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God, the Bible, and Abortion
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| God gave legal personhood
status to human beings at birth just as our civil
laws do today - giving born women legal status and
the right to life over unborn human life - conception
to birth - no exceptions. |
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| 1. God never condemned
nor condoned legal abortion in the bible. Given
that God spoke to many other important issues -
i.e., marriage and divorce, it's very telling that
God didn't speak directly and in no uncertain terms
to the issue of legal abortion, isn't it? |
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| 2. God recognized the
official beginning of human life as being at birth.
Genesis 2:7, "God breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life and man became a living soul." |
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| While the process God
used to create Adam and Eve and a baby born today
are very different - and with good reason - Adam
and Eve being created as the mother and father of
all mankind - Adam and Eve and a baby born today
do share a common bond in the culmination of their
creative processes. |
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| They breathe the breath
of life through the nostrils. |
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| By God's own desire and
design human beings born today don't breathe the
breath of life through their nostrils until they're
born. |
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| 3. Neither God nor Life
and Liberty for Women has ever argued that
the fetus isn't alive in the womb, but that fact
doesn't speak to the official recognition by God
of the beginning of life, that is at birth. |
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| 4. In Exodus 21:22-25
God leaves no ambiguity that for him a born woman's
life is paramount to that of an unborn fetus's life
through all nine months of pregnancy. |
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Precisely because it is
the born woman
who God gave legal personhood status to in those
verses. The unborn wasn't afforded legal personhood
status by God. If antiabortion Extremists have a
problem with that, they need to take it up with
God. |
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| Clearly while those verses
in Exodus do not address abortion - they do address
the status of the unborn as it compares to the status
of the born woman that hosts its existence. |
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By God's own desire and design human beings
born today don't
breathe the breath of life through their nostrils until they're
born.
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Exodus 21:22-25 says:
"When men strive together and hurt a woman with
child so that there is a miscarriage and yet no
harm follows, the one who hurt her, shall be fined,
according as the woman's husband shall lay upon
him and he shall pay as the judges determine. If
any harm follows then you shall give eye for eye,
tooth for tooth, life for life."
(Revised Standard Version) |
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| The King James Version
says, ".hurt a woman with child so that her fruit
depart from her and yet no mischief follow: he shall
be surely punished,.and he shall pay as the judges
determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou
shalt give life for life." |
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| The very act of forcing
her fruit to depart from her - regardless of whether
the woman miscarries or a premature birth results
- and the woman suffers no other harm or is killed,
the punishment was only a fine for causing her fruit
to depart from her. |
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| No particular time in
pregnancy was specified in these verses in any translation.
That's |
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| significant because a
premature birth of a healthy fetus cannot occur
in the early stages of pregnancy. |
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| Further, in Biblical times
fetuses born much before 40 weeks gestation, wouldn't
have survived - so biblical translations using premature
birth are inaccurate and deliberately misleading. |
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| It is clear that the law
God articulated in these verses is applicable during
all stages of pregnancy. |
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| In fact, the New International
Version, which translates the verse to read premature
birth", footnotes that verse with these words, "Or
she has a miscarriage." They footnoted it that way
because they considered that interpretation to have
equal validity or they judged another interpretation
was possible and important enough to be represented
in a footnote. Comparative Study Bible - Revised
Edition, 1999 by the Zondervan Corporation. |
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Abortion - The termination or killing of
pre-viable human fetal life -
under the guidelines of Roe vs. Wade is not a criminal act
or murder,
even God subscribes to that view - witness Exodus 21:22-25.
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| The verses go on to say:
However, if any harm/mischief to the woman followed,
then the punishment was an eye for eye, tooth for
tooth, and life for life. The word "harm" or "mischief"
in these verses refers only to the woman. The phrase
"with child" is merely descriptive of the woman,
it's an adjective describing the woman and doesn't
change the object of the word harm or mischief,
that being the woman, in both verse 22 and 23. |
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| What about the Ten Commandments::
"Thou shalt not kill/murder" Exodus 20:13 - Deut.
5:17 - Matthew 19:18 |
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| In both the Hebrew and
English languages, murder and kill are used interchangeably.
