Yesterday in the teaching regarding “Why Life Matters,” I quoted from the following:
Roy Bowen, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion at Miami University of Ohio, in an article entitled: “Is the Fetus a Person?” wrote:
One thing the Bible does not say is “Thou shalt not abort.”
Revered Mark Bigelow, member of Planned Parenthood’s Clergy Advisory Board, wrote:
“Even as a minister I am careful what I presume Jesus would do if HE were alive today, but one thing I know from the Bible is that Jesus was not against women having a choice in continuing pregnancy. He never said a word about abortion (nor did anyone else in the Bible) even thugh abortion was available and in use in his time.”
Paul D. Simmons, former Professor of Christian Ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, finds the Bible’s silence on abortion “profound” and remarks that not once does the subject appear in the Apostle Paul’s list of prohibited actions.
The thrust of each of these arguments is that since the Bible does not specifically condemn abortion it must mean that the Bible condones abortion. After all, God would not leave out such an vital subject if it were really that important.
Question:
How would you address this line of rationale?
First, let me say that I believe you did an excellent job articulating a response to all three statements above. It is unbelievable to me how men of supposedly great intelligence and education can be so very deceived when it comes to matters as simple as this. It really speaks to the fact that abortion is very much a spiritual battle.
In response to Mr. Bowen’s remark that the Bible doesn’t say “Thou shalt not abort”, I would argue that the Bible very clearly says thou shalt not abort in Exodus 20:13, “You shall not murder.” The fundamental misunderstanding on Mr. Bowen’s account is that the Bible supports the idea that children in the womb are somehow not considered alive until they exit the womb. This idea, not “thou shalt not abort” is what cannot be found in the Bible.
The last two arguments are basically the same and indorse the idea that the Bible is silent on abortion all together. The logic to support this is again flawed in the fundamental idea that abortion is somehow different from taking the life of a person created in the image of God. It is no different and therefore covered in Exodus 20.
Most of the “pro-choice” people that I have had the opportunity to talk to about abortion are very naïve about the subject (or at least pretend to be). You will inevitably hear questions such as “Why do you care what someone else does with their body?” My response is to try to lovingly make the issue personal. I start out with “Should I be upset or care if someone breaks into your house and murders your “X” year old son or daughter?” They have to answer yes. The logic continues down “What if your child were younger, say 1 day old, would that change how concerned I should be?” Then you take it farther into what is the difference between + 1 day old and – 1 day old? If the person you are talking is at all objective, they will at least acknowledge that your stance against abortion is valid.
I think David is absolutely correct that the Bible does speak directly to it. “Abortion” is just a euphemism for murder. I recently saw a short, very disturbing film showing the results of abortion. It would be impossible to watch this and not realize these were small human beings whose body parts were strewn across the screen. I think this is part of the problem, most people who support abortion have never looked it in the face. They see it as some sterile medical procedure rather than the ripping limb from limb of a tiny human being (sorry for the graphic description but it is what it is).
Perhaps the Biblical ‘silence’ is due to the fact that the people to whom scripture was written weren’t as clueless as 21st century Americans seem to be about the fact that a baby in the womb is a living person. They would have understood the prohibition against murder to have this covered, not needing a special mention of this specific type of murder to make it clear.
People always do what they are most motivated to do. When what they want goes against their conscience, they start looking for loopholes… and it’s not just professors and intellectual big-shots doing the dodging.
Consider the heartbreaking stories in this blog entry titled The Negation of Love: Abortion and the “Culture of Me”. It looks at the way women deal with their abortions — read it.
Yeah, and sometime they don’t even look for loopholes.
I was stunned (and I’m rarely stunned) when I had an interaction with someone whose wife decided to abort at 20 weeks. I thought I just had to convince them that this would be taking the life of a human being. He said, “Oh yeah. She knows it’s a baby — we saw the sonogram and all — she’s decided to kill it.” He decided it was best for their marriage to go along with it.
As for the question at hand, it’s a symantics game. How about this response?
“You know, you’re right. If God was really against abortion He would have told Moses, ‘Thou shall not murder … the genus homo at any point of its physical development.’ He was only talking about murdering people, not humans.”
Murder is the taking of innocent life.
Abortion is murder.
The Bible addresses it clearly. Those that choose to argue their way into another point of view simply want to hang on to their sin.