promoting abortion (defined as...) = excommunication from The Roman C Church

Erose said:

Can you show this from Scripture? If you can please do.

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This is the only passage that I think I can find that might speak directly to what we call an abortion. The set up is that if a man suspects his wife has been unfaithful to him and has become pregnant with another man's child, he can have her drink a potion made from large amounts of rue--this moldy dust underneath tabernacle--which is an abortifacient.

Numbers 5:17-28

17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse —“may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it. ”
23 “‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.


This is clearly a potion made by a priest to induce an abortion in a woman. How disgusting, but there you have it. I hate that I had to look this up.

Some further instances:


The people of Samaria must bear the consequences of their guilt because they rebelled against their God. They will be killed by an invading army, their little ones dashed to death against the ground, their pregnant women ripped open by swords. (Hosea 13:16)

The attacking armies will shoot down the young men with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for children. (Isaiah 13:18)

At that time Menahem, starting out from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and everyone in the city and its vicinity, because they refused to open their gates. He sacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women. (2 Kings 15:16)

Blackwater Babe said:

Exodus 21:22-24 is the big one, where a punishment for abortion is outlined, and it is noteably different to the punishment for murder. Therefore, the Bible does not say abortion is murder, QED.

But here are some other ones where the Bible talks about abortion and infanticide as though its all quite reasonable.

Hosea 9:11-16 Numbers 5:11-21, Numbers 31:17 Hosea 13:16 2 Kings 15:16 1 Samuel 15:3 Psalms 135:8 & 136:10 Psalms 137:9 Leviticus 20:9 2 Kings 6:28-29 Deuteronomy 21:18-21 Judges 19:24-29 Exodus 12:29 Exodus 20:9-10 2 Kings 2:23-24 Leviticus 26:301 Samuel 15:11-18 I Kings 16:34 Isaiah 13:15-18 Jeremiah 11:22-23 Jeremiah 19:7-9 Lamentations 2:20-22

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And were we Scripture alone or literalistic in our faith that would be an issue. But we are not, and God does not ask us to be.

God slowly grew the morality of fallen humanity to the point where their hearts were ready to accept Christ. This involved allowing some brutal aspects of ancient warfare and brutality to enemies (which is what most of the above quotes deal with). This was allowed for some reasons we can guess and some we can not. The larger discussion of that whole issue is a separate matter. But the basic fact is God evolved the understanding of morality and was permissive with some things as He helped to groom and condition humanity to accept the full Revelation of His Truth.

The Church speaks against this kind of thing today and defines them as atrocities. And does so with the Authority God has given Her.

God did not expect people to understand full realization of His Love until they were ready. So He allowed things that today would not be allowed; all as people were prepared for the full Truth of Revelation. That Revelation has come and ended with Christ, the completion of Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Now it is about accepting it. And part of accepting it that abortion is wrong and a great offense to the dignity of life. So it is perfectly fine to say God's Law is against Abortion since we follow the perfection of that law. I am not saying the Old Testament is less inspired or worthless. Far from it. But as a manual for acceptable warfare, full legal and full social behavior it is not meant to be an instruction manual.

God's Law, when used by Catholics and Orthodox, has a far larger and more complete context than the Old Testament.

I am not saying you disagree with this. I am just explaining it for those who would have a difficult time reconciling those verses.

Blackwater Babe said:

So call it a sin then, and avoid looking like you're implying something has all the conotations of a secular legal term, i.e. murder.

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'Murder' is not a term limited to the secular 'world'.

ivebeenshown said:

'Murder' is not a term limited to the secular 'world'.

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But they don't generally consider abortion to be murder and whilst the difference to Catholics is merely lexical, the dialogue might improve if we used less confusing terminology.

Antigone said:

But they don't generally consider abortion to be murder and whilst the difference to Catholics is merely lexical, the dialogue might improve if we used less confusing terminology.

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I think that's what this whole brouhaha is about. To BB's pov, and I think I agree, calling abortion "murder" would be counterproductive.

Catholic: Abortion is murder!
Other Guy: Can't be, it's legal.
Catholic: Well it's against God's law.
OG: I don't recognize your God (or your interpretation of His teachings), so there.

That kind of ends the discussion, or at least challenges it. A better start might be "Abortion is killing!", as while some might oppose it, it is pretty easy to prove.

Blackwater Babe said:

You're on a losing horse there buddy. Not even the church calls abortion "murder". When talking about laws and legality, unless otherwise stated, its understood you're talking about secular law.

