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You'd think this would give republicans pause, or make them reconsider.
Young women dying in dramatically increasing numbers.
But it won't.
All these young women left to die on the altar of their misinterpretation of their religion and their uncaring principles.
But no, it was a policy born in hate and the tragic imposed deaths of women are not an unfortunate side effect, they're just misogyny in action. Working itself out.
If they cared about babies, there would be more support for women, for early years interventions, and maybe they might also care about children dying in schools on the altar of their misunderstanding of their 2nd amendment and their uncaring principles.
But no, they don't care about children dying in schools either, and do you know why? Because caring about children dying in schools doesn't involve telling women what they have to do and ruling their lives with oppressive freedom-denying laws.
Caring about children dying in schools would involve some infringement on their UNDENYABLE RIGHT TO FEEL IMPORTANT with a gun and caring about women dying in childbirth would interfere with their UNDENYABLE RIGHT TO FEEL IMPORTANT with a rule about what women can and can't do.
Are you implying being against abortion is a misinterpretation of the Bible? How?
Edit: I think that's a genuine question from someone who is surprised by me calling it misinterpretation and has engaged with another perspective politely and unlike many people, is listening as well as expressing their point of view. I wish more people responded like that with a request for information and respectful discussion afterwards. Evidence shows that the "How?" was genuine. Hence my upvote.
I don't know any religious people who think abortion is great, but I don't know any pro-choice folk who think it's great either, they just think it shouldn't land a woman or a health professional in jail and they don't like that the maternal death rate is climbing so fast in Texas which had the first five-week abortion limit in the states.
Before the republicans figured they could be really judgemental and condemnatory about it (what does your Bible say about that kind of behavior?) and use it as a wedge issue to drive religious folks away from the democrats, it was originally a catholic-only thing to be absolutely opposed to abortion for a long time, justified by a misinterpretation of the sin of Onan, which the catholics somehow took to be a lesson about semen not being allowed on the floor, when it's quite clearly about family duty and not help to provide a kid for his brother's young widow who would otherwise be childless - held to be shameful for her. He wasn't kind. I think you could boldly interpret that story to be pro IVF but I don't think you can interpret it to be anti-abortion and anti women's choice unless you're really baked-in misogynistic before you think about it.
Yeah I know it says "do not murder" but the abortion bans are literally killing women with already dead foetuses because no health professional can afford to risk their career and freedom to take any step whatsoever to save their lives until it's obvious enough that they're at death's door that the court couldn't conclude otherwise. "She might have died later" isn't compelling enough - "she was coding" is.
I challenge you to find a bible passage explicitly condemning abortion. I can find you at least ten explicitly condemning judgementalism, but also condemning not caring for the poor, not caring for foreigners, walking by when others are suffering, not healing someone when you can. The modern republican party is so far from "What Would Jesus Do?" and worships the liar in chief, Donald J Trump.
So yes, somehow a bunch of big american corporate churchgoers got convinced that being rich is a sign you are a good person, that stopping abortion is the main lesson from the scriptures and that caring about black people, foreigners, poor people etc is evil. Somehow "let the person who did nothing wrong cast the first stone.... go, I don't condemn you either" became "lock her up". If you don't think that's a misinterpretation of your Bible, yours is different to the ones I've seen.
Flax is rather well-known for being an entrenched-in-their-thoughts religious zealot, that's why the downvotes, it's not genuine
So much so that I'm rather convinced they're some weirdo pretending to be an insane person for the lols
I actually agree with a good chunk of what you said. I thank you for not strawmanning me or making presumptions of being like how you described. The Bible advocates for caring for the poor, not judging hypocritically, for caring for the suffering and sick, and that I believe Trump is an antichrist and not Christian at all.
I'd also like to note that I agree with Abortion if it's simply removing a dead foetus. I see that as less of an abortion and more of removing a dead foetus that's already dead.
As for abortions in case of the pregnancy might kill the woman, those are exceedingly rare as is, but should still be allowed.
Anyway, for the question at hand:
I'll skip out in the commandment showing murder is bad, but of course murder being bad is a necessary principle.
