34. Abortion in the Bible: A Pro-Choice AI Analysis

[00:00:00] It's really interesting how many people form, like, full-on opinions based on what they think the Bible says versus what's actually in there, you know?

[00:00:08] Right. So, like, one of the first things that jumped out at me was this idea that abortion itself, like, the act, it's not explicitly condemned in the Bible.

[00:00:33] Monday night at dinner, I said, it amazes me that some women who would never let Trump babysit their daughter are still going to vote for him.

[00:00:46] And one of my daughters responded, it's all about abortion. So many women from conservative churches.

[00:00:55] The next morning, I woke up and I realized I could not stay silent on this issue any longer.

[00:01:02] Remember, when Vice President Harris ran for Attorney General here in California, she won by the slimmest of margins, averaging just three votes per precinct.

[00:01:17] Three votes. This election, every vote counts.

[00:01:22] So, if you know someone who is going to hold their nose and vote for a candidate they don't like because of the abortion issue,

[00:01:30] please send them this 10-minute podcast. I created it with AI, giving it my notes.

[00:01:39] It tells the truth about what the Bible says and doesn't say on abortion.

[00:01:45] The AI engine included one very controversial sentence that I almost edited out. Let me know what you think.

[00:01:53] And if you know someone who is making the tough decision about whether to have an abortion, or if you have a friend who has had one and feels guilty, please share this podcast with them.

[00:02:08] This lie has gone on for far too long. Here is the truth of the matter.

[00:02:18] You know, when you bring up really hot-button issues, abortion is one of those that always comes up.

[00:02:24] And it seems like everyone's got super strong opinions about it.

[00:02:27] It's definitely one of those topics that really makes you think about deeply held beliefs and all that.

[00:02:33] So, today we're going to do a deep dive into what the Bible actually says about abortion.

[00:02:38] Yeah.

[00:02:38] You know, honestly, when it comes to abortion, I always just assumed the Bible had a lot to say, you know.

[00:02:44] But after reading through the sources, I'm starting to think my assumptions about this whole topic were a little off base.

[00:02:50] Yeah. It's really interesting how many people form like full-on opinions based on what they think the Bible says versus what's actually in there, you know.

[00:02:58] Right. So, like, one of the first things that jumped out at me was this idea that abortion itself, like, the act, it's not explicitly condemned in the Bible.

[00:03:08] Yeah.

[00:03:08] Which seems like a pretty big deal.

[00:03:10] Yeah. The abortion itself, it's not actually in the Old and New Testaments.

[00:03:14] Yeah.

[00:03:15] And Jesus himself, even though abortion was definitely happening back then, he never actually said anything against it.

[00:03:21] And it's not just Jesus either.

[00:03:23] The prophets and the authors of the Old and New Testaments, they don't talk about it directly either.

[00:03:30] So, we're seeing this kind of lack of direct condemnation.

[00:03:34] You know, it just goes to show how complex and nuanced biblical interpretation can be.

[00:03:39] Yeah.

[00:03:39] And it doesn't stop there because then they go on to talk about Genesis 2.7, where it talks about God breathing the breath of life into Adam.

[00:03:46] Uh-huh.

[00:03:46] And they're saying that, biblically speaking, that is when life begins.

[00:03:49] Right.

[00:03:50] At first breath, not at conception.

[00:03:52] Exactly. And it obviously flies in the face of a lot of the arguments.

[00:03:55] And so, if breath is what's signifying life, then that really challenges, I think, one of the main arguments against abortion.

[00:04:05] Genesis 2.7

[00:04:17] Huge implications, right? Like, I mean, for people who believe that personhood begins at fertilization, this is a completely different way of looking at it.

[00:04:27] It raises a lot of questions.

[00:04:28] You have so many Christian groups today that are very strongly against abortion.

[00:04:33] Absolutely. And you know what I find so fascinating about that?

[00:04:35] What's that?

[00:04:36] How recent that stance actually is, historically speaking.

[00:04:39] Hmm.

[00:04:40] Like, even among conservative Christian groups, that strong anti-abortion stance, it's a relatively new development.

[00:04:47] Wait, really?

[00:04:48] Yeah.

[00:04:48] Huh. See, I always thought that was like a long-held belief.

[00:04:51] You'd be surprised. In 1971, the Southern Baptist Convention.

[00:04:55] Okay.

[00:04:56] Which now is, you know, one of the...

[00:04:58] Yeah, very much opposed.

[00:04:59] Very much opposed.

[00:05:00] To abortion.