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| Both the Revised Standard
Version of the Bible and the King James Version
use the word kill in Exodus 20:13 and the word murder
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| in Matthew 19:18 The King
James Version uses the word kill in Deut. 5:17 The
Amplified Version uses the word murder in Exodus
and Deut. and the word kill in Matthew. |
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| The New Strong's Exhaustive
Concordance of the Bible - 1995 does not find a
Hebrew translation of the English word "murder."
It gives the Greek translation as "phoneuo" from
"phoneus" meaning "to be a murderer - kill, do murder,
slay.always of criminal or at least intentional
homicide." |
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| Webster's New World College
Dictionary makes note in the definition of murder
that "kill" is a synonym. |
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| Abortion - The termination
or killing of pre-viable human fetal life - under
the guidelines of Roe vs. Wade is not a criminal
act or murder even God subscribes to that view -
witness Exodus 21:22-25. |
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If antiabortion extremists can pluck the verse
out of the Bible that says
"Thou shalt not kill/commit murder" and indiscriminately apply
it to abortion,
that verse can be just as easily plucked from the Bible and
indiscriminately
applied to the death penalty, the United States war on terrorism,
or even the Middle East Crisis between Israel and the Palestinians.
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| Additionally Dr. Roy Bowen
Ward, a professor of religion at Miami University,
Oxford, Ohio, 1996, commenting on Matthew 19:18,
correctly notes that "No direct object is supplied
for the verb 'to kill{murder}.' Certainly the commandment
doesn't indiscriminately refer to killing anything
alive. The Israelites were expected to kill animals,
both to eat and sacrifice. They were also expected
to kill Philistines and other enemies in war. The
command not to kill was certainly not 'pro-life'
in an unqualified way." Religious Coalition for
Reproductive Choice Web Site |
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| For example: If antiabortion
extremists can pluck the verse out of the Bible
that says "Thou shalt not kill/commit murder" and
indiscriminately apply it to abortion, that verse
can be just as easily plucked from the Bible and
indiscriminately applied to the death penalty, the
United States war on terrorism, or even the Middle
East Crisis between Israel and the Palestinians.
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| However Say Antiabortion
Extremists Thou shalt not kill/commit murder can't
be applied to |
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| the death penalty or war
(I wonder about innocent lives lost in war) because
in other verses in the Bible God condoned killing/murder
in such circumstances. |
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| If that's true, then obviously
other verses must be consulted to determine what
is included or excluded from the command thou shalt
not kill/murder. Where are the verses that will
make the case to either include or exclude abortion
from that command, especially considering God never
spoke specifically and in no uncertain terms to
the issue of abortion? |
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| Those verses would be
Genesis 2:7 and Exodus 21:22-25 |
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| Does God condemn Roe vs.
Wade? |
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| No - God does not condemn
Roe vs. Wade. |
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| Our civil laws give born
human life legal personhood status - not unborn
human life - absolutely in line with God's laws. |
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| Roe vs. Wade does not
criminalize the killing of pre-viable human life
just as God did not. |
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Roe vs. Wade does not criminalize the killing
of pre-viable human life just as God did not.
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| While God did not criminalize
the killing of viable unborn human life - Roe vs.
Wade allows states to do so - with the only exceptions
being for the protection of the health and life
of the woman. (42 states and the District of Columbia
have such laws on the books) |
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| Going no further than
God in the criminalization or not of the killing
of unborn human life - assures us that God does
not condemn Roe vs. Wade. |
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And God himself committed
the deliberate act of abortion.
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| Hosea 9:14 Revised Standard
Version, To punish Israel for their impiety and
idolatry, God Gave them "miscarrying wombs." |
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| 1. The Hebrew word for
gave is "nathan" - to give, cause, commit The New
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, 1995 page 97 -
Hebrew section |
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Webster's New World College
Dictionary, 3rd Edition:
A. Give: to produce in a person, cause to have
B. Cause: A person acting voluntarily as the agent
that brings about an effect or result
C. Commit: To do or perpetrate |
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| 2. In this verse the Hebrew
word for "miscarrying," is the word shakol The New
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, 1995, page 141
Hebrew section: which is translated: "to miscarry,
i.e., suffer abortion." |
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| Miscarriage involves a
spontaneous action or one with no external cause
- while abortion involves a deliberate action -
an action involving an external cause. |
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| God committed the deliberate
act of abortion. |
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Peggy Loonan
Founder and Executive Director
Life and Liberty
for Women |
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| Follow
the debate in the "Letters to the Editor" |
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