Michael Coren is an author who is ordained in the Anglican Church of Canada.
Last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade was, in some ways, inevitable once the bench became so top-heavy with conservatives. Or, more specifically, conservative Christians. Because, try as they might to present their arguments as being based purely in law and precedent, it’s abundantly clear that judicial passion over abortion is rooted in Roman Catholic and evangelical dogma.
Indeed, the issue has become something of a litmus test on the Christian right. Religious orthodoxy isn’t enough: the great inquisitional filter is where someone stands on abortion. A qualified response, regretting the need but defending the right, just won’t do.
Which is jarring on numerous levels. The Christian faith is not some moral thermometer, with individual temperatures being tested and boxes ticked. It’s a lifelong journey of discovery, a relationship with the creator, a permanent revolution of evolving and challenging love. Scripture is a living text, and far too important to always be taken literally – that was never its purpose. It’s biography and poetry, history and metaphor, inspired and in need of understanding and context.
The Bible simply doesn’t provide any absolutes on abortion, which is something even conservative Christians once believed. A 1968 meeting held by the Christian Medical Society and the magazine Christianity Today, for example, refused to condemn abortion as sinful and said that it had to be considered in the light of “individual health, family welfare, and social responsibility.” These comments would be considered heretical in similar circles today.
Biblical cherry picking is by its nature reductive, and the idea that scriptural references can be used like political cudgels downright offensive. Even so, the usual gang of quotes has to be countered.
Genesis has, “Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind.” There’s academic consensus that this concerns adults committing murder, and has no relevance to abortion.
Next comes Jeremiah. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” The point, however, is this is theology, not biology. Written around 600BC, long before fetal development was understood, the phrasing is intended to single out someone as being special and different from other people, predestined by God for a specific purpose.
Psalm 139 is similar in intent. “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” The lyrical rhythms of scriptural poetry are especially evident in the psalms, but do be careful with them: taken in a literalist form they can be grimly bloodthirsty and violent. This one is King David explaining his awe at God’s omnipresence. And by the way, that monarch had eight wives.
The New Testament story of Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, meeting Mary, mother of Jesus, is one of the best known and most loved in the Gospels. “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.”
St. Luke’s use of the Greek language was far more complex and mature than the other three Gospel-writers and in this case is transparently symbolic. If he’d wanted to refer to science rather than prophesy, he would have used far less flowery and non-specific vocabulary. Particularly as he may have been a doctor.
Abortion was hardly unknown in the ancient world, and what is surprising is how seldom, rather than often, it is mentioned in the Bible. Yet some of those references are, in fact, not at all supportive of the pro-life position. Exodus describes a scene where a miscarriage occurs during a fight. The penalty is a fine, decided by the injured woman’s husband. If there is “further harm,” the penalty is “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe,” implying that an unborn child is not equal to a human life.
Deeply disturbing is Numbers, 5, concerning a woman accused of adultery. She is brought to a priest and given a potion to drink. If she’s innocent, nothing will happen. But if she’s guilty, “the curse enter your bowels and make your womb discharge, your uterus drop!” It’s described as being ordered by God and clearly involves abortion. As I say, unwavering biblical pedantry can be extremely dangerous.
But in the final analysis, it’s not about warring texts but about justice, equality, and compassion. Abortion rates drop when contraceptives are made freely available, modern sex education is taught, paternity payments enforced, women empowered, universal child care provided and poverty combatted. That, and not cruel prohibition, should be the authentic Christian response.
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