My understanding of the pro-life view amongst conservative Christians is that the fetus is human life, and therefore is no less valuable and worthy of defending than a baby who is one year old.

But do we really believe this? I’ve heard the estimations for abortions per year are at about 70,000 a year, and the response of Christians is generally through seeking new legislation, the odd protest (though I don’t see them that often) and through counselling services for pregnant women and so forth. But would we react the same if we knew that 70,000 unwanted children between the age of 0 and 2 were being murdered each year? If you had a clinic down the end of the street that you knew were killing children how would you react?

Would you react the same way you do to abortion?

My assumption is that Christians would not react the same way. I imagine we would be MUCH more horrified and seek to take matters into our own hands in order to save these children.

If I am not wrong, why is that the case? Are we not as Pro-Life as we say we are, or is there a justified reason as to why we would respond differently?

Good topic, GC.

Exodus 21:22-25 is sometimes used to suggest that there is a difference between the life of a foetus and the life of a baby.

Gordon Cheng - 01 May 2008 02:40 PM

Good topic, GC.

Exodus 21:22-25 is sometimes used to suggest that there is a difference between the life of a foetus and the life of a baby.

I thought that passage would be used to show that there is no difference. If the baby is harmed, the punishment is “life for life”? Or did I read it incorrectly?

My reading of it is that the ‘life for life’ refers to the woman who was struck.

v 22 is a situation of accidental miscarriage and presumably involves the death of the baby, for which the penalty is a fine determined by the husband.

I suppose the fine might be a pound of flesh.

Has the “eye for an eye” and similar ever been applied in Judaism? I have heard (from a Rabbi) that it has not; but its effect was to scare tripe out of people and make them take things seriously.

More people die from abortion than in wars.

The Exodus story has two implications for the current debate. 

Here is the text: When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. 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.

1. The law in Israel clearly has a different regard for harm to a fetus leading to death through miscarriage than harm to a pregnant woman that leads to her death.  In the former, the father executes the penalty as he would over any other piece of property that was damaged.  In the latter, the rule of the Law applies - “A Life for a Life”.

2. The Law of Israel has been superseded by the two great commandments.  As Jesus commented, if we observe these two rules, we will fulfill all the requirements of the law without being a slave to it.

Moral theologians have argued for many years about whether the second great commandment - to love our neighbours as ourselves - has absolute obligations or flexible ones.  Add to this the reality that science has given us vastly different understandings of the processes of reproduction than those held in Biblical times, and it is not surprising that the observations made in the first post of this thread can be made.

I think Geoff is right, that we really do regard the “death” of fetuses as something qualitatively different from the death of children.  This is not to say that the seed of life we see in fetuses should not be respected and guarded; just that it is of a different order to the life we have the highest regard for in those who are now ex-utero.

This will always be a vexed issue, but nevertheless worthy of reasoned debate.

Gordon Cheng - 01 May 2008 02:40 PM

Exodus 21:22-25 is sometimes used to suggest that there is a difference between the life of a foetus and the life of a baby.

Would you agree to this Gordon?
If you do, is the conclusion that there is less alarm necessary over the death of a fetus than children, or any himan life?

Is there anyone out there who believes that the life of a fetus should be fought for as though it were a living child? If you do, what are you doing about it?

It’s only one verse, GC, and part of the law of God addressed to the Jewish people. Both of those things give pause, especially when the verse doesn’t directly address the question you’re asking.

I would say that the most you might want to suggest is that the taking of the life of a foetus is a horrible thing, whereas the taking the life of a new-born baby is worse than horrible, it’s an atrocity.

Both should be opposed by Christians, but if you ask a question about how state legislation ought to treat these two terrible things, the law of Exodus may supply one biblical rationale for saying that we can treat these human deaths differently. Just as the state treats other human deaths differently—the killing of someone in wartime; capital punishment; the turning a blind eye to someone who wants to commit suicide; the deliberate rape and torture of an individual; all the way through to intentional genocide. Morally speaking, the Christian would be opposed to all of these also, or at least prefer that there might be another way in the case of some of them. But the strength with which we oppose a particular type of killing might vary, and that might be morally and scripturally defensible.

A couple of further options for reading the Exodus text:

1. It may refer to accidental death of a child in-utero (caused by an adjacent fight between two adversaries).. hence closer to our manslaughter.  If so, it may not be directly applicable to contemporary cases with more willful action.

