How do pro-choice Protestants justify abortion biblically?

[Jeff77]

Hiya, Jeff! Welcome to the forums! :flowers:

Just a little quoting tip. I think you are adding a “/” to your first quoting function by mistake.

Your quotes need to be in between these two features:

type your comments here / QUOTE]

 

[nmgauss]

What is it in the passage that makes you think this was God’s law?

This is from Chapter 38 of Genesis in which the Lord killed Juda’s first two sons.

7 And Her, the firstborn of Juda, was wicked in the sight of the Lord: and was slain by him.

8 Juda, therefore add to Onan his son: Go in to thy brother’s wife and marry her, that thou mayst raise seed to thy brother.

9 He knowing that the children should not be his, when he went in to his brother’s wife, spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in his brother’s name.

10 And therefore the Lord slew him, be- cause he did a detestable thing

I think God’s law permeates this chapter. Thamar was Juda’s daughter-in-law who had been married to Her, the slain first born son, and whom he had intended for his young son Sela. When she then played the harlot, she deceived Juda by sleeping with him, and when he found out, he brought her out for burning, presumably by the Lord.

 

[ericc]

God’s law sometimes requires the execution (by burning to death) of pregnant women.
Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt. – Genesis 38:24

You can’t be serious saying this is God’s law! Judah was one of the brothers who almost killed his own brother Joseph, but eventually sold as a slave. He was trying to kill his own daughter-in-law Ta’mar because he had sex with her who he mistakenly thought to be a prostitute. If Judah’s intention is to kill his off-spring, he need not kill Ta’mar at all , just the fetus. But when Ta’mar produced the evidence that he had indeed had laid with her, he even proclaim her more righteous than he Genesis 38:26. But why did Judah wanted to kill Ta’mar in the first place before the evidence was produced? That would require a separate exegesis but I think the point is clear. This verse is not about abortion at all. The initial threat was to kill the mother. The Bible is full of sinful people committing all kinds of hideous acts. It does not mean God-approved.

Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. – Hosea 9:14

Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up. – Hosea 13:16

A large part of Hosea shows God’s disgust (not sure whether this is the right word) with Israel who has turned away from God after all he had done for them. Read Hosea 4 -13 to get the gist of it. Sure, God threaten Israel with all kinds of harm if they don’t repent. In Hosea 14, God ask Israel to repent. In Sodom and Gomorrah, they got the receiving end of God’s big stick. In Nineveh, God relented. Surely you are not going to justify God is pro-abortion in Sodom/Gomorrah because chances are that there are pregnant women there?

**God sometimes causes abortions by cursing unfaithful wives. **
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. 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. …
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. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed. – Numbers 5:21-21, 27-28

I briefly covered this in my post #47. Obviously God has the right to take away life since we are his creation. But we are not God. We do not have the right to take away life. Those with an unwanted pregnancy can curse and swear all they like, but I don’t think this verse empowers them to life-taking. At the most, you do your curse thingy and God will decide whose thighs/belly he want to rot away. (Actually sounds like some form of STD…) Also, doesn’t this verse applies to unfaithful wives only? How many abortions are actually due to adultery? You wouldn’t encourage one who has committed the sin of adultery to compound the sin by killing would you? Sin on sin. Where is the remorse, where is the repentance?

 

[ericc]

Genesis 2:7 is clearest. The first human became a “living being” (nefesh hayah, “a living breath”) when God blew into its nostrils and it started to breathe. Human life begins when you start breathing, biblical writers thought. It ends when you stop. That’s why the Hebrew word often translated “spirit” (ruah) – “life force” might be a better translation – literally means “wind” or “breath.”

Genesis 2:7 is a life-giving verse, it is not a life-taking verse.

But what about babies in the womb?

It’s hard to ask biblical texts the modern question, “when does human life begin?” because the Bible has a very different understanding of human reproduction. Biblical writers don’t talk about sperm fertilizing eggs. They talk about male “seed” planted in fertile female ground. Just as a seed becomes a plant when it emerges from the ground, so too a man’s planted seed becomes another human being when it emerges from the womb.

