One of the worst fights I ever got into with my father happened when Trump was president. My Dad kept insisting that Trump’s presidency was ordained by God. He admitted that Trump said some foolish things sometimes, but quoted the Bible verse about how God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.
He said that God had made Trump president for a reason. My Dad believes the worst two things to ever happen to America are 1.) Women being allowed to enter the work force and 2.) Abortion becoming legal. He said that Trump was anointed as America’s president, so he could get rid of abortion rights. My Dad is convinced and has directly stated that “everything wrong with America stems from abortion.”
Worst of all, he was sort of right. While I don’t think God is real, republicans certainly did use Trump to appoint two Supreme Court judges who would lead to the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade.
It was like I was being slapped in the face when it happened. I knew my Dad felt smug about it and would consider this proof that his God is real.
And it didn’t make sense to me. I talked to him about how the Bible says life begins at first breath, so that implies that fetuses don’t have souls yet. I also talked to him about how there was an abortion ritual in the Bible, in Numbers 5, a passage many pro-choice people point out to Christians. I even wrote an article on here including it.
It says…
11 Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure — or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure — 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest.
It goes on to say…
16 “‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband” — 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse — ”may the Lord cause you to become a curse[d] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
You can look up the rest of the verses if you want to read it, but I will summarize them if you don’t. The chapter goes on to discuss the priest performing the ritual and God promising that the woman will be punished through “miscarriage”, aka ritual abortion, if she cheated and that she’s a sinner bearing consequences if she loses her pregnancy. It also makes a point of calling the husband innocent.
When I pointed out these passages to my father, he said, “That’s different and doesn’t count as an abortion.”
Lots of Christian men also said similar things in response to my article. They claimed that a miscarriage didn’t count as an abortion, even though medically they’re called “spontaneous abortions.” They said that miscarriage was a mistranslation, that the ritual would just cause a woman’s “thigh to rot”, whatever the hell that means.
It’s very clear though that in this passage this is humans taking an action and giving a medicine to cause a woman to terminate her baby. That’s an abortion.
So why are they denying it? Why are they pretending it’s different from modern day abortions? Why are they okay with one of these things and not the other one?
It’s not to save babies. That part is clear. There are passages in the Bible, like 2 Samuel Chapter 12, where God murders babies. In that chapter, God kills Bathsheba’s first child as a punishment for David and Bathsheba having an affair.
There’s also verses like Hosea 13:16, where God says he will have enemy nations rip pregnant women’s stomachs open, which is a very violent form of abortion and the womb they treat as holy.
Why are they okay with God performing these abortions on women, but not women getting abortions themselves?
It’s because they hate all women and are revealing that by accepting one of these scenarios and not the other. I realized that when I finally thought about why they are okay with these biblical passages, but not modern day abortion.
In all these stories abortion and even killing babies is fine because it’s all being used to punish, maime, assault, and harm women. It’s done against their will.
The problem for them is that modern day abortion makes women’s lives better. It gives them options and more independence. It protects their lives in health scares and allows them to escape their male abusers. It gives them agency. It cares about their well being and puts their body and opinion above everyone else’s.
They can’t stand that. Abortion is only to be used to hurt women, so it’s okay in the Bible, but not okay when women do it to save themselves.
God is a hero when he terminates a fetus if a woman will suffer for it afterward. Women are murderers, in their eyes, if they dare to use abortion because they need help.
These men want women to suffer. Christianity wants women to suffer.