[00:05:01] In 1971, they passed a resolution that said, no, we support legal abortion to protect the mother's life and to protect her emotional health.

[00:05:10] Wow.

[00:05:11] Which is wild.

[00:05:12] Wild.

[00:05:13] And even more so, W.A. Criswell.

[00:05:15] Okay.

[00:05:16] Who was the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

[00:05:18] Okay.

[00:05:19] And he said, I have always felt that it was only after a child was born.

[00:05:23] Wow.

[00:05:24] That it became an individual person.

[00:05:26] He believed personhood began at birth, not conception.

[00:05:30] Southern Baptist Convention President W.A. Criswell welcomed Roe v. Wade.

[00:05:35] He stated,

[00:05:36] I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person.

[00:05:44] It has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.

[00:05:51] That was the one-time president of the Southern Baptist Convention, W.A. Criswell.

[00:05:56] It has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.

[00:06:03] This view was a common attitude among evangelicals at the time.

[00:06:08] Later, when the issue became political, Criswell, like many others, reversed his position.

[00:06:13] Okay.

[00:06:14] So, very different.

[00:06:15] Wildly different.

[00:06:16] Than the stance that they're taking now.

[00:06:17] Yes.

[00:06:18] Jonathan Dudley writes,

[00:06:20] In 1968, Christianity Today published a special issue on contraception and abortion,

[00:06:26] encapsulating the consensus among evangelical thinkers at the time.

[00:06:30] In the leading article, Professor Bruce Waltke of the famously conservative Dallas Theological Seminary

[00:06:36] explained the Bible plainly teaches that life begins at birth.

[00:06:41] God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed.

[00:06:47] That was from Professor Bruce Waltke of the Dallas Theological Seminary, writing in 1968 in Christianity Today.

[00:06:55] God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed.

[00:07:01] Wow.

[00:07:02] That's like the complete opposite of what you hear from them now.

[00:07:04] I know, right?

[00:07:05] Which just goes to show, I think, how these issues, how the views can evolve over time.

[00:07:12] Yeah, and they point to the 1970s.

[00:07:14] Okay.

[00:07:14] As when things really started to shift.

[00:07:16] Okay.

[00:07:17] And they talk about figures like Jerry Falwell.

[00:07:19] Yeah.

[00:07:19] Who really pushed a socially conservative agenda.

[00:07:23] Right, and he was very much opposed to abortion and really...

[00:07:27] I don't know if spearheaded is the right word, but...

[00:07:29] I think so.

[00:07:30] But really brought that to the forefront in a lot of ways.

[00:07:32] For sure.

[00:07:33] So we're seeing how this has evolved over time.

[00:07:36] Almost 2,000 years after the death of Christ, American evangelicals, influenced by Reverend

[00:07:42] Jerry Falwell's powerful TV ministry, decided that a fertilized human egg had a soul.

[00:07:48] Despite Reverend Falwell's pronouncements, there is no scripture giving a soul to a fetus,

[00:07:54] nor any scripture condemning abortion.

[00:07:56] So even without this direct biblical support, this new interpretation kind of took hold and became this defining issue.

[00:08:05] Some evangelical leaders, they actually started to decide more with the Catholic views on abortion around that time.

[00:08:12] And that it might have been like a way to push back against feminism and like the LGBTQ movement, all that was going on then.

[00:08:19] And that this change, they say, is what led to some people reinterpreting the Bible, like, you know, to make it fit with this stricter, more anti-abortion view.

[00:08:28] So it wasn't that the Bible itself suddenly changed.

[00:08:31] It's just that different groups started to interpret it in a way that fit their own political agendas.

[00:08:37] Yeah.

[00:08:37] It really makes you realize, like, what you think is like this timeless set in stone belief might actually be like something that's relatively new.

[00:08:47] Like it's influenced by all these things that have nothing to do with the Bible itself.

[00:08:53] But it doesn't stop there because then we get into the actual science of pregnancy.

[00:08:57] Right.

[00:08:58] And miscarriage.

[00:08:58] Yeah.

[00:08:59] And this is where things get.

[00:09:00] And this is where things get really interesting.

[00:09:02] Really interesting because up to 75 percent of fertilized eggs naturally miscarry.

[00:09:07] Wow.

[00:09:08] 75 percent.

[00:09:09] Yeah.

[00:09:09] And a lot of times before a woman even knows that she's pregnant.

[00:09:13] So that's a huge number.

[00:09:15] It's a lot.

[00:09:15] Like, let that sink in for a second.

[00:09:17] 75 percent.

