God is an abortionist

The following text was recently submitted as an ad to several conservative college newspapers. The idea was to challenge David Horowitz's charges that many traditionally liberal college newspapers are guilty of censorship for refusing to run his ads against reparations for slavery... or at least to show that traditionally conservative school papers are equally guilty given proper provocation. It actually made it in to 1 (the Hillsdale College Collegian) of the 11 (9%) targeted papers, compared to Horowitz's 14 of 48 (29%). Since the author, David Mazel, was paying money to have this seen, I hope it's not destructively violating copyright to air it here, since the argument's rather clever. (Several of my friends have pointed out that the Bible verses used are taken completely out of context -- I haven't personally checked to see how reading the surrounding verses would affect interpretation on each. I was amused nonetheless.)

According to the Holy Bible abortion is not murder.

THERE ARE ONLY TWO passages in the Bible that speak directly to the issue of abortion, and both indicate unequivocally that abortion is not murder:

* In Ex. 21:22-25, God tells us what to do if a man who is brawling knocks against a pregnant woman. If the woman dies, the principle of "life for life" is invoked and the man responsible for her death must be killed. If she lives but has a miscarriage, then the death of the fetus is to be compensated for by the payment of a fine, as demanded by the woman's husband.

Thus has God revealed the status of the unborn fetus: it is not an independent, full-fledged human life, whose destruction amounts to murder. It is a thing owned by the woman's husband-a thing whose loss, like that of any other thing, may be compensated for with money.

* In Num. 5:11-31, God commands a husband to get an abortion for his wife if he suspects she has been impregnated by another man. A priest is to make her drink a potion and tell her, "If any man other than your husband has had intercourse with you, may the LORD make an example of you . . . by bringing upon you miscarriage and untimely birth."

To deliberately cause a miscarriage is to perform an abortion. And who brings about this miscarriage? Who performs this abortion? It is the LORD who does so. God is an abortionist.

THOSE INTENT ON MISCONSTRUING the Bible for political ends will no doubt persist in denying the facts. But it is time for these anti-abortion zealots to admit that their position contradicts God's moral law as revealed in the Bible. They should stop misrepresenting the biblical truth.

In fact, God is an abortionist.

* For further information contact Americans for Biblical Truth at bibletruth1@hotmail.com *

text found at http://www.angelfire.com/co/eveningsun/biblead1.html

Rhetoric aside (of which there is plenty, yeeeesh), the Talmud mentions on numerous occasions (Hulin 58a, Yevamot 69b, Mishna Oholot 7:6) that a fetus is not human at conception. It is nothing save water for forty days, and does not become anything other than a part of the mother's body until birth.

That having been said, the Old Testament is notoriously vague on the subject - although it is a well documented fact that primitive abortionists did exist during the time period and were accepted members of the community.

The New Testament, to my knowledge, ignores the subject of abortion entirely. The issue certainly doesn't concern Jesus, and there's little to suggest there was a question about the legitimacy of the practice. Later still St. Augustine is more than happy to accept the 40 day rule...

Anti-Abortion policies on the part of the Catholic Church or any Christian entity come not until very late in the game. As some might have it, it's the microscope that brings this revelation about - when it revealed an invisible world of minature humans swimming about and having lots of fun.

...That having been said... as far as the idea of someone's anti-abortion position violating God's Moral Law goes, Mazel is either trolling, or on crack. There is a very real and tangible difference between abortion not being murder and what he's claiming. I'd recommend a good, healthy dose of irony to make him realize that responding to absolutism with absolutism will get you absolutely nowhere in this world...