First, I apologize. I prefer to use this website strictly for speaking of fun and entertaining things (such as terrible and/or over-rated games). Unfortunately, there are just some things I feel should be taken on intelligently.

Abortion is one of those iffy topics that are hard to truly discuss without being biased towards or against religion. I’m not even sure where my own feelings on it originate. While I, as a Christian, do not approve of homosexuality, I as an American believe in freedom of religion and many other ideas. Therefore, I believe in homosexual marriage. Abortion, on the other hand, is hard to look at. It’s not about being American, it’s about Human Rights. Unfortunately I think the line between Human Rights and Women’s Rights are often blurred, and thus the topic becomes that much more difficult.

Yet there is a logical fallacy in claiming the Bible is A-OK with abortion under certain circumstances. Yet I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising. After all, if Christians themselves are going to constantly misinterpret the Bible, what can I expect of non-Christians?

Before I get into the quotes themselves, I would like to go over what impact Christ had between the Old and New Testament. Before Jesus people had to cleanse their sins through sacrifice. If someone had committed a deed most foul on something, then the sacrifice was to kill the things befouled. If a man were to have sex with an animal, the blasphemer would be punished and the animal slaughtered and thoroughly taken care of. They could not even use its meat or hide for any practical purpose as it was tainted. Yet when Christ came, these things were no longer needed. His death and martyrdom was the final sacrifice required so that any man who believes in God and the sacrifice of his son Jesus would be saved. The basic laws remained in tact (do not kill another, do not steal from another, honor thy father and mother, don’t have sex with sheep, etc.), but the consequences imposed as law were now obsolete.

It is one of the reasons Christ had so much conflict with the Pharisees and Saducees. They followed the law by the letter without knowing why they should. Christ came to remind people why the laws existed in the first place.

So let’s analyze the quotations referenced from that Rabble link.

About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.” Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!” Genesis 38:24

I can only imagine it is from this that the person who wrote in to Rabble came to the following conclusion:

God’s law states that if a woman is pregnant and is to be executed there is to be no waiting for the fetus to be born. It is counted as part of the mother and she burned to death with it still in her womb.

Yet let’s continue reading…

As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. “I am pregnant by the man that owns these,” she said. And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and staff these are.”

When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.” But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez. Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist came out and he was given the name Zerah. Genesis 38:25-30

Now there’s a few interesting details going on here. In truth I should have backtracked a bit to make sense of what was going on. When Tamar’s husband, Judah’s son, dies she is brought into his house to live with him and mourn. Yet one day she sheds her mourning clothes and places on a veil before sitting outside of a Shrine, where Judah finds her. Not realizing who she is, he propositions her. She asks what he can offer, thus making her a prostitute. The two “complete the transaction”, and it isn’t until Judah demands she be burnt to death that she confesses she was the prostitute all along.

In other words, Judah got his daughter-in-law pregnant without realizing who she was.

If this sounds like very non-Christian behavior, or hypocritical, that’s because it isn’t good behavior. This is where another misunderstanding of the Bible comes in. Nowhere in this story is it said that God commanded Tamar be slain while still pregnant, yet because it’s in the Bible it must be God’s command, right?

Wrong. The Bible is as much a historical text as it is a rulebook to life. This story is merely recorded history, an account of something that happened between Judah and his daughter-in-law. It is presented in a factual manner, not a tale with a moral lesson. Judah declared Tamar to be slain at first, true. Yet when he realized he was the man she had sex with, he went back on his decision. She carried for her remaining six months, gave birth, and it is only said that he never slept with her again. It doesn’t mention her death or anything more.

Thus the first of four quotes from that Rabble e-mail is a complete misinterpretation of what is actually there, and is in fact using Judah’s condemnation as that of God’s.

Next:

“If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” Ephesians 21:22-25

Rabble says:

If an attack on a woman causes a miscarriage the attacker must pay a fine. If he causes serious damage to the mother it’s “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. This indicates that a fetus does not have equal standing under God’s law.

This could rely more on which interpretation of the Bible is being used (I am reading from the New International Version Student Bible copyright ‘86, ‘92 and ‘96). I have “premature birth”, they have “miscarriage”. The two are very different, though, and can change the concept of what is written.

The way my version reads, then no reprimands are made if the woman is caught in the cross fire but no serious injury is done. If the attack causes the child to be born prematurely, then the husband of the harmed wife gets to demand recompense. If there is serious injury done to the wife, then the man who had caused her harm gets to afflict the same injury on the other man.

Yet this doesn’t really go into much detail on whether this includes a child’s fetus. In addition, this is the part of the Old Testament that I’m always curious where the laws came from and for what purpose. This is another broad difference between New and Old Testament. The New Testament was simply instructions on how you should behave. It is much more a philosophy to try and live by. The Old Testament gives you a list of ten simple rules to live by. That makes sense. Yet then it goes and claims that Moses was told by God to list out this set of consequences that should be made for breaking these rules. It is no longer simple, and it brings in so many more circumstances that there are laws within laws within laws. It is no wonder the Pharisees forgot why certain things were written to begin with. It’s almost like people heard “Love thy neighbor” and someone shouted out “But what if he punched me first?” “What if he hurt my pregnant wife?” “What if this?” “What if that?” Jesus makes it clear that it doesn’t matter what someone else does, you do what is right.

I digress. In truth, this passage does not say anything that can officially be said whether it allows for abortion in a certain sense. It is too open to interpretation and is therefore not a definitive source. Two down that are not in support of Rabble’s conclusion.

