My main goal is to provoke a meaningful conversation about a complicated subject. I hope to pose some thought-provoking points to help others see things from a fresh perspective, but I have no intention of converting anyone to a particular belief. I know we are capable of having open, respectful, compassionate discussions, and that’s my biggest aim here.
I also hope to bring relief. There are so many people who are carrying such deep shame, and I want to alleviate it. Likewise, there are a lot of good, kind people who don’t want to be judgmental or hateful but who are struggling to reconcile their personal faith with something that, to them, feels like the murder of innocent babies. I like to think I can appeal to both the logic and the compassion in those people.
But, again, I have no desire or expectation of convincing anyone of anything. I can’t force anyone to absorb something they’re not ready for. Without further ado, here are some of my random thoughts about abortion.
You cannot kill a soul.
If you believe in reincarnation, then you shouldn’t have much objection to abortion, because you should understand that the soul will find a new body and continue to live. And how much better for that soul to become a human, born to someone who actually wants to be a parent as opposed to someone who felt forced into the position, and who struggles or is dealing with resentment?
If you don’t believe in reincarnation but you consider yourself to be religious and/or spiritual, then you still probably believe in the soul. This means you understand that a soul cannot be destroyed. So as frustrating or heartbreaking as abortion may seem to you, at the end of the day, the results of an abortion are not actually all that detrimental. The soul ends up with God/in heaven/on a higher astral plane - whatever you believe. If the woman (or the father of the child, for that matter) has done something wrong… if abortion is a sin… then it is between her and God/whoever. It’s not your place to judge her or punish her.
(If you don’t believe in souls, you’re probably someone who considers a fetus to be more a part of a woman’s body and less a separate entity, and chances are you don’t have a problem with abortion in the first place.)
What would Jesus do? He’d probably be on the side of woman who had an abortion.
Did you gasp reading that? I feel like several people must have thrown up or passed out reading that sentence. Hear me out.
It should be noted that I am not a Christian. However, I was one for many, many years and I understand the mentality and internal struggle of being a Christian and trying to reconcile your faith with something like abortion.
One: Jesus was famous for hanging out with rejects and sinners. I can’t think of a single time he chose the side of someone religious or “morally superior” over the side of the downtrodden. So even if you personally believe that it’s a sin to have an abortion, you would still be more Christ-like by choosing to be loving and compassionate toward the person than by spewing hateful words or by silently judging them.
Many people who are opposed to abortion also believe Mary Magdalene specifically to be a sex worker. (This is debated by some people. I won’t go into the full discussion of whether or not she was. My point here is that some people who are so opposed to sexual “sins” and abortions are okay with Jesus hanging out with a sex worker.)
Plus, Saul/Paul was a murderer and he’s one of the most celebrated people in Christianity. (Whether or not he personally committed murder or whether he just oversaw the persecution of others is also debated.) The only argument I can see here is that many people may say that these people stopped their sinful ways and repented. I don’t think we can know for sure about Mary, but it is a fair argument for Paul, who did stop persecuting Christians. BUT this brings me to my next point...
Two: Jesus was often annoyed by religious people and he frequently told everyone to stop judging each other. Remember that whole thing about “you who are without sin cast the first stone”? You may think you’re doing God a favor by protesting abortion, but you’re kinda doing the thing he told you not to do.
Also, I believe there’s a scripture in Romans that says no sin is greater than the other. Even if abortion feels worse to you, it’s not any worse than whatever sins you’ve committed. And what about the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus said that it’s not our place to judge others? Annnnd we certainly can’t forget the important command to love others as we love ourselves. It’s hard to be loving at the same time that you’re screaming and spitting on people.
This doesn’t mean you have to like abortion. It just means you don’t have to actively stop other people from having one. Unless it’s something that’s going on with you personally in your own body or your own relationship, you honestly don’t have to worry about it. You would be much better off emulating Jesus’s teachings on loving people and showing empathy.
What else does the Bible say?
I couldn’t find any scriptures specifically on abortion. The word “abortion” is not in there, though there are scriptures that reference an unborn child. In Exodus 21:22-25, it talks about punishing a man who fights with a woman and causes a miscarriage. It is my understanding that under the old covenant, if the fight causes a miscarriage (“if her fruit depart from her”), the man must pay a fine for the loss of property.
However, if the woman dies, then the man must pay with his life. Eye for an eye and all that. The interesting implication here is that the fetus dying does not equate to the man needing to die, because it is not considered the same as killing a person. Intentionally or accidentally causing a miscarriage equals paying a fine. Intentionally or accidentally killing a woman equals paying with your life.
Now, there are a lot of other scriptures that reference a spiritual presence in a woman’s womb. Examples would be David talking about it in Psalms 139 or the popular Jeremiah 1:5 scripture (“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you…”). Oftentimes Christians will use these scriptures as a reasoning to be opposed to abortion.
The logic is not completely faulty, but remember, none of these scriptures actually address abortion. They support the theory that something spiritual exists in a woman’s womb, but in this discussion, we’re not debating whether or not a soul exists. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, a soul cannot be destroyed. No human has that power.
