Originally I assumed ALL Christians would never support abortion. However, on further reading, I was shocked to hear there are some Protestants that do support abortion.
- Since Protestants subscribe to Bible-only doctrine, how would these pro-choice Protestants justify their stand with respect to their interpretation of the Bible? Are there any bible verses that support their stand?
- How do their fellow pro-life Protestants view their pro-choice Protestants brothers/sisters? Do they condemn them or does OSAS preclude any such reactions? I do not visit Protestant forums, so it would be enlightening to hear from Protestants on this divisive topic.
I’m evangelical, so I can’t comment directly since my denomination is officially pro-life (at least when it comes to abortion). Now that I mention it, I don’t know that I personally know any evangelicals who are pro-abortion. I know they exist but I’ve never met any.
My family however are dyed in the wool, fire-breating mainline liberals. They would consider themselves “pro-choice but not pro-abortion,” which in my mind is just… well… sheer blithering idiocy. I’m sorry, I just can’t say it any other way.
They rarely talk about it in theological terms but their pastors, generally, cite two things to justify their stance on abortion:
First, in the Old Testament, the penalties for causing a miscarriage are different than the penalties for murder. The specific situation deals with two men who are fighting and the pregnant wife of one of them ends up getting injured and miscarrying as a result. Any injuries to the woman are penalized in the normal “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” formula but the death of the baby she was carrying in her womb is treated more as a loss of property than as the taking of a human life. Indeed, if the woman simply miscarries and is not otherwise injured, then the only penalty is, essentially, a civil settlement to be paid to the husband of the pregnant woman.
Second, they point to Jewish Law on the matter. Jews of all denominations, generally, hold that an embryo is not a Halakhicly “living thing” (
nefesh). A fetus might be, but even then it is not accorded the same legal status as a baby. Abortions for the health of the mother are permitted. Abortions to save the life of the mother, at
any stage of pregnancy are positively commanded. Partial birth abortion is specifically mentioned in the Mishna and being commanded to save the life of the mother, as long as the “greater part of the child” has not left the birth canal.
Both points fall apart on the fact that they ignore the larger biblical evidence, long standing Christian tradition, and, frankly, basic scientific fact that, while a human child may or may not be a
nefesh, he or she is 1) alive and 2) human and that, therefore, any abortion is, by definition, the taking of a human life, which is condemned throughout Scripture. In the first case: Yes, the legal penalty under the Old Testament law for taking the life of a human life in the embryonic or fetal stages may be less, but it is still penalized. In the second case: The Jewish law on the matter is problematic because it was clearly developed by Helenized Jews and clearly borrows from the prevailing philosophy of the day regarding the status of pre-born life.