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Actually I would disagree with that. The Church does call it murder and when it comes to legality as you call it natural law trumps civil law. Believing otherwise is claiming that government is above natural law, which as a Catholic is unacceptable.

Blackwater Babe said:

Exodus 21:22-24 is the big one, where a punishment for abortion is outlined, and it is noteably different to the punishment for murder. Therefore, the Bible does not say abortion is murder, QED.

But here are some other ones where the Bible talks about abortion and infanticide as though its all quite reasonable.

Hosea 9:11-16 Numbers 5:11-21, Numbers 31:17 Hosea 13:16 2 Kings 15:16 1 Samuel 15:3 Psalms 135:8 & 136:10 Psalms 137:9 Leviticus 20:9 2 Kings 6:28-29 Deuteronomy 21:18-21 Judges 19:24-29 Exodus 12:29 Exodus 20:9-10 2 Kings 2:23-24 Leviticus 26:301 Samuel 15:11-18 I Kings 16:34 Isaiah 13:15-18 Jeremiah 11:22-23 Jeremiah 19:7-9 Lamentations 2:20-22

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Have you actually read these passages or did you just pull them from a website? None of these passages speaks of abortion. None of them. Granted they speak of a child loosing their life and in some even that isn't discussed especially in the passages from Hosea.

FrancesJames09 said:

This is the only passage that I think I can find that might speak directly to what we call an abortion. The set up is that if a man suspects his wife has been unfaithful to him and has become pregnant with another man's child, he can have her drink a potion made from large amounts of rue--this moldy dust underneath tabernacle--which is an abortifacient.

Numbers 5:17-28

17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse —“may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it. ”
23 “‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.


This is clearly a potion made by a priest to induce an abortion in a woman. How disgusting, but there you have it. I hate that I had to look this up.

Some further instances:


The people of Samaria must bear the consequences of their guilt because they rebelled against their God. They will be killed by an invading army, their little ones dashed to death against the ground, their pregnant women ripped open by swords. (Hosea 13:16)

The attacking armies will shoot down the young men with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for children. (Isaiah 13:18)

At that time Menahem, starting out from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and everyone in the city and its vicinity, because they refused to open their gates. He sacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women. (2 Kings 15:16)

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Man did you really read this? It was a belief that using this potion would place upon the woman the judgement of God. It was not a deliberate attempt to abort the child, but rather place the woman under God's judgement.

Antigone said:

But they don't generally consider abortion to be murder and whilst the difference to Catholics is merely lexical, the dialogue might improve if we used less confusing terminology.

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I agree in discussion with pro-abortion people and women who have had abortions, we must speak differently than when we are discussing this as a ethical question and also I think it is beneficial for pro-life people to have a full understanding of what they are trying to stop. Sugar coating does not always work.

Erose said:

Have you actually read these passages or did you just pull them from a website? None of these passages speaks of abortion. None of them. Granted they speak of a child loosing their life and in some even that isn't discussed especially in the passages from Hosea.

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Way to miss the point. Yes, I read them.

I personally don't believe the word murder means the illegal killing of a person. To me it means taking someone's life who was not attacking you or was about to kill you or someone else. Someone who ain't did you nothin and you just come along and whack him... or her.

so to me it's murder... and I don't much care what the law says. Its murder. Its legalized murder in reality. That really is what it is... legalized, state sanctioned murder.

Actually you are not excommunicated unless the intent is to support abortion willfully and then there are other things that need to be examined. The automatic penalty is not applied to voting because it does not apply to remote material cooperation, only proximate formal cooperation.

The automatic penalty is for formal cooperation not material cooperation. I learned this at every level of Catholic education studying moral theology and canon law.

Now, we still should not vote for a pro-choice candidate and make aboriton one issue among many. But the automatic penalty does not apply to a voter.

I have seen some argue this but the overwhelming canon law and moral theology opinion is that it is not subject to the automatic penalty because it is not formal cooperation.

Also there are canons that apply that also would make a voter not open to the automatic penalty.

Again...we should not vote in a way that aids the genocide of abortion in any way. But it is not an automatic excommunication under the canons to vote that way.

With a vote, ours or a politician the idea of cooperation comes into play with elements of formal, immediate, material and all that stuff.

Things need to be assessed as to, are they:

• Formal (shares intention to do evil) or Material (Does not share)

• Immediate (direct) or Mediate (indirect)

• Remote or Proximate (actual relation in sequence of events or intrinsic connection to the act.)

