Abortion, What about it?

[Pegg]

Babylon was an empire in the Persian region. Babylon concurred Israel. Why can it not refer to literal children?

Wait. Let's run with this logic.

That would be like replacing the word "Babylon" with the word "Christianity." OR "Buddhism" OR "Americanism" OR "Britons" OR...hell, "Californication"

the NT makes it clear that babylon would be around for a very long time...it would prove to be more then merely the ancient city located in Iraq. Babylon began with Nimrod, it was the starting point for many the worlds ancient religions and the ideas from those religions can be found in all religions today. Many hebrew scripture prophecies have greater fulfillment

'babylon the great' is discussed in the book of Revelation and in there it is not a person or people but 'organizations' and religious establishments.

 

[Father Heathen]

Murder. What the hell did your baby do to you.

I think bringing a baby into the world is far more cruel.

 

[Levite]

In the hebrew scriptures he imposed the death penalty on anyone who injured a pregnant woman and caused the death of her unborn child. "life for life" was a legal provision applied equally to the unborn.
Exodus 21:22 “And in case men should struggle with each other and they really hurt a pregnant woman and her children do come out but no fatal accident occurs, he is to have damages imposed upon him without fail according to what the owner of the woman may lay upon him; and he must give it through the justices. 23 But if a fatal accident should occur, then you must give soul for soul.

That's actually not what that verse says.

וכי־ינצו אנשים ונגפו אשה הרה ויצאו ילדיה ולא יהיה אסון ענוש יענש כאשר ישית עליו בעל האשה ונתן בפללים׃ ואם־אסון יהיה ונתתה נפש תחת נפש׃ עין תחת עין שן תחת שן יד תחת יד רגל תחת רגל כויה תחת כויה פצע תחת פצע חבורה תחת חבורה׃
"When two men scuffle, and strike a pregnant woman, and it causes her to miscarry, but no [other] harm is done to her, he [the striker] shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband levies upon him: he shall give it as it is assessed. But if harm is done to her, then you must give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, leg for leg, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

The criminal action is not the causation of the miscarriage: that is a tort, liable for a fine for damages, not for capital or even corporal punishment. The criminal action is the causation of damages to the woman herself.

Even if the woman herself were to die as a result of the miscarriage caused by the blow, it would not be murder, according to Torah law, but manslaughter. The manslayer would be permitted to flee to one of the cities of refuge (cf. Numbers 35 and Deuternomy 19) to seek asylum there from the blood vendetta of the dead woman's kindred until the duration of permissible vendetta ended (either at the death of the High Priest, or the occurrence of the Yovel or Jubilee year, or sometimes the occurrence of the Shmitah or Sabbatical year).

That is, by the way, the only verse in Torah that is even remotely analogous to abortion: intentional abortion is never discussed in the Written Torah. And as for the Oral Torah, although early Jewish Law does not directly address the issue of intentional abortion, either, and while it does make clear that a pregnant woman must be protected, and the health and safety of her fetus entitles her to wide latitude in society and ritual practice (M. Yoma 8:5), it also makes clear that for legal purposes, the fetus is considered part of the mother (Gittin 23b), the mother's life takes precedence over that of the fetus (M. Oholot 7:6), and it must always be sacrificed if her life is endangered by her pregnancy, and it also makes clear that the fetus is not considered a full human being under Jewish Law until the baby's head emerges from the birth canal during labor (T. Yevamot 9:5, and Sanhedrin 72b). It also specifically teaches us that the termination of a fetus is never considered capital murder (Sanhedrin 84b).

 

[lunakilo]

Lunakilo pleaase try to avoid fragmenting my posts because it misrepresents my argument by making it appear that each sentence was written in isolation which isn't the case. I know you probably aren't intending to this.

You content that there is no way of determining when a embryo or fetus can be said to be self-aware and are ultimately concerned with the point where life starts. Arguably self-awareness is only possible once the nervous system including the brain is sufficiently developed to function. The study of development can determine when these structures begin to arise and so can inform us of when the mind begins to form.

I also contend that there is no such as the begining of life because reproduction both sexual and asexual represents the continuation of life. The egg produced by a female is a resource rich haploid cell which following the addition of genetic material from the male sperm goes through the process of development and forms a human being. At no point during this process are the cells involved dead. Your application of the term life is therefore arbitrary and respresentative of what you want to believe rather than what is actually the case.