Lastly, people might use one of Moses’s famous Ten Commandments “thou shalt not murder” as a reason to oppose abortion. It begs the question, though… Why does the Bible regularly approve of killing another human being? The above example in Exodus is just one example. There are several other scriptures that talk about when it’s okay to stone someone or kill them in some other way as a punishment for breaking some rule. Plus, there are several scriptures showcasing the idea of God seemingly helping armies destroy other armies, which obviously involves violence and murder.
Oh, and, I must bring up the well-known Bible scripture Ecclesiastes 3:3-5. (“There is a time for everything… a time to kill…”) . I mean… Technically, you could use that scripture to support abortion.
How does stuff like reincarnation and the Law of Attraction and the Law of Deliberate Creation relate to abortion?
Based on the teachings of the Law of Deliberate Creation and the Law of Attraction, you are responsible for everything that happens to you. That is true whether you’re a baby or an adult. Keep in mind that babies who seem innocent and young to us are actually massive, powerful souls learning to manipulate energy by being born over and over again. They may be more-or-less a blank slate for this particular lifetime, but they’re not any more innocent or inexperienced than the rest of us. (Kinda hard to comprehend that one, isn’t it? Haha)
You’re the one who is responsible even if you consider yourself to be the victim of some negative event, including something as extreme as murder. Understandably, this is the part that makes a lot of people outraged. If you can take a step back and really think through the concept, though, it is actually very empowering for you as an individual - and it allows you to allow others to make their own life decisions without feeling the need to intervene or feel overwhelmed by all the potential things that could happen to you.
To sum it up, I will use some quotes from Seth and the Jane Roberts books: “The soul within the fetus cannot be destroyed by any kind of abortion.” “If the consciousness picks a mother who wants to abort, then the consciousness is only here for a short trip.”
Keep in mind that the extensive research of professors such as Dr. Ian Stevenson as well as the information from teachers such as Seth and Abraham Hicks and Delores Cannon all tell us that a soul does not come here without making an agreement with the parents in advance. Every situation is different but sometimes a soul is testing things out and only wants to experience life as a fetus before fully becoming human and will go into the situation knowing there will be an intentional or spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) or stillbirth. As complicated and confusing as it may seem to us and our current way of thinking, it is not as devastating for the soul as we think it is.
Other thoughts to consider…
You cannot justify your own personal religion or beliefs to legally control someone else. Not everyone in this country is a Christian and they should not be forced to comply as one. Furthermore, even Christians can’t fully agree on where they stand on most things, so how could we build laws on that?
A perfect example is birth control. Some Christians believe it is a sin to prevent a baby. I’ve personally known women who have had their bodies ravaged by back to back miscarriages, because of this belief. That shouldn’t be forced on anyone. On the other hand, I know of women who are Christians who use and believe in birth control but are against abortion. It might seem valid to someone that preventing a baby is the same as abortion, while others find that sentiment to be ridiculous. The point being, again, that one person’s religious beliefs shouldn’t dictate someone else’s life.
If you are comfortable telling a woman what she can and can’t do to her body, how far does that go? Do you also feel comfortable with the idea of forcing a man to have a vasectomy in order to prevent accidental pregnancy and eliminating abortions?
Making laws to ban abortion doesn’t actually get rid of abortions. It just limits safe abortions. (I’ve heard the same argument for things like guns, which is a different topic, of course, but worth bringing up here.)
I know a lot of women who have had abortions - and so do you. Many of you don’t realize you know someone who has had an abortion, because it is something so personal and often people are afraid of the judgment. I promise you someone in your life has had one and the only reason you don’t know about it is because they had it done safely instead of dying in a back alley.
My last point on this convoluted topic is...
Both sides have more in common than you may realize. Both sides want less abortions. It is easy to overlook this fact. Pro-choice people are often unfairly painted as being monsters, as though they enjoy abortion. In fact they are compassionate people who just care very much for the people who are in the terrible position of making a difficult choice. Likewise, pro-lifers aren’t all evil people who hate women. Many of them have pure intentions.
While I don’t expect this post to change anyone’s mind on the subject, I do propose that we A) learn to have respectful, solution-oriented discussions on difficult topics like this and B) learn to focus on the things we have in common. In this case, specifically, if we all want less deaths (of babies and of women who feel forced into unsafe abortions), what can we do? THAT is the question we should all be focused on.
We should be having discussions on how to give everyone better health care, a higher living wage, and access to higher education that doesn’t lead to debt. We should be improving the adoption process and the foster care system. It doesn’t make sense for adoption to be too expensive for quality, would-be parents who long to raise a child and or to keep financially-secure single moms and LBGTQ couples from adopting, while also allowing children to be split up from their siblings or abused in a broken foster care system.
Sex education, rape culture, birth control. Even gun violence - we should figure out how to keep the children who are already here alive and safe, instead of them being shot in their school desks. And we should care about the women who are pregnant as much as we do the babies. Regardless of what side you land on, these are the types of things we can discuss and improve upon that will lessen abortions.
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