Can a Catholic be Pro-Choice?
By: Justin Apollonius
Tags: Abortion, Catholicism, Catholic, Apologetics, Pro Life

Sacred Scripture and Abortion

In this first part, I will put forward a study on what Sacred Scripture has to say about abortion and how Christians ought to react to abortion. I have put the article in such a way because I know that some Christians don’t accept the magisterium as an authoritative source.

As Christians, we know that life begins at conception. Consider this verse: Job 31:15 “Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?” who is this “us” Job is talking about? It is undoubtedly referring to alive human beings who were once within their mother’s womb.

There are many verses such as Psalms 22:9–10, Psalms 139:13–16, Isaiah 44:2, Isaiah 49:5, Isaiah 46:3–4, Jeremiah 1:4–5, Luke 1:41, which show that the ZEF (Zygote, Embryo, Fetus) is an alive human being. Since Catholics and other Christians alike ought to follow what the bible says, it follows that we should support the fact that ZEF’s are alive human beings.

Now we know that the ZEF’s human beings, it follows that they have the same right to live as born human beings. Let us now see what the Bible has to say about killing innocent people. Many verses can be cited to show that the murder of innocent people is wrong. Consider this verse:

“There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood” — Proverbs 6:16–19:

This verse can be applied to mothers that seek abortion and to abortionists alike. Many other verses can be cited to show that the killing of an innocent person is wrong (Exodus 23:7, Exodus 20:13, Matthew 5:21:22, Romans 13:9)

Scripture also calls us to support the pro-life position/causes. There are few Christians who say, “I’m pro-life for myself but not for others,” but this is not only a foolish thing to say (because that’s like saying “I’m against murder, but I don’t mind if others do it”) it is also against what scripture says. For it is written that we ought to “Defend the weak and the fatherless.” (Psalms 82:3–4) and “Rescue those being led away to death” (Proverbs 24:11) — as Christians, we all are obligated to support the pro-life position and try our best to stop women from killing their children.

Now let us address the claim that the Bible supports abortion in Numbers 5:11–31. If we examine the following verse, we see that there is no hint of pregnancy, and most translations don’t translate the latter part of the verse as “miscarriage” (Translations that don’t translate it in this way would be: RSV, ASV, NKJV, NLT, AMP and many others).

The word used there is “בְּֽמֵעַיִךְ” (Root “מֵעֶה”) which means “bowels” or “intestines” and can also be translated as “the belly.” All this verse implies that if the woman had committed adultery, she would become infertile. Because if we read the whole passage in the light of verse 27 and 28, we see the following:

“And when he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has acted unfaithfully against her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her body shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become an execration among her people. But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children.” — Numbers 5:27–28

Verse 28 talks about how if the woman has not committed adultery she will be able to conceive, if this verse were talking about a miscarriage, then it would say something along the lines of “she will be able to give birth,” but it doesn’t.

Another source to see this fact would be the “The Protevangelium of James.” Though this is an Apocrypha and is not authoritative as scripture, it gives us insight into how this verse was understood in the second century. Consider the following section: “And the priest said: Give up the virgin whom thou didst receive out of the temple of the Lord. And Joseph burst into tears. And the priest said: I will give you to drink of the water of the ordeal of the Lord, and He shall make manifest your sins in your eyes. And the priest took the water, and gave Joseph to drink and sent him away to the hill-country, and he returned unhurt. And he gave to Mary also to drink, and sent her away to the hill-country, and she returned unhurt.” — The Apocrypha talks about how Mary returned “unhurt” and not “without a child.”

Now we have seen that the Holy Bible agrees upon three main things and that is:

1) Human life begins a conception;

2) killing an innocent human being is wrong;

3) we ought to help in pro-life causes.

It is evident through this that the Holy Bible is against abortion. We, as Christians, have to take the Bible as the authentic word of God, so disobeying this is disobeying the word of God. We can already see the problem with “Catholics for choice.”