The Episcopal Church: Supporting Abortion Since 1967

[Margaret3110]

If you mean pharmakeia, I don't know of any evidence that that refers to contraceptives. I've never even heard that before.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Do you have a verse for that?

Galatians 5: 20. But it is often translated 'sorcery'. I think the better word is 'potions' which can be seen as medical potions or magical potions both. By the way, I spelled it wrong. It's 'pharmakeia'.

No proof that it's contraceptives and abortifacients in that use in the Bible but there was a large ancient market in both.

 

[The Liturgist]

Exodus 21:22 refers to damage to the woman not to the foetus.

Nope, looks like both to me, since in all civilized societies killing an unborn baby is punished by law. Indeed in the US you can be charged with murder (unless you are an abortion clinic provider, which is a huge inconsistency in our legal code similiar to the inconsistency surrounding suicide in states and countries which allow euthanasia; I myself fail to see how a lab coat, stethoscope and scrubs can make right a horrible evil).

 

[The Liturgist]

Galatians 5: 20. But it is often translated 'sorcery'. I think the better word is 'potions' which can be seen as medical potions or magical potions both. By the way, I spelled it wrong. It's 'pharmakeia'.

No proof that it's contraceptives and abortifacients in that use in the Bible but there was a large ancient market in both.

Well, we don’t need such proof, because the Early Church had canons and the canon laws of the Early Church are based on Scripture.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Sure. You can make a metaphorical connection of sorts. And I don't think scripture supports abortion. But I think saying that the meaning of the text today is that abortion is wrong does a disservice. IMO, we still today need to be reminded that the cultural context in which God chose the Israelites and separated them was one in which people all around were literally, deliberately, killing their children in sacrifice to other gods.

Herein lies the problem with the application of any type of textural criticism; one can interpret Scripture to say pretty much what ever they want it to.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Exodus 21:22 refers to damage to the woman not to the foetus.

Certainly, regarding both, since it makes a point of the lack of damage to the woman.

 

[The Liturgist]

No, you are not wrong. Abortion is never condemned in scripture which means that we must deal with it with compassion.

Forgive me your grace, but I beg to disagree, since using the hermeneutics I have been taught, and practice, it would appear abortion is condemned, and our Lord consistently defends innocent children.

And even if it were not scripturally condemned, which it is at least implicitly, and I would argue explictly if we use Alexandrian hermeneutics, the tradition of the Church has always been to oppose abortion.

 

[The Liturgist]

By the way, in a peculiar twist, the Roman Empire regarded abortion as a religious taboo despite it being entirely legal for a father to kill his own children (it has been argued that a major reason why Christianity expanded so rapidly so as to become a viable religion for St. Constantine to join, and no longer a mere obscure sect, was due to women joining, that their offspring would be safe from being discarded or killed, and other affronts to their rights and those of their children prohibited by scriptural and canon law, and these women then insisted their suitors convert as a precondition to marriage).

 

[chevyontheriver]

I think so. I think he was disagreeing about whether abortion is clearly condemned in the Bible. Whether abortion is always morally wrong is a larger, and different, question.

kiwimac seems to disagree. Looks like to him abortion is no sin because it is not explicitly condemned in the Bible.

 

[chevyontheriver]

No, you are not wrong. Abortion is never condemned in scripture which means that we must deal with it with compassion.

Thanks for the clarification.

Is that your personal teaching, or your diocesan teaching, or your denominational teaching? I think it would shut off the Holy Spirit from teaching to a new historical situation not actually addressed in the Scriptures. Like for example, the morality of mutual assured destruction in the cold war. It was nowhere condemned that I know of in the Bible. That and other things like it make me think that this particular application of Sola Scriptura is problematic.

I would also think that this approach negates much of the history of the witness of the church with respect to abortion. Thus I wonder whether you think abortion was always acceptable and that any disapproval of abortion from the church over the years was respectively sinful?

 

[kiwimac]

Nope, looks like both to me, since in all civilized societies killing an unborn baby is punished by law. Indeed in the US you can be charged with murder (unless you are an abortion clinic provider, which is a huge inconsistency in our legal code similiar to the inconsistency surrounding suicide in states and countries which allow euthanasia; I myself fail to see how a lab coat, stethoscope and scrubs can make right a horrible evil).