You said that the mother is the person most qualified to decide if an abortion is acceptable. Clearly this is an oversimplification of the issue because the mother does not have unrestricted right to abort the pregnancy at any time due to the cirumstances of the pregnancy. This is because we recognsie that at some point that developing fetus becomes a concious being in its own right and therefore we have to consider the rights of both mother and fetus. This point in development and the legality of it can only be determined by scientists and law makers with consultation with the general public where necessary. The stages of pregnancy when the embryo or fetus can't be considered as being a conscious is the period when the mother needs to decide whether she wants to keep that baby or abort it. My comment about parents and their childrens treatment was intended to highlight this point and had nothing to do with abortions for medical reasons.

I pretty much agree with what they have in your countries although I would be interested in the justifcation they give for twelve weeks.

I apologize if I have misrepresented your arguments, I only cut the text up to make it clear what I was commenting on.

Yes I do claim that there is no way of telling if/when a fetus becomes self-aware.
I have never heard of such a study, if you have a reference to this I would love to read about it.

I agree with you about life present even before conception, but I do not consider this human life. A single cell is to me not a human beeng.
This morning I killed a moth in my kitchen (we have a moth problem ), that is I took a life, but I do not feel that it was a criminal act.
To me it was just a moth, and to me an egg is just an egg.
To me a fertilized egg containing 2 cells is no more a human being than it was when it contained only 1 cell.
4 cells, 8 cells, ... Still not a human being to me.
The problem for me is that at some point a group of cells and becomes a human being (and I don't really care if it is self aware or not), but I am not sure when.
I don't think a newborn child is really self aware, but I don't see this as an argument that it is ok to kill children!

I do think the pregnant woman is the person best qualified to descide about having an abortion or not.
If you turn the argumant around and say she should not be allowed to descide, you then have to descide who makes the desision.
You can make a set of complicated laws, but they will never be able to cover all cases adequately.

The simplest law is to say, abortion is illegal.
This would mean that the 8 year old girl who was raped by her uncle would have to carrie the baby full term and give birth. Somehow that does not seem fair to me.
If you start making exceptions the rules quickly become very complicated.
You could for example say that abortion is ok in case of rape, but then you have the problem of determining when something is rape.
Who has to prove it is rape? Can a girl simply claim rape and then have an abortion?
If you need to prove that it is rape, you will end up with cases where a girl is raped but can't prove it and is stuck bringing up the rapists child.
Even if she can prove she was raped it will probably take time, and the fetus will grow while you argue about if the abortion is legal or not.

The point I am trying to make is that simply saying that abortion is illegal is not acceptable to me.
Saying that abortion is legal if ... is just to complicated to be practical.
Which in my mind only leaves 'let the pregnant woman descide as long as she is no more than 12 weeks pregnant' (exchange 12 with a number which is acceptable to you)

The 12 weeks limit that we have in my country was chosen for a mixture of reasons I think.
The practical reason that the woman has to have time to find out she is pregnant, think about if abortion is accaptable to her and if so have an abortion.
Also a 12 weeks old fetus is not yet so developed that it would be able to survive outside the womb even with medical assistance (at least this was true when the law was made, but since medical science keeps advancing who knows these days), and the fact that the fetus isn't viable makes the abortion more acceptable to most people.

 

[Pegg]

That's actually not what that verse says.

וכי־ינצו אנשים ונגפו אשה הרה ויצאו ילדיה ולא יהיה אסון ענוש יענש כאשר ישית עליו בעל האשה ונתן בפללים׃ ואם־אסון יהיה ונתתה נפש תחת נפש׃ עין תחת עין שן תחת שן יד תחת יד רגל תחת רגל כויה תחת כויה פצע תחת פצע חבורה תחת חבורה׃
"When two men scuffle, and strike a pregnant woman, and it causes her to miscarry, but no [other] harm is done to her, he [the striker] shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband levies upon him: he shall give it as it is assessed. But if harm is done to her, then you must give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, leg for leg, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."[/quote]

I have it from the hebrew interlinear.... can you tell me if there is a difference in your version?
Transliteration exodus 21:22-23:
anshim u·ngphu ashe ere u·itzau u·la ieie asun onush ionsh k·ashr oli·u bol e·ashe u·nthn b·phllim ieie asun u·nththe nphsh thchth nphsh

Literal word:
they-are-striving mortals and·they-strike woman pregnant and·they-come-forth children-of·her and·not he-is-becoming mishap to-be-fined he-shall-be-fined as·which
he-shall-impose on·him possessor-of the·woman and·he-gives in·mediators and·if he-is-becoming mishap and·you-give soul instead-of soul

English translation:
If men strive, and hurt a
woman with child, so that
her fruit depart [from her],
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].


