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LadyEllen -> RE: Reproductive Rights (5/21/2007 3:52:13 AM)
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If the religious argument against abortion relies on abortion being murder, then by reference to my Bible, it says "thou shalt not kill", and not "thou shalt not murder". Murder is a special term as I understand it, referring to the deliberate killing of a human being by another human being - whilst killing can be done to anything living by anything else capable of killing.
Abortion would therefore constitute an offence under the ten commandments, since it is killing. That said, given that every anti-abortion argument based on religion relies on abortion being a violation of the commandment against killing, one must also consider every means of sustenance of our beings in the same light; we kill plants to eat them, we kill animals to eat them, we kill bacteria and viruses to survive infections. Since the word in the Bible is kill, not murder, then we must regard all killing to be equally worthy of damnation, and also conclude that the Bible intends in this commandment to make no difference between the life of a single celled bacterium and the life of a human being, unborn or not. It is therefore rather odd to make a distinction in interpretation between forms of life in the context of a religious basis for argument, especially when the same God who issues the commandment also encourages and orders genocide in several instances.
The problem with reliance on the OT for such arguments, is that the OT does not belong to us and was never intended for us. Its context is entirely different to our times and our societies, having been written, inspired or not, for a small group of tribes living thousands of years ago in another part of the world, and to meet their peculiar requirements. Clearly in that context, according to the events later portrayed, killing was quite permissible as long as the victim was not part of one's ethnic group, (human or animal), or if part of one's ethnic group was permissible if the victim was condemned by his actions. Yet killing remains killing, whether it is another person, an animal or a criminal or whatever, and killing is a violation of the commandment. What this tells me, is that as evidence for anything, regardless of faith, the OT is totally confused and therefore not credible. It is a witness who changes his story upon cross examination.
All of this notwithstanding the possibility that those upon whom the political and legal consequences of a religiously inspired ban might fall, might not be in any way adherent to or interested in the religion from whence it springs. The issue then becomes, as Fargle has pointed out many times before, the freedom of choice of the woman as it is informed by her own being and self. Should a woman be adherent to that religion, then perhaps she might base her choice upon it in the same way as she has choice over her religion. Should a woman be adherent to another religion or none, then perhaps she might base her choice accordingly in the same way.
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