What does the Bible say about abortion?

In My Humble Opinion
41

A search for the word womb may give some more context:

Many OT verses like this.

Hints at perhaps the earliest time such a offer can be made. Here ‘offsping of every womb’ would seem to be once the child is outside the womb to be ‘offspring’ of it. Why not make that offering before birth?

God seems to do a lot of blessing and cursing to the fetus:

Again many more verses like this.

Who does this dedication inside the womb, or does he just come out this way, already dedicated?

Well how he gets this dedication from inside the womb, it does seem like he is recognized as a human from inside the womb.

. Here showing that the human fetus is being taught wisdom inside the womb.

Here showing one could be killed inside the womb, note the mother is the grave, even though we know the body is expelled from the mother. That womb is noted as the final resting place, thus her womb is enlarged forever’ - as it now holds this grave.

I believe there is another set of verses in the Book of Job where the womb is said to be the underworld, though I can’t find it that quickly since I believe it is 2 back to back verses, which makes searching harder. Again much of this indicating that the womb is not subject to worldly authority.

There are many more verses that contain the word womb which gives context to what it is, I just took some of them, here is a complete list in the NIV:

42

It was soaked in herbs. It wasnt used to scrape out or otherwise remove the embryo.

43

Thing is with abortion, something dies. I know the joy of my wife being pregnant and then her having a miscarriage. I know something died and it hurt us deeply. I hope I can see that child in heaven.

44

What died in your wife’s miscarriage was more than just a clump of cells, it was your idea of your child and all your hopes and dreams of what that child could have become. I’m sorry.

But not everyone has that or wants that.

45

It was magic dust, blessed or cursed by the priest so as to kill the bastard fetus. Realistically, the dust was from near the ark, which we know was toxic (you watched “raiders of the lost arc”, right?) Perhaps the arc had some heavy metal or even radioactive component, explaining how proximity to it, and how eating dust from it, could be deadly:

from “JPS TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (blue): The New JPS Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text” by Jewish Publication Society Inc., Inc. Jewish Publication Society -

11The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 12Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: If any man’s wife has gone astray and broken faith with him 13in that a man has had carnal relations with her unbeknown to her husband, and she keeps secret the fact that she has defiled herself without being forced, and there is no witness against her—14but a fit of jealousy comes over him and he is wrought up about the wife who has defiled herself; or if a fit of jealousy comes over one and he is wrought up about his wife although she has not defiled herself—15the man shall bring his wife to the priest. And he shall bring as an offering for her one-tenth of an ephah of barley flour. No oil shall be poured upon it and no frankincense shall be laid on it, for it is a meal offering of jealousy, a meal offering of remembrance which recalls wrongdoing.

16The priest shall bring her forward and have her stand before the LORD. 17The priest shall take sacral water in an earthen vessel and, taking some of the earth that is on the floor of the Tabernacle, the priest shall put it into the water. 18After he has made the woman stand before the LORD, the priest shall bare the woman’s head and place upon her hands the meal offering of remembrance, which is a meal offering of jealousy. And in the priest’s hands shall be the water of bitterness e-that induces the spell.-e19The priest shall adjure the woman, saying to her, “If no man has lain with you, if you have not gone astray in defilement while married to your husband, be immune to harm from this water of bitterness that induces the spell. 20But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and have defiled yourself, if a man other than your husband has had carnal relations with you”—21here the priest shall administer the curse of adjuration to the woman, as the priest goes on to say to the woman—“may the LORD make you a curse and an imprecation among your people, as the LORD causes your thigh to sag and your belly to distend;e 22may this water that induces the spell enter your body, causing the belly to distend and the thigh to sag.” And the woman shall say, “Amen, amen!” 23The priest shall put these curses down in writing and rub it off into the water of bitterness. 24He is to make the woman drink the water of bitterness that induces the spell, so that the spell-inducing water may enter into her to bring on bitterness. 25Then the priest shall take from the woman’s hand the meal offering of jealousy, elevate the meal offering before the LORD, and present it on the altar. 26The priest shall scoop out of the meal offering a token part of it and turn it into smoke on the altar. Last, he shall make the woman drink the water. 27Once he has made her drink the water—if she has defiled herself by breaking faith with her husband, the spell-inducing water shall enter into her to bring on bitterness, so that her belly shall distend and her thigh shall sag; and the woman shall become a curse among her people. 28But if the woman has not defiled herself and is pure, she shall be unharmed and able to retain seed. 29This is the ritual in cases of jealousy, when a woman goes astray while married to her husband and defiles herself, 30or when a fit of jealousy comes over a man and he is wrought up over his wife: the woman shall be made to stand before the LORD and the priest shall carry out all this ritual with her. 31The man shall be clear of guilt; but that woman shall suffer for her guilt."

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46

That is one of the main reasons I do not trust the ones trying to ban abortion in almost all circumstances.