Or

2. It may refer to the accidental causation of a premature, but ‘safe’ birth, which is then contrasted with a premature birth resulting in death (harm).  The penalty for the former being a fine, and the penalty for the latter being ‘eye for eye’ etc.

A rather top-of-head Friday afternoon effort…

Ismo

Gordon Cheng - 01 May 2008 02:40 PM

Good topic, GC.

Exodus 21:22-25 is sometimes used to suggest that there is a difference between the life of a foetus and the life of a baby.

Could another possibility be that the punishments are applied to a sort of value of life and are not an indication of a differing morality? Even today people have different legal values of life (or so John Grisham tells me) and I think they are largely dependent on age and potential lifespans. In a society with large infant mortality rates it might make sense for the punishment of killing an unborn child to be less than for a two year old who’s past the worst years.

Is there anyone out there who believes that the life of a fetus should be fought for as though it were a living child? If you do, what are you doing about it?

You’re assuming that if thousands of infants were killed, and 80% or something of society were in support of it, that Christianity would still speak out as much as it would if only a few infants were killed. The pressure a society can produce is very strong. Nazi Germany makes me wonder if we would actually speak out.

I would agree that we’re not as Pro-Life as we say we are… we are scared of being labelled, scared of breaking relationships with workmates etc, and prefer to stick our heads in the sand about the genocide that’s occurring in our own backyard (or at least, that’s my diagnosis of myself - forgive me if I’m misreading others).  It’s cool to buy fairtrade coffee but it’s uncool to talk about abortions - which is the leading cause of death in Australia (not heart disease or cancer, as the government websites would suggest).  So we pick our social justice concerns to suit ourselves.

I think this is THE key social justice issue we are dealing with in Australia (or not dealing with, as the case may be).  Silence from Christians is absurd and irrational… in 100 years time evangelical Christians will be wondering what on earth we were doing!

Go to Abort73.com for some excellent information, resources, and *practical* ways you can do something!  I bought 5 T-shirts and 100 business cards and tell everyone I can to visit the site and start talking to their friends about it.  Awareness raising is the best thing at this time, in my opinion.  So few Christians even realise how many people are dying from abortion.

Love to hear what others are doing in their circles.

I have been pondering the abortion debate from a different angle of late.  I know this is controversial so I’ll preface my comments with; this is something I’m exploring and testing against Scripture and not a strongly held view.
The question I want to ask is when does a person receive a soul?  And before they receive that soul are they considered to be alive?
The reason I ask is because the scriptures tend to speak of living creatures as ones that have breath.  And a person is considered dead when they have breathed their last breath.  Although the scriptures talk about God knitting a person together in their Mother’s womb, and belonging to God from the time they are in the womb and being sinful from the time of conception.  None of those things suggest that the person is alive yet.
The following verses are all the verses that include the word breath/e in the Bible.  Do they suggest that life begins from first breath or from conception?
If from first breath then perhaps the abortion debate is nonsense.

Genesis 1:30
And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

Genesis 2:7
the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Genesis 6:17
I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

Genesis 7:15
Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark.

Genesis 7:22
Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.

Job 7:7
Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again.

Job 12:10
In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

Job 27:3
as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils,

Job 33:4
The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

Psalm 39:5
You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath. Selah

Isaiah 42:5
This is what God the LORD says— he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:

Ezekiel 37:5
This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.

Ezekiel 37:6
I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ “

Ezekiel 37:10
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Habakkuk 2:19
Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’ Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’ Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver; there is no breath in it.

Acts 17:25
And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.

Revelation 11:11
But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them.

whoops, see below

Hi Craig,

That’s interesting.  I have to say though that I wouldn’t put any stock in that expression.  The breath of life thing is just an idiom for ‘life’ and not meant to be a basis by which we make ethical decisions about killing.  In their day there was no artificial respiration so of course life was associated with breath.  It certainly doesn’t mean they considered unborn babies dead or non-people!  That’s just the way idioms work.  As a comparison, we say “the sun rises in the east” because it’s convenient and gives the general idea, not because it precisely explains the facts.  (Also, I don’t see how someone can be considered sinful from conception if they aren’t actually there yet?)

Also, this isn’t a “good argument” but I’ll say it anyway: think of what that would mean!  If you get a baby pre-birth, as long as it hasn’t breathed once yet, it is OK to kill it?  That’s certainly not what these authors were trying to convey in those passages!  Most pro-abortion people would also find that horrible.

