Two weeks ago, an anti-abortion extremist invaded the waiting room of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization in Jackson, Mississippi - the only abortion provider in the entire state of Mississippi.

The Feminist Majority Foundation’s legal coordinator traveled to Jackson to discuss ways to improve security, to assess legal needs and to devise new ways for the local community to support the facility. 

Now they’re asking pro-choicers around the country to make an emergency, tax-deductable contribution to keep the organization open and its patients, doctors and staff safe.

To donate, please click here.

One characteristic of many anti-choice images and posts on the internet is that they reference God or one’s religion as a reason for them being “pro-life”. God made everybody special and unique, what are we to deem God’s creations unworthy and abort them?

This brings one question into the picture then, does the bible support the pro-life stance?

The answer? A vague not really. 

The first thing to examine is does the bible straight out denounce abortion. With many issues, such as homosexuality, there are bible verses which will straight out ban or denounce such things. However, when it comes to abortion, there are no such bible verses.

So, what does the bible have to say about abortion or the value of fetuses. Quite a lot actually, but not in the way most pro-life people would assume the bible would.

First off, the bible, in Exodus 21:22-23 states that a fetus is not to be valued as equal to that of a human who has been born. 

This is further reinforced by Leviticus 27:6 and Number 3:15-16 in which God places no value on fetuses, instead, counting an individual as a child from the moment they become more than a month old (This is, because of the much less developed medical situations, speculated to be due to the fact that children under a month old were extremely vulnerable, and thus had a much higher mortality rate than current times).

Not only that, God sometimes approves of killing fetuses (Numbers 31:15-17, Hosea 9:14-16, Hosea 13:16) while also describing, in the bible, how to induce an abortion in a women who has been unfaithful to her husband (Numbers 5:11-31).

The most damaging verse to the pro-life argument that a sacred fetus should not have to die due to its mother’s choice though, is Genesis 38:24, where God approves of burning a pregnant adulteress, therefore demonstrating that a fetus is not a separate entity from its mother’s choice. 

So, how do priests and people who pour over the bible daily still claim that abortion is wrong?

The Sixth Commandment, Thou shalt not kill. Personhood is irrelevant, as a zygote or a fetus is life of human genetics, and therefore it is a sin to kill it.

Right?

Right?

Nope. 

The Sixth Commandment is actually one of those things which has been lost in translation and so the original nuance of the verse has actually been changed when the script went from Hebrew, was translated various times, and you read it in English.

So what did the Sixth Commandment ACTUALLY say?

It actually does say, roughly, Thou shalt not kill, but the keyword here is kill. When we trace the word back to the Hebrew manuscripts, the word is RASACH, or translating to roughly murder, or an illegal killing judged harmful to society, by society. How does this differ with the Sixth Commandment which most people know? The first one is an absolute denouncement of all killing, the original one is a subjective denunciation of killing which is harmful to society.

Even within the bible, God orders the people of Israel to kill other people, and this is not a violation of the Sixth Commandment because it was not deemed harmful to society (1 Samuel 15:3).

So what does this difference make to the pro/anti-choice debate?

Because fetuses are not considered people, an abortion can not be considered a murder, and therefore is not in violation of the Sixth Commandment. 

Not only that, if we are the descendants of Adam, as the bible claims, then God creates us in his image as he created Adam. The creation story of Adam is that his full form was created from dust of the ground, and only then was he given a soul. If we are to take this as a parable, or as an analogy of the birth of a child, then we can easily claim that the only fetuses who have souls are those which are passed the 8 months mark when all their physical organs and structures are fully formed and the fetuses begin to show signs of sentience.

So in conclusion, based solely on biblical evidence, no pro-life person can claim that having an abortion is a sin, nor can they claim that the bible says that abortion is wrong, evil, or murder. 

Here’s the thing, all you people who believe that abortion is murder.

That’s your opinion.

Other people have different opinions.

And given that this is all taking place inside a living, autonomous, sovereign human being’s body, that human being’s opinion is the one that matters.

Once a fetus is born, it’s a separate entity, and society’s laws apply. But as long as it’s physically connected to another’s body, living off of that person’s body, that person is not obligated to support it.

We don’t legally require people to donate organs to save the lives of those in need of them, either. You may think it’s a good idea, but to legally require such a thing - the subordination of one body to support another - is to say that one person is intrinsically worth more than another, and that is at odds with fundamental human rights.