The 'Christian' pro-choice position is nothing more than an accommodation to modern secular belief--and is completely unbiblical 
 
By Randy Alcorn 
 
Excerpted from a longer essay with permission of Eternal Perspective Ministries.

There is a small but influential circle of prochoice advocates who claim to base their beliefs on the Bible. They maintain that "nowhere does the Bible prohibit abortion." [1] Yet the Bible clearly prohibits the killing of innocent people (Exodus 20:13). All that is necessary to prove a biblical prohibition of abortion is to demonstrate that the Bible considers the unborn to be human beings. 
Personhood in the Bible

A number of ancient societies opposed abortion,[2] but the ancient Hebrew society had the clearest reasons for doing so because of its foundations in the scriptures. The Bible teaches that men and women are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). As the climax of God's creation mankind has an intrinsic worth far greater than that of the animal kingdom placed under His care. Throughout the Scriptures, personhood is never measured by age, stage of development, or mental, physical, or social skills. Personhood is endowed by God at the moment of creation - before which there was not a human being and after which there is. That moment of creation can be nothing other than the moment of conception.

The Hebrew word used in the Old Testament to refer to the unborn (Exodus 21:22-25) is yeled, a word that "generally indicates young children, but may refer to teens or even young adults." [3] The Hebrews did not have or need a separate word for unborn children. They were just like any other children, only younger. In the Bible there are references to born children and unborn children, but there is no such thing as a potential, incipient, or "almost" child.

Job graphically described the way God created him before he was born (Job 10:8-12). The person in the womb was not something that might become Job, but someone who was Job, just a younger version of the same man. To Isaiah, God says, "This is what the Lord says - he who made you, who formed you in the womb" (Isaiah 44:2). What each person is, not merely what he might become, was present in his mother's womb.

Psalm 139:13-16 paints a graphic picture of the intimate involvement of God with a preborn person. God created David's "inmost being," not at birth, but before birth. David says to his Creator, "You knit me together in my mother's womb." Each person, regardless of his parentage of handicap, has not been manufactured on a cosmic assembly line, but has been personally knitted together by God in the womb. All the days of his life have been planned out by God before any have come to be (Psalm 139:16).

As a member of the human race that has rejected God, each person sinned "in Adam," and is therefore a sinner from his very beginning (Romans 5:12-19). David says, "Surely I was sinful at birth." Then he goes back even further, back before birth to the actual beginning of his life, saying he was "sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5). Each person has a sinful nature from the point of conception. Who but an actual person can have a sinful nature? Rocks and trees and animals and human organs do not have moral natures, good or bad. Morality can be ascribed only to a person. That there is a sin nature at the point of conception demonstrates that there is a person present who is capable of having such a nature.

 Jacob was given prominence over his twin Esau "though not yet born" (Romans 9:11). When Rebekah was pregnant with Jacob and Esau, Scriptures says, "The babies jostled each other within her" (Genesis 25:22). The unborn are regarded as "babies" in the full sense of the term. God tells Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you" (Jeremiah 1:5). He could not know Jeremiah in his mother's womb unless Jeremiah, the person, was present in his mother's womb. The Creator is involved in an intimate knowing relationship not only with born people, but with unborn people.
 
In Luke 1:41,44 there are references to the unborn John the Baptist, who was at the end of his second trimester in the womb. The word, translated baby, in these verses is the Greek word brephos. It is the same word used for the already born baby Jesus (Luke 2:12, 16) and for the babies brought to Jesus to receive His blessing (Luke 18:15-17). It is also the same word used in Acts 7:19 for the newborn babies killed by Pharaoh. To the writers of the New Testament, like the Old, whether born or unborn, a baby is simply a baby. It appears that the preborn John the Baptist responded to the presence of the preborn Jesus in His mother Mary when Jesus was probably no more than ten days beyond His conception (Luke 1:41).

The angel Gabriel told Mary that she would be "with child and give birth to a son" (Luke 1:31). In the first century, and in every century, to be pregnant is to be with child, not with that which might become a child. The Scriptures teach the psychosomatic unity of the whole person, body, soul, and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Wherever there is a genetically distinct living human being, there is a living soul and spirit.