Psalm 139:13 God is knitting you while in your mother’s womb. Tell him that you want to destroy his handiwork before he is done.

Exodus 21:22-25 describes a case where a pregnant woman jumps into a fight between her husband and another man and suffers injuries that cause her to miscarry.
The miscarriage is treated as property loss, not murder. The assailant must pay a fine to the husband. The law of a life for a life does not apply. The fetus is important, but it’s not human life in the same way the pregnant woman is.

That is accidental miscarriage. If the verse address intentional miscarriage, it may be a valid point. If you go by severity of the act by the amount of fine, then you may wish to check the amount of fine for accidental killing of an adult. The fine is zilch. The accidental killer may need to flee for his life, but no fine or penalty is prescribed.

For the Bible, that’s when a child is born and starts breathing.

Where does the Bible say that? In Genesis 25:22, it is described as children in the womb. In Lk1:41,44, “the child in my womb leaped for joy”. It is not a mass of tissues a non-being that leaped for joy.

If something goes wrong late in the pregnancy and the fetus dies, we call it “still birth” and, by law, issue a death certificate.

If the pregnancy ends early on, we call it “miscarriage.” It’s traumatic, a terrible loss, but most of us think of it differently than we think of a still birth. We don’t require death certificates for miscarriages.

Recognizing this difference, the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade created the “trimester” system to sort through the legal implications of the constitutional “right to privacy” they said we all have as Americans.

The justices ruled that the early and late stages of pregnancy are morally and legally distinct.

Aren’t these all man-made regulations? A piece of paper doesn’t make it right/wrong or those people issuing pieces of paper experts in determining at what stage life begins. Before Roe, all science textbooks describe life starts at conception. After Roe, not anymore. So a bunch of lawyers who are not able to decide when life or a human being began, decided on everyone’s behalf that it is not. Isn’t it nice that you have been democratically declared non-human being/life because of a show of hands?

Early on, in the “first trimester,” the embryo undeniably is human life, but it’s not “a human being” in the normal sense of the term. At this stage of pregnancy, a woman’s right to privacy trumps any responsibility the state might have to protect the embryo by interfering with the woman’s decision to terminate the pregnancy.

Late in the pregnancy, certainly by the “third trimester,” however, the child has reached a stage of development that changes its moral and legal status. To protect the rights of the viable fetus, states can put serious limits on a woman’s right to abortion, though they must continue to respect her right to self-defense, to terminate the pregnancy to save her own life or prevent serious injury.

In the ambiguous middle of the pregnancy, the “second trimester,” the state has to balance the right to life of the unborn with the right to privacy of the woman, a balance that continues to tip toward the fetus as the pregnancy progresses. In this stage, our constantly improving medical technology plays an important role in the moral-legal equation.

Abortion is illegal in most states once the fetus is viable (normally 24 weeks into the pregnancy), unless it’s necessary to save the life of the mother or prevent serious physical or mental harm.

I think the moral reasoning of Roe and subsequent Supreme Court decisions reflects what many of us actually think: the moral status of the fetus changes over the course of the pregnancy.

Advances in medical technology affect our opinions about when exactly the line is crossed. But most of us think there’s a difference between a recently fertilized egg and a late-term unborn child.

For an enlightening philosophical discussion on abortion, Peter Kreeft has laid out the arguments rather clearly. youtube.com/watch?v=gwFnMoLhhoo

The moral view that underlies Roe v. Wade – that a line is crossed when a fetus becomes “viable” – seems most plausible, morally defensible, and consistent with the spirit of the biblical view.

It is not biblical at all. Plausible but you haven’t defended that it is moral at all. All that has been done is kick the bucket to the Supreme Court to make a legal judgement and using the judgement to declare it moral doesn’t make it moral. It is like hanging a label on to a black cat declaring it to be white doesn’t make it so.

 

[PRmerger]

I think God’s law permeates this chapter.

This would be an incorrect assumption on your part.

If you apply this paradigm you ought to be on some Forums proclaiming that it is God’s law that men have sex with prostitutes, citing the same passage you did originally.

You do not believe this, of course.

So I am certain that you understand that this is not part of God’s law that pregnant women be burned.