Our view is that it is speaking of 'premature birth' rather then miscarriage because it states 'if no mischief/mishap occurs' then he is to pay a fine, but if a mishap occurs he is to give soul for soul.

also, if this verse is not speaking about the unborn child, then why apply this rule only to a pregnant woman and not any other woman?? Basically it would be saying that its okay to injure a woman who is not pregnant, but if you injure one who is pregnant then you could have to face a fine or death penalty

it really makes no sense to apply this verse to the woman and not the child.

That is, by the way, the only verse in Torah that is even remotely analogous to abortion: intentional abortion is never discussed in the Written Torah. And as for the Oral Torah, although early Jewish Law does not directly address the issue of intentional abortion, either, and while it does make clear that a pregnant woman must be protected, and the health and safety of her fetus entitles her to wide latitude in society and ritual practice, it also makes clear that the mother's life takes precedence over that of the fetus, and it must always be sacrificed if her life is endangered by her pregnancy, and it also makes clear that the fetus is not considered a full human being under Jewish Law until the baby's head emerges from the birth canal during labor.

its curious that her pregnancy entitles her to special consideration, yet the baby is not considered to be of value until after it is born

that just doesnt make any sense to me whatsoever.

 

[Levite]

I have it from the hebrew interlinear.... can you tell me if there is a difference in your version?
Transliteration exodus 21:22-23:
anshim u·ngphu ashe ere u·itzau u·la ieie asun onush ionsh k·ashr oli·u bol e·ashe u·nthn b·phllim ieie asun u·nththe nphsh thchth nphsh

Literal word:
they-are-striving mortals and·they-strike woman pregnant and·they-come-forth children-of·her and·not he-is-becoming mishap to-be-fined he-shall-be-fined as·which
he-shall-impose on·him possessor-of the·woman and·he-gives in·mediators and·if he-is-becoming mishap and·you-give soul instead-of soul

English translation:
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart [from her],
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].

I consistently have problems with these "literal word" translations, in part because Hebrew is a terse language, where very often possessives, indicators, locators, and other such particles are left implicit-- concepts which we express explicitly much more frequently in English, and thus are hard to render in "literal word" translations. But also, "literal word" translations absolutely ignore idiom and metaphor, which does no one any favors, since Biblical Hebrew is full of idioms and metaphors; and they also studiously neglect the fact that Hebrew words often have more than one meaning, especially particles and directional and possessive affixes-- not to mention various other grammatical offenses these translations tend to incorporate.

Nonetheless, let's see if I can't parse this out in something akin to that style.

וכי־ינצו אנשים ונגפו אשה הרה ויצאו ילדיה ולא יהיה אסון ענוש יענש כאשר ישית עליו בעל האשה ונתן בפללים׃ ואם־אסון יהיה ונתתה נפש תחת נפש׃ עין תחת עין שן תחת שן יד תחת יד רגל תחת רגל כויה תחת כויה פצע תחת פצע חבורה תחת חבורה׃
Ve-chi yinatzu anashim, ve-nagfu ishah harah, va-yatz'u y'ladeha, ve-lo yihiyeh asohn, anosh ye'anesh, ka'asher ya**** 'alav ba'al ha'ishah, v'natan bi'f'lilim. V'im asohn yihiyeh, v'natatah nefesh tachat nafesh; 'ayin tachat 'ayin, shen tachat shen, yad tachat yad, regel tachat ragel, k'viyah tachat k'viyah, petza tachat patza, chaburah tachat chaburah.
And-when-they-are-fighting/ two-men/ and-they-strike a-woman gravid/ and-they-cause-to-come-out/ her-child/ but-there-is-not-[to-her] harm/ absolutely-fined [he-is-to-be]/ even-as to-be-decreed upon-him/ [by-the-]husband [of-]the-woman/ and-he-shall-give with-assessment; but-if harm there-is/ then-you-shall-give-for-her life in-place-of life/ eye in-place-of eye/ tooth in-place-of tooth/ hand in-place-of hand/ leg in-place-of leg/ burn-mark/scar in-place-of burn-mark/scar/ inflicted-wound in-place-of inflicted-wound/ abrasion/bruise in-place-of abrasion/bruise.

In the first usage of "harm," there is no defined locator in the Hebrew; as is typical in Biblical text, one must infer the locator by means of the possessive affix later on in "give-for-her." But grammatically, the sentence can only work if the woman is the one being harmed. The Hebrew will simply not support the capital crime being the causation of miscarriage.

Our view is that it is speaking of 'premature birth' rather then miscarriage because it states 'if no mischief/mishap occurs' then he is to pay a fine, but if a mishap occurs he is to give soul for soul.

