Exclusive analysis finds the rate of maternal deaths in Texas increased 56% from 2019 to 2022, compared with just 11% nationwide during the same time period.
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.
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
And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
Jacob and Esau fought each other in the womb, so were clearly conscious
Genesis 25:21-23 ESV
And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.”
Instances of this are even recorded scientifically
King David writes about children even being made by God in the poetry of the 139th Psalm
Psalm 139:13-14 ESV
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
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.
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’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.
Yes, that’s not abortion, that’s just D&C after the foetus died.
As for abortions in case of the pregnancy might kill the woman, those are exceedingly rare as is, but should still be allowed.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?