47

I’m just responding to what you wrote:

A pessary is exactly that. A tool that went inside a vagina. Arguing that it wasn’t a tool if it had herbs on it seems pretty weak.

And can you provide me with a cite for your 99% fatality claim? Because I find that really doubtful. I won’t claim that getting an abortion was risk free - then or now - but any procedure that involved a 99% mortality was essentially murder. Hard to believe any woman, no matter how desperate, would agree to such a procedure. If her intent was suicide, there were easier ways to kill yourself.

The evidence is that using a pessary to cause an abortion must have been a relatively well known possibility. It was common enough for Hippocrates to specifically mention it. And while it had risks, it appears women figured they had a reasonable chance of surviving the procedure.

48

I’m aware of that. I specifically mentioned the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

So abortions weren’t mentioned in the Bible (including the New Testament) because they were pretty much an unknown thing. But early Christians were aware enough of abortions that they took the time to condemn the practice.

Strange that they were so worried about a practice that, according to you, didn’t exist.

49

Ancient Semitic Law didn’t consider a baby to be ‘alive’ until the first movements in the womb at 4-5 months. This predates Israel and Judah. In many Christian societies, this continued to be the case until the middle ages.

The ‘causing an abortion’ thing was also in those laws, decreeing a payment of 10 shekels of silver (a bit less than 1.5 ounces) to the mother for this. For reference, a very poor person in ancient Assyria/Akkad might earn 2 shekels per month.

Otherwise, Semitic Law didn’t cover abortion at all.

In the Roman era, the only punishment for abortion was in the case of a woman aborting the male child of the Pater Familias, or head of the extended family, in which case she was depriving him of a potential heir.

50

Not quite.

Silphium was widely used and traded in the Mediterranean area and was represented by its own glyph by ancient Egyptians and the Minoans. The last specimen was said to have been given to Emperor Nero as a curiosity, as it had been rendered extinct by that time.

51

Or it could be the delusional folks who believe that souls are an actual thing that the government should be concerning itself with.

Or a thing.

52

I do not have a soul. I have consciousness, which is a process executed by the brain, and will cease to exist when the brain ceases to function. The soul is a concept developed in a time when we had even less of an understanding of consciousness than we do now. A conscious mind has trouble conceiving that it will ever end, so we have to invent all of these life-after-death scenarios.

53

The anti-aborts I’ve talked to say that abortion wasn’t mentioned in the Bible because the idea of destroying an unborn child was so abhorrent that nobody would even think of writing or talking about it. It would never occur to them to say it shouldn’t be done because everyone knew it should be done.

54

Except that it IS mentioned in the Bible. The interpretation of the passage I quoted is controversial, MOSTLY BECAUSE TODAY, it seems abhorrent, but I think it pretty clearly describes a forced abortion of a bastard fetus.

55

(Oh, the alternative interpretation is that the bitter water kills the woman, not just the fetus. I suppose that’s arguable, but “her thigh drops away” seems awfully specific, and an awful lot like a euphemism for something.)

56

Of course life doesn’t begin at conception. Life begins approximately 3.8 billion years ago.

The real issue is people failing to realize that “life” is irrelevant. Yes, a fertilized egg is alive (and “human life”, to boot), and so is an unfertilized egg and sperm, and so is a cancer tumor. And one can envision a thing that isn’t alive, but still deserving of rights (a sufficiently-advanced artificial intelligence, for instance). Life doesn’t matter. Personhood is what matters.

57

Yes. I actually like the use of “soul”, (and “ensoulment”) even though I don’t really believe in the soul as a real thing. But I think that focuses the debate on what matters. Not “is it alive” (of course it is) but “is it the special thing we care about?”

58

Not a tool as such a sponge soaked with herbs and such. I guess you could call it a tool, but it wasn a operating instrument.

Well, frankly, they just didn’t do a abortion by any means of surgery, it was that fatal.

And I wasnt talking about the chance of a woman surviving a miscarriage brought on by a abortifacient- that was dangerous but by no means mostly fatal. I have no idea of what the % was, but it was low enough that desperate women tried it but high enuf the the Hippocratic oath forbade it. WAG-10%?

99% refers to going into the uterus by means of surgical instruments. For example, if was known that women could not survive a c-section back in those days, which is why we know Caesar wasn’t born by one: The Origins of Caesarian Section | History Cooperative

59

Well, if you’d said you were only talking about surgical abortions, and not about abortion in general, I don’t think anyone would have disagreed with you. But the political debate today encompasses all forms of abortion, and chemical abortion was well known in ancient times. Jesus could certainly have addressed it if he felt it was a major issue of the day.

60

Then what does this have to do with the topic of the thread? The question was whether people performed abortions and I was producing the evidence that showed they did. The question of whether these procedures were surgical or non-surgical has no relevance to what the rest of us were discussing.