 

[PRmerger]

For the Bible, that’s when a child is born and starts breathing.

No, nmgauss. That is another incorrect assumption on your part.

It is a fatal error to interpret what the Bible means based on your own fallible lenses.

For many of us today, it’s when a fetus becomes “viable” – somewhere between 21 and 27 weeks into the pregnancy, thanks to our amazing medical technology.

So you believe that one ought not kill a 21 week old fetus, but that a 20 week old fetus can be aborted?

The human life begins to have value at 21 weeks, then?

Here’s something to think about: you are basing your criteria of the value of a human life based on technology.

40 years ago, what you considered human would not be viable. No 21 week baby would have been viable.

So are you really going to proclaim that 40 years ago a 21 week old baby was not a human who deserved the right to life, but now it is?

 

[aidanbradypop]

nmgauss…you have yet to respond to the finding of microscopic organisms on Mars. If Nasa found such, we would say there is life on Mars but why not call a child in the womb life?

 

[PRmerger]

nmgauss…you have yet to respond to the finding of microscopic organisms on Mars. If Nasa found such, we would say there is life on Mars but why not call a child in the womb life?

I think nmgauss’ point might be: it is life in the womb. It just doesn’t become human until viability.

And that is at 21 weeks today, but 40 years ago that wasn’t a human life–it was at 36 weeks that it became human.

Is this a correct explication of your position, nmgauss?

 

[Kal2012]

For me, it was about “conscious” and “choice” and “free will”.

These are given to us by God. For me (and I assume others), it didn’t go much deeper than that.

I think the question is interesting because I never attempted to justify those beliefs through the Bible. As a Protestant, it really doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’ve said the “sinner’s prayer” and asked Jesus into your heart to be your “personal Lord and Savior”.

Just for some background: I grew up in a fundamentalist church which would contort the Bible to fit their beliefs, so I really wasn’t interested in what the Bible actually said on abortion or “life”. I was really just tired of the literal/legalistic nature and that make me rebellious towards conservative theology, regardless of where it came from. I really liked the idea of people having “choice” of what to believe, how to act, dress…given the strict (and sometimes unspoken) rules of this community. I’m positive I’m not the only person on Earth who has had that experience w/a church community.

I think the expectation that people have really thought out the belief and applied it to the Bible is a high bar to set. Sometimes, it really is just cultural or reactionary. That doesn’t make the belief “less wrong”, but it presents a challenge to those of us who are pro-life and trying to promote those values. (i.e. pointing to the Bible and showing the verses has the opposite impact on the person you are trying to share with).

 

[nmgauss]

I think nmgauss’ point might be: it is life in the womb. It just doesn’t become human until viability.

And that is at 21 weeks today, but 40 years ago that wasn’t a human life–it was at 36 weeks that it became human.

Is this a correct explication of your position, nmgauss?

Why do you assume that my own points of view are reflected in my posts? I am merely the messenger of these words written by others. Your confusion on who said what is reflected in your posts.

 

[JonNC]

Why do you assume that my own points of view are reflected in my posts? I am merely the messenger of these words written by others. Your confusion on who said what is reflected in your posts.

Doesn’t seems like PR assumed. She asked a question.

Jon

 

[nmgauss]

I think nmgauss’ point might be: it is life in the womb. It just doesn’t become human until viability.

And that is at 21 weeks today, but 40 years ago that wasn’t a human life–it was at 36 weeks that it became human.

Is this a correct explication of your position, nmgauss?

Is your goal to point out that you are correct and I am not? Also, what gives you the authority to impose your beliefs on the rest of the world?

Let all persons determine their Truth that fits their beliefs. To tell others the Truth as you see it is presumptive.

If your goal is exclusivity, this is what divides us and starts major wars. Witness what has happened in the Middle East.

 

[ericc]

For me, it was about “conscious” and “choice” and “free will”.

These are given to us by God. For me (and I assume others), it didn’t go much deeper than that.

I think the question is interesting because I never attempted to justify those beliefs through the Bible. As a Protestant, it really doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’ve said the “sinner’s prayer” and asked Jesus into your heart to be your “personal Lord and Savior”.

