It certainly was, actually, with knowledge of herbs and whatnot that could cause a miscarriage, as well as primitive surgical abortions that posed almost as much risk to the mother as to the fetus. It was a sufficiently significant matter to be specifically addressed in Canon 21 of the Council of Ancyra (A.D. 314, though one can be quite certain it had been an issue for at least several centuries previous):
The upshot being that previously, those facilitiating abortion would be excommunicated until they were on their deathbeds, while this relatively liberal reform reduced that to a mere ten years of penance.
As an afterthought and a much more familiar reference, the original Hippocratic Oath (written circa 400 BCE) specifically forbids a doctor from facilitiating an abortion. That abortion (and qualms over it) is a modern issue is complete fiction.
In fact, if the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother, some Jewish authorities would say that an abortion is mandatory, because the mother is an actual living person and the fetus is a potentially living person. Cite
I do not see this as an attack on RayMan, therefore no warning. However, calling an argument “pathetic” is potentially inflammatory and may diminish your chances of getting a factual answer. Not a warning, just a piece of advice.
I’d like to keep this thread out of GD if possible. Let’s stick to facts. The factual question here is what the basis of the religious precept is, not whether the precept or the basis for it is reasonable.
True, but it is also a complete fiction to say that there was any unanimity in pre-modern culture over whether and when abortion was permissible.
All cultures, including modern American culture, seem to agree that at some point prior to birth the fetus should be considered an actual living person whose life must be protected, except perhaps when the life and/or health of the mother is at risk. But there is no general consensus as to when that point occurs. At conception? At the end of the forty- or eighty-day period identified with “ensoulment” by some Church authorities, as mentioned above? At “quickening” or the first detection of the fetus’s movement? At “viability” as defined by modern obstetrics?
There is no generally-agreed-upon unambiguous answer to that question in pre-modern culture, and the Bible doesn’t supply one.
Anne Neville, your cite is about Jewish law as it relates to Jews. I was very specifically referring to the seven Noahide commandments, because the OP was asking from a Christian perspective.
To be more clear, the seven Noahide commandments are not the same, in their details, as the analagous Jewish laws. In some ways, they are more lenient - e.g., a non-Jewish believer in the Christian Trinity would not be in violation of the Noahide law against idolatry, a Jewish one would be in violation of the Jewish law against idolatry. On the flip side, a Jew who aborts a fetus has not violated the Jewish prohibition of murder, while a non-Jew who does so has violated the Noahide murder prohibition.
Could you please find a cite that some Jews believe that the Noachide prohibition on murder includes abortion? As I understand it, Jews consider the Noachide laws binding on all humanity, ourselves included.
There’s certainly a concept that we, as Jews, should keep the same or higher moral laws than non-Jews do. I’ve heard that cited as a reason why Rabbi Gershom banned polygamy for Ashkenazic Jews in the Middle Ages:
:dubious: Actually, haven’t there been cultures that practiced infanticide, whether by out-and-out killing an unwanted or “defective” baby or by leaving it out in the wilderness to die?
Lest there be any doubt, by pointing this out I do not intend to endorse or express approval of such practices.
Rabbi Klears, the man who performed my circumcision and bar mitzvah, told me that under Jewish law a fetus was only a potential person. He cited the same passage Max Torque did. He said that Judaism still opposes abortion as it violates G-d’s command to ‘be fruitful and multiply’. In Jewish folklore, the fetus doesn’t become a person until a soul enters its body. This happens when the head crowns during delivery.
Anne Neville It’s great to see another Doper citing Telushkin.
Most human cultures in the past practiced infanticide. Given the human lifespan and the vagueries of climateit’s imopssible for a HG society to survive if it doesn’t limit population. It was only after the the invention of agriculture that anyone stopped killing children. Even then a great many, probably the majority, of cultures openly permitted or even demanded infanticide, notably the Romans, Chinese and Babylonians. Culturally acceptable infanticide has remained common in parts of China and India amongst other places.
Note that the killing of ‘defective’ children has never been a significant contribution to infanticide. The vast majority of children killed have been perfectly healthy children killed simply because they weren’t wanted or required, often due to their sex.
Not that infanticide really tells us much about abortion, beyond the fact that the practice being ubiquitous around the Mediterranean when the NT was written implies that abortion probably wasn’t the non-issue some have implied.
One more which hasn’t been mentioned yet: Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, Luke 1:39-45. At this time, Mary is pregnant with Jesus (some unspecified amount less than 3 months), and Elizabeth is pregnant with John the Baptist (some unspecified amount greater than 6 months). John starts his ministry of announcing the coming of Jesus by leaping in his mother’s womb. One may reasonably infer from this that John was already a person some time before his birth, and one may also argue that Jesus was a person at some time within three months of conception (this latter is less clear; John might also have been heralding Mary who would become the mother of Jesus in this scene). Certainly, though, John is implied to be a person, and indeed a Christian prophet, while still in the womb.
Also perhaps of note is the fact that Luke was by profession a physician, and would therefore have been learned (by the standards of the day) on human development. One might then consider it significant that it’s his gospel in which this story appears.
We stray into GD territory, but that seems like a pretty spurious implication.
The prophet Elisha’s bones resurrected dead men. If we accept that an action of a prophet’s body is indicative of that body being a person then we do have to accept that John’s body was a person pre-birth, but we also have to accept that Elisha’s body was still a person years after his death.
A simpler explanation seems to be that God can make a body do whatever he likes. If he can make bones give life then it shouldn’t be beyond his power to make a baby jump. It doesn’t indicate John’s mind/soul actively controlling his body before his birth, or Elisha’s mind/soul controlling his body after his death.
Note that I was talking about Elisha, not Elijah. I make the same mistake myself all the time.
Elija got the fiery chariot and divine whirlwind treatment.
Elisha was his successor and all he got was 2 Kings 13:20 : “Elisha died and was buried”. I think he was ripped off.