As the Hebrews did not consider a foetus a human being, it can only refer to the woman. Let me quote

"...The abortion question in talmudic law begins with an examination of the fetus' legal status. For this the Talmud has a phrase, ubar yerekh imo, a counterpart of the Latin pars viscera matris. The fetus is deemed a "part of its mother" rather than an independent entity. Of course, this designation says nothing about the right of abortion; this is found only in more theoretical contexts. In the case of an embryo found in a purchased animal, the embryo is intrinsic to its mother's body; its ownership is defined -- it belongs to the buyer. Moreover, in the religious conversion of a pregnant woman, her unborn child is automatically included and requires no added ceremony. Nor does the fetus have power of acquisition. Gifts or transactions made on its behalf, except by its father, are not binding; it inherits from its father only, in a natural rather than transactional manner. Germane as such information might seem to the question of abortion, it tells us little more than, in the words of a modem writer on Roman and Jewish law, that in both systems the fetus has no "juridical personality" of its own. The morality of abortion is a function, rather, of the legal attitude to feticide as distinguished from homicide or infanticide The law of homicide in the Torah, in one of its several formulations, reads: "Makkeh ish ... " (He who smites a man ... ) (Exodus 21:12). Does this include any "man," say, a day-old child? Yes, says the Talmud, citing another text: "ki yakkeh kol nefesh adam" (If one smite any nefesh adam) (Lev. 24: 17), literally, any human person. The "any" is understood to include the day old child, but the "nefesh adam" is taken to exclude the fetus in the womb for the fetus in the womb is /av nefesh hu (not a person) until he is born. In the words of Rashi, only when the fetus "comes into the world" is it a "person." The basis, then, for denying capital crime status to feticide in Jewish law, even for those rabbis who may have wanted to rule otherwise, is scriptural.

Alongside the nefesh adam text is another basic one in Exodus 21:22, which provides: If men strive, and wound a pregnant woman so that her fruit be expelled, but no harm befell [her], then shall he be fined as her husband shall assess, and the matter placed before the judges. But if harm befell [her], then shall you give life for life. The Talmud makes this verse's teaching explicit: only monetary compensation is exacted of him who causes a woman to miscarry. Though the abortion spoken of here is accidental, the verse is still a source for the teaching that feticide is not a capital crime (since even accidental homicide cannot be expiated by monetary fine)...."

Source:

 

[kiwimac]

As for me and my denomination. Abortion has a myriad of reasons for occurring, some good (IMO), some bad (again IMO.) What must not change in that 'good--bad' continuum is my compassion towards the woman; my acceptance of her as a child of God, made in God's image and carrying the love of God. As a male I will never be forced by crime or circumstance to carry a child against my will. As a Bishop my response must never lose sight of the fact that the person is more important than canon law. Just as we must not confuse the Bible with the Word of God, we must never forget that canon exists to enable our judgement to have guidelines without, God forbid, confusing the guideline with the law or exalting it above the human who is God's image and likeness.

 

[The Liturgist]

As the Hebrews did not consider a foetus a human being, it can only refer to the woman. Let me quote

"...The abortion question in talmudic law begins with an examination of the fetus' legal status. For this the Talmud has a phrase, ubar yerekh imo, a counterpart of the Latin pars viscera matris. The fetus is deemed a "part of its mother" rather than an independent entity. Of course, this designation says nothing about the right of abortion; this is found only in more theoretical contexts. In the case of an embryo found in a purchased animal, the embryo is intrinsic to its mother's body; its ownership is defined -- it belongs to the buyer. Moreover, in the religious conversion of a pregnant woman, her unborn child is automatically included and requires no added ceremony. Nor does the fetus have power of acquisition. Gifts or transactions made on its behalf, except by its father, are not binding; it inherits from its father only, in a natural rather than transactional manner. Germane as such information might seem to the question of abortion, it tells us little more than, in the words of a modem writer on Roman and Jewish law, that in both systems the fetus has no "juridical personality" of its own. The morality of abortion is a function, rather, of the legal attitude to feticide as distinguished from homicide or infanticide The law of homicide in the Torah, in one of its several formulations, reads: "Makkeh ish ... " (He who smites a man ... ) (Exodus 21:12). Does this include any "man," say, a day-old child? Yes, says the Talmud, citing another text: "ki yakkeh kol nefesh adam" (If one smite any nefesh adam) (Lev. 24: 17), literally, any human person. The "any" is understood to include the day old child, but the "nefesh adam" is taken to exclude the fetus in the womb for the fetus in the womb is /av nefesh hu (not a person) until he is born. In the words of Rashi, only when the fetus "comes into the world" is it a "person." The basis, then, for denying capital crime status to feticide in Jewish law, even for those rabbis who may have wanted to rule otherwise, is scriptural.

