There are some Christians who have a one-note religion. It is entirely about abortion. There are even a few disturbed ones who see nothing wrong with murdering abortion doctors.
So, to be so fixated on this one cause, the Bible must clearly say "Thou shalt not commit abortion". But yet there is not even a single reference to it.
One text often quoted is the 6th commandment "Thou shall not kill". Exodus 20:13. It is often pointed out that this is better translated "Thou shat not murder" because you don't want to confuse Christianity with Hinduism that honors all life. This commandment is about humans only, not animals. And Christians believe in righteous wars and in God commanding them to kill others especially if they believe in a different invisible man in the sky than they do.
Murder is legally defined as killing someone with malicious intent. Unintentionally murder is called manslaughter which carries a much lighter sentence or none at all. Question: Does a pregnant woman who seeks an abortion have malicious intent against the baby that she is carrying? Does she hate that baby? It is hard to have malicious intent against someone you don't even know. For these women it is an intensely awful decision we would all agree.
But what about the God of the Bible? Does He ever have exhibit malicious intent?
Noah's flood - Genesis 6:6-7
The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” The inconvenient birth of mankind offended God so much he had to destroy every man, woman and child. How can an all-knowing God grieve when He knew from eternity this was going to happen and He had the power to prevent it?
Sodom and Gomorrah - Genesis 19:24-25
Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. Offended again He torched the two cities like Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing every man woman and child.
God got tired of doing the killing and decided to have his children do his dirty work instead. He instructed Joshua to destroy everyone in the towns of Jericho and Ai as his people were entering their promised land.
When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. Joshua 6:20-21
Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai. Joshua 8:25
God speaks to the first king of Israel Saul through the His prophet - 1 Samuel 15:2-3
This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” Saul killed all the humans but saved the good livestock. God got really pissed at Saul over that.
Now wait a minute. There were loads of women killed in these acts of genocide. There must have been a few pregnant women. So, God is OK with killing some fetuses. Interesting. They certainly could not have been evil. Couldn't God have said save the pregnant women and when they give birth kill the mother and save the baby? Perhaps that would have been too inconvenient. Or is it that these people were heathen and abortion is OK for them?
Abortion was widely practiced before, during and after the time of Christ. Yet how odd there are no Biblical prohibitions to it. You would think Paul would say go to the government and get a law in place to stop this practice, but instead he worries about such things as men and women's hair length (1 Corinthians 11).
Abortions are an ugly and emotional mess for sure. However, it is again the shortsightedness of crazed fundamentalist that make it a black and white issue. Some say that abortion is not allowed even in the case of rape or the health of the mother. How would you like to see the face of your rapist for the rest of your life? How would you like to know your mother died giving you birth?
There are those who think the reduction in crime in the U.S. was in part due to allowing abortion. Unwanted babies will most likely become abused children. Also we think of the human species as so sacred that it doesn't matter if we destroy the earth. One human does a lot of destruction to the earth. It requires a lot of stuff to maintain a homo sapien. Think of how much one human consumes particularly an American. This is not to make the decision of having an abortion any lighter or cavalier, but no idiot should mandate this for an entire country or even one pregnant woman.
Notes:
The first recorded evidence of induced abortion, is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BC
A Chinese record documents the number of royal concubines who had abortions in China between the years 500 and 515 BC.
In Greek and Roman history abortion was a gynecological procedure and it was primarily the province of women who were either midwives or well-informed laypeople. In his Theaetetus, Plato mentions a midwife's ability to induce abortion in the early stages of pregnancy.
Christian authors like Tertullian and Saint Augustine wrote about the methods used for abortion as a medical procedure. Tertullian refers to performing it to save the life of the mother.
More at Church views and Abortion
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