From: cookc@aix.rpi.edu (rocker)
Subject: Re: Bible says abortion is murder? WHERE?
Distribution: na
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 04:55:05 GMT

nuge@newport.med.ge.com (James A. Nugent) writes:

>In article <5628@catnip.berkeley.ca.us> tanj@catnip.berkeley.ca.us
>(Ren and Stimpy's Love Child) writes:

>> Now, as far as I know, the only biblical reference to it is Exodus 21:22
>> (I think it's that-- I just moved and my bible is still packed) where the
>> penalty for causing a woman to miscarry is monetary compensation.  Doesn't
>> sound like murder to me.

>  It appears that they considered the unborn as "property." Of course
>to get to verse 22 you had to notice this (verse 21):

>  "If, however, [a man strikes his male or female slave witha rod and]
>  the slave survives for a day or two [before dying] he is not to be
>  punished, since the slave is his own property."

>  I think (hope) our standards of morality and "property" have evolved
>beyond the Code of the Covenant in Exodus. What do you think?

(Remember this line.)

Is this more of the "pick and choose" theology?  Lately, I've seen
quite a bit of an attitude that can be summarized as: If I agree
with the verse, it's doctrine.  If I don't agree with the verse,
it's a historical note that no longer applies.  I seem to recall
Phil Buckland doing a bit of this.

So do you believe the Bible is Divinely Inspired and inerrant?  
(This is the teaching of the churches with which I am familiar.)
If this is your belief, what qualifies an individual reader to
say "This is a pronouncement" and "This doesn't apply"?

>> My friend kept on saying, "The Church says... the Church says..."

>  Yup. Early Church teaching, the Didache Apostolicae (Teachings of
>the Apostles, ~ 100 AD) says:

>  "You shall not kill the fetus by abortion, or destroy the infant
>  already born."

I think (hope) our standards of morality and "property" have evolved
beyond the Didache Apostolicae. What do you think? 

In other words, a paragraph or two earlier in this article you
dismissed a clear Biblical statement with the equivalent of "No
longer applies".  Then you cite a historical precedent from ~1900
years ago in support of your position.  Aren't we equally justified
in saying "No longer applies" to things you agree with as well?

And I'm sure you're aware that many Christian churches do not accept
the Didache as being divinely inspired.  Some, I believe, even consider
it heretical.  Since you dismissed a _Biblical_ historical precedent,
what gives this any weight at all?

Maybe they were just wrong.

>> but that shouldn't play for fundamentalists.  Where's the biblical
>> precedent?  

>   Got me. I don't consider myself a fundamentalist.

There simply is no Biblical precedent specific to abortion.  I've
looked.

      [thingies deleted]

>> And "Before I formed thee in the womb I knew thee" is an argument
>> for personhood *before* conception, which most pro-lifers would
>> disavow (I hope!)

>  This doesn't seem to refer to human or bodily form (which would have
>to be _after_ "I formed thee"), but to a another entitiy, i.e. a
>spirit, or even an _idea_ in God's mind.

Indeed.  And hearkening back to the principle of Divine Omniscience,
God would know a pregnancy would be aborted before sperm ever met egg.

>Jim Nugent

                          -rocker
Newsgroups: talk.abortion