You have to love a Pagan blog which purports to explain authoritatively and absolutely what the Bible means! Don’t get me wrong, I believe that scripture is there for all to read and interpret. I even believe that approach should be especially welcomed by those of us, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or otherwise, who see the Bible as divinely revealed or inspired. After all, a book which is an infinite gift of an infinite God, should invite infinite interpretation.
But cherry picking traditions, as our Pagan blogger does, to confirm what one already believes is a dangerous and ugly business, even when the one doing it happens to reach conclusions with which both I and my tradition agree. Not to mention that he avoids any serious consideration of alternative interpretive traditions which do not support his views – traditions including Jeremiah 1:5 which describe God as knowing us in the womb before we were born.
Jewish tradition does not understand such verses to prohibit abortion. But for a guy who believes in many forces as Gods, the easy ability to go with such a singularly narrow understanding of the text is a bit odd, to say the least.
To be sure, Jewish tradition does not deem abortion to be murder.

While the loss of a fetal life is tragic, it is never deemed as the loss of a human life and therefore is never punishable as such. In fact, while abortion is generally prohibited according to traditional Jewish law, it’s a mitzvah (religious obligation) to perform them when the life of the mother is endangered by her pregnancy.
Maimonides goes so far as to describe the obligation to include the performance of a partial birth abortion if the mother’s life is in imminent danger. He describes the emerging baby as a “Rodef”, murderous pursuer, whose life must be taken to save the mom. And the Talmud records the permissible use, under very special circumstances, of an early version of the “morning after pill” to assure that no pregnancy continue.
But the fact that my tradition says it does not mean that it the only way a reasonable person can interpret the Bible. And it certainly gives no right to anyone, even if they share my views, to triumphally trumpet what the Bible definitely says. Does the same author care to quote verses which address Paganism? Is he kidding?
When any of us reduce the abortion debate to what our reading of the Bible “proves” or how the people who read it differently from us are “obviously” wrong about the intent of scripture, we are no better than those who treat us that way. I would think that a Pagan, given the enormous social and religious pressure and bias which he faces, especially from that community, would be more sensitive to that.
This is just one more case of the abused becoming the abuser and the victim becoming the victimizer. It’s nothing to celebrate. If anything, it sets back the cause of genuine spiritual discourse in which we attempt to learn from our disagreements, not play “gotcha” theology games designed to fan the flames of mutual disrespect and disregard.
Sometimes winning the debate is not the most important thing. Sometimes changing the rules of the game in ways that make sure all, be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Pagan, Atheist, etc. can “play” is more important.