The Status of the Unborn

One scholar states: "Looking at Old Testament law from a proper cultural and historical context, it is evident that the life of the unborn is put on the same par as the person outside the womb."[4]

When understood as a reference to miscarriage, Exodus 21:22-25 is sometimes used as evidence that the unborn is subhuman. But a proper understanding of the passage shows reference is not to a miscarriage, but to a premature birth, and that the "injury" referred to, which is to be compensated for like all other injuries, applies to the child as well as to his mother. This means that, "far from justifying permissive abortion, in fact grants the unborn child a status in the eyes of the law equal to the mother's."[5] Meredith Cline observes, "The most significant thing about abortion legislation in Biblical law is that there is none. It was so unthinkable that an Israelite woman should desire an abortion that there was no need to mention this offense in the criminal code." [6] All that was necessary to prohibit an abortion was the command, "You shall not murder" (Exodus 20:13). Every Israelite knew that the preborn child was indeed a child. Therefore, miscarriage was always viewed as the loss of a child and abortion as the killing of a child.

 Numbers 5:11-31 is an unusual passage of Scripture used to make a central argument in A Prochoice Bible Study, published by Episcopalians for Religious Freedom. [7] They cite the New English Bible's peculiar translation, which makes it sound as if God brings a miscarriage on a woman if she is unfaithful to her husband. Other translations refer to a wasting of the thigh and swelling of her abdomen, but do not take it to mean pregnancy, which would presumably simply be called that directly if it were in mind.
 
The woman could have been pregnant by her husband, assuming they had been having sex, which Hebrews couples normally did. It appears that God was expected to do some kind of miracle related to the bitter water, creating a dramatic physical reaction if adultery had been committed. The text gives no indication of either pregnancy of abortion. Indeed, in the majority of cases of suspected adultery, there would be no pregnancy and therefore no child at risk.

The Prochoice Bible Study that cites the NEB's unique translation suggests if God indeed causes miscarriage, it would therefore be an endorsements of people causing abortions. This is a huge stretch, since neither the wife, husband, nor priest made the decision to induce an abortion, nor would they have the right to do so. The passage does not seem to refer to a miscarriage at all; but even if it did, there is a certainly nothing to suggest any endorsement of human beings initiating an abortion.

***

In the last few decades it has become popular for certain theologians and ministers to be proabortion. The Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, for instance, has adopted the motto, "Prayerfully Prochoice," and prochoice advocates point to it as proof that conscientious Christians can be prochoice. Yet the arguments set forth by such advocates are shallow, inconsistent, and violate the most basic principles of biblical interpretation. Their arguments are clearly read into the biblical texts rather than derived from them.[14]

The "Christians" prochoice position is nothing more than an accommodation to modern secular beliefs, and it flies in the face of the Bible and the historical position of the church. If the church is to be the church, it must challenge and guide the morality of society, not mirror it.

Even if church history were unclear on the matter, the Bible is very clear. Every child in the womb has been created by God, and He has laid out a plan for that child's life.

Beliefnet.com

Torture Chicks Gone Wild

ASHINGTON

By the time House Republicans were finished with him, Bill Clinton must have thought of a thong as a torture device.

For the Bush administration, it actually is.

A former American Army sergeant who worked as an Arabic interpreter at Gitmo has written a book pulling back the veil on the astounding ways female interrogators used a toxic combination of sex and religion to try to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Cuba. It's not merely disgusting. It's beyond belief.

The Bush administration never worries about anything. But these missionaries and zealous protectors of values should be worried about the American soul. The president never mentions Osama, but he continues to use 9/11 as an excuse for American policies that bend the rules and play to our worst instincts.

"I have really struggled with this because the detainees, their families and much of the world will think this is a religious war based on some of the techniques used, even though it is not the case," the former sergeant, Erik R. Saar, 29, told The Associated Press. The A.P. got a manuscript of his book, deemed classified pending a Pentagon review.

What good is it for President Bush to speak respectfully of Islam and claim Iraq is not a religious war if the Pentagon denigrates Islamic law - allowing its female interrogators to try to make Muslim men talk in late-night sessions featuring sexual touching, displays of fake menstrual blood, and parading in miniskirt, tight T-shirt, bra and thong underwear?

It's like a bad porn movie, "The Geneva Monologues." All S and no M.

The A.P. noted that "some Guantánamo prisoners who have been released say they were tormented by 'prostitutes.' "

Mr. Saar writes about what he calls "disturbing" practices during his time in Gitmo from December 2002 to June 2003, including this anecdote related by Paisley Dodds, an A.P. reporter:

A female military interrogator who wanted to turn up the heat on a 21-year-old Saudi detainee who allegedly had taken flying lessons in Arizona before 9/11 removed her uniform top to expose a snug T-shirt. She began belittling the prisoner - who was praying with his eyes closed - as she touched her breasts, rubbed them against the Saudi's back and commented on his apparent erection.

