Where is abortion mentioned in the bible

PIP: Much scholarly work has been done to determine the biblical and traditional attitudes about abortion. One must ask what was said and why, what was its context, and inquire about what was not said as well. This discussion identifies some of the conclusions reached in scholarly literature. The word "abortion" is not mentioned in the Bible, but much in the Bible speaks to the issue.

The most obvious passage is from Exodus This part of the Covenant Code legislates the case of a pregnant woman who becomes involved in a brawl between 2 men and has a miscarriage. A distinction is then made between the penalty that is to be exacted for the loss of the fetus and injury to the woman. But only in abortion care do the few bad providers taint all the others—and taint them so much that opponents can pass laws that would virtually shut down the entire field in the name of patient safety.

And yet, abortion is remarkably safe. The CDC reports that from to , the most recent period for which it has figures, the national mortality rate was. In , a total of eight women died due to abortion. Tragic as that is, compare it with fatal reactions to penicillin, which occur in 1 case per 50—, courses. And what about Viagra? According to the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, it has a death rate of 5 per , prescriptions.

Really, though, there is only one directly relevant comparison of risk with respect to abortion, and that is pregnancy and childbirth. The death rate for that is 8. Continuing a pregnancy is 12 to 14 times as potentially fatal as ending it. And maternal mortality rate is rising in the US even as it is falling around the world. Curiously, no one suggests that obstetricians be compelled to read pregnant women scripts about the dangers that lie ahead before sending them home for 24 hours to think about whether they wish to proceed.

Sometimes what people mean when they say there are too many abortions is that we need to help girls and women take charge of their sexuality and have more options in life. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in abortion declined by 13 percent from , mostly because of better access to birth control and to longer-acting birth control methods like the IUD. That is very good news. But often what people mean is that women are too casual about sex and contraception.

It is difficult to come down hard on abortion as immoral, to insist that the ideal number of abortions is zero, as Will Saletan maintains , without blaming the individual woman who got herself into a fix and now wants to do a bad thing to get out of it. In February , a three-story-high billboard popped up in New York City.

But the charge that abortion is racist is commonplace in the pro-life movement. If the womb is the most dangerous place for an African American, that makes black women, the victims of racism, the real racists. The metaphor ignores the subjectivity of black women; once again, a woman is a vessel, a place—in this case a hostile place. Imagery of abortion as slavery or genocide allows abortion opponents to posture as anti-racists without having to learn anything about the lives of black women or lift a finger to rectify the enormous and ongoing legacy of slavery and segregation.

Just shame black women into giving birth to more children than they feel they can safely bear or care for, and all will be well. That view would come as news to the many countries where women are in prison for ending their pregnancies. Right now, putting women on trial for abortion sounds far- fetched, I admit. But the groundwork is being laid. Women have been arrested for self-abortion in several states, although few have been convicted. Many have been arrested and some imprisoned for drug use or other behavior during pregnancy , even when no bad outcome occurred, and even when the law was clearly designed for some other purpose to protect living children from meth labs, for example.

For decades the anti-abortion movement has striven to enshrine in law the view that the embryo and fetus are persons. They won passage of the federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which made causing the death of embryos and fetuses a separate crime from the harm caused to the pregnant woman, and versions of that law in many states.

And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. But does it have anything at all to say about the subject of abortion? Not really. First because it merely describes movement in the womb and second because this is a reference to people who are not ordinary, not usual, not as the rest of us. This is a poetic illustration of the link between Jesus and John, a scriptural ballad telling of what is of the eternal, the humanizing of salvation. Exodus is, however, a part of the Bible that actually does mention the fetus.

If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. This is fascinating because it outlines specific punishments for specific crimes. If a woman is hurt in a struggle and then has a miscarriage, the penalty is a fine, a mere financial payment. But, if there is further harm, likely meaning the woman has long-term and serious injuries or even dies, then the culprit could be killed.

In other words, the life and well-being of the woman, the mother, is of much greater significance than those of her unborn child. Of course, if opponents of abortion were genuinely to live by the commandment that we must never kill, they would oppose wars, the military, the death penalty, and policies that lead directly to poverty, hunger, ill health, and death.

To the contrary, the anti-abortion movement has become increasingly politically conservative over the years—it was, for example, one of the bulwarks of the Donald Trump presidency—and tends to be solidly behind the military and an aggressive foreign policy.

Contradiction and inconsistency. In terms of the Bible, that is about it. Sometimes, though rarely, the reasons for termination are controversial, especially when they involve disability or gender. The humiliation and degradation inflicted on women outside of clinics is genuinely shocking. Anti-abortion extremists are considered a domestic terrorist threat by the United States, where most of these incidents occur.

There have also been attacks in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and elsewhere. In the US, at least eleven people involved in providing abortion services, including four doctors, two clinic employees, a security guard, and a police officer, have been murdered. As recently as late November , in Colorado Springs, a shooting at Planned Parenthood killed three people and injured several others. Even in allegedly peaceful and moderate Canada, it happens.

In , Manitoba doctor Jack Fainman—an obstetrician who performed abortions—was shot by a sniper as he sat in his living room. This gruesome behaviour is hardly consistent with a life ethic and certainly not with Christian teaching. A violence, an ugliness, and an intolerance has crept into the anti-abortion movement, and the indications are that these emotions and attitudes are becoming worse.

It all seems so manufactured, so rooted in something far outside of the Gospel narrative.