Alongside the nefesh adam text is another basic one in Exodus 21:22, which provides: If men strive, and wound a pregnant woman so that her fruit be expelled, but no harm befell [her], then shall he be fined as her husband shall assess, and the matter placed before the judges. But if harm befell [her], then shall you give life for life. The Talmud makes this verse's teaching explicit: only monetary compensation is exacted of him who causes a woman to miscarry. Though the abortion spoken of here is accidental, the verse is still a source for the teaching that feticide is not a capital crime (since even accidental homicide cannot be expiated by monetary fine)...."

Source:

Quoting the Talmud is anachronistic and irrelevant, since it did not exist during the time of Christ, and furthermore those things that did exist that inspired it, of which it is something of a codification, are the traditions of the Pharisees, condemned in Mark 7:13 and elsewhere. And there are many Jews, including the Beta Israel and the Karaites, as well as the 800 or so surviving members of the Samaritan religion,
descended from Joseph, who reject the Talmud entirely.

 

[The Liturgist]

As for me and my denomination. Abortion has a myriad of reasons for occurring, some good (IMO), some bad (again IMO.) What must not change in that 'good--bad' continuum is my compassion towards the woman; my acceptance of her as a child of God, made in God's image and carrying the love of God. As a male I will never be forced by crime or circumstance to carry a child against my will. As a Bishop my response must never lose sight of the fact that the person is more important than canon law. Just as we must not confuse the Bible with the Word of God, we must never forget that canon exists to enable our judgement to have guidelines without, God forbid, confusing the guideline with the law or exalting it above the human who is God's image and likeness.

As far as canon law goes, I absolutely agree. However, you could oppose abortion entirely, as I do, without sacrificing any compassion towards women who have themselves suffered under it (for many, even most, are coerced into abortions). The moral culpability for abortion rests principally with those who pass legislation enabling it, legislation interfering with crisis pregnancy services, with those who coerce women into receiving abortions, such as the infamous abusers of women engaged in prostitution, and also the practitioners themselves.

 

[Paidiske]

However, you could oppose abortion entirely, as I do, without sacrificing any compassion towards women who have themselves suffered under it (for many, even most, are coerced into abortions). The moral culpability for abortion rests principally with those who pass legislation enabling it, legislation interfering with crisis pregnancy services, with those who coerce women into receiving abortions, such as the infamous abusers of women engaged in prostitution, and also the practitioners themselves.

I'm not sure I agree with this on either count.

I do think that to oppose abortion "entirely," to the extent of seeking to make it inaccessible legally, one does sacrifice some compassion towards women; not least because the outcome is that women will die. There will always be women desperate enough to attempt abortion by whatever means are available, and if safe means are not available, unsafe means will be used. We have seen this play out in living memory.

And while many women are coerced into abortion, it is true; it is also true that women are not entirely helpless passive victims. We cannot paternalistically pretend that abortion is only something other people do to women, and not something that women actively choose, whatever we think of their reasons for it.

If we wish to see abortion greatly reduced (for I don't believe it will ever be entirely eliminated), then we need to take seriously the women who have abortions and the reasons why they have them, and work to create a world in which abortion is not the least-worst option in a set of constrained choices.

