders Moses to massacre 24,000 Israelites: "Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun." Clearly, the bible is not pro-life.
Most scholars and translators agree that the injunction against killing forbade only the murder of (already born) Hebrews. It was open season on everyone else, including children, pregnant women and newborn babies.
Does God Kill Babies?
- Psalm 137:9:Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
The bible is not pro-child. Why did God set a bear upon 42 children just for teasing a prophet (2 Kings 2:23-24)? Far from demonstrating a "pro-life" attitude, the bible decimates innocent babies and pregnant women in passage after gory passage, starting with the flood and the wanton destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, progressing to the murder of the firstborn child of every household in Egypt (Ex. 12:29), and the New Testament threats of annihilation.
Space permits only a small sampling of biblical commandments or threats to kill children:
· Numbers 31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones.
· Deuteronomy 2:34 utterly destroyed the men and the women and the little ones.
· Deuteronomy 28:53 And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters.
· I Samuel 15:3 slay both man and woman, infant and suckling.
· 2 Kings 8:12 dash their children, and rip up their women with child.
· 2 Kings 15:16 all the women therein that were with child he ripped up.
· Isaiah 13:16 Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled and their wives ravished.
· Isaiah 13:18 They shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eyes shall not spare children.
· Lamentations 2:20 Shall the women eat their fruit, and children.
· Ezekiel 9:6 Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children.
· Hosea 9:14 give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
· Hosea 13:16 their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.

Source: http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Abortion_and_the_Bible

Again to reiterate, in Jewish tradition, the fetus/baby isn’t considered to be an actual human being until they take their first breath. The thoughts and verses explain why I find contradictions in the Old Testament (Tanakh). This is one of many sites I’ve reviewed and found the information accurate.

Gwyddion9,

You are exactly right. What modern people "don't get" is that the Bible was written BY scholars TO a warrior culture. The name "Hebrew" appears to come from the term "abiru", found in both ancient Babylonian and Egyptian texts, which was used to describe a class of people who refused citizenship in the 3 great Empires (the third was Hittite, whose library hasn't been fully translated yet). The Abiru were mercenaries, as in, the Egyptians gave the Abiru the best land of Egypt (Goshen) in exchange for protecting Egypt's northern border from the Hittite incursion. Everybody knows the rest of that story.

The point is, that by the time you remove the text from it's historical context, you've already missed the point. How does one convince a group of warriors to settle down and live a holy life, keeping in mind that NO ONE around you has any intention of adopting a peaceful lifestyle? You give them rules to live by- lots of rules, 613 to be exact. Then you hope and pray that each generation will become more observant of the rules as they begin to experience the consequences for breaking those rules.

The Bible is a series of political biographies and historical events that took place over a very long period of time. Battles were written down because they were noteworthy. Simple, boring everyday life of wasn't. So you have a situation where the violence is time-compressed, and the reader is left with the impression that there wasn't any lovingkindness in between. The history of Europe would seem at least as savage to a foreigner if the same format was used.

I've never met anyone who believed in earnest that G-d told King Jehu to bring the heads of 70 child rivals to his throne in a basket. Incorporating the phrase "Our G-d the Lord said..." was a very effective literary tool used to attribute everything that happen to the same G-d. Otherwise they would try praying to a different god every time they asked for something they didn't get. Or look for demons around every corner when something bad happened.

The bottom line is: we were told to "make progress" not "make everything like it was 4,000 years ago". Abortion was OK in ancient times. Women had a 1 in 15 chance of dieing in childbirth. In the surrounding cultures, unwanted children were discarded in garbage fires, sold as sex slaves, or left to fend for themselves. Mohammed recounts the same horrors still going on in his lifetime.

Americans really do need to have a serious discussion about abortion policy. Our politics has been reduced to a pro-choice party and a pro-life party. Add a dose of religion and it goes from disagreeing to hating each other. If we could ever have the discussion based on science, compassion, shared ethics, etc., instead of the Bible, then I think we can form policy we can all live with.

While the debate rages on, there is one thing that is irrefutable: The BABY in the womb has his/her own DNA; therefore 1- it is not the mothers choice to do with 'her' body what she wants, when its not her body at all, and 2- God loves everyone, and wants no one to perish. So please, don't think twice- pray

"Thou shalt not kill." Is KJV. Most of the time it is translated as "Do not murder." The verses you quoted were not about people being murdered. They were the casualties of war. If you need to know the reasons for that war, read Exodus and Joshua. It's pretty clear, but I'll explain a bit here.

