When I read this title on Heather’s blog “The Bible Is Silent on Abortion says Planned Parenthood Rabbi ” I was surprised, Planned Parenthood has a Rabbi? Here’s some quotes from his article on the Planned Parenthood website:
Some contend that the Bible approaches the subject of abortion in Exodus (21) when two brawling men accidentally strike a pregnant woman. If the woman is injured, the inadvertent assailant gets punished, receiving the very same wound he caused the woman: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If the woman dies, then it is a life for a life and the man who caused the injury dies. But if the woman miscarries, then the assailant just pays a fine.
So, an injury caused to the woman is one thing. The injury to her fetus is not viewed the same way. This same biblical passage does not say that the fetus is a human being like the injured women or like you or me. If the fetus were considered human, the punishment for injuring the fetus would be the same punishment as that for injuring the pregnant woman.
The book of Exodus warns us to take care around a pregnant woman. Cause her to miscarry, it costs money. Cause her to die, and the penalty is death. The Bible extends a full measure of legal protection to a pregnant woman, a fullness of rights and protection that is not extended to the fetus.
In response to this argument we can take a quick look at the ESV:
Exodus 21:22-25 When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
The ESV is closer to the actual Hebrew then the translation the Rabbi used. If the woman gives birth to a living baby then a fine is imposed but if “there is harm” then the life is required. According to John Piper, the Hebrew word used here is not the one used of miscarriages found in other passages such as Exodus 23:26. (Go here for John Piper’s full response to this type of interpretation.)
He goes on:
People who want to make abortion illegal may attempt to use the Bible to justify their arguments. However, nothing in the Hebrew Scriptures and nothing in the New Testament supports their attempts, regardless of the passages they cite or how hard they argue. Scripture does not consider the fetus to be a human being. The Bible does not consider the destruction of a fetus to be the equivalent of murder. If the Bible thought abortion was a sin, it would have named it a sin. Instead, when it comes to abortion, the Bible says not a word.
But the Bible does reveal the value God has placed on human life, the care that He took creating it:
Job 31:15 Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?
Psalm 22:9-10 Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. On you was I cast frommy birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
Psalm 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.
Psalm 139:13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
Ecclesiastes 11:5 As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.
Jeremiah 1:4 Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to thenations.”
The Creator of the heaven and earth, the almighty God created us in our mother’s womb. Doesn’t that speak of value?
And in the New Testament (he brought up the New Testament), John the Baptist leaps for joy in his mother’s womb:
Luke 1:41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
Needless to say that if the Bible didn’t consider the fetus a human being, this passage would not make much sense.
In his concluding paragraph he states:
Different faiths reach differing, and sometimes conflicting, biblical interpretations and conclusions. In our America, a free, pluralistic, and strong country, we leave people to come to their own religious conclusions and let the people live as they decide.
Yes, each of us has to draw are own conclusions but truth is not relative, it is absolute. Each of us will have to answer for our actions and that includes how we used the word of the Lord.
Abortion is murder, there is no way to get around that fact. Common sense tells you that and twisting the word of God so that you can justify killing is wrong. God clearly puts a high value on life because man is created in His image and if someone kills another, then their life is required in payment:
Romans 9:5-6 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”
Even those in the pro-abortion camp get this:
Slowly, as though coming to terms with buried sexuality, the abortion-rights leadership is groping for a way to think and talk more frankly about the morality of ending unborn life.
And from the comments section:
I’m pro-choice but not pro-abortion. […] I have a friend who had a late-term abortion when she discovered her fetus had Downs. I had zero problem with that until they named the baby and had a memorial service for it. Now, I never said anything to her and I remain committed to the idea that it was her right to make that choice and that never having faced that dilemma I wasn’t in a position to disapprove. But if she considered it a human baby enough to name it and have a memorial service, it bugged me that she could then kill it because it wasn’t perfect.
Updated to add: I have another article on abortion here. (It was an article I wrote after viewing an episode of ER.)