The Hebrew could, in theory, support a reading that the ejection of the fetus here is a premature birth, but it is unlikely. If both baby and mother were to survive the experience unharmed, then in the view of the law, no action has resulted in culpability. Jewish Law has never worked that way, and there is no reason to suppose that this would have been different for some reason.

also, if this verse is not speaking about the unborn child, then why apply this rule only to a pregnant woman and not any other woman?? Basically it would be saying that its okay to injure a woman who is not pregnant, but if you injure one who is pregnant then you could have to face a fine or death penalty

it really makes no sense to apply this verse to the woman and not the child.

The rule is given because there are other rules in Torah about the lex talionis applying to any situation where a person injures another, including that of accidental injury. And, as with nearly all criminal laws in the Torah, the phrasing in those cases is in the masculine: not because those laws only applied to men-- they applied equally to men and women-- but because Hebrew has no gender-neutral, and the language defaults to the grammatical masculine. Thus, even as in anglophonic law, we may say "If a person injures another, he is to be punished for the infliction of injury;" and even though the pronoun is masculine, we assume that the same law holds true even if the assailant is female. Anyone is culpable for punishment of some sort for injuring another person, regardless of gender.

However, because this situation involves a pregnant woman-- a situation which is unique to the female gender, as men cannot be pregnant-- a special rule must be given.

And it must be phrased like this because if no such rule were given, the average person might erroneously presume that the accidental causation of a miscarriage might make one liable for capital murder, on the presumption that the fetus counts legally as a person; which it does not, and therefore this law must be made, in order to make clear that the accidental causer of a miscarriage is guilty either of a tort (if no harm other than miscarriage results from his actions) or of criminal assault/manslaughter (if the woman, who is a legal person, is otherwise harmed or killed as a result of the miscarriage). This explanation is, by the way, almost a word-for-word paraphrase of the explanation given by the Rabbis of the Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin, page 84b.

It is, also by the way, worth noting (as many commentators have done) that most of the laws pertaining to the criminal injury and homicide of full legal persons are elsewhere in the Torah. This verse comes in the context of a long list of property crimes (including injury and killing of slaves and animals), some of which are noted to have different rules applying to them if they incidentally result in injury to a full legal person.

its curious that her pregnancy entitles her to special consideration, yet the baby is not considered to be of value until after it is born. that just doesnt make any sense to me whatsoever.

I never said the fetus had no value. I said it was not considered a full legal person. It has value, otherwise damaging or terminating it could not result in culpability for a fine, nor would pregnancy entitle a woman to any special consideration under the laws. What is clear is that while a fetus indeed had value as a potential legal person, or as a partial legal person in development, that value was simply not equivalent to that of a full legal person who has been born.

Such a concept is hardly rare, nor is it by any means limited to ancient Judaism. Most ancient cultures had different points at which a fetus was considered "a living person." For many (including, by the way, the Catholic Church, until well past the Middle Ages) there was a "quickening" point at which the fetus was considered "alive," usually the first time the mother felt it discernably move, which is usually around two months into pregnancy, and sometimes much later. Some cultures didn't consider a child to be a viable person until birth, or even after (in some parts of ancient Asia, I believe, it was around thirty days after birth). But the idea that a fetus ab initio should be considered a full legal person simply was not the norm in the ancient world.

 

[Rakhel]

the NT makes it clear that babylon would be around for a very long time...it would prove to be more then merely the ancient city located in Iraq. Babylon began with Nimrod, it was the starting point for many the worlds ancient religions and the ideas from those religions can be found in all religions today. Many hebrew scripture prophecies have greater fulfillment

'babylon the great' is discussed in the book of Revelation and in there it is not a person or people but 'organizations' and religious establishments.

And here in lies the problem with using NT to try to justify Torah. Babylon, in Torah, was just a city. Nothing more, nothing less. The king of Babylon, in Torah, was not Lucifer or the Great Morning star. It was the King of Babylon.
The Babylon in Isaiah and Psalms are in no way the same Babylon that is spoken of in Revelations. It make no sense to say they are.

 

[ninerbuff]

Murder. What the hell did your baby do to you.

A zygote isn't a person. You'd be hard pressed to prove that. And if a female who is prone to miscarriages ends up "jumping up and down" and causes another miscarriage after getting pregnant is this murder?

 

[proffesb]

Pegg I would say from the arguments posed by both you and Levite that the passage you have is not a reference to abortion, You appear to be using it to show the torah recognizes the unborn child as life, is there any other support for that statement in the book? Just curious and trying to move the argument along.

 

[EmpiricalAgnosticAtheist]

I'm fine with abortion as long as it's done within a reasonable time frame. The moment a baby becomes a viable human being is when it's a late term abortion.

