Abortion and the Bible

Daniel McClellan (0:00)

There are a lot of folks who think the Bible is fully on one side or fully on the other, and I think we're going to make things a little more complicated.

Daniel Beecher (0:08)

Well, I mean, that's the thing, right? The whole problem with these either-or propositions and the Bible is that it never takes opposition. It's always a much more nuanced conversation.

Daniel McClellan (0:24)

And that's for things that the Bible actually might even take an actual stance on. This issue, the Bible has no stance on.

Daniel Beecher (0:32)

Wait, what?

Daniel McClellan (0:33)

We're trying to...

Daniel Beecher (0:33)

What are you saying?

Daniel McClellan (0:34)

I'm saying that the Bible absolutely nowhere actually addresses the practice of abortion. Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Daniel Beecher (0:47)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Daniel McClellan (0:48)

And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we try to increase the public's access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things, Dan?

Daniel Beecher (1:02)

Just rocking and rolling, man.

This one's a big one, man. We're tackling an issue.

Daniel McClellan (1:08)

This one is heavy. And so content warning for those who are sensitive to this kind of thing, we are going to be talking about abortion.

Daniel Beecher (1:21)

That's right. We're diving in. We're the whole show.

One topic, and we're going to... We are not going to decide for once and for all which position you should take on abortion. I think that's safe to say.

Daniel McClellan (1:37)

Absolutely.

Daniel Beecher (1:38)

But we are going to explore what the Bible has to say, and we are going to dive into arguments on many sides of the issue, and see what the Bible is, see if the arguments actually hold water. I think that's a big part of the question.

Daniel McClellan (2:00)

And I think if anything, we're going to muddy the waters a little bit. There are a lot of folks who think the Bible is fully on one side or fully on the other, and I think we're going to make things a little more complicated.

Daniel Beecher (2:12)

Well, I mean, that's the thing, right? The whole problem with these either or propositions and the Bible is that it never takes opposition. It's always a much more nuanced conversation, and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to get you to believe something.

Daniel McClellan (2:32)

And that's for things that the Bible actually might even take an actual stance on. This issue, the Bible has no stance on. Wait, what? What are you saying? I'm saying that the Bible absolutely nowhere actually addresses the practice of abortion.

However, some of the constituents, some of the issues that are part of the debate around abortion are addressed to one degree or another in the Bible.

But lest anyone think that we, at least I'm going to speak for myself here, is just in love with the idea of abortion because that is an accusation that sometimes gets thrown at me when I address these concepts. I agree with the principle that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. And I think that the data overwhelmingly demonstrate that the best way to reduce, to mitigate the occurrence of it, is to provide increased access to women's health care, to contraception, and a comprehensive sex education. And so for those of you who think I'm out here trying to increase the occurrence of abortion, the opposite is true.

Daniel Beecher (3:50)

Yeah, I think, I mean, you are trying to increase all those other evil things like contraception and sexual education, et cetera. But absolutely, I think we can agree on all of that stuff.

I think if you hate the idea of abortion, preventing an unwanted pregnancy should be your first line of defense.

Daniel McClellan (4:18)

That is the prerequisite for every elective abortion that has ever occurred is an unwanted pregnancy. So we can take a step back and say, there's your problem.

Daniel Beecher (4:29)

All right.

Daniel McClellan (4:30)

So with that caveat in mind.

Daniel Beecher (4:33)

With a conclusion at the beginning, let's dive in. There's some things that I wanted to get to. So let's start with the idea of the Bible being against abortion. We're going to make a pro-life biblical argument. And I've seen this, I've researched it, I've looked around. I think that the biblical argument against abortion can be fairly, I think it's fair to say that you can sum it up in this very basic argument, which is premise one, it's morally wrong to kill a human. I think caveats abound for that biblically, but we'll start with that. Premise two, a fetus is a human.