Survey: Majority of Americans Still Want to Keep Abortions Legal

Brother Billy »

Tue Nov 13, 2007 9:58 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

To GMG re Ifeelfine and Exodus 21

I'm new here, via a link to this story. I know another passage besides the Exodus one, so I'll just jump right in.

Exodus 21:22-23 tells of a pregnant woman being injured as a bystander in a fight between two men. The Jewish and the standard Christian rendering and understanding of the passage is that if she miscarries and the fetus dies, a fine is owed to her husband. But if she is injured or dies, the "lex talionis"/eye-for-an-eye and life-for-a-life standard applies (although in Jewish practice that was evidently dealt with fines that increased with the severity of the damage). In the first case, it was a civil matter. The fetus was not considered a person. In the second case, it was a criminal matter since the woman is a person.

Numbers 5:11-21 is perhaps more startling. A jealous husband's test of his wife's possible infidelity is to take her to a priest and have him give her what appears to be an abortifacient. If it has no effect, she's chaste and she will be able to conceive in the future. If she has been unfaithful, the drink "will cause bitter pain, and her womb will discharge, her uterus drop..." and she evidently will be barren thereafter, under a curse and execrated by the people. If she happened to be pregnant by her lover (or by her husband), she would abort. So here it seems that abortion is ok at least for that time and place.

Translation is always a problem. The Hebrew is often terse and idiomatic and difficult. There is room for disagreement. But these passages certainly raise questions.