After the prisoner spat in her face, she left the room to ask a Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner's reliance on God. The linguist suggested she tell the prisoner that she was menstruating, touch him, and then shut off the water in his cell so he couldn't wash.

"The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to her he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength," Mr. Saar recounted, adding: "She then started to place her hands in her pants as she walked behind the detainee. As she circled around him he could see that she was taking her hand out of her pants. When it became visible the detainee saw what appeared to be red blood on her hand. She said, 'Who sent you to Arizona?' He then glared at her with a piercing look of hatred. She then wiped the red ink on his face. He shouted at the top of his lungs, spat at her and lunged forward," breaking out of an ankle shackle.

"He began to cry like a baby," the author wrote, adding that the interrogator's parting shot was: "Have a fun night in your cell without any water to clean yourself."

A female civilian contractor kept her "uniform" - a thong and miniskirt - on the back of the door of an interrogation room, the author says.

Who are these women? Who allows this to happen? Why don't the officers who allow it get into trouble? Why do Rummy and Paul Wolfowitz still have their jobs?

The military did not deny the specifics, but said the prisoners were treated "humanely" and in a way consistent "with legal obligations prohibiting torture." However the Bush White House is redefining torture these days, the point is this: Such behavior degrades the women who are doing it, the men they are doing it to, and the country they are doing it for.

There's nothing wrong with trying to squeeze information out of detainees. But isn't it simply more effective to throw them in isolation and try to build some sort of relationship?

I doubt that the thong tease works as well on inmates at Gitmo as it did on Bill Clinton in the Oval Office

Parka, Ski Cap at Odds With Solemnity of Auschwitz Ceremony

At yesterday's gathering of world leaders in southern Poland to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the United States was represented by Vice President Cheney. The ceremony at the Nazi death camp was outdoors, so those in attendance, such as French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, were wearing dark, formal overcoats and dress shoes or boots. Because it was cold and snowing, they were also wearing gentlemen's hats. In short, they were dressed for the inclement weather as well as the sobriety and dignity of the event.

The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower.

Cheney, flanked by his wife and Israeli President Moshe Katsav at the Holocaust memorial event. (Herbert Knosowski -- AP)

Cheney stood out in a sea of black-coated world leaders because he was wearing an olive drab parka with a fur-trimmed hood. It is embroidered with his name. It reminded one of the way in which children's clothes are inscribed with their names before they are sent away to camp. And indeed, the vice president looked like an awkward boy amid the well-dressed adults.

Like other attendees, the vice president was wearing a hat. But it was not a fedora or a Stetson or a fur hat or any kind of hat that one might wear to a memorial service as the representative of one's country. Instead, it was a knit ski cap, embroidered with the words "Staff 2001." It was the kind of hat a conventioneer might find in a goodie bag.

It is also worth mentioning that Cheney was wearing hiking boots -- thick, brown, lace-up ones. Did he think he was going to have to hike the 44 miles from Krakow -- where he had made remarks earlier in the day -- to Auschwitz?

His wife, Lynne, was seated next to him. Her coat has a hood, too, and it is essentially a parka. But it is black and did not appear to be functioning as either a name tag or a billboard. One wonders if at some point the vice president turned to his wife, took in her attire and asked himself why they seemed to be dressed for two entirely different events.

Some might argue that Cheney was the only attendee with the smarts to dress for the cold and snowy weather. But sometimes, out of respect for the occasion, one must endure a little discomfort.

Just last week, in a frigid, snow-dusted Washington, Cheney sat outside through the entire inauguration without so much as a hat and without suffering frostbite. And clearly, Cheney owns a proper overcoat. The world saw it during his swearing-in as vice president. Cheney treated that ceremony with the dignity it deserved -- not simply through his demeanor, but also through his attire. Would he have dared to take the oath of office with a ski cap on? People would have justifiably considered that an insult to the office, the day, the country.

There is little doubt that intellectually Cheney approached the Auschwitz ceremony with thoughtfulness and respect. But symbolism is powerful. That's why the piercing cry of a train whistle marked the beginning of the ceremony and the glare of searchlights signaled its end. The vice president might have been warm in his parka, ski cap and hiking boots. But they had the unfortunate effect of suggesting that he was more concerned with his own comfort than the reason for braving the cold at all.

In Memory of a Freedom Fighter: Yasser Arafat

 
Arafat's legacy will be written and rewritten by those who believed in his vision of Palestinian legitimacy, sovereignty and national independence, says Leila Diab.

