Just wondering: Is there anything in the bible that discourages abortions?

[Kablooie]

Is the Christian right's fanatical commitment to eliminating abortions based on anything in the bible or is it just something they decided on their own?

[Kelvin Mace]

1. The Bible is pretty much mute on the issue

There is something in there if I recall correctly about compensation for a pregnant women who is injured and loses her baby. But that is about it.

[theHandpuppet]

4. Actually...

The God of the Old Testament not only killed untold numbers of women and babies but demanded that others do so...

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/abortion.html
http://www.evilbible.com/Murder.htm

[Kelvin Mace]

16. You are correct

that "God" routinely slaughtered babies and ordered his followers to do the same.

Also, one assumes that many of his divine temper tantrums also killed pregnant women and their fetuses.

[Major Nikon]

19. God didn't care for kids much

He once murdered 42 children for making fun of Elisha's bald head.

2 Kings 2:23-24
New International Version (NIV)

Elisha Is Jeered
23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.

[Smarmie Doofus]

30. Wow.Pretty strict. I'm glad I never had HIM for Trig. n/t

[tigervalentine]

5. Yeah. It's in Exodus--21 or 22.

Lets the father of the lost fetus set the financial penalty of loss of the fetus. Something like that. My interpretation is that it is an economic matter.

[Major Nikon]

18. Women and children were covered under property laws

[immoderate]

2. The bible says it's OK with vaginal ultra-sound.

--imm

[okaawhatever]

22. Lolz..... +100 nt

[Le Taz Hot]

35. LOL!

[kelliekat44]

3. Old Testament or New?

A man should not spill his seed on the ground.

Genesis 38:8-10
King James Version (KJV)
8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.

9 And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.

10 And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also.

(My five-year old granddaughter said once that "God has a bad attitude.&quot

[Brigid]

7. Old Testament.

Weird story. Genesis 38.

[Agnosticsherbet]

9. Onan was punished for disobeying God, not pulling it out to soon.

But every two bit church will interpret that according to their own prejudices.

[kelliekat44]

17. "the thing that he did, displeased God"

It's like the Second Amendment...isn't it? Oh... that language thing again.

[jmowreader]

21. The true story of Onan

http://notthebible.8m.com/b4.htm

Warning: you're probably going to hell for reading this.

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. Thanks, that was some hilarious shit

[bklyncowgirl]

34. Many ancient people believed that a child was all the father's doing--the mother just an incubator.

I do agree that Onan was punished for disobedience--still it may also have also been considered an abomination to waste seed. The same prohibition could explain prohibitions against homosexuality. Wasting seed, preventing life from forming could bring bad fortune.

Many ancient people--even some pretty sophisticated ones like the Egyptians--did not have a complete understanding of the mechanics of conception. When they talked about 'seed' they meant that literally there was a tiny, complete human in a man's semen. The mother was just a vessel, essential to nourish the growing child but contributing nothing of its essence. This belief continued well into the Middle Ages and beyond.

If a woman did not become pregnant, the Egyptians tended to put the blame on the father--a guy whose wife did not have kids was something less than a man--though they realized that sometimes it was the woman's fault. Other cultures, like the ancient Hebrews, put the blame squarely on the woman. If a woman did not become pregnant, it meant to the ancient Hebrews that she was barren, like earth in which seeds would not sprout.

We can see the lasting effects of this superstition to this day in Roman Catholic prohibitions against any form of birth control, even barrier methods which clearly do not destroy an actual fetus.

[Bohunk68]

36. Actually the story is about kinsfolk redeeming

their kinfolk. Did an in-depth study on this just recently and much of what happens is that this part is taken out of context of the overall story. It's like reading a couple of sentences from a chapter to deduce the meaning. This story is far more complicated than what is presented.

[JoePhilly]

25. Pulling out early is an abortion?

[Deep13]

6. Discourages it? In certain circumstances the OT commands it.

Hosea 9:11-16 Hosea prays for God’s intervention. “Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. Give them, 0 Lord: what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. . .Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.” Clearly Hosea desires that the people of Ephraim can no longer have children. God of course obeys by making all their unborn children miscarry. Is not terminating a pregnancy unnaturally “abortion”?

Numbers 5:11-21 The description of a bizarre, brutal and abusive ritual to be performed on a wife SUSPECTED of adultery. This is considered to be an induced abortion to rid a woman of another man’s child.

Numbers 31:17 (Moses) “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every women that hath known man by lying with him.” In other words: women that might be pregnant, which clearly is abortion for the fetus.

Hosea 13:16 God promises to dash to pieces the infants of Samaria and the “their women with child shall be ripped up”. Once again this god kills the unborn, including their pregnant mothers.

