"Abortion is murder!" How often have you heard that statement? Often it’s spoken in a raised voice, accompanied by pounding on a pulpit or waving a Bible.
This is a tough one to address, because almost everyone I know has strong views on the matter, and not many people I’ve spoken to grant the other side much credence. There is a danger that even raising the issue here will have the effect of raising that wall between the "pro-life" and "pro-choice" camp by a millionth of a millimeter, and my stated purpose with this site is to help tear down the walls.
One recent event makes it unconscionable to ignore this particular wall any longer.
A nine-year-old Brazilian girl was raped by her step-father and, unlikely as it sounds, became pregnant, with twins. Doctors said that carrying the twins to term would endanger the child’s life. Her mother, a Catholic like most Brazilians, approved an abortion. The church has now ex-communicated her.
In case you didn’t know, in the Catholic church, ex-communication is considered a virtual sentence to hell. An ex-communicated Catholic can’t take communion, and not doing so at least once a year is considered a mortal sin. An ex-communicated Catholic can’t confess his or her sins to a priest, perform penance, and receive absolution. Based on John 20:23, Catholics are taught that the priest has the power to forgive or "retain" a person’s sins. Without forgiveness, there is no hope of heaven. The ex-communication can be reversed later, and often is, but for a Catholic who accepts the teachings of the church verbatim and in toto, ex-communication is a frightening punishment. On the other hand, I’ve known several Catholics who simply left the church and denounced its teachings following ex-communication.
On the day I’m writing this, I heard at least two news commentators who are, themselves, Catholic denounce this action by the church. An obvious question popped up: Did the church also ex-communicate the fiend who raped this poor child? I haven’t checked with any hard-line pro-lifers about this, but I frankly doubt that the majority would condone the Catholic Church’s action in this case.
Let’s talk about this wall again: The reason it exists is that it’s too easy to deride one side as not caring about human life, or the other as religious fanatics who don’t care about people’s well-being.
To me, that’s a bit narrow. There was a time when societies that were advanced for their time threw babies off cliffs if they seemed defective in any way. Others decided that was a little crude, but thought that simply exposing a newborn to the elements was acceptable, as though death by hypothermia was somehow more benign. I can understand the thinking that accepting abortion can be the first step down a slippery slope. Is terminating a pregnancy much different than killing a newborn? I’d bet that most people who’ve read this far will think "yes, of course it is!" or "no, it’s the same thing!"
But believe it or not, there are serious thinkers who hold a middle ground position on this.
There was a time that the Catholic Church did not take the position that life began at conception. Abortion was a sin after the child was "quickened" or "ensouled," i.e., after it began movement in the womb.
Most Jewish scholars take the position that abortion should not be undertaken lightly, because the fetus represents potential human life, but that abortion is acceptable when there is no other reasonable course, leaving to the individual, hopefully in consultation with a physician and/or spiritual adviser, what constitutes reasonable.
In my own opinion, it is not inconsistent to say that abortion is a serious matter, that shouldn’t be undertaken casually, but that it is not a crime. I don’t think one has to be a hard-core conservative to believe that parents of minors should be consulted if possible. After all, a child can’t get a tattoo or get pierced ears without the parents’ permission, and whatever else it is or is not, abortion is a medical procedure. On the other hand, some girls have reason to fear severe punishment from their parents for having gotten pregnant. Some girls have paid with their lives for having yielded to carnal drives, and many others have been thrown out of their homes. Some provision has to be made for them. I have ideas on this, which I’ll share at another time if anyone is interested.
But back to the basics: If abortion is a sin, how can we accept it? Whatever this or that church did or didn’t teach in the past, if you truly believe that a fertilized egg is a human being, how can you justify terminating a pregnancy?
I won’t tell you what to think about this, but I’d like to point out two matters: One is that many fertilized eggs never attach to the uterine wall, and are sloughed off with the menstrual blood. So if a fertilized egg is a human being, millions of humans are being literally flushed down the toilet every day.
The other point is that the Bible does not say that abortion is murder, or any other words to that effect. In fact, Exodus 21:22-25 suggests the opposite. Catholic and Protestant Bibles, and Jewish Orthodox and liberal Jewish Bibles, are virtually identical in their wording, so I’ll only quote the Protestant Revised Standard Edition:
"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."
In other words, killing the mother was murder, but causing the death of the unborn child was a property crime.
If anyone wants to tackle the issue of the fetus being considered the husband’s property, please leave a comment or contact me. (Please don’t tell me I’m not a theologian; I’m already aware of that.)
But in any event, can we just not scream at each other about this abortion question?