The Bible Says More About Unicorns Than Fetuses -- Maybe Anti-Choice Christians Should Take a Closer

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http://www.alternet.org/bible-says-more-about-unicorns-fetuses-maybe-anti-choice-christians-should-take-closer-read



I learned a dirty little secret in Bible college: It is easier to prove the existence of unicorns by using the Bible than it is to establish the personhood of a fetus. In fact, it is so hard to make a case against abortion using Christian scripture that for decades most Evangelicals did not even try. Instead, their leaders were silent on the issue or told their followers that abortion was part of the larger feminist agenda to destroy families.

Everything that the Bible has to say about fetuses is contained in the hyperlinks in this paragraph. There are five religious leaders who are said to have been chosen by God for a specific role or developed a relationship with the divine before they were born including John the Baptist , the Apostle Paul, Jeremiah, Sampson, and King David . And there are four passages of poetry in which God is described as entering a woman’s uterus to make or form a fetus by knitting it together or by curdling it like cheese . Finally, there is single law regarding the accidental injury or death of a fetus.

The law mentioned above makes it particularly hard to say that the Bible supports fetal personhood. It is contained in the amazingly comprehensive legal code for the ancient nation of Israel found in the first five books of the Bible. These laws cover just about every aspect of living in a society from regulations for human waste management to the penalty for knocking out a slave’s tooth. Yet this legal code, which is excruciatingly clear about all matters related to sex and reproduction, gives only one highly specific situation in which the law should become involved in the injury or death of a fetus: If a woman miscarries because she is accidentally hit by a brawling man other than her husband.

The single law regarding fetal injury or death requires that the man who accidentally struck the woman must pay whatever damages the court sets as long there is no lasting injury. But if “mischief follows,” the law required that whatever the injured party suffered the injuring party must be dealt by society.