Abort73.com has stuff on the beginning of life.  Highly recommended.

Biblically, life is very strongly linked with blood. So if there was any point other than conception, it would be when the heart starts beating. Breath is more associated with spirit than soul.

In Victoria I was invited last year to a consultation with the Victorian Law Reform Commission regarding a reference they received from the Government requesting options for the decriminalisation of abortion. I was required to answer 12 questions but I include below my preliminary comments for your interest. Please note that I did not provide Biblical references for our view on life beginning at conception, though I note in passing that all the essential me was there in my mother’s womb from the time that my father’s sperm penetrated her egg. I just had to do a bit of developing and here I am now on a downward path!

We are awaiting just days away from the Government’s proposed legislative changes.

On behalf of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria I wish to advise that the Church opposes decriminalisation of abortion on the following grounds based upon Christian principles derived from the Bible and attested by 2,000 years of Christian tradition.

1. We affirm both on Biblical and scientific grounds that human life begins at conception and that when a pregnancy is terminated it is in fact a developing unborn child with its own unique DNA material which is being aborted.
2. We believe 20,000 abortions annually in Victoria or more than one abortion for every three live births is a matter of shame for all Victorians, a barbaric practice to rival slavery, that speaks of a culture of death rather than one of life.
3. The effect of the proposal to remove the practice of abortion from Crimes Act 1958 will be to encourage the general public including the young to begin to think of abortion, once considered morally wrong, or at the very least morally dubious, as morally right. Abortion is not morally right. Even the ancient Greeks recognised the value of the unborn so that Hippocrates bound all doctors in his oath against procuring an abortion.

One practical consequence of the change in emphasis associated with decriminalisation of abortion would be that it will become much harder for a woman to resist calls from her boyfriend, her husband or other family members to undergo an abortion.

Not only is the unborn child the victim in abortion, but the woman who has the abortion is often a victim as well - all too often deserted by her partner, or else under pressure from her partner and family and liable to trauma that will extend for decades after an abortion: flashbacks, anniversary reactions, temptations to suicide, difficulties in maintaining and developing relationships, turning to drugs, increased susceptibility to breast or other cancers, etc.

4. On the basis of the teaching of the Bible and our own Confessions, we
• call on society in general, our political leaders and their agencies including the Victorian Law Reform Commission to value at all times the sanctity of human life;
• proclaim the Bible’s sixth commandment against the taking of innocent life and invite the Government and its agencies to act against the taking of innocent life, and so we
• oppose any changes to our laws that could threaten the safety of the innocent and the vulnerable in our human family, whether the unborn, the sick, the disabled or the elderly.

In asserting these things we believe our position to be widely held throughout the present day Christian Church whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant.

Governments and their agencies, as much as individuals, are accountable to God for their actions and one day there will be an accounting for all our actions before the Judgment throne of God. There is a well known text in the Bible, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Book of Proverbs 14:34), that speaks directly to this issue.

Historically, it is worth pointing out that the treatment of abortion prior to “quickening” as a criminal offence in British law goes back to the early nineteenth century as an outcome of the 18th century Evangelical Revival associated with John Wesley and others, and the resultant reforming zeal of men and women epitomised by the likes of William Wilberforce. It was Lord Ellenborough’s Act 1803 which for the first time made it a crime to carry out an abortion before ‘quickening’, ie the time when ‘the infant is able to stir in the mother’s womb’, and which was generally around the fourteenth week of pregnancy. Making abortion a criminal offence was done for the protection of both the mother and the unborn child. Whilst modern medicine acts in favour of the mother, it appears not to be so for the unborn child.

The Church is therefore morally opposed to the abortion of the unborn child and therefore to decriminalisation of abortion through the removal of the offence from the Crimes Act 1958.

Nevertheless, we are well aware that no Government in Australia at the present time is of a mind to wind back the clock on abortion, but then our question becomes, what are Governments, and the Victorian Government in particular, doing about reducing the number of abortions annually occurring in the State of Victoria.

Our response below to the Commission’s twelve questions has as its goal the promotion of those measures that would make a significant and enduring reduction in the number of abortions performed in Victoria. In doing so we wish it to be understood that our response in no way implies support for abortion and its decriminalisation.

The full submission can be viewed here.