Abortion and the Bible

Post Reply New Topic

Yeah and the other stuff about being a person could arguably be due to infant mortality rates back in that time period.

Not true, but that specific matter is irrelevant here.

You need to improve your reading skills. Here is the JPS translation:

Ex: 21:22. When men fight and one of them pushes a pregnant women and a miscarriage results, no but no otherdamage ensues, the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman's husband may exact from him, the payment to be based on what the judges determine. But if other damage ensues the penalty shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand and foot for foot, burn for brun, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

In short the penalty for the cases (other than the miscarriage) shall be according to its severity which is what eye for eye tooth for tooth is all about.

Bottom line. For the loss of the unborn, a monetary penalty as determined by a (rabinnic) court.

Learn to read.

ruveyn

something tells me that conciousness may become real perhaps very soon as the pineal gland has developed or possibly as different neurological circuits have formed. there is not any way we currently know of measuring conciousness does not mean that the foetus cannot feel the sadness of a mother who knows the foetus needs to be terminated.

quite a sad thought to think there is a possibility the unborn child could sense it coming.

question has to be with abortion really, how far along until the unborn child is actually considered life?

it definitely starts further back than birth anyway.

So you say.

A newborn infant has 1/3 the brain mass it needs to function as a person. We all come out of the oven half baked.

ruveyn

What about Jeremiah 1:5 "Before i formed you in the womb i knew you..."

or more directly:

THOU SHALT NOT MURDER

The TNKH is totally contradictory on the matter. In halacha the killing of pre-born is handled differently than for the killing of a person more than 30 days post birth. It is futile quoting the TNKH which is contradictory and inconsistent.

As I have said before, the Bible is a book of stories. Take it as literature, not fact.

ruveyn

That's not what Exodus says. It says "When men get in a fight and hit a pregnant woman so that her children are born prematurely, but there is no injury, the one who hit her must be fined as the woman's husband demands from him, and he must pay according to judicial assessment. If there is an injury, then you must give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for wound."

You can't assess injury to the newborn because you can't SEE or medically determine that the newborn is injured. "Premature birth" does not assume that the child was hurt--just that the abused woman was forced into premature labor due to reckless endangerment. The only person who can be determined to have an injury would be either one of the fighting men or the woman herself, in which case her husband can bring charges against the man who caused the injury. If the child dies because it is premature, it dies because it is premature and NOT because it has been done injury through someone else's reckless or negligent behavior. If the WOMAN dies, then it has to be determined that her death was willful rather than accidental. Only then may the man be put to death for the crime of murder. Premature labor would be accidental death, not murder. You wouldn't be put to death for this, but you might face heavy fines and possible involuntary servitude (slavery).

FYI, I'm anti-abortion in most cases. But this passage in Exodus does not give the death penalty due to the accidental death of an unborn child. It's a stretch to use it to build a Biblical case against abortion. The Bible never EXPLICITLY, i.e. call by name, abortion as a sin. It DOES place a high value on human life.

Most people who are anti-abortion use the reasoning that life begins at conception. Technically, life begins before that because the egg and sperm are both living prior to their union. The real issue is whether the embryo is a human life worth protection. I say it is. And where the Bible does not proscribe any doctrine on abortion specifically, it does repeatedly affirm and reaffirm the sanctity of human life. That applies even to the unborn as evidenced by the reference to the Psalm.

In the Bible I have it says in Exodus 21:22,23 that if the child comes out but does not die, the person that caused the accident should not be executed. But if the child dies, it's life for life.
My reading skills are perfectly fine, you and I just don't have the same Bible translation.

Where? I am only aware of laws prohibiting and/or punishing harm.

Kiran, I think you mean well, but the focus on this passage is on the woman, not the children. Ruveyn is actually right, here. If there is no injury to the WOMAN. If the WOMAN is injured or dies, then the husband may assess some form of restitution on the other man. Death is the only possible restitution for murder, but for any injury NOT resulting in death he may assess some other kind of penalty not to exceed the severity of the injury.

I'm not talking strictly about laws, here.

God said Adam and Eve would die for taking the forbidden fruit. While they DID die spiritually and were subsequently cut off from the Tree of Life, God did for the time being spare their lives, mercifully taking them after they'd lived a long time to spare them the misery of existing forever in a fallen state. If there were no value on human life, He could have struck them down immediately.

What about the first case of murder? Cain and Abel? If God requires life for life, why didn't He just kill Cain? Why, if God doesn't value life, which for our purposes is manifested in blood, did God curse the ground because Abel's blood was shed on it? If God didn't value even Cain's life, why did God mark Cain so no one could take his life to avenge the blood of Abel?

If God didn't value human life so much, why did He spare Noah when all the rest of humankind was so deeply corrupted by wickedness?

What about King David's egregious actions regarding Bathsheba and Uriah? Yes, David faced some very unfortunate consequences for his actions. But because he repented, trusted in God's mercy, and begged God's forgiveness his life was spared. Even Gehenna is a state of separation from God and His divine providence (hell, not the flaming garbage dump). Because the human soul has value that survives physical life and death, it is not unmercifully annihilated after physical death, but continues to exist.

If God "knows us" before we are born, as shown in the Psalms and in the Prophets, it shows that God values our lives even before we are conceived. I can only conclude that abortion is EITHER murder when it is done unnecessarily, or it is a painful and unfortunate act of self-defense for the one whose life is threatened. Beyond a mother's difficult choice to either preserve her own life or her baby's life, there being absolutely NO alternative, there is NO justification whatsoever for destroying a new human life that God values.

... and I am not saying your extrapolations are incorrect. However, neither am I aware of any Scripture specifically placing "high value on human life".

In the Bible I have at home it says that if death (it says death instead of injury) occurs, then it's life for life. I may have jumped to conclution when I tought it ment the death of the child. It could very well be the death of the woman. The problem is that it's not specified who's death is ment. It just says death (the exact word in the swedish translation I have can be translated to ''death accident''). It could also mean that if death occurs, weither it's that of the woman or the child or both, then it's life for life. It's open for interpretation. Who interpretation is right, that's a different discussion...

but it is concious life is it not?

just because a more grown life form is more intelligent, does that make said life form better or more worthy by any means?

intelectual capacity is not the way to judge things. sure not all the "essential" things are there for functioning as a person but the emotion is there.

i personally believe that the emotion of a mother may get passed onto a child and that abortion, after about a month of so of pregnancy is practically murder.

i can understand there are circumstances which it is needed but it is such a shame .

No, it cannot be both ... and this is a good example of why we all need good instruction.