And lest my remarks be taken as "supporting" abortion, I don't see it that way, myself; I would rather there never be a need for an abortion. But I have sat with enough desperate women facing awful choices to know that simply removing abortion is not an adequate response to very complex and dreadful problems.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

As the Hebrews did not consider a foetus a human being, it can only refer to the woman. Let me quote

"...The abortion question in talmudic law begins with an examination of the fetus' legal status. For this the Talmud has a phrase, ubar yerekh imo, a counterpart of the Latin pars viscera matris. The fetus is deemed a "part of its mother" rather than an independent entity. Of course, this designation says nothing about the right of abortion; this is found only in more theoretical contexts. In the case of an embryo found in a purchased animal, the embryo is intrinsic to its mother's body; its ownership is defined -- it belongs to the buyer. Moreover, in the religious conversion of a pregnant woman, her unborn child is automatically included and requires no added ceremony. Nor does the fetus have power of acquisition. Gifts or transactions made on its behalf, except by its father, are not binding; it inherits from its father only, in a natural rather than transactional manner. Germane as such information might seem to the question of abortion, it tells us little more than, in the words of a modem writer on Roman and Jewish law, that in both systems the fetus has no "juridical personality" of its own. The morality of abortion is a function, rather, of the legal attitude to feticide as distinguished from homicide or infanticide The law of homicide in the Torah, in one of its several formulations, reads: "Makkeh ish ... " (He who smites a man ... ) (Exodus 21:12). Does this include any "man," say, a day-old child? Yes, says the Talmud, citing another text: "ki yakkeh kol nefesh adam" (If one smite any nefesh adam) (Lev. 24: 17), literally, any human person. The "any" is understood to include the day old child, but the "nefesh adam" is taken to exclude the fetus in the womb for the fetus in the womb is /av nefesh hu (not a person) until he is born. In the words of Rashi, only when the fetus "comes into the world" is it a "person." The basis, then, for denying capital crime status to feticide in Jewish law, even for those rabbis who may have wanted to rule otherwise, is scriptural.

Alongside the nefesh adam text is another basic one in Exodus 21:22, which provides: If men strive, and wound a pregnant woman so that her fruit be expelled, but no harm befell [her], then shall he be fined as her husband shall assess, and the matter placed before the judges. But if harm befell [her], then shall you give life for life. The Talmud makes this verse's teaching explicit: only monetary compensation is exacted of him who causes a woman to miscarry. Though the abortion spoken of here is accidental, the verse is still a source for the teaching that feticide is not a capital crime (since even accidental homicide cannot be expiated by monetary fine)...."

Source:

No, since we are discussing Scripture, Scripture mentioned not only the woman who sustained no lasting harm, but the aborted child. Therefore, both are important. Yes, it is about the woman, but it is also about the baby, Eye for an eye would dictate a penalty for beating the woman as a stout beating; regarding the penalty of a life for a life; that is for the death of the unborn child.

 

[The Liturgist]

If we wish to see abortion greatly reduced (for I don't believe it will ever be entirely eliminated), then we need to take seriously the women who have abortions and the reasons why they have them, and work to create a world in which abortion is not the least-worst option in a set of constrained choices.

I agree with this, and I think the Pro-Life Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists and other Christians who have manned the barricades and won the repeal of Roe vs. Wade also agree with it, which is why a network of crisis pregnancy centers has been established in the US, and there are waiting lists of people willing to adopt, even infants with down syndrome. It is also worth mentioning that a great tragedy is the majority of abortions in the US involve African Americans in urban areas.

I would also note that I don’t know of anyone in the prolife movement who would want to prohibit abortion of ectopic pregnancies, because these are non-viable and non-survivable.

 

[Paidiske]

I agree with this, and I think the Pro-Life Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists and other Christians who have manned the barricades and won the repeal of Roe vs. Wade also agree with it, which is why a network of crisis pregnancy centers has been established in the US, and there are waiting lists of people willing to adopt, even infants with down syndrome.

Yeah, no. That's not what I mean by taking women and women's needs seriously. Not only is is failing to deal with massive structural issues, it's attempting to manage abortion by coercing and controlling women, sometimes to their massive detriment.

 

[The Liturgist]

While I disagree with that assesment, I don’t want to risk anyone’s peace on Gregorian Christmas by debating this.