Where in the Bible does it say anything about abortion?

[rockydem]

Does it say anywhere that life begins at conception?

I see it as a scientific/philosophical question.

[kikiek]

1. It should be a personal belief. The bible doesn't address it.

Not to mention that should not be dictating our laws anyways.

[arcane1]

2. the same place where it says marriage = 1 man and 1 woman

[BearFlagDemocrat]

3. It doesn't.

In fact, if you look at Hebraic law, the penalties for causing a miscarriage, i.e. injuring a woman to the point where she spontaneously aborts, is considerably less than the penalty for murder of an adult or child.

[skylarmae]

7. the operative word here being MURDER - right?

Isn't Moses in Exodus.....The tablets - gold calf - 40 years - ...........

[Minimus]

8. that is correct

an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
if a man kills another's donkey, he must pay him with like.
if a man takes another's life, he must pay with his.
if a man strikes a woman with child and causes death to the child, he must pay the kings ransom.

[Cleita]

14. But this doesn't condemn abortion.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that a woman doesn't have a choice about ending a pregnancy and many of them did. There were many herbal remedies for this that have been handed down through the ages. If a man strikes her causing her to have a miscarriage, then it's because her and her husband's choice to bring a pregnancy to full term was violated.

[Minimus]

18. but it does not hold the same punishment

if the fetus/unborn was considered "life" then the punishment should in turn be life.

[BearFlagDemocrat]

Here's the passage

"And if men struggle and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."
Exodus 21:22-25

[rockydem]

22. that's fascinating

and the striking would have been unwanted....

so if a Biblical woman wanted an abortion - it may have just straight up not been a crime at all...

[BearFlagDemocrat]

9. Here's the passage

"And if men struggle and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."
Exodus 21:22-25

[papau]

13. "further injury" was translated as loss of fetus after quickening

meaning after 20-22 weeks, the fetus was thought able - had a chance - of survival - outside the womb.

Later around 1000AD the phrase "Man was made in God's image" was said to mean that a fetus that was not fully enough formed to look to the eye like a smaller full term baby, was not human, so there was no death of a human.

[meti57b]

4. "thou shalt not kill unless the folks you kill are from another country ..

or racial minority"

[sister moon]

5. Moot point unless you think

the bible is anything other than a collection of bizarre fables. Which I don't incidentally. I told myself I would stay out of religion threads, oh well...let the flaming begin.

[Dookus]

6. it doesn't

however, it is VERY clear that divorce is adultery, and therefore a violation of the 10 commandments.

[The Magistrate]

17. Indeed, My Friend

The book is silent on the subject here. Nor does the history of Western religious thought on the matter bear out the statement that life begins at conception. The traditional view was that life began at "quickening," the first time the woman felt some movement within her belly, a thing typically coming around the fourth month; it is a concept not too different from modern conceptions of "viability" on which most all can agree today.

Your point about divorce is an acute one, that really ought to be driven home in a counter-offensive against the relifious rightists' swill polluting our politics so viley just now. There are some regulations for divorce in Mosaic law, but the thing is flatly forbidden to Christians by the explicit words of the founder believed diety Himself as a central dogma of the faith. There is therefore no excuse whatever for divorce by believing Christians. This really ought to be tossed in the face of every rightist Christian who talks of "protecting marriage" or "preserving marriage" or makes any reference whatever to Biblical teaching on the subject. Such a reptile must always be bearded with the question, "So when do plan to forbid divorce by national law or Constitutional amendment? When are your pastors going to start banning divorced persons from your church? Why do born-again Evangelicals have the highest divorce rates of any identifiable demographis group in our country? Why are divorce rates higher in states that vote solidly Republican than in states that vote solidly Democratic? What, by the way, do you make of Christ's frequent denunciations of hypocrites? For you damned sure are one!"

"The fundamentalist is the common enemy of humankind."

"Who has no enemies has no friends."

[MemphisTiger]

10. Like all things in the Bible it's an interpretation

this is the same interpretation that almost all mainstream religions take. If you are looking for ammunition to argue with someone on the others side, it's a losing battle.

[rockydem]

23. well what's their ammo then?

they have to point to something - otherwise they look like fools.

[Cleita]

11. I never saw anything alluding to it.

As a matter-of-fact, the Catholic Church, who started this dialogue, didn't do so until the middle of the nineteenth century. Even the ancients realized that a spongy blob of cells that had the potential to become a human being, wasn't actually human yet.