 
With an olive branch held in his hand, and a memorable trademark vision of a Palestinian freedom fighter that so proudly wore a black and white checkered Palestinian keffiyeh, the President of Palestine, Yasser Arafat reached his journey's end. Upon his passing on November 11, 2004, President Arafat, better known as Abu Ammar, symbolized an eternal life struggle of liberation, Statehood, hope and peace for the Palestinian people and their neighbors.

In a life filled with many obstacles and struggles to survive, Abu Ammar's intelligent skills of extinguishing internal and external circumstances were innate gifts of a skillfully statesman. He had won the hearts and minds of the international community's world leaders, and the Muslim world. While the Palestinian people trusted his determination to achieve a Palestinian State, on November 15, 1988, the Palestinian National Council in Algiers adopted a Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine. Despite Arafat's years of exile outside and inside Palestine; and his caged presence in Ramallah as the President of Palestine, he never faltered or abandoned his will to fight for the rights and independence of the Palestinian people. Arafat lived his life with the belief that 'through many great struggles comes victory.'

Arafat's legacy will be written and rewritten by those who believed in his vision of Palestinian legitimacy, sovereignty and national independence. Unfortunately, there will be those who ascribe to the destruction or denial of all of the above.

President Arafat's undeniable genius legacy and the heroic quintessence of the Palestinian people's will to resist oppression and an illegitimate occupation of its people and land, has endured in the struggle to triumph, as well as, to survive antagonistic foes, foes who are on the wrong side of international law and covenants.

Arafat's life was fraught with its ups and downs, calculations and miscalculations. However, his compassionate message and ability to extend his hand in peace, friendship and welcome people from all over the world to see, listen and hear the injustices of the Palestinian people in an effort to revive an eluding peace, were endless.

Arafat's legacy will hopefully be remembered as his undying connection to the Palestinian people, their identity, and to the land of Palestine. And as a man who wanted peace, but never lived to fulfill his dream.

The befallen Palestinian revolutionary leader, Abu Ammar, will be remembered as the 'ruhms' (symbol) of self-determination, the father of the revolution, and the President of Palestine. His roots and the olive tree are still alive.

When Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership were exiled in Lebanon from 1970 to 1982, many prominent world leaders, African Americans, Native Americans, congressmen, and delegations of peacemakers would travel to Lebanon on fact finding group missions to visit the Palestinian refugee camps and hold special meetings with Chairman Arafat, in search of peace. The first thing they noticed when they walked into Arafat's Beirut office was a large bright green banner outlined in a gold fringe, with an embroidered written message on it. It said, "One does not live twice to see glory."

President Yasser Arafat saw glory more than once. May he rest in peace.

  Saturday 22 January 2005

  Senior scientific advisers to the World Health Organisation (WHO) have recommended the creation of a genetically modified version of the smallpox virus to counter any threat of a bioterrorist attack.

  Permitting researchers to engineer the genes of one of the most dangerous infections known to man would make it easier to develop new drugs against smallpox, the scientists said. But the man who led the successful global vaccination campaign to eradicate smallpox from the wild said he opposed the move on the grounds that the scientific benefits were not worth the risks to public health.

  Professor Donald Henderson, of the Centre for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh, said he feared that tinkering with the genetic makeup of the variola virus - which causes smallpox - might accidentally produce a more lethal form of the disease.

  "What I worry about is that there is rather too much done in this area and the minute you start fooling around with it in various ways, I think there is a danger," Professor Henderson said. "I'd be happier if we were not doing it and the simple reason is I just don't think it serves a purpose I can support. The less we do with the smallpox virus and the less we do in the way of manipulation at this point I think the better off we are."

  Laboratory stocks of smallpox are stored at only two locations - one in America and one in Russia - but there are fears that samples of the virus may have fallen into the hands of terrorists.

  Scientists advising the WHO believe that creating a GM form of the virus would accelerate research into developing new antivirals. The WHO is due to consider the recommendations of its scientific committee at the world health assembly in May.

  Four years ago, scientists in Australia genetically modified a mousepox virus and inadvertently created a highly virulent strain that could not be stopped by vaccination. But the WHO insisted the latest proposal to engineer the human smallpox virus was inherently safer.

  Professor Geoffrey Smith of Imperial College London, who chairs the WHO committee for variola virus research, said American scientists simply wanted to insert a jellyfish gene, which produced a glow under fluorescent light, in order to see the virus better under the microscope.

