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Abortion Revisited

 

Lindsay Ellis, in her YouTube video, recently said the bible didn’t reference abortion. This isn’t true. It is not explicit, but there is the bitter water ordeal.  If your wife was unfaithful, you dragged her and her lover into the road, and everyone stoned them to death. If you weren’t sure, you could drag her to the Priest and there she was subjected to the ordeal of bitter water where she would drink a concoction that, hopefully, proved her fidelity. It reads like nonsense until you realize that it is read to the entire congregation, men women and children, once a year. What is being passed on is a recipe for ergot, rotted millet, which causes miscarriage. A dangerous practice, there are much better methods today. The Greeks made use of an herb.

I have another blog posting about my time as an admitting clerk before and after the miracle of legal abortion.  While working the midnight shift, I had time to consider if the bible explicitly dealt with women who did not want their children. Again, the bible seems lacking. Moses abandonment is in the mythic tradition of explaining that the protagonist wasn’t raised right and didn’t know how to behave. Solomon was an idiot. The real mom would rather see her child killed. The spilling seed prohibition is a plea for women’s conception autonomy. If you can’t deny her, can you force her? If you must talk fruitful and multiply, that was us, not you. The best I could find was the story of Isaac. In Babylon the story was collected of a Phoenician who rejected his people and lived in the hinterlands. Part of this was rejecting the sacrifice of the first born, big step forward. Monotheism encourages personal responsibility. God spared Isaac. There is also the prohibition of idolatry. If God did not demand such a sacrifice, then who can? Abortion should not be trivial.

Similarly, we do not worship the idolatry of suffering. Perhaps considering this continuum can be of use. If not, forget I said anything. Talmud is stuffed with ancient rabbinic stupidity, and I hate to reference it. It has the argument that you can kill the pursuer, made use of in these circumstances.

 

There is also the prayer going back before Jews, writing or even language:

-Thank God I am not a woman.

Thank God I am not a woman, and I don’t have to make that decision. Didn’t say it was a good religion

When I was an admitting clerk, some poor young woman in some godawful place like Kentucky or Tennessee had received a tubal ligation because she was mentally incompetent. At that point Illinois decided that we were not paying for tubal ligation for anyone under 21. I didn’t give that much thought.

A patient asked me if it were true:

-I heard the same thing.

-That means I’ll have 3 more kids.

Whenever people argue from common sense or practicality, I’m doubtful.  For instance, if you are talking adoption, you are young or you forgot. The last orphanage in Chicago, Angel Guardian, closed in 1969. Before that there were lots of kid warehouses. The reason you can smugly talk adoption is because of abortion and birth control. Even now not everyone is adopted.

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