[Vision2020] Abortion and the Bible

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Greetings:

A note to the list before I begin: if you aren't interested in this topic, simply delete the message.

Thanks again to Ralph Nielsen for quoting the only biblical passage (Ex. 21:22ff.) that speaks directly to abortion.  It is important to note that the early Church Fathers believed that the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible was divinely inspired, and the Greek translation of this passage made a distinction between a "formed" and "unformed" fetus, with only the formed fetus being protected from abortion.  

Using the Greek philosopher Aristotle's totally inaccurate science, the good fathers determined that the male fetus was formed at 40 days, but the poor little female fetus had to wait another 40-50 days.  Aristotle also thought that women had one less tooth than men!  It never occurred to him to open a woman's mouth to count her teeth!

For English Common Law being "formed in the womb" became "quickening in the womb," which was accepted as a standard line beyond which abortions were banned.  One might ask the obvious question: how does movement in the womb constitute a moral criterion?  Animal fetuses move in their mothers' wombs, so this does make a moral difference between animals and persons.  This is why in the 17th Century Sir Edward Coke wisely attempted to return to the rationality criterion, which had defined human personhood from Aristotle to the Christians Boethius and Aquinas.  

As I have argued there are no brain waves significantly different from animal brain waves until the 25th week of fetal development, the beginning of the third trimester where our law now draws the line.  For more see www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/abortion.htm.

As I have mentioned on this list before, this traditional criterion opens up the possibility of whale, dolphin, and ape persons and I believe that we should support the logic of that proposition. There is now a Seattle organization, inspired by "talking" chimps, that is very serious about extending personhood to apes, but not their "unformed" fetuses.

If you are still reading, let us take a look at two other biblical passages.

"Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you" (Jer. 1:5).

 "Thou knowest me right well; my frame was not hidden from thee when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth. Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance ("golem"); in thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me" (Ps. 139: 15-16).

These are interesting passages but difficult to interpret. They also contain both logical problems and implications that a great majority of Christians would not want to accept. Orthodox Christianity has rejected the idea of the preexistence of the soul implied in both of these verses; and it is difficult to conceive of how even a divine mind could know something before it exists or know it as a possible existent. The passage from the Psalms maintains that the soul is formed in "the depths of the earth," which is a poetic phrase for Sheol, the Hebrew Hell from which all souls come and to which all souls return. No orthodox Christian would want to accept this old Hebrew version of the creation of souls.

In the Jewish tradition "golem" was not taken as a person at all; indeed, it was viewed as a being without a soul, an "unformed" fetus.  In the Middle Ages a legend arose about an giant called a Golem that two Czech rabbis made out of river clay.   They were presumably able to make the huge body live by reciting Kabbalistic chants over it.  Jews in the Prague ghetto were able to protect themselves by having the Golem fight against Christians who attacked the ghetto on a regular basis. There was also the early silent film The Golem that stars a soulless monster bent on destruction. It is obvious that the Jewish meaning of golem is not compatible with the traditional definition of a person.

Yours for sound theology,

Nick Gier