  "The reason why the proposal was made and the reason why the committee was prepared to consider it was that it is clear that there is a need to develop drugs against the virus," Professor Smith said. "The quickest way to screen a large database of compounds is to have an automated way and if you have a virus that expresses the green fluorescent protein you can do the drug screening in a much more rapid and automated way."

  It is understood there are seven recommendations in the proposal, including permission to allow relatively large fragments of the virus - up to 20 per cent of its entire genome - to be shipped from the two secure laboratories to other research institutes in the world. Another recommendation allows Russian and US laboratories to snip small fragments of the virus and insert them into other members of the same pox-virus family.

  Smallpox is one of the biggest killers in the history of infectious diseases. At least 300 million people died of it in the 20th century alone. It was eradicated in 1977.

    Friday 21 January 2005

Every individual soldier has the moral right to decide whether he will put his life on the line.

    Earlier this week, I came out publicly against the war in Iraq. I'm not the only member of the Labour Party to be opposed to our military participation in this American-led adventure, nor am I the only soldier. In fact, there growing vocal minority within the Territorial Army that is against the war. Nonetheless I am the first one to make it clear, in public, that if called to serve in Iraq, I will refuse.

    This has not been a decision arrived at impulsively. I have never believed in the rightness of this war; in fact I was on the big anti-war March in February 2003. Even then - before the absence of the weapons of mass destruction that Prime Minister Blair and President Bush cited as the principal reason to rush to war was admitted by all - I was astounded that they could take us to war when it was clear the majority of the population was opposed. Members of the Labour Party at the time were talking about practicing an "ethical foreign policy", and yet there was nothing ethical about the way this was being planned and sold to the public.

    It was not as though there was no alternative at the time. Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had both pressed for more time before the final decisions were taken. And much of the rest of the world, both governments and their peoples, were saying, "Let's get this investigation sorted before we start blowing up human beings."

    I could have quietly left the Army then, without fuss; you can resign from the Territorial Army if you've not actually been called up to serve in action. But from boyhood I had wanted to be a soldier; in fact, when I was 22 I had taken advantage of my dual Cypriot-British citizenship, and done national service for the Greek army in Cyprus. Later I had joined the TA, as a medic, and I was proud to be a part of that institution, and bound to my friends and comrades there, some of whom agreed with me about the futility, immorality and illegality of the war. None of us had been called up yet, so we succumbed to the all too human temptation to put off the evil day until it was upon us. In the end, quite a few did resign, and others who were called up deliberately failed their medical examinations.

    But although I stayed on a while longer, in the last year, when two of my comrades returned wounded, I began thinking seriously about what I could do to help end this continuing war. I began to do a lot of research, learning everything I could about the illegality and immorality of our occupation of Iraq. And I started to go on the anti-war demos that continue around the country. I listened to peace campaigners and soldiers who had been out there, and MPs like George Galloway. I would recommend similar research to any soldier who is having doubts about the war.

    Finally, one day about a month ago, I stood up at a demo in my local London borough of Hackney and just said "I want to get out of this, but what can I do?" It became clear that working with Military Families Against the War, I could make public my despair, my anger and my intention to refuse any call-up to serve in Iraq.

    I wanted to leave the TA in the public way I have because, although so many solders are against this war, they don't have a rallying point. There has to be someone who is the first to go. After that, there will be another and another and another. They're out there, the soldiers who want to make plain their refusal to part of this illegal war - I know, I've talked to them.

    Many people, even those who agree with my views on the war, will say that it is not the place of soldiers to decide which wars they will fight; that decision must be taken by their senior officers, and ultimately by the government of the day. But you should only obey orders that are morally right. The WMD claims were untrue, and so many other lies were told in the pursuit of this war. Every individual soldier also has the moral right to decide whether he will put his life on the line. After all, it is his flesh and blood that gets wounded; that gives him the right to an opinion.

    And in the modern army, not every opinion will be the same. No longer do soldiers come from a uniform cultural background. The Army wants lots of ethnic groups, and now that they've got them, they have to accept that there will be different points of view. Think of the position of Muslims in the Army. My own background as Greek Cypriot has made me aware of some distasteful things that the British military did in Cyprus in the Fifties; so I too have a different perspective. If the Government wants their soldiers to fight, they will have to be clear and honest about what they are asking them to do.

    I'm proud to be part of the military family that is against the war. There will be more soldiers coming out soon, and I'll be proud to stand next to them on 19 March at the anti-war demo in London. We can help stop this illegal and immoral war, and that is our duty now.

    If any soldier would like to contact George Solomou or Military Families Against the War, they can do so at the Military Families Against the War Website.