Next:

If it is a person between one month and five years, set the value of a male at five shekels of silver and that of a female at three shekels of silver. Leviticus 27:6

According to Rabble:

Monetary values are assigned to lives according to age and gender. Lives under one month old have no value.

I must confess, I’m not 100% sure what is going on in this passage. The chapter is titled “Redeeming What is the Lord’s”, and seems to speak of dedicating themselves or their property to God. In other words, it seems to be a form of offering. The amount is likely based on that person’s “value to society” as seen in those times, or potential value. Here the person on Rabble tries to make claim that because a child under one month old has no value, that must mean God does not view them as being of value.

Once again, these are more specific laws that I personally find suspicious, but even so let’s think on this for a moment. Whoever wrote the e-mail is clearly bringing a modern mentality into things, as a fetus is allegedly not alive until a certain stage of the trimester. By not giving value to someone under a month old, it must mean…what, exactly? That it’s fine for new born babies and fetuses to die?

This is a huge stretch and is dismissive of any possible explanation. On one hand, males and females are given different values. If a child is not yet born then they had no idea what sort of value to place on it as they didn’t know what value to society it could have (let’s consider at the time that men were “more valuable” since they were the ones that would hunt, do the field work and many other hard tasks). Expanding on such notions, how would they know whether the child would even survive that long past child birth? We have a luxury of the death of a baby being an uncommon event. Once upon a time it was common for miscarriages, mothers to die giving birth or for a child to die of illness or just plain weakness before even reaching a month old. Could simply be that a child wasn’t given value until they’ve been alive long enough for people to be confident it would remain alive for a long time.

This is a passage that isn’t even taken out of context, it implies a meaning that isn’t necessarily there. That’s three out of four examples that fail to be adequate evidence for what Rabble is looking to propose.

“Here the priest is to put the woman under this curse of the oath - “may the Lord cause your people to curse and denounce you when he causes your thigh to waste away and your abdomen to swell…

...If she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, then when she is made to drink the water that brings a curse, it will go into her and cause bitter suffering; her abdomen will swell and her thigh waste away, and she will become accursed among her people.” Numbers 5:21, 27-28

Rabble says:

A potion given to the Israelites by God is used to determine paternity. If the father is not the husband, an abortion occurs. god clearly places no value on a fetus that is not the result of union between husband and wife.

Wrong. Incorrect. A gross mistranslation. Never in there is pregnancy mentioned, just adultery. It is a poor comparison to use, but if you already have your mind made up about Christianity so be it. The better way to view this potion is like the old witch trials where if you drown you are innocent, but if you manage to breath underwater you are a witch. That one you die either way. Whether this potion could work accurately or not is unknown to me, though I imagine there is no scientific way of being able to tell whether someone has been faithful or not. Maybe it was a genuinely divine concoction that knew well enough, maybe not. I refrain from judgment on that.

However, this is not an abortion potion. It is an infertility drug. If the woman is an adulteress, then her ability to have children is taken away. In an age where women were house wives and child birth was not only the one thing they had that men didn’t, but also part of a woman’s societal value, fertility is a big deal and a mark of shame.

Now, is it possible that an infertility drug on a woman that is pregnant would cause her to miscarry? Possibly, but then we jump back to where I started. That child would have been the product of sin. Of course, then we go into my whole digression of who exactly wrote these laws in the first place.

Either way, whoever sent that e-mail to Rabble had intended to bring up four pieces of scripture that definitively said abortion was okay under certain circumstances, or that a fetus had no value until a certain point in life. This is a misinterpretation of the data, and it is intentionally skewed for people that won’t bother to go in and read the Bible themselves.

Now, I don’t write all of this because I hate non-Christians. I write this because I hate idiocy and malicious interpretation of the Bible. That means I hate it when Christians take quotes out of context just as much as, well, these folks taking things out of context. When it comes to the Bible, God had ten simple rules.

1. You shall have no other Gods but the One True God
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the Heavens above or on the Earth beneath or in the waters below.
3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord Your God.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it Holy.
5. Honor your father and mother
6. You shall not murder
7. You shall not commit adultery
8. You shall not steal
9. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house

For me, number six is reason enough to be Pro-Life. I believe that a fetus, even if not “scientifically living” until a certain stage, will be a living thing and therefore to abort it is not only murder, but a violation of its right to live. I believe this perspective is the way God would view it, and I don’t need specific lines in scripture (which, let’s face it, if you’re Pro-Choice you are most likely not going to care about scripture anyway) to support me in that belief. God says “do not murder”, and that’s enough.

If you believe in God, then you know anyone trying to misinterpret the Bible is wrong. However, do not hate them for it. Do not think maliciously of those people. I can understand why some people believe it is better to be Pro-Choice. I think it is wrong, and I think it should be unlawful, but by reacting to them with such hatred those people are biting right back. Instead of intellectual discourse we are brought to this. That it is titled “A little ammo for you” shows just what the real problem is. People are trying to turn their rhetoric into weapons against the opposing side.

Haven’t we had enough of that crap? Isn’t it time we sit down and talk like civil human beings? Or must we continue to hatefully attack the viewpoint of another?

Plus, if you are a Christian, and if you know your scripture, then you should also know better. It isn’t the duty of the Christian to save a world that’s already condemned to end. We aren’t going to fix it and make everyone a Believer somehow. Our duty is to those close to us, explaining Christ’s philosophy of peaceful living and value to others without forcing it down their throats. If every Pro-Choice advocate were to read this and say I’m full of crap, so be it. I’ve done what I could, and if rational discourse doesn’t work then nothing will.

Please, people. Let’s stop hating each other and just be intelligent about all this.