I wanted to say thanks to Frank for his article at http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/sep2014/frankm97-3.htm and thought I'd follow up with this.
Abortion is murder, and we find numerous places in Scripture that testify to this. Here is one verse that is relevant to this issue...
- "If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her (יצאו), and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life" (Exodus/Shemot 21:22-23, KJV)
- "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely.... " (Exodus/Shemot 21:22, NIV)
- "And when men fight and they strike a pregnant woman and her children (ילדיה) go forth (יצאו)..." (literal translation)
The NIV paraphrases this a bit, but the Hebrew word "יצאו" used here is translated "depart from her" in the KJV. I had someone send me an article this link in which they claimed that what this Hebrew word really means is
"They point to the more "politically-correct" translation
they find in the New International Version of the Bible. There it
translates the term "miscarriage" into "gives birth prematurely" (the
actual words in Hebrew translate "she lose her offspring"). "The pro-life position is not dependent on the NIV paraphrasing here, but this person who is against choice for children wants us to believe that it does and that the only correct way to translate this Hebrew word is "she loses her offspring." Of course, this is being spun to try and defend an indefensible position. The Hebrew word is used many times in scripture, and "loses" is not a defensible way to translate this word into English. Let's take a look at other places this is used...
"...every male from 20 years old and upward was able to go out (יצא) to war." (Numbers 1:20)
Imagine how silly this would sound if we used the translation proposed by those who oppose choice for children. We'd have
"...every male from 20 years old and upward was able to lose (יצא) to war." (Numbers 1:20)
Why fight a battle when you know you're going to lose??? And notice how in the Hebrew, even when the baby is not yet born, it is refered to by the same term as it is refered to outside the womb; namely by the term "her children" (ילדיה) . There's no cold, impersonal term only used for pre-born babies such as "fetus" or the less personal "offspring". Nope. Same word as when they are born and much older as well!
Now while the NIV paraphrase is a paraphrase, it is obvious from the context that this is talking about a premature birth, because the context tells us that the woman gives birth AS A RESULT OF BEING STRIKEN!!!! So yes, the fact that it is premature is obvious from the context, even if it is not explicitely worded that way in the text.
The punishment should the man kill the unborn child is "life for life". The murderer is to be put to death. This sentence simply would not exist if a baby is not a person until it exists the womb.
Abortion is an act of selfishness, and an EXTREME act of selfishness that says a my temporary discomfort is more important than another person's life. When you find someone who believes that abortion is OK, you know you're dealing with an extremely selfish person. Not just a selfish person, but an EXTREMELY selfish person who just doesn't care about human suffering. A woman who aborts a baby is saying to her baby, "Because I didn't think to use birth control, you're going to have to suffer before you die as the "doctor" pulls one limb from your body after another, ripping you apart before he actually kills you."
I once heard Ann Coulter say in an interview in response to why she is sometimes confrontational is that she does not want liberals to like her. She said that there is something wrong with people who call sucking the brains out of an unborn baby a constitutional right and you don't want people who think that way to like you.
Selfish people don't care about truth; all they care about is whether they can continue to kill folks who cause them slight discomfort they could have avoided had they used birth control. So its no wonder they would try to distort what is in Scripture to promote their cause.
Another ENORMOUS distortion recorded in the "Skeptics Annotated Bible" claims Lev 27:6 places no monetary value on children less than one month old!!!!! Well, Lev 27:6 says this...
"Even if it be the son of a month or even up to the son of 5 years, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver" (Lev 27:6)
As soon as the baby is born, it is "the son of a month", being born in the month in measure. Now we don't speak this way in English. We talk about babies being "__ number of months old" rather than being "the son of a month", "the son of two months", etc.
We're also told
- "Before I was formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart." (Jeremiah 1:5)
- "For Thou hast made my reins; Thou hast knit me together in my mother's womb....Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance, and in Thy book they were all written--even the days that were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them" (Ps 139:13,16)
- "Did not He that made me in the womb make him? And did not One fashion us in the womb?" (Job 31:15)
Shalom,
Joe