Oddly enough, I was thinking about this issue last week and from my small amount of internet research, all I could find about the Bible and abortion is something in the book of Numbers. It says that if a man suspects that his wife's pregnancy is due to adultery, he can take his wife to a priest where she will be given something that will cause her to abort. And they wonder why so many enlightened women hate that awful book. But, I digress.
When I worked in public health in the early 80s, none of my conservative Christian coworkers ever seemed to have anti abortion opinions. In fact, that was during the time when the government paid for abortions for low income women. We had a full time nurse who did counseling prior to the abortion to make sure that it was the woman's choice and she wasn't being forced to make this diecsion. After that, the abortion was arranged.
During that time, I knew a few women who objected to abortion but didn't think that their personal beliefs should be forced on other women. I think right wing politicians believed they could use abortion as an issue to turn people against the Democratic Party. During this period of time, I remember a bumper sticker that was fairly popular among liberals. It read:
Don't believe in abortion? Then don't have one.
Catholics who I've known were personally against having one themselves, but again, most didn't think that their personal moral believes should be forced on others. Of course, these Catholics were Democrats. The Republican Party has done an excellent job of manipulating some conservative Christians into being one item voters. They have successfully made the fetus or a fertilized egg more important than living children.
When the anti abortion movement became really nasty, people began picketing abortion clinics and making the women entering the clinics feel fearful. I had a coworker in Florida who chose to have an abortion and she told me about her denigrating experience as she entered the clinic. That was in the early 90s. Shortly after that, a doctor in Pensacola Florida who did abortions was murdered by some nut job conservative Christian.
Since then, it's become even more extreme, as many states have passed laws making it very difficult for women to exercise their choice. Clinics shut down. Funding was lost etc. To me, most of it is sexist, just like much in Christianity is sexist. So, I do wonder if this is more about controlling women than it is about the love of a fetus or fertilized egg. The far right is mostly controlled by white men. They have been successful at convincing most conservative Christians that abortion is one of the worst evils.
But, it's true that the Bible never forbids abortion, and if you do believe in a god that controls everything, than that god is the biggest abortionist of them all, since a rather high number of pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion, aka miscarriages. But then again, the majority of conservative Christians seem to think that god can get away with murder, while the rest of us aren't even entitled to control our reproductive organs. I don't understand their thinking but then they don't understand me either.
