Can you be a Christian and be pro-choice? Scripture please. I am a Christian and believe God’s word to be the guiding light to the Christian.
Here is how I responded:
Yes.
Although Christians who oppose abortion make reference to God knowing a person “before they were formed in the womb,” we really should keep the topic on abortion itself. The closest thing to an abortion in the Bible is actually a miscarriage, also medically known as a spontaneous abortion. Therefore, it makes sense to read how the Bible suggests handling miscarriages. Does the Bible treat miscarried fetuses the same way that it treats breathing human beings?
Passages from the Old Testament are the only ones that refer to miscarriages. There, the ancient Jews did not treat miscarried fetuses as human beings. They instead considered them simply the equivalent to a woman’s menstrual blood.
For example, Job 3:16 refers to “like a miscarriage which is discarded,” indicating that a miscarried fetus is not given a proper burial, as would have been necessary for any Jewish human being.
Miscarried fetuses were clearly meant to be forgotten. The passage in Ecclesiastes 6:3-4 refers to this: “If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, however many they be, but his soul is not satisfied with good things and he does not even have a proper burial, then I say, ‘Better the miscarriage than he, for it comes in futility and goes into obscurity; and its name is covered in obscurity.’”
Exodus 21:22-25 refers to a woman who miscarries as a result of a assault on her body. If she is relatively unscathed, the only payment is money. If, on the other hand, if she is hurt in the process, the penalty is an equal injury inflicted upon the assailant:
“Suppose a pregnant woman suffers a miscarriage as the result of an injury caused by someone who is fighting. If she isn’t badly hurt, the one who injured her must pay whatever fine her husband demands and the judges approve. But if she is seriously injured, the payment will be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, cut for cut, and bruise for bruise.”
Clearly here, the woman’s life is valued much more highly than the life of her fetus, which can be bought like a calf or a head of cabbage. The only true injury occurs when the woman herself is hurt.
These passages indicate that those who worshiped God in the Bible did not value fetuses as human beings. As such, it is entirely within the realm of Christian practice not to treat abortion as anything approaching murder. What’s more, the passage from Exodus, a book not generally known for its kindnesses toward women, indicates that the woman’s life is supremely more valued than that of an aborted fetus.
Given these passages, it is quite easy to show that allowing a woman a choice in her pregnancies falls entirely within the realm of Christian belief.
– {♂♂} – {♂♀} – {♀♀} -
July 23, 2008 at 9:41 am |
Well, that’s your claim. As freewill beings one can say whatever he wants even claiming what the Bible doesn’t mean. Pregnancy was created by God and man was not asked if he wanted or not. Abortion is not Biblical, whatever you may try to convince yourself of, and no sensible human being will ever accept that abortion is ok. Nowhere in the Bible an unborn child is refered as ‘it’, but rather as a complete human being! God is so involved in the fashioning of the child in the womb, and this is so obvious in the Bible. Pregnancy and birth are divine, and we should not try to look for excuses to justify evil. Abortion is murder, period! It’s ending of the life that has started in the womb. And this is the real meaning of murder, deliberate ending of life. God fearing person will always honor what God has made and not despise it!
September 8, 2008 at 10:41 pm |
kiwera c john said:
“…Nowhere in the Bible an unborn child is refered as ‘it’,….”
the post said:
“Ecclesiastes 6:3-4 refers to this: …. ‘Better the miscarriage than he, for _it_ comes in futility and goes into obscurity; and _its_ name is covered in obscurity.’”
shame on you john, read before posting a comment
and does the original Bible even makes use of similar pronouns like it would matter?
as far as i know from now, abortion itself was never mentioned in the Bible, but the passages mentioned in the post implies that the unborn/fetus is not seen as a human being, and like most things that are not human, their lives (if they are alive) are not valued and killing them would not be “murder”
January 23, 2009 at 5:57 am |
“… like most things that are not human, their lives (if they are alive) are not valued and killing them would not be “murder”"
You see, this is the whole spirit behind the pro-abortionists! It is not just about abortion, this is used to cover wicked hearts and degradation of the worth of God’s creation as a whole. If someone can say that what is not human has no value and killing them is not murder, you can not get better revelation of what is inside the hearts of such a one than this!