[00:09:18] Right.

[00:09:18] That's.

[00:09:19] That makes you wonder.

[00:09:20] It really does make you wonder, right?

[00:09:22] Like, if that is happening naturally at such a high rate.

[00:09:26] More than 200 million miscarriages happening every single year.

[00:09:30] It's kind of hard to say that something's morally wrong if it happens that much as part of nature.

[00:09:34] You think about how many fertilized eggs never actually become babies.

[00:09:38] Yeah.

[00:09:39] Is God a mass murderer?

[00:09:41] If you want to look at it that way.

[00:09:42] That's a lot of souls.

[00:09:43] Like, heaven is going to be super crowded.

[00:09:45] Right.

[00:09:46] For every live birth, women on average have two or three miscarriages or fertilized eggs spontaneously aborted.

[00:09:53] If this is like, you know, God's design, that this is part of the process, that such a high percentage of pregnancies end naturally, then how can human intervention be inherently wrong?

[00:10:08] One thing that really stood out to me was that a lot of miscarriages happen for the same reasons that women choose abortion.

[00:10:15] Absolutely.

[00:10:16] That's such an important parallel.

[00:10:17] And I think people, you know, sometimes miss that.

[00:10:20] Like, for example, chromosomal abnormalities.

[00:10:22] They're a leading cause of miscarriages.

[00:10:24] We're talking like 60, 70 percent of cases in early pregnancy.

[00:10:29] In addition to chromosomal abnormalities, other reasons the body can naturally abort or miscarry a fertilized egg or fetus include physical or emotional trauma, environmental toxins, poor health, or malnutrition.

[00:10:43] So essentially, like the body is already capable of identifying in a lot of cases, terminating a pregnancy that's unlikely to result in a healthy birth.

[00:10:52] Precisely.

[00:10:53] So, OK, let's recap for a sec.

[00:10:55] We have a Bible that never explicitly mentions abortion.

[00:10:59] We have tons of naturally occurring miscarriages.

[00:11:02] Often for really similar reasons to why some women choose abortion.

[00:11:05] And we have this whole history of how religious views on abortion have really changed over time.

[00:11:10] It's a lot.

[00:11:11] It's a lot to process.

[00:11:12] It's not as simple as life begins at conception and that's it.

[00:11:17] So to really bring this home, can we talk about that example you sent me, the one with the 14-year-old girl in a refugee camp?

[00:11:23] She's dealing with an unwanted pregnancy.

[00:11:25] This girl could be running away from violence, struggling to get enough to eat, maybe even the victim of sexual assault.

[00:11:31] It's a really difficult scenario to think about, but it's the reality for a lot of women and girls around the world, unfortunately.

[00:11:36] And in situations like that, saying she can't have a safe abortion, it would be morally wrong.

[00:11:42] It is.

[00:11:43] It's not what I was expecting going into this deep dive, I'll be honest.

[00:11:47] Yeah.

[00:11:47] And it really makes you think about like, OK, how can we support?

[00:11:50] How can we support life?

[00:11:51] All life.

[00:11:52] All life.

[00:11:52] Yes.

[00:11:53] Not just, you know.

[00:11:54] Right.

[00:11:54] Life at a certain stage.

[00:11:56] Exactly.

[00:11:57] Exactly.

[00:11:57] Wow.

[00:11:57] Well, this has been a journey.

[00:11:59] It has.

[00:11:59] It's been fascinating for sure.

[00:12:00] And, you know, as always, we want to hear from you, our listeners.

[00:12:04] Yes.

[00:12:05] Like, how do we make sense of our faith when it bumps up against our own lived experiences?

[00:12:09] What do you think about all of this?

[00:12:11] How does this resonate with you?

[00:12:12] Have you ever thought about it in this way?

[00:12:14] Right.

[00:12:15] Let us know because we love.

[00:12:18] We do.

[00:12:18] We love a good conversation, so.

[00:12:20] Yes.

[00:12:21] Keep the conversation going.

[00:12:22] Tell us what you think.

[00:12:24] And until next time, we'll see you in the deep end.

[00:12:29] Anyone who would like to reuse this podcast, whether by rebroadcasting it, embedding it

[00:12:37] in their own podcast, or putting it on their website or using it on social media or elsewhere,

[00:12:44] has my blessing.

[00:12:46] And if you know someone who might cast a decisive vote and has an open mind or is agonizing

[00:12:54] over this issue, please point them to this podcast.

[00:12:59] This is Elton Sherwin.

[00:13:01] Stay safe, stay brave, and God bless.