[Vision2020] Abortion and the Bible

[keely emerinemix]

I believe the Biblical passages Nick cites (Psalm 139, Jeremiah 1:5) speak 
much more to the omniscience of God -- the facet of His existence "outside 
of time" that gives Him complete and unassailable foreknowledge about items 
we finitely categorize into past, present, and future -- and not to the 
personhood of the fetus. The rhetorical construction of these passages, as 
well as their context, make clear two things.

The first is to portray the omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent Hebrew 
God as ontologically possessing not only those traits, but a relational 
aspect to His (non-gendered) being that we can only call "personal."  The 
second is that the objects -- persons -- to whom God speaks are capable, as 
persons, of reciprocating that relational quality.  I agree with my friend 
Nick that Christianity has historically rejected the pre-existence of the 
soul, but I don't believe that either passage refers to that; I read them as 
rhetorical devices that demonstrate a "timeless foreknowledge" of this 
omniscient God, a knowledge -- even familiarity -- that exists "out of 
time."  As time-bound human beings, we understand these things much more 
readily in illustration rather than in concept, and that is why the 
reference is to "before you were born."

I am obviously not nearly the scholar that Nick and others on this list are, 
and I identify with the "seamless garment" tradition that holds all life 
dear, before birth and throughout life -- a position that compels me to 
condemn both abortion and capital punishment, as well as any other policy 
that perpetuates the oppression of living beings.  Being "anti-abortion" is 
often equated with being "pro-life," and I think that's too generous, 
frankly -- just as I think "pro-choice" is unfairly reckoned as a position 
nobly devoted to justice and freedom while in reality obscuring the problem 
of abortion.  And while I believe the fetus has a soul, is a person, and is 
known by a personal God, I have a hard time arguing for the full legal 
personhood of the first- or second-trimester fetus, as some have argued.  
Moreover, I do not believe that the woman who aborts has committed murder, 
which, by definition, is a legal descriptor that implies motive -- in the 
same way we call other homicides "manslaughter" of various types.  The 
outcome is the same -- a person dies -- but the legal system, and certainly 
most of us, recognize that the difference is predicated on factors other 
than the end result.  I know many women who have had elective abortions; not 
one made the decision, as they've described it, with the view that they 
wanted to kill another human being.   They were desperate, perhaps unaware; 
they were not murderers.

There is, I suppose, a lapse in logic in my unwillingness to have the State 
confer legal personhood status on the first- and second-trimester fetus.  
After all, if I believe the product of conception to be fully human, I can't 
logically hold to a "greater" humanity at 36 weeks than at 16.  My 
hesitation, though, in granting legal personhood, with all of the civil 
rights thereof, to a first- and second-term fetus is because I fear granting 
the State the power to investigate and adjudicate the most intimate areas, 
physically and legally, of a woman's life.  When I miscarried in 1990 after 
minor surgery, I was unaware that I had been pregnant, and I was honestly 
more concerned about my other health problem than I was about having 
spontaneously aborted.  A difficult time would have been made unbearable if 
my doctor had had to report to the State that I had miscarried, resulting in 
the strong likelihood of a judicial process centered on areas it was and is 
unqualified to judge.  That's why I occupy a really lonely place in the 
argument:  the pro-lifer who thinks the fetus is human, which lands me on 
the conservative side of the scale, and who strives to be consistently 
pro-life, placing me more on the liberal side of the continuum -- and who 
is, nonetheless, uncomfortable with the idea of laws that could potentially 
speak to circumstances of which a woman is unaware, or that place her in a 
desperate position that law can barely hope to address with justice, much 
less compassion.  (For the record, I would no more dream of enforcing 
pregnancy on a woman who's been victimized by rape or incest than I would of 
holding a parade in honor of the assailant).

So now both Nick and Tony are probably glad that I've given them grounds to 
disown me from their respective camps . . .

keely




From: <nickgier at adelphia.net>
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Abortion and the Bible
Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 14:51:55 -0800

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

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