DCF, there is absolutely no agreement among Christians about the morality of abortion. Christian churches are well represented on both sides of the debate, and Christians throughout history have gone back and forth on this. Here is an article from U.S. News and World Report that has some interesting points:
From the March 9, 1992 issue of U.S.News & World Report:
The theology of abortion
By Jeffrey L. Sheler
Both sides in the debate cite scripture to support their beliefs
Not since slavery has an issue so polarized American society -- and perhaps never has an issue
posed a greater moral dilemma. The modern debate over abortion, as it is played out in the
nation's courts and legislative halls, is a conflict of competing moral visions and of fundamental
human rights: to life, to privacy, to control over one's own body. Yet when stripped of the
political rhetoric and the entangling legal arguments, it is an issue that rests on basic theological
questions. What is human life? When does it begin? What is its value and source?
With such strong religious overtones, it is little wonder that church and religious groups have
been on the front lines of the abortion battle -- and will likely remain so if the Supreme Court
throws the issue back to the states by overturning Roe v. Wade. But the churches are far from
united on the subject. While the Roman Catholic Church and evangelical Protestants have been
highly visible in opposing abortion, scores of religious groups are fervent defenders of abortion
rights. Some 35 Christian and Jewish organizations, for example, are members of the Religious
Coalition for Abortion Rights, a grass-roots lobbying group formed two decades ago to counter
Catholic and evangelical antiabortion efforts.
Dissension within. More and more, churches are finding their flocks divided over the issue.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Methodist Church and other mainline
denominations that stand officially in favor of abortion rights face a growing tide of dissent within
their ranks. And among those officially opposed to abortion, such as Catholic, Southern Baptist
and Mormon churches, leaders are hearing more internal arguments these days from members
who are uncomfortable with rigid antiabortionism. On both sides of the debate, church leaders
are feeling pressure to explain and justify their positions.
Yet in making their cases, both sides appeal to the same Judeo-Christian ideals. Ultimately, both
base their stands on biblical tenets and religious tradition. Their polarization underscores the
complexity and the historical ambiguities of religious teaching on abortion.
The issue has plagued the church almost from the beginning. The Bible itself is virtually silent on
abortion. The Ten Commandments state "Thou shalt not kill," but neither the Old nor the New
Testament contains explicit sanctions against intentionally destroying a fetus. Some modern
theologians find that remarkable, given the harsh penalties for abortion evident among other
Middle Eastern cultures in biblical times. The fact that the Apostle Paul failed to mention
abortion, though he wrote plenty on sexual morality, says Paul D. Simmons, professor of
Christian ethics at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, suggests that "he
regarded abortion as a matter to be dealt with on the basis of faith, grace and Christian
freedom." Others interpret the silence as suggesting that abortion was not a problem among early
Christians. "Abortion was a dangerous option for women," says James L. Nash, assistant
professor of moral theology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. "Among
Christians, it simply wasn't practiced."
First prohibition. By the early second century, however, the church broke its silence. The
Didache, a book of rules considered by some to be teachings of the Apostles, proclaimed: "You
shall not kill the fetus by abortion nor destroy the infant already born." What seemed to concern
early church leaders most was whether abortion was done to conceal sexual sins and whether it
amounted to murder. St. Augustine wrote in the fourth century that abortion could be viewed as
murder only if the fetus was judged a "fully formed" human. That stage of development,
"hominization," occurred for Augustine some time after conception -- 40 days for males and 80
days for females. Nonetheless, an early abortion was sinful, Augustine wrote, because it
disrupted procreation.
The Catholic Church's early reversals on abortion suggest the difficulty it had coming to a firm
position. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V declared that abortion at any stage was murder. Three years
later, Pope Gregory XIV reversed that opinion but said abortion could not be used as birth
control and was wrong if used to cover up a sexual sin. Finally, in 1869, Pope Pius IX
sidestepped hominization and declared that the fetus, "although not ensouled, is directed to the
forming of man. Therefore, its ejection is anticipated homicide." He prohibited abortion under all
circumstances. That remains the official position of the Roman Catholic Church.