Also, the verses quoted are taken out of context. Under the old law, God punished sin by death. For the Israelites, this took the form of sacrifices. When the sinners were not repentant at all, they suffered the consequences. As for the nations God ordered Israel to slaughter, they were evil sinful nations that would lead Israel away from God if they were left there. God's reasons for destroying them are explained very clearly in the Bible.

So those verses are not contradictory if you take the entire Bible into account.

I will admit that the word 'abortion' does not occur anywhere in the Bible. But, the Bible very clearly shows/states that God places value on what is in the womb. The verses from Exodus in the original post, and the verses from Psalms and Job prove that. Therefore, even if you can't admit that it is an unborn, alive, baby, who are we to end what is in the womb? God has staked His claim on it.

Read this: http://www.ccel.us/AbortionandtheXian.Chap4.html It talks about how God considers even the unborn as human. Starting around page 40 or so.

In conclusion, it takes a radical misinterpretation of the Bible to say it doesn't condemn abortion.

A quick quote from that link I found, to encourage you to read it... :D

" In the New Testament, Luke in particular is sensitive to the development of the unborn. In chapter 1, Elizabeth greets her visiting cousin Mary with these words: "Behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy" (Luke 1:44). Two elements are noteworthy here.

First, John the Baptist in his mother's womb leaped for joy in response to Mary's greeting. Human emotion is explicitly attributed to the unborn John. His mother Elizabeth was probably still in her sixth month, since it seems likely that Mary's visit followed closely upon the announcement by the angel Gabriel (cf. Luke 1:36,39). Elizabeth's statement should not be dismissed as poetic hyperbole, since Luke specifies that Elizabeth was speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:41). Furthermore, it is now well known that an unborn child can respond to touch at eight weeks and at 25 weeks can respond to human voices and feel pain and discomfort.[14] There is no scientific basis for precluding human emotion in John the Baptist at that stage of his prenatal life.

A second point worthy of note is the use of the term brephos to describe John in the womb. Elsewhere in the New Testament the same term is used freely of infants and the newly born (Luke 18:15; 1 Pet. 2:2; Acts 7:19). Here again we have language indicating an understood continuity between prenatal and postnatal existence."

A final thought on why the Bible never specifically condemns abortion. Because it is VERY obvious that abortion is murder, God had no need to condemn it specifically.

Jerrac-
You continue to miss my point.

The quotes you offer are ambiguous. THAT is my major point regarding what you bring forward. That the texts you cite can be REASONABLY interpreted in different ways. They CAN be interpreted as you do. They can also be interpreted otherwise. Does a zygote leap for joy? I think not.

Why have years of Jewish readings indicated otherwise than you have? Why do many Christians disagree? THINK about it.

I have yet to read a half-way convincing argument that changes my reading of the passage I cited.

Let me be frank here - IF the Bible explicitly stated it was against abortion because it was murder, as a Pagan that would not change my mind on the subject. Not at all. Read literally, the Bible seems to endorse many things I find objectionable or absurd and certainly sincere Christians have done horrible things in its name.

But as a matter of simple fact, no such condemnation is explicitly made and the case I brought forward pretty clearly says otherwise, though it only discusses violently caused miscarriage, and not deliberate abortion.

It is arrogant to impose your views on others by force of law when your evidence is ambiguous and it impacts people's lives so intimately. Set a good example and let God sort it out. Unless your God is so weak and insubstantial that he needs you to do his work because he can't.

I use lower case because a god like that does not amount to much.

Abortion. It's one of those hot button issues that always generates a good back and forth. It's a red herring though really. I mean heck, Bush won in 2004 on this very issue and then went on to save the lives of exactly no babies at all.

At what point Jesus become Human answers the abortion issue.At the moment of incarnation He would be God in the flesh. To kill that which is made in the image of God is the crime of murder.
To say that it isn't is age old hardness of heart against God and man.
When man and woman have sexual union they become one flesh and are one in God.Let not man put them apart. If egg and sperm become one they recieve one eternal spirit from eternal God and cannot be killed except in the flesh.Since all sin is eternal the murderer becomes an
eternal murderer. This sin is only forgivable by Christ's atonement on the Cross which we need to present to the Father.

Dude it is sad to see how dumb you are! I strongly recommend you find somone alot smarter than them and let them teach you. You don't want to step out into eternity someday in your present mental condition. It won't be pretty!

First of all to end this, when God says not to sacrifice your children to Molech he means it.... Thus yes, it is a sin, to lie is a sin as well, so judge as you be judged but do not deny the word of God less you seek his wrath....