• Active (helping to happen) or Passive (allowing to happen)

Formal is always illicit.

Immediate Material is illicit if it takes a human life (depending on double effect considerations)

Mediate Material has factors to consider like proportionate reason

The Vatican gave a good summary in this document (about vaccines made from fetuses) under the section: The principle of licit cooperation in evil

It is a good start on the concepts of degrees of cooperation. But the automatic excommunication is only for formal cooperation that shares intent.

Erose said:

Man did you really read this? It was a belief that using this potion would place upon the woman the judgement of God. It was not a deliberate attempt to abort the child, but rather place the woman under God's judgement.

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Yes, I did read it, and it's clearly an attempt to to cause an abortion. In the same way that I take a medicine and it can be said that God healed me, this passage is saying that this woman is taking a potion and God is aborting her child.

If the potion weren't a crucial part of the whole thing, God would have just not let her conceive in the first place. It's clearly an attempt to abort the child, but I guess I can see how there could be a certain "not knowing" whether this potion would abort the child or not--however I'm certain priests as well as doctors at the time would have well-known what rue-dust had the ability to do to a pregnant woman.

I don't drink bleach and then say, "If I die, it's God's judgement that I die." Although, if I'm stupid enough to drink bleach or any other kind of poison and take my chances it might well be God's judgement that I die.

The comparison that I'm drawing here is between the known consequences of drinking poisonous things that have known consequences.

truthHurts77 said:

this is not true an i dont know y say so when u r supposed 2b catholic

votin for a pro abortion candidate is promoting abortion and incurs a latae sententae excommunication

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Is this really the sort of response you're going to offer to a post which was obviously, whether correct or not (and it was correct, as best I can tell), well thought out and included a link to a Church website for further study?


I'd also add that if voting for a pro-abort is always an excommunicable offense, then voting for the Romney/Ryan ticket must then be excommunicable, as they just yesterday reitterated their support for the woman's right to choose an abortion in cases of rape, incest, or grave health concerns (which in all cases I'm aware of have been so broadly-defined in practicality as to not matter at all).

MikeK said:

Is this really the sort of response you're going to offer to a post which was obviously, whether correct or not (and it was correct, as best I can tell), well thought out and included a link to a Church website for further study?

I'd also add that if voting for a pro-abort is always an excommunicable offense, then voting for the Romney/Ryan ticket must then be excommunicable, as they just yesterday reitterated their support for the woman's right to choose an abortion in cases of rape, incest, or grave health concerns (which in all cases I'm aware of have been so broadly-defined in practicality as to not matter at all).

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I love flip-flops as my shoes, not as my politicians and commander in chiefs.

truthHurts77 said:

this is not true an i dont know y say so when u r supposed 2b catholic

votin for a pro abortion candidate is promoting abortion and incurs a latae sententae excommunication

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See, what David did was post a balanced, well worded and properly researched explanation of why you are wrong.

Your response, basically, is "LOL ur wrong bad Catlik".

Guess who is more convincing.

The original post question/assertion is answered/refuted so why not just close the thread?

truthHurts77 said:

this is not true an i dont know y say so when u r supposed 2b catholic

votin for a pro abortion candidate is promoting abortion and incurs a latae sententae excommunication

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I am extremely confident on the accuracy of my information from my teachers in Catholic Higher education focusing in moral theology.

I had excellent teachers who were fine orthodox and loyal Catholic priests. I spent over a decade in the Catholic Educational system, including higher education pursuing and completing my education in Theology with a focus in moral theology...which is the realm this question falls into.

Sorry if the actual truth upsets your world view but Remote Material Cooperation...which is what voting is...does not trigger the automatic penalty. That thought has been going around the internet because so several incorrect assertions for over a decade now. But it was directly addressed in the concepts of licit cooperation in evil by the Vatican.

And only formal cooperation triggers the automatic penalty and formal intention requires the sharing of intent.

It is still morally wrong to vote in a manner that furthers an intrinsic evil. But it is not a matter of automatic excommunication unless the intention is shared, because the penalty requires formal cooperation.

A vote can be morally wrong, and not be a matter of automatic excommunication. It benefits to be correct if you are to persuade to moral action. The truth needs no exaggeration or embellishment to be correct. A vote for someone who supports abortion is morally wrong. But unless the intention of furthering "choice" is shared...it is not formal cooperation. Then the issue of Remote Formal Cooperation needs to be addressed...and that is a matter of some debate with some moral theologians.