First of all, what the person has quoted (Ecc. 6:3-4) is completely out of context! That scripture is talking about miscarriage and has nothing to do with telling people to do abortion. Secondly, to hide in grammatical persons and develop a doctrine out of that is in fact abuse of the good spirit of Biblical interpretation. You can’t put a faith based on a certain Biblical version using the pronoun ‘it’. What about NASV which uses ‘he’ there? The bible also speaks of the ‘he goats’ and the ’she goats’, what do you say about this now? Jesus Christ is also called the lamb of God, is He an ‘it’? And thirdly, even though the word ‘it’ would have been the right word to be used there, still that would simply mean that the child was never born alive, the gender was never known, and the name was never given to the child and to use the pronoun ‘it’ would be more appropriate, and this is what the verse implies and not to tell people that an unborn child is valueless.
As I said earlier, no God-fearing person will support abortion. Life is life and has not been created by man, whether it be of a human being or an animal. God’s concern over Ninevah was not only about human beings there but even animals as well!! (Jonah 4:11). How can someone claim that what is not human is not valued? Let him who has an ear, hear what God says.
May 18, 2009 at 10:22 pm |
Well I am a christian and a well educated one as well. I think this is the issue on our society with such polarizing issues. We can all say as Christians that abortion is bad since killing is bad but trying to impose our religious beliefs on everyone else is kind of useless since. A woman who is willing to kill an unborn child has to have serious issues already and I am not talking about spiritual issues. So someone who is willing to commit an abortion/murder is already willing to do it regardless of the impediments.Most of these women will end up dead since they will go out to so called underground clinics to get the abortion and we do not know what will happen to them, besides no one will give them psychological help before or after the abortion. We do not live on a Christian state even how hard we want to believe.
May 19, 2009 at 12:46 am |
@lol: a reminder that none of this was originally English. That argument is pointless without consulting the original language and text to see whether or not such distinctions were even linguistically present.
May 19, 2009 at 1:00 am |
With respect, you are quoting the Scripture from Exodus even beyond out of context, you are completely misreading it. You cite a woman who has a miscarriage due to an assault — in fact, the scripture never says miscarriage — it says “premature”. This is a huge difference as premature babies are alive.
Read Exodus 21 again: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2021%20;&version=31;
Also, your use of the Princeton definition of “miscarriage” to align miscarriages and abortion is potentially misleading. Actual Princeton definition — miscarriage is a “Spontaneous abortion: a natural loss of the products of conception.” “A natural” is the defining feature of the the type of loss of conception.
May 19, 2009 at 7:46 am |
I think you’re using the argument “out of context” without considering its meaning. Usually, to quote a scripture out of context, you are imposing a meaning onto it that was not intended by the author. As I indicated in the original post, I was looking for some examples of how biblical writers viewed miscarriages (or immaterially, pre-mature births that died). Your scriptural citation adds nothing that I can see, other than to obscure your own point.
“Natural” arises from the use of “spontaneous.”
I fear you are showing the natural, expected lack of intellectual integrity of the Christian mind.
May 19, 2009 at 1:01 am |
Thanks for your time.
May 19, 2009 at 1:05 am |
(esp. as we figure out what’s true). blessings.
September 24, 2009 at 8:25 am |
Moses said, “… we can all say as Christians that abortion is bad since killing is bad but trying to impose our religious beliefs on everyone else is kind of useless …”
You see Moses, what is the problem here is not imposing one’s beliefs on someone else, but people who want to cheat others by quoting scriptures as if they are Christians trying to justify things which are unchristian. This is the root problem. If you agree that abortion is ok, then fine, continue with your stand but don’t try to convince someone else that the Bible supports that. I always believe that it is important to be honest in your dialogues with others and not try to play cheating games.
Thanks