2 Kings 15:16 God allows the pregnant women of Tappuah (aka Tiphsah) to be “ripped open”. And the Christians have the audacity to say god is pro-life. How and the hell is it that Christians can read passages where God allows pregnant women to be murdered, yet still claim abortion is wrong?


Thanks to
http://www.evilbible.com/god%27s%20not%20pro-life.htm
for this information.

[pkdu]

8. Don't forget....there are MILLIONS of god-triggered-abortions/miscarriages every year ,

Should he be indicted?

[hrmjustin]

10. No there is no biblical passage on abortion.

[rug]

11. Jeremiah 1:5

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Psalm 39:13-16

13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.

Psalm 22: 9-10

9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.

10 On you I was cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me you have been my God.

[LuvNewcastle]

23. Those are the passages usually cited by anti-abortion activists as 'evidence' that

the life of a fetus is sacred to God, and it's all they really have. I think people need to get past trying to use the Bible to justify their actions, one way or another. It really isn't germane to a serious discussion about today's issues. Does anybody care these days what Plato said about outer space? If not, why are they so interested in what the Bible said about procedures not even imagined in those days? There's a time and place for the Bible, and decisions on abortion aren't the proper time or place.

[rug]

37. Maybe, but it answers the OP's question.

[Crunchy Frog]

24. Not a word there about abortion.

[JoePhilly]

26. I like the part where we are "woven in the depths of the earth".

[VanillaRhapsody]

12. there is that mention in Leviticus (I think) that says if you intentionally cause a woman

to miscarry (read abort)...then your punishment should be a fine paid to the husband of the pregnant woman.

However, it also says you should be stoned to death for adultery....

So fornication is an executable crime...abortion is not

turns out it is Exodus

22"If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide.

[JHB]

13. Being anti-abortion used to be too much of a "Catholic thing" for evangelicals...

Last edited Mon Jan 27, 2014, 08:43 AM - Edit history (1)

...to get too exercised over it. Didn't want to seem too "papist".

But when the Movement Conservatives were courting them in the late 70s, it was a way to take the moral high ground against unauthorized (excuse me, "illicit&quot sex and the womens' movement.

[JoePhilly]

27. YUP ... and now the evangelicals pretend that Catholics are "real Christians" for political

expediency.

They avoid telling the Catholics the "truth" about it.

[JHB]

29. Well... some of them have learned to mute overt anti-Catholicism

The Christian Coalition's Catholic outreach back in the 90s never quite grew out of its little niche because the evangelicals just couldn't bring themselves to treat the Catholics as equals.

Not related to what you said, but I should add:
By "moral high ground" I mean the "protecting the innocent" angle. It's not as if they never had a reputation as holier-than-thou moralizers, after all. And they combined so nicely, complete with "liberals want criminals to go free" in the mix:

"You just want an abortion to avoid the consequences of your illicit sex. You want your baby to pay the price for your selfishness!"

[JoePhilly]

31. A key difference ...

The Catholics feel guilt ... the Evangelicals feel entitled.

So both groups moralize, but the Catholics (rank and file) tend to be more forgiving.

I also find that the evangelicals are willing to lie, cheat, steal, because God wants them to. After all, he "chose" them. And they can rationalize it easily because its part of God's plan.

[defacto7]

14. This just brings to mind my favorite bible quote...

paraphrased by Doyle in the movie Sling Blade:

Doyle: Believe in the Bible, do ya Karl?

Karl: I don't understand all of it, but I reckon I understand a good deal of it.

Doyle: Well I can't understand none of it. This one begat that one and that one begat this one, and lo and behold someone says some shit to someone else - just how ret****d are you?

Amen.

[sweetloukillbot]

15. My old Episcopalian priest said that the Jewish belief was that life came with first breath

He implied it was Biblical, but I don't know where it is in the Bible. I have seen some Talmudic references to it though.

[Bluenorthwest]

32. That is a good answer, it's about the creation tale, in which God creates Adam out of

dirt and whatnot, a full grown body that is not 'Adam' until God breaths into him 'the breath of life'. According to the creation myth in the Bible, the breath is when a body becomes a human person. Genesis 2 "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

[rustydog]

20. I dunno, possibly the birth of Christ probably ranks near the top of anti abortion arguments

Just sayin'

[theHandpuppet]

28. Well, if we're going to use fables as examples...

... you know, those stories in numerous mythologies and religions about Gods who begat children by human women. Those of us who aren't demigods have to live in the real world.

[kydo]

33. Decided on their own.

There is noting in the bible regarding abortion other then a reference to miscarriage; Which by the way was pretty much left up to woman to say the baby kicked or something. No movement meant not living being.

The right wing nutters stayed silent on the issue until the AMA was founded. The medical peeps listed abortion and why one is done. So it became illegal then. Then later as science got better and started showing how human live begins and started giving times on when human life begins in the womb that's when it became the rights reason for being. The irony is that without science they never would have known yet they despise science.