[PatsFan2004]

12. Here are two instances where there is an implied "personhood"

associated with conception.

David the King in the Psalms wrote that "in sin was I conceived".

Mary was told in a "vision" that the Holy Spirit has produced in her a child, the Son of God.

These can be interpreted in other ways.

[Touchdown]

15. Genesis, when God told Abraham to sacrifice Jacob.

:D

Ok, bad taste, but I am sick of Bible thumpers, and have been for 18 years.

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. MURDER. However there have been cases made FOR abortion

with it too.

See my Christianity page for more on that.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
FIGHT! Take this country back one town and state at a time!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/

[Tesibria]

19. There are several passages that are relied upon to support

this argument

Psalms 51:5
"Surely I have been a sinner from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."

(Shows that human (and sin-stained) from moment of conception.)

Psalms 139:13-16
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

(Doesn't directly address moment of conception, but "unformed body" and "woven in depths of earth" is interpreted as "from the beginning." (Recall -- strict Catholic AND strict Evangelicals say that ANY form of birth control or ANY form of birth control other than the rhythm method - is wrong. For them, life begins BEFORE conception.)

Job 31:15
Did not He who made me in the womb make them ? Did not the Same One for us both within our mothers?"

(Again, not directly related to moment of conception - but from "within womb.")

There's a good site explaining "Why Abortion is Biblical " at http://www.elroy.net/ehr/abortion.html


FOR THE RECORD -- i don't subscribe to these interpretations -- i am just passing them along.

[Tesibria]

20. Re: Catholics -- it deserves mentioning that ...

... the absolute prohibition on abortion is a very recent "phenomonen" (sp?). Until the late 1800s, they drew a distinction between a "quickened" fetus (when mother could feel it move) -- wrong to abort; and one who was not -- ok in some circumstances to abort.

For more, see the Catholic Encyclopedia at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01046b.htm

[69KV]

21. The only place abortion is ever mentioned is here:

Numbers 5:11-31. It's a pro-abortion passage, but still misogynist and anti-woman. But it's still remarkable that the only place abortion is ever alluded to in the Bible is where God commands priests to perform abortions.

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Command the children of Israel, that they put out of the camp every leper, and every one that hath an issue, and whosoever is defiled by the dead:

3 Both male and female shall ye put out, without the camp shall ye put them; that they defile not their camps, in the midst whereof I dwell.

4 And the children of Israel did so, and put them out without the camp: as the LORD spake unto Moses, so did the children of Israel.

5 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

6 Speak unto the children of Israel, When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the LORD, and that person be guilty;

7 Then they shall confess their sin which they have done: and he shall recompense his trespass with the principal thereof, and add unto it the fifth part thereof, and give it unto him against whom he hath trespassed.

8 But if the man have no kinsman to recompense the trespass unto, let the trespass be recompensed unto the LORD, even to the priest; beside the ram of the atonement, whereby an atonement shall be made for him.

9 And every offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel, which they bring unto the priest, shall be his.

10 And every man's hallowed things shall be his: whatsoever any man giveth the priest, it shall be his.

11 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

12 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man's wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him,

13 And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner;

14 And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled:

15 Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.

16 And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the LORD:

17 And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water:

18 And the priest shall set the woman before the LORD, and uncover the woman's head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse:

19 And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse:

20 But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband:

21 Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell;

22 And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen.

23 And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water:

24 And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter.

25 Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman's hand, and shall wave the offering before the LORD, and offer it upon the altar:

26 And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water.

27 And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.

28 And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.

29 This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled;

30 Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before the LORD, and the priest shall execute upon her all this law.

31 Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity.

Note that in some modern translations the part about "her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people" is translated "cause a miscarriage" - in other words, abortion.

[iverglas]

24. nah -- it's a *trick* question!!

Here ya go; you'll be ready for next time:

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The tract above was published by Post Fundamentalist
Press in 1995. Five hundred copies were donated to
the Feminist Majority Foundation's LA office last
summer to pass out at Operation Rescue
demonstrations.
http://www.postfun.com/pfp/atract2.html

[catbert836]

25. The Bible says NOTHING about abortion

By the same logic, you could argue that telephones are a tool of the devil, because Moses never used one.