Tag Archives: Abortion

BIBLE, BIBLE QUESTIONS, EXODUS

DOES EXODUS 21 ALLOW FOR ABORTION? — BOB PRICHARD

No. Exodus 21 is sometimes cited as evidence that the Bible allows for abortion. Some say that Exodus 21 allows for abortion because it suggests that the life of the unborn child is of less value than the life of the mother. This passage deals with accidental injury to a pregnant woman, while abortion is the intentional killing of an unborn child. Exodus 21 actually teaches that the life of the mother and child are both protected by God’s laws.

Here is what Exodus 21:22-25 says: “If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

Simply put, what the passage describes is a situation where men are fighting and during the fighting injure a pregnant woman [possibly an innocent bystander or one intervening to stop the fight]. If “her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow,” the man is fined, but “if any mischief follow,” then the more severe “life for life, eye for eye” punishment follows.

Some teach that “her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow” means that the mother has a miscarriage, and loses the child, which is punished with a fine. While “if any mischief follow” means that the woman herself dies or is severely injured. This explanation is not true to the text, or reason. Miscarriage is extremely traumatic to any mother.

What “her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow,” refers to is a premature birth, in which neither the mother or child suffers serious injury. How could the death of an unborn child be considered “no mischief”? The fine was imposed because of the threat to the life of the mother and child caused by the negligence of the fighting men. Some modern translators have inserted the word “miscarriage” in verse 22, the Hebrew word used in the text means birth, not miscarriage. [There is a different word for Hebrew word for miscarriage, which Moses used in Exodus 23:26, translated “cast their young” in the KJV]. Notice the clear meaning in the NIV: “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she give birth prematurely, but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows” (Exodus 21:22).

The phrase “if any mischief follow” (Exodus 21:23) does not make any distinction between the mother and the unborn child. The “life for life, eye for eye” law applied equally. In fact, if any distinction is being made between the mother and the child, the more natural understanding is that “if any mischief follow” applies more directly to the child than the mother, because the focus of the passage is on what happens when “the fruit” departs from the mother. Significantly, the law of Exodus 21:22-25 applied as harshly to the accidental death or injury of the unborn child as it does to the intentional death or injury of any other innocent person. Exodus 21 upholds the value of innocent life. Abortion destroys innocent life.

CHRISTIAN LIVING

WHERE WILL WE BE IN 2040? — BOB PRICHARD

(Note: Originally written in 2006)

Peter Singer is a professor of ethics at Princeton University. He is well known for supporting euthanasia and infanticide and many other controversial practices. He made a prediction about the future of public opinion in the September-October issue of Foreign Policy. He forecast that by 2040, “only a rump of hard-core, know-nothing religious fundamentalists will defend the view that every human life, from conception to death, is sacrosanct.”

Marvin Olasky, editor in chief of World magazine challenged Dr. Singer, as to whether his support for killing the very young (not just abortion, but killing unwanted young children) or the terminally ill, was not like the Nazi programs. Singer, who had three grandparents killed by the Nazis, said in Writings on an Ethical Life that the Nazi program was racially biased and designed to eliminate “social ballast” and “useless mouths,” while the euthanasia he advocates is a free choice of ill adults who want to die, or by parents who believe that their disabled children are better off dead.

Olasky points out that “The two positions are different, but they have a common denominator: It’s OK to kill socially inconvenient people. Hitler said the government should decide who’s convenient (sic) and Mr. Singer wants individuals to decide, but the slope is slippery. Already we’re seeing government hospitals ceasing to treat the elderly or ill unless someone objects loudly. When health care is government-paid, demands for ‘cost containment’ by euthanasia will grow” (World, October 29, 2005).

What about Singer’s projection? What will people think in 2040? Will we let the truth ring out? Will we be the only ones left in 2040 who will stand up for the value of all life? “Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked” (Exodus 23:7). We as Christians need to be vocal in supporting life.

CHRISTIAN LIVING

CHANGE THE PAST/CHANGE THE FUTURE — BOB PRICHARD

I enjoy movies and TV shows where time travel allows people to go back and change the past. The idea of going back in time to change or correct the past has always appealed to me, because when the past is changed it also changes the future. History is changed: some never live who would have lived otherwise, and others who before met untimely early deaths, now live. The changes are not always predictable. 

Think how our world might be different if an Adolph Hitler never lived—or for that matter, a Winston Churchill never lived. What if Jonas Salk had never lived to create his polio vaccine?

The song, “What was I meant to be?” deals with this issue. In the song, aborted children around the throne of God ask Him, “What was I meant to be?” before they were killed by abortion. Perhaps there was another Marshall Keeble to share the gospel, or another Jonas Salk to cure cancer. Surely those millions of children were meant to be something. God told Jeremiah,  “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5). How the world would have been different, for the worse, if Jeremiah’s mother had aborted him!

Although the only time we have is the present, we must realize that our present is quickly becoming the past, and our past/present changes the future, for good or bad. 

John 4 describes Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at the well outside the Samaritan village of Sychar. His discussion of the living water He wanted to give her, led to faith not only in her heart, but practically the whole village. They were so excited by what He taught that they begged Jesus to tarry, and he stayed two days with them. Think how different the future was for the people of that village. Luke tells of an incident at another Samaritan village, “And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.” James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven to consume them, but Jesus rebuked them,  “For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village” (Luke 9:53, 56). Think how the future of that village did not change.

My choices today of what I do, and what I do not do, has a tremendous effect on my future.  “For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ…So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (2 Corinthians 5:10, 12).