Recently I’ve read that Biblically speaking, there’s no support for abortion opposition, and strictly speaking, there’s literal interpretation of the opposite.
So:
Why is there now widespread fundie support for anti abortion legislation?
Why have the Republicans latched on to this, supposedly for biblical reasons, despite any biblical support?
First approximation- because people who use the Bible to “guide” their lives do not first study the Bible to find how they should behave; they more often search the Bible for parts which justify what they already believe or which seem to support their already chosen course of action.
Because they are generally rabidly misogynistic, and the abortion issue is a club they can use to beat on women with.
Originally, because they fundies were easily manipulated into voting Republican that way. More and more these days (as on many other extremist positions) it’s because the True Believers have worked themselves into positions of power in the party.
And as DrFidelius points out, people like this tend follow the Bible selectively, or just ignore what it says. And they tend to be ignorant of what their own book actually says, anyway.
I’m sure what you “read” isn’t the mainstream opinion of what the bible says, hence why fundies and by extension most Republicans haven’t strayed from the pro-life position. To most of the people I know “Though shalt not kill” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” covers it all, since they consider unborn babies as people.
In Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, Frank Schaeffer talks about how when Roe v. Wade came down, evangelicals such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Billy Graham didn’t want to get involved, because it was viewed as a “Catholic” issue. Frank’s dad, Francis Schaeffer, tried to get them to join him in an anti-abortion crusade, but if those guys disliked abortion, they hated the Catholic church even more and did not want to be their allies in anything. So Schaeffer went out on his own and wrote the book “A Time for Anger.” This was made into a movie which was screened in churches all over the country and whipped a lot of people into a frenzy. It was only then that Robertson, Falwell, and Graham saw the dollar signs and got on board.
the bible does support abortion. god directed Joshua on several occasions to kill every man, woman and child in entire cities…in fact, the bible records the death count in detail…some cities Josh aced 12,000 men, women and kids…since no stones were left unturned, that had to include prego women.
Ditto for Moses…within hours of Moe returning from the mountains with his 2 sparkling new tablets of 10 do’s & don’ts (one of which was specifically a no kill order), god directs Moses to enter the city and kill the entire population.
Those are just two examples of the millions killed in the name of god/religion/bible. As I recall, Joshua leads by 100K or more, Moses was in 32nd place. Althou Moses did get the good sportsmanship award for smashing several skulls and wombs, with the very tablet that said “thou shalt not kill”, before the ink had even dried.
Before I can argue one way or the other, I’d like a cite from the OP that “there’s no support for abortion opposition and strictly speaking, there’s literal interpretation of the opposite” in the Bible.
There are several verses that talk about us being fully formed in our mother’s womb (cf Psalms 51:5-6, Psalm 139:13). Pro-lifers will apply the general principal of ‘thou shall not kill’ in light of these verses that apparently apply personhood to the unborn baby.
Leviticus 21:22-25 is interesting.
Interpretation of that verse usually depends on whether the phrase “there is no serious injury” includes to the prematurely born baby or not.
I disagree with your interpretation of the Psalm 139 reference. Just two verses later it states that we are made in the depths of the earth, not our mother’s womb. 15: My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Here is the full text of 139:13-15, for those who don’t want to look it up.
Of course you are correct, the author says he was “knit together in my mother’s womb” and also “woven together in the depths of the earth.” It’s clearly a bit of poetical parallelism and not at all clear that either phrase is meant to be taken literally. However, the point remains that Christian pro-lifers often cite this chapter to support the “life begins at conception” position, which it seems to support whether the conception occurs in the womb or a deep, dark cave in the earth.
I’m pro choice, but I believe that the anti-abortion stance is pretty easy to justifiy from a Biblical point of view. “Thall Shall Not Kill” isn’t specific about fetuses, but the Bible is also clear about not even “wasting seed”, which is mere sperm, far lower on the personhood scale than a fetus.
Lots of heinous things happen in the Bible, and even by “the good guys”. You can’t claim that because X did Y that Y is OK. Otherwise, everything would be OK.
I don’t think the Bible is internally consistent, but that certainly doesn’t hamper its apologists.
Unfortunately I can’t track down the original cite, and I don’t recall specifically all of the arguments.
With regard to the biblical aspect, though, there are numerous easily found sites that give pretty much the same info critical of pro life support in the bible. If you like, I can repost them here for closer scrutiny, but that wasn’t the original point of the thread.
The two things I do specifically remember are:
It is only recently in US that religious officials got into the anti abortion game - previously it was their position that life did not begin at conception. Unlike the biblical aspect, I’m having trouble finding an alternate cite for this. Any help?
“When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay 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.” strongly implies that harm to a fetus is not to be treated the same as harm to other human life.
Actually, there is nothing in the Bible about “wasting seed” or anything like it. It’s Roman Catholic dogma built on an argument about not defying God’s will in procreation, but it’s not in the Bible.
That’s the same verse I quoted above, but what the KJV translates as “miscarriage” the NIV calls “premature birth.” Obviously the accuracy of the translation makes a big difference in how you interpret that verse.
The same Hebrew word is used for “premature birth” and for “miscarriage”. The guy who explained his interpretation to me thought that the “no harm follows” meant that the mother gave birth prematurely, but there were no significant health issues, either to the mother or the child, then it was not nearly as serious as when either the mother or the child died.
I don’t buy that interpretation myself, since the word also refers to what we would call “stillbirth” as well as “miscarriage”, and not merely to premature birth. But that is what he believed.
Regards,
Shodan, pro-choice non-fundamentalist Christian
For what it’s worth, as a fairly liberal Christian myself: In terms of social policy, I am pro-choice. I am not in favor of any religion, even mine, placing legal restrictions on people based on religious conviction.
My own personal religious conviction, however, is that abortion is rarely, if ever, something that pleases God. There are almost always better options that respect the sanctity of life. I take from the passages in Psalms quoted above that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” and that God knows us even in the womb and grieves when that life is cut short.
I also recognize that scripture only addresses the issue obliquely and not directly, so that any judgement I make is just that – my own judgement – and I could be wrong. Which is another reason I shy away from legislating based on my own intepretation of the scant references in the Bible.