We see a few instances in the Bible of unborn children being human lives. A notable example recorded by St Luke is John the Baptist. He leapt in the womb when Mary appeared carrying Jesus in her womb
Luke 1:41-42 ESV
Jacob and Esau fought each other in the womb, so were clearly conscious
Genesis 25:21-23 ESV
Instances of this are even recorded scientifically
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/video-shows-twins-fighting-womb/story?id=17848740
King David writes about children even being made by God in the poetry of the 139th Psalm
Psalm 139:13-14 ESV
So as the Bible doesn't say "thou shalt not kill a foetus", it is implying that foetus are human life. Worth noting that the Bible doesn't explicitly mention the Triune nature of God as we define, but the nature comes from reading the Bible and revealed through them and what it shows about each Person of God. It also doesn't explicitly condemn slavery but it's frequently protrayed in a bad light. Jesus doesn't demand worship, but is shown being God and receiving it. So it doesn't have to be explicitly said. The Bible as a whole isn't a book of laws or a legal code.
Yes, that's not abortion, that's just D&C after the foetus died.
But it's the same D&C procedure whether the foetus was deliberately terminated or it died of natural causes, and a doctor performing a D&C is at real and genuine risk of losing their career and going to prison, and a woman in need of D&C is at risk of losing her fertility or her life from sepsis or other complications. Criminalizing healthcare kills women. Doctors need a lot of good luck keeping their job in a red state if they agree to perform a D&C. Don't rely on facts winning a case when anti-abortion rhetoric is one of the two main ways republicans have got and kept power.
It's clear that you think God loves unborn children. Do you think God loves women who stillbirth? They are at genuine risk of jail time because their baby died. Do you think God loves children who were raped? Do you think God wants rape victims to bear their rapists children? Do you believe that God always chooses the baby over the mother, no matter the cost or the consequences? Do you think God doesn't like it when we intervene in matters of life and death?
Do you, and this is the central question, and the only one that matters really, believe that God wants the government to put doctors and women in prison whenever an abortion is performed, and do you think God wants the increased maternal death rates amongst otherwise healthy women who have miscarried that these new policies are creating? Before you answer, please realise that early miscarriage is far, far more common and far far less admitted in public than people who have never admitted to having a miscarriage with other women in a safe environment realise. Are miscarriages hateful to God too? Is it the woman's fault, and should she go to prison if she can't prove her miscarriage was natural?
The second question is this: does God care more about putting women and doctors in prison after a foetus dies more than God cares about feeding the poor and the homeless? More than looking after foreigners? More than loving your neighbour and your enemy? Is it more important to love God or to love money?
Because what I see in america is a lot of people justifying being super condemnatory about women and immigrants and hating on helping, all in the name of religion, and I just don't see much of "love God and love your neighbour". No wonder young people are leaving the american church in droves. What's all that hate got that might draw them in? Maybe if it had more for them than the promise of jailing women and doctors, they might see the point, but a lot of church folks can't get past the jailing of women and doctors and the condemnation of sinners they judge to be particularly scandalously sinful, unless of course they're republicans or church leaders, in which case denial that anything went wrong. Not forgiveness, that would require an admission of guilt. Just minimisation and cover up.
I remember stories about Jesus getting cross with the temple being full of money and the religious leaders acting pious while making up hard and harsh rules for everyone else to follow (not so much themselves). Is it a relevant story for today? Isn't it really sad and far from following commandments if the church gets into the judging others and condemnation business? I don't think it was ever supposed to be about big theatres, big money, politics, professional music and plenty of prison time for plenty of sinners. Hadn't it better get back very urgently to what Jesus actually said to do?
Yes. I never advocated jailing women who stillbirth
If someone is raped and gets pregnant and seeks an abortion, then it's the rapist who committed murder.
Again, this is exceedingly rare. But in such cases denying abortions would he wrong as you'd kill both the woman and child.
I don't think we should investigate women who have miscarriages. It's between them and God if they intentionally caused it.
God doesn't care more or less about things. Every sin we commit on this earth is another bang of the hammer on His hands, the sin that we committed and killed Him.
Matthew 7:21-23 ESV [21] “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. [22] On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ [23] And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
What Christians do doesn't define Christianity. But we also must realise that we cannot bend the word of God to say whatever we want it to say. This goes both ways, I think. Like people trying to bend the verse about it easier for a camel to get through an eye of a needle than a rich man getting into heaven.
Yes, that story is still relevant. But the Church must stand up for all injustice. Including if it means that children are being killed. In the same way we should stand against the destruction of the earth through climate change, black people being unjustly killed by American police, dying due to lack of healthcare, etc
The Bible literally gives instructions for abortions. Numbers 5:11-31. It has no moral issues with terminating a fetus, doesn't call a fetus a person, doesn't call it murder.