Just for some background: I grew up in a fundamentalist church which would contort the Bible to fit their beliefs, so I really wasn’t interested in what the Bible actually said on abortion or “life”. I was really just tired of the literal/legalistic nature and that make me rebellious towards conservative theology, regardless of where it came from. I really liked the idea of people having “choice” of what to believe, how to act, dress…given the strict (and sometimes unspoken) rules of this community. I’m positive I’m not the only person on Earth who has had that experience w/a church community.

I think the expectation that people have really thought out the belief and applied it to the Bible is a high bar to set. Sometimes, it really is just cultural or reactionary. That doesn’t make the belief “less wrong”, but it presents a challenge to those of us who are pro-life and trying to promote those values. (i.e. pointing to the Bible and showing the verses has the opposite impact on the person you are trying to share with).

Hi Kal2012,

I think the difficulty for some people is how to live within the parameters of their religion. Claiming “choice”, “freewill”, “conscience” as a “get out” card to violate basic aspects of the religion is something to reckon with. Over doing the legalistic parts would end up like the Pharisees. Hence in the NT, Christians are supposed to follow the principles of the law. The law wasn’t abolished. The 10 commandments are as valid as day 1.

I see attempts to circumvent the principle of the law by claiming that killing an unborn child is permissible by appealing to legal/scientific institutions that the unborn child is not deserving of life, that it just some “matter” which at some point became an identifiable human being but which can not be determined scientifically. Obviously, one can not find lessons in modern biology in the Bible but one can find overdoing the legalistic obligation of no work on Sabbath which was frown upon by Christ. Hence, one will have to look at how Christianity views life in principle. In all circumstances, life is held to be sacred as we are made in the image of God. The unborn child is not held to be any less sacred than one out of the womb. You can not find any legal law in the Bible or Holy Traditions espousing abortions at all. Since you can not find it in the Bible, now you can find it in the Supreme Court. It is akin to the Jews when finding Christ has broken no law has to appeal to Roman law to get Christ crucified. Even that failed. The pro-death camp (I think pro-choice sort of whitewash the horror of murder) almost never appeal to the Bible for support as it isn’t there. The pro-death can only appeal to right-to-do-as-they-wish-with-their-own-body. Like getting a tattoo. What was once a sacred place to protect and nourish your babies to get them ready for the outside world now becomes literally a playground with no obligation to the “side effects” aka unwanted pregnancy.

There are many things I would also like to do and claim choice and freewill etc but I know that if I do that I will displease God, so I try my very best not to hurt Him.

 

[stewstew03]

Why do you assume that my own points of view are reflected in my posts? …

What an odd declaration. Are you saying that, by default, everyone should assume that your posts do not reflect your points of view?

 

[stewstew03]

Is your goal to point out that you are correct and I am not? Also, what gives you the authority to impose your beliefs on the rest of the world?

Let all persons determine their Truth that fits their beliefs. To tell others the Truth as you see it is presumptive.

If your goal is exclusivity, this is what divides us and starts major wars. Witness what has happened in the Middle East.

If you pay attention, you will notice that PR did not presume anything. She offered an explanation of your posts because you failed to elucidate your point. She then (quite charitably) ends her post with the question, “Is this a correct explication of your position, nmgauss?” This opens the door for you to either refute or support her interpretation. Had she been “presumptive” then she would simply take it for granted that her interpretation of your posts were correct.

 

[ericc]

It looks like the original intent of the thread has taken life in another direction. I was hoping to gather (name removed by moderator)uts on biblical justification for abortion. Unfortunately, the results have been meager. We must therefore conclude that there is NO justification for abortion in the Bible. If there is, anyone, please do step up and declare your evidence.

I will be generous and expand it to extra-biblical sources to include Early Church Fathers, Holy Traditions. I will also include the Reformation Fathers, Luther, Calvin etc. Did any of these ever support abortion in their writings? If none of the Reformation Fathers condone abortion, then how did pro-choice churches and on whose authority permit abortion?

The post now has wandered to justifying abortion in non-biblical ways. Life/death is an important topic that stir strong emotions in everyone. My question is whether we should start another thread to discuss other abortion matters or should we expand the existing thread to accommodate additional (name removed by moderator)uts?