Jews have arrived at a much more tolerant position. The Reform, Conservative and
Reconstructionist movements generally consider abortion a matter of individual conscience and
oppose most government restrictions on abortion -- a position with roots in ancient Jewish
writings. The Talmud suggests that the fetus is not fully a person but, rather, is "as the thigh of its
mother." Nonetheless, it is worthy of protection as a potential human being. The Mishna, a
compilation of Jewish law from the third century A.D., explicitly approves of therapeutic
abortions if the mother's life is endangered. And the Responsa, later commentaries on Talmudic
law, contain varying opinions as to when a nontherapeutic abortion may be justified. Orthodox
Jews today allow abortion only in strictly defined cases involving the health and survival of the
mother. "It's nonsense to say a woman has the right to her body," says Rabbi Pinchas Stolper,
executive vice president of the Orthodox Union. "No one in this country has that right."
Individual duty. In Protestantism, positions on abortion have tended to follow each
denomination's liberal or conservative outlook on other issues. Most churches place biblical
authority above church tradition and emphasize the duty of individuals to interpret scripture for
themselves. For some, the abortion issue boils down to a deceptively simple proposition. Even
though the Bible does not specifically ban abortion, says theologian Harold O.J. Brown, of
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, it "prohibits the taking of innocent human life. If the
developing fetus is shown to be a human being ... then abortion is homicide." Yet as with
abortion itself, the Bible is not explicit on when a fetus becomes fully human or whether it is so
from conception.
Even so, both sides cite biblical texts to support their arguments. Abortion opponents note such
passages as Isaiah 49:1 ("The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he
named my name") and Jeremiah 1:5 ("Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee: and before
thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the
nations") as showing the fetus as esteemed and ordained by God. Perhaps the most powerful of
such passages is in Psalm 139:
For thou didst form my inward parts,thou didst knit me together in my
mother's womb. ... Thine eyes have beheld my unformed substance; in thy
book were written, every one of them, the days that were ordained for me
when as yet there was not one of them.
That passage, argues Brown in his book "Death Before Birth," makes it "abundantly clear that
God ... is personally concerned for us before birth."
Meanwhile, some abortion-rights supporters find evidence in the book of Exodus that the fetus is
something less than fully human. Chapter 21 depicts a fight between two men that results in a
pregnant woman's suffering "a miscarriage, but no further injury." If the miscarriage is the only
damage, it says, the offender must pay a fine. "But if injury ensues, you shall give life for life, eye
for eye, tooth for tooth ... ." Although Exodus clearly depicts an accidental rather than a willful
termination of pregnancy, says Paul Simmons of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, "it
gives no support to the parity argument that gives equal religious and moral worth to woman and
fetus." Deference should be given to the rights and well-being of the woman, Simmons argues,
when it comes to abortion.
Some Christian theologians contend that, given the Bible's silence on abortion and its ambiguity
concerning the fetus, the biblical principle of human free will should be emphasized. Prof.
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott of William Paterson College in New Jersey, writing for the Religious
Coalition for Abortion Rights, argues that in scripture, "God foreknew that Adam and Eve would
misuse their power to choose, yet God chose to give them that power. ... We should follow our
Creator's example by giving each other more moral elbow room."
With theologians as divided as the rest of society over abortion, some commentators, like
Anglican clergyman John R.W. Stott, are calling for new dialogue among theologians from
various traditions as a step toward common ground and, perhaps, toward a healing of the
cultural rift. Others doubt such deliberations would be productive given how deeply entrenched
many churches are in their own dogma. "Inevitably," says conservative theologian Carl F.H.
Henry, "the theological issue is going to prove central, either by way of a recognition of the moral
authority of the Judeo-Christian heritage or by a deliberate rejection of it." If the heritage is
rejected, Henry warns, "it is a capitulation to the barbarians." Such dialogue clearly would not be
without risk. But it is a risk many are ready to take.
usnews.com
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