None of your quoted examples negate the Bible's explicit support of abortion in this passage.
Even if the Bible did think fetuses were live humans, it also explicitly supports parents murdering their kids. Including the story of Abraham, and God killing Jesus. It's totally cool with the Bible to kill kids, if the kid belongs to you and you get the vibe "God" wants it. God does it a LOT. Sacrificing your kid for war is considered pretty standard in the Bible as well.
I'm sorry but... what?
Numbers 5:11-31 ESV
There's absolutely no mention of abortion here- in fact, verse 28 makes it clear that she "shall be free to conceive", so it shows that she wasn't even pregnant to begin with. It's clearly talking about a woman becoming infertile if she cheats on her husband, and nothing to do with an abortion or terminating a pregnancy. I don't know what conclusions you jumped to in order to even think this was about abortion
Also - parents murdering their kids - you realised that God explicitly stopped Abraham from murdering Isaac? It was about if he'd remain faithful to God even after his prayer is answered. God did NOT want Isaac to die, thus he provided a sacrificial ram.
With Jesus - Jesus wasn't merely a human kid - Jesus is God himself. Jesus is the same God who created the earth and everything in it. Jesus is the same God that we betrayed. Yet He died for us. What Abraham sacrificed was merely a ram, while God sacrificed Himself for us. Because God is perfectly merciful. He made the perfect sacrifice for what WE did. He lived the life we should have lived and died the death that we deserved. You cannot see this story and sum it up in "god supports us killing our kids"
What a bad translation, almost like it was deliberately translated badly. "Thigh fall away," lmfao what nonsense. Btw in the quoted text below, when they say "impure," "impurity," they mean pregnancy.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%205%3A11-31&version=NIV
For the last 2 points - so you admit killing your own kid for God is seen as a virtue in the Bible, so much so that the 2 most important sons, Abraham and Jesus, both go through an event involving a parent killing them. And then there's literally dozens of events in tbe Bible of God killing kids. God loves child murder.
I'm sorry... Am I reading this correctly?
Did you just say the ESV was a bad translation and just cite the... NIV?????
Either you are really stupid or you HAVE to be a troll. If it's the former, the NIV is notoriously a bad translation, with it's main aim being to simplify the text with the translator's own interpretation. The benefit is that it's easier to read, but that's it. The NIV is the only translation which uses the term miscarry. Even the NRSV, a secular translation, says
"thigh" is a euphemism for womb. That's well known. So "womb" is a valid translation even though literally it says "thigh". But it's still clearly talking about a non pregnant woman becoming infertile. And the fact that the only thing you can use to justify your point is the NIV translation of it which shows you have no point at all
Still nothing here implying the miscarriage, and this is the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Is the Hebrew a bad translation, too? 🤣
For your last "rebuttal", you forgot again that Jesus is God - He sacrificed Himself for all of humanity. Abraham was following God and didn't sacrifice his son. The point was his loyalty- not the child sacrifice. Nothing's virtuous about it.
Why are they talking about a woman's womb at all unless they think she is pregnant? What does the womb "discharge?" Where does it say she is NOT pregnant? Why is pregnancy NOT a concern if she was laying with another man as the passage discusses?
I think this translation is valid. That you have to explain that "thigh falling," means "womb discharge," shows that your translation is a bad one. And a womb discharge is clearly another way of saying miscarriage.
Women have wombs when they're not pregnant? Ever heard of a period? Heavy periods? People would have been seen unclean in that society as well if they had constant periods and would have been infertile.
A period being induced when a woman is pregnant is another name for a miscarriage. Thank you for proving my point. If they are inducing a period with the bitter water, that's to cause a miscarriage.
The passage isn't about periods. There are indeed biblical passages about menstruation, but this isn't one. This passage is about a woman sleeping with a man who isn't their partner. So again, what are they making the womb "discharge" after this suspected infidelity?
But the passage doesn't say she's pregnant. You don't always get pregnant after the first time you sleep with someone 🤦
Interlinear verse, if that helps
https://scholarsgateway.com/parse/%D7%A0%D6%B9%D7%A4%D6%B6%D7%9C%D6%B6%D7%AA
No mention of miscarriage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_menstrual_bleeding
A medical condition which matches this, also appears in Mark 5:25–34