On further research, it appears that John Calvin in his commentary on Exodus 21:22 in his Commentaries on the Last Four Books of Moses, dealt with an unintentionally induced premature birth, Calvin wrote:

This passage of first sight is ambiguous, for if the word death only applies to the pregnant woman, it would not have been a capital crime to put an end to the foetus, which would be a great absurdity; for the foetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man's house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a foetus in the womb before it has come to light.

In evangelicalsforlife.com/?p=54, Rev. Dr. Peter Barnes said this about Luther:

" In 1540 Martin Luther was lecturing on the book of Genesis, and reached chapter 25 where Abraham marries again after the death of Sarah. Luther proclaimed that ‘the begetting of children is wonderfully pleasing to [God] … He is not hostile to children, as we are.’ Then he added: ‘How great, therefore, the wickedness of human nature is! How many girls there are who prevent conception and kill and expel tender fetuses, although procreation is the work of God! Indeed, some spouses who marry and live together in a respectable manner have various ends in mind, but rarely children.’ The God who declares that we are to be fruitful and multiply regards it as a great evil when human beings destroy their offspring.

Luther also wrote a tender little treatise, entitled Comfort for Women Who Have Had a Miscarriage, which was published in 1542. Here he sought to reassure suffering Christian women that their child did not require baptism in order to be saved. He made it clear that he was not writing for women who resented being pregnant, deliberately neglected their child, or who strangled or destroyed the child. The Christian woman had to bow before the strange providence of God, but could do so in the knowledge that her child who died in the womb had gone to heaven. To Luther, the unborn child was clearly a child. "

I think Protestants and Catholics can truly join hands to protest abortion. The Catholic Church says so, the Bible says so, Church Fathers said so, Reformation Fathers said so. I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone.

 

[nmgauss]

What an odd declaration. Are you saying that, by default, everyone should assume that your posts do not reflect your points of view?

I like dialogue, but I dislike debate. The latter assumes taking sides. The former merely offers information. It is not my intention to take sides because this can escalate into a shouting match. Shouting matches achieve nothing.

When I write posts, I want to offer ideas, frequently written by others. If you are an activist, you probably have frozen your position and feel justified in defending it. Since I have no frozen position, I am not advocating it.

 

[SteveVH]

I like dialogue, but I dislike debate. The latter assumes taking sides. The former merely offers information. It is not my intention to take sides because this can escalate into a shouting match. Shouting matches achieve nothing.

When I write posts, I want to offer ideas, frequently written by others. If you are an activist, you probably have frozen your position and feel justified in defending it. Since I have no frozen position, I am not advocating it.

Do you have any certain beliefs for which you are willing to stand and defend, or do you just assume that one belief is as good as the next and therefore it matters not what one believes? The martyrs felt so strongly about holding to their beliefs that they were willing to give their very lives rather than equivocate. What would you say to them: “Don’t take sides because it achieves nothing”?

 

[stewstew03]

I like dialogue, but I dislike debate. The latter assumes taking sides. The former merely offers information. It is not my intention to take sides because this can escalate into a shouting match. Shouting matches achieve nothing.

When I write posts, I want to offer ideas, frequently written by others. If you are an activist, you probably have frozen your position and feel justified in defending it. Since I have no frozen position, I am not advocating it.

You appear to be fiercely advocating the position of “neutral.”

 

[nmgauss]

Do you have any certain beliefs for which you are willing to stand and defend, or do you just assume that one belief is as good as the next and therefore it matters not what one believes? The martyrs felt so strongly about holding to their beliefs that they were willing to give their very lives rather than equivocate. What would you say to them: “Don’t take sides because it achieves nothing”?

My training in ecology has given me an appreciation of the complexity of the material world. I understand how many life processes work on the planet including evolution. As for spiritual matters, I take an agnostic approach. If I am going to advocate anything, it would be toward sustainability of life processes. I am of the opinion that no life form should be exterminated for the benefit of humans. If anything needs to be fixed in this world, it is the uncontrolled domination of the planet by humans at the expense of the rest of life on this planet.