I'm against human suffering though, and abortion oftentimes can prevent a great deal of suffering, for the parents, and for the prospective child.

My brother was adopted, and although my parents are great, and he's turned out alright, he still has a ton of psychological issues that I believe are very much a direct result of his adoption, and his early childhood years in the foster care system.

Many orphans never find a real home, and in those cases I think it would've been more humane to have aborted the child. If you're not ready to raise a child, and don't have suitable parents lined up for your baby, then you're gambling on their potential happiness and well being- a very risky, and statistically unfavorable situation.

 

[Oneatatime]

I apologize if I have misrepresented your arguments, I only cut the text up to make it clear what I was commenting on.

Yes I do claim that there is no way of telling if/when a fetus becomes self-aware.
I have never heard of such a study, if you have a reference to this I would love to read about it.

I agree with you about life present even before conception, but I do not consider this human life. A single cell is to me not a human beeng.
This morning I killed a moth in my kitchen (we have a moth problem ), that is I took a life, but I do not feel that it was a criminal act.
To me it was just a moth, and to me an egg is just an egg.
To me a fertilized egg containing 2 cells is no more a human being than it was when it contained only 1 cell.
4 cells, 8 cells, ... Still not a human being to me.
The problem for me is that at some point a group of cells and becomes a human being (and I don't really care if it is self aware or not), but I am not sure when.
I don't think a newborn child is really self aware, but I don't see this as an argument that it is ok to kill children!

I do think the pregnant woman is the person best qualified to descide about having an abortion or not.
If you turn the argumant around and say she should not be allowed to descide, you then have to descide who makes the desision.
You can make a set of complicated laws, but they will never be able to cover all cases adequately.

The simplest law is to say, abortion is illegal.
This would mean that the 8 year old girl who was raped by her uncle would have to carrie the baby full term and give birth. Somehow that does not seem fair to me.
If you start making exceptions the rules quickly become very complicated.
You could for example say that abortion is ok in case of rape, but then you have the problem of determining when something is rape.
Who has to prove it is rape? Can a girl simply claim rape and then have an abortion?
If you need to prove that it is rape, you will end up with cases where a girl is raped but can't prove it and is stuck bringing up the rapists child.
Even if she can prove she was raped it will probably take time, and the fetus will grow while you argue about if the abortion is legal or not.

The point I am trying to make is that simply saying that abortion is illegal is not acceptable to me.
Saying that abortion is legal if ... is just to complicated to be practical.
Which in my mind only leaves 'let the pregnant woman descide as long as she is no more than 12 weeks pregnant' (exchange 12 with a number which is acceptable to you)

The 12 weeks limit that we have in my country was chosen for a mixture of reasons I think.
The practical reason that the woman has to have time to find out she is pregnant, think about if abortion is accaptable to her and if so have an abortion.
Also a 12 weeks old fetus is not yet so developed that it would be able to survive outside the womb even with medical assistance (at least this was true when the law was made, but since medical science keeps advancing who knows these days), and the fact that the fetus isn't viable makes the abortion more acceptable to most people.

Its not any particular study but the cumulative knowledge of embryology. Just google the subject and you'll find plenty of information on it but try and avoid the dodgy or politically motivated sites.

I broadly share you feelings on the matter. At the moment the debate over whether abortion is to be allowed and if it is how long the fetus can be allowed to develop before its aborted will be decided in the courts and by politicians and lawmakers subject to lobbying efforts from all different direction. I don't think that the science or cirumstances of the mother will count for much in the maelstrom of political lobbying and manuvering.

 

[Pegg]

And here in lies the problem with using NT to try to justify Torah. Babylon, in Torah, was just a city. Nothing more, nothing less. The king of Babylon, in Torah, was not Lucifer or the Great Morning star. It was the King of Babylon.
The Babylon in Isaiah and Psalms are in no way the same Babylon that is spoken of in Revelations. It make no sense to say they are.

the babylon in Isaiah and Pslams prefigured a greater babylon

There are spiritual fulfillments of the physical realities that were recorded in the Torah. That is what the Holy spirit has revealed. There were prophetic dramas in the Torah which were real physical events but that would be fulfilled in a greater spiritual way.

the Torah is not just words on the pages of a book. It is alive.

 

[EmpiricalAgnosticAtheist]

Lofty claims there man, so the Torah chronicles unfathomable spiritual dramas? At what point does Zeus jump in and start hurling lightning bolts, for my reference?

 

[ninerbuff]

the Torah is not just words on the pages of a book. It is alive.

Statements like this scream drama. Imagination has a way of boosting that dopamine.