The Bible Does NOT Condemn Abortion
Now, if a man hurts a woman and hurts her along with inducing a miscarriage, he should be equally punished for what he did to the woman. It's only fair, since it's not nice to hurt people. If he kills her, he should be killed. That's the Biblical punishment for murder, which is against those good ol' 10 Commandments.
However, when a man causes a woman to have a miscarriage but doesn't do any further harm, he just has to pay a fine.
If the Bible considered the termination of a pregnancy as equivalent to murder, the man would have a harsher punishment, would he not? But he just has to pay a fine, which would not be an appropriate punishment for murder in the context of the Bible.
Therefore, we can only conclude that a fetus is not equal to its mother in terms of moral personhood, let alone legal or even physical/developmental personhood.
Now, the man does have to pay a fine if he causes a woman to miscarry. Therefore, causing a woman to miscarry must be wrong according to the Bible. But why is it wrong? It's not murder, it's a property crime. If a man strikes a woman and induces a miscarriage, he terminates her pregnancy without the permission of her or her husband.
Of course, in this context, it should be noted that the fine is payed to the husband. That's because back then, the woman's body belonged to her husband, along with anything that might be growing inside her uterus.
If we apply this concept to present day context, and consider women's rights to property and bodily domain, causing a woman to miscarry against her will is not a violation of her husband's property rights, but a violation of her right to bodily domain.
I realize that the Bible probably wasn't explicitly intended to be a living document, but no one said it couldn't be a living document either. We need to analyze the Bible, seperating concept from context, and apply those concepts to today's context, including the current status of women.
Published by Allison
I am currently a student at Northeastern University. I love to write, as well as a few other things. I'm a political science major and hope to run for office someday, but if that doesn't work I have been tol... View profile
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14 Comments
Post a CommentYour comment is correct. Someone said that this verse only specifies punishment if it were an accident, BUT, the punishment for killing a PERSON, even accidently, is MUCH different than simply demanding payment of a fine to the unborn child's parents. Basically, the Bible is saying that if the parents of a fetus don't value it, then there is no crime.
Exodus 21:22-23:
The key to this passage is intentional verse unintentional. The scripture starts off by saying if two men are striving and a woman is injured and it causes her to miscarry. God's mercy here is because it was an accident and not murder. If you accept the hermanutical principle of necessary inference you will see that if the case had not been an accident and instead was an intentional act, the perpatrators life would have been required under eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
cj: It does not specifically say that...it very well could be a man intentionally hurting a woman with child.
This verse is talking about men fighting amongst each other and accidentally harming a pregnant woman causing her to either give birth prematurely or miscarriage. This is not a planned abortion (murdering an innocent baby). Nice try though
To me the question is not what has been done in the past, in previous societies or in various religions. I am concerned with now, with human life, both born and unborn, and how we treat it as a society. I think that most people agree that abortion is a horrible thing. If it becomes a society norm, what does that mean about a society that openly kills the unborn? One of these babies could have been a person that solved helped world peace (or not) or cured cancer (or not). By ending a life before it is born, we are establishing murder as a norm and we will never know what we could accomplish.
The greatest gift someone can do for humanity is to have a child and raise them to be independent and loving of their fellow man.
To me life begins at conception so.... "Thou shalt not kill".
"Thou Shatl Not Murder" does not exclude victims of abortion, who are deprived of their right to enter into the world.
The article you have submitted is very disconcerting and is misrepresenting of the true God of the Bible. The passage you are referring to deals with a male abusing his wife giving cause to the death of their unborn child. This is a heinous offense and I do believe does and should constitute murder. However, Scripture is very evident of the sanctity of human life and it is God and He alone who has the right to lay it down and pick it back up again. He also makes it clear that one of the 6 things He "hates" and which are an abomination to Him includes, "hands that shed innocent blood."
Proverbs 6:16-18 - (New American Standard Version)
16There are six things which the LORD hates,
Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
17Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood,
18A heart that devises wicked plans,
Feet that run rapidly to evil,
There are many other verses that verify God's view on the sanctity of human l
Allison, I have to agree with Tiger here - you're picking and choosing bits of scripture to modernize or ignore, all in the same passage. And, no, the Bible is quite clear that a fetus is not equal to it's mother. But just as certainly, few people would suggest we live our lives by Biblical law; if we did, we'd be cooking up humans as burnt offerings and promoting incest. Biblical law is basically an 'all-or-nothing' deal, and our moral standards have evolved considerably since those days. In Biblical terms, a baby's life might not mean much, but, frankly, neither did a woman's. As a society, we have outgrown both of those barbaric notions.
Clue - the Celtics are a basketball team. I think you mean 'Celts', the ancient European tribes, yes? In that culture, women did terminate their pregnancies from time to time, but were generally made social outcasts as a consequence, if not outright killed. Such an act was seen to be treason against the tribe, a defiance of the gods, and an attack on the male who sired the babe. Sometimes, women were even cast out for a simple miscarriage, with the reason ranging from superstitions about sterility to suspicion of her having aborted, even if she did not.