Monday, November 15, 2004

ABORTION

ABORTION

The word is not to be found, in either the Old or New Testament. Moses went into great detail about rules governing menstruation, rape, and incest, but never prohibited abortion. The Hebrew midwives were very skilled, and doubtless knew of herbs that could get rid of an embryo in the first trimester. If Moses (or God through Moses) was concerned about this practice, he surely would forbidden it.

Jesus was stricter than Moses on the subject of marriage.

Matthew 19: 8-9: Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

However, Jesus never mentioned abortion. Neither did Paul, although his comments on marriage were even more specific than those of Jesus.

How can the evangelicals, who claim to be fundamentalists and take the Bible literally as the word of God, be so vehement about abortion? They lean heavily on the commandment: "Thou shalt not kill". Yet they support killing in wars, of both military and civilians. They support capital punishment. They support the use of depleted uranium, which has produced tens of thousands of abortions in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Surely this is hypocrisy.

The following verses are often quoted by abortion foes:
Exodus 21: 22 "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

This passage is not clear about whether the injury is to mother or baby, since fetuses don't have teeth. Assuming it is about the baby, clearly the pregnant woman must at least be in the second trimester, or else the fetal features would not be so clearly defined. Also, there is no mention of what happens if it is her HUSBAND who hits the pregnant woman and causes a miscarriage, which is much more likely, since pregnant women tend to avoid men who are fighting. Overall, this passage does not seem to condemn abortion in general.

The whole abortion issue is a scam. It is not Bible based at all.

1 Comments:

At February 19, 2007 at 10:59 PM, Blogger TimFoley said...

I agree with you about the hypocracy of many christians when it comes to pro-life. Certainly if you claim pro-life, then you must be it across the board. What you argument fails to address are the millions of christians who are pro-life across the board; who are against capital punishment and war, etc.
So where does that leave the abortion argument. That takes hypocracy out as a reason that abortion is OK. As well, isn't it kind of presumptious to base the whole argument on one passage from Exodus. Certainly this is an issue that goes much deeper.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home