Editor,
In his guest column "Abortion is a woman's choice," James Letterhos references arguments made against abortion based on the Christian faith. It is widely believed that Judeo-Christianity opposes abortion, but if you actually read the Bible, it tells a different story.
While the subject of deliberate abortion is never directly addressed in the Bible, there are several passages that are relevant to the subject and actually indicate what could be considered to be an abortion-rights position. In Numbers 3:15-16, infants younger than one month old are not to be counted as persons, according to God. Even more revealing is another commandment from God in Exodus 21:22-23. It reads, "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." Mosaic law ordinarily calls for taking a "life for a life," but, clearly, an unborn child is not the equal of a person who has been born according to this passage.
Of course, fundamentalist Christians will always "pick and choose" which passages from the Bible they will acknowledge, and their response to the above would be the standard "Thou shall not murder" from the Ten Commandments. It's funny though, because just a few chapters later, God commands "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live," with "witch" commonly defined as a "female sorceress." It doesn't seem to matter what crime these witches may or may not have committed, only that they should be killed simply because of who they are. Unfortunately, God neglected to mention how to identify these witches. Thus humanity has endured centuries of wrongful accusations and cruel executions of the innocent as a direct result of this commandment from God.
I find it truly amazing that humans still subscribe to this archaic and often downright evil text and proclaim it to be the unerring "word of God," even as they ignore many of its passages. It's time for these self-righteous, misguided, finger-wagging, fundamentalist Christians to evolve.
Rich Latta
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