Q. Enclosed is an article about whether abortion is mentioned in the Bible and forbidden there. How would you respond to this Jewish writer? Also, do Jews forbid abortion? — J.G., Illinois.
A. Just because something is not specifically mentioned in the Bible does not mean that it’s morally okay. The word “pornography” does not appear in the Bible. Is that okay? Nor do the words “human trafficking” or “drunken driving,” but no one would attempt to excuse those evils by saying that they are not in the Bible. It would be interesting to see how many of those who defend abortion on the grounds that the word is not in Scripture at the same time excuse or even practice evils that are specifically condemned in the Bible, such as adultery, fornication, and divorce.
In any case, here are a few of the many Bible passages that strongly imply that abortion is wrong by celebrating life in the womb:
“You formed my inmost being; / you knit me in my mother’s womb. / I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; / wonderful are your works! / My very self you knew; / my bones were not hidden from you, / When I was being made in secret, / fashioned as in the depths of the earth” — Psalm 139:13-15.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, / before you were born I dedicated you” — Jer. 1:5
“During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, ‘Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb’” — Luke 1:39-42.
While the Bible was still being compiled in the first century, a collection of apostolic writings called the Didache stated: “You shall not procure abortion. You shall not destroy a newborn child.”
Around that same time, the Jewish historian Josephus said that “the law has commanded to raise all children and prohibited women from aborting or destroying seed; a woman who does so shall be judged a murderess of children for she has caused a soul to be lost and the family of man to be diminished.”
As for the current Jewish position on abortion, it depends on what branch of Judaism you are talking about. Orthodox Judaism rejects abortion except to save the mother’s life. Conservative Judaism would permit abortion if continuation of the pregnancy would cause the mother severe physical or psychological harm or if the child might be physically or mentally defective. Reform Judaism would allow abortion to safeguard the mother’s life, in cases of rape and incest, if the child might be defective, or if the parents believed that the birth of the child would create a severe hardship for them.
Q. Is automatic excommunication still the penalty for those involved in abortion? – P.G., Minnesota.
A. Yes, but there are distinctions to be made. For example, there is a big moral difference between a frightened teenager seeking abortion under the pressure of parents, a boyfriend, or a guidance counselor at school and a mature woman who has had several abortions and even brags about them. Both actions are wrong, but the motives determine the subjective guilt of the person. Canon law recognizes this distinction.
For example, canon 1398 says that all those involved in the deliberate and successful effort to bring about a completed abortion, including the doctor, the woman, and family members, friends, and counselors who advised the abortion, are all automatically excommunicated.
But canons 1323 and 1324 say that this penalty would not be incurred if a person were truly ignorant of the penalty attached to abortion, was under the age of 16, thought that the law applied only to the person having the abortion and not to her accomplices, acted out of serious fear about parental or societal reaction to the pregnancy, or erroneously believed that the abortion was necessary to save the mother’s life.
Objectively speaking, abortion is always a grave sin, but whether it is a mortal sin for a particular person depends, like all mortal sins, on whether the person knew it was a grave evil, but deliberately went ahead with it anyway.
In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, Pope St. John Paul II said that the excommunication “affects all those who commit this crime with knowledge of the penalty attached and thus includes those accomplices without whose help the crime would not have been committed. By this reiterated sanction, the Church makes clear that abortion is a most serious and dangerous crime, thereby encouraging those who commit it to seek without delay the path of conversion. In the Church, the purpose of the penalty of excommunication is to make an individual fully aware of the gravity of a certain sin and then to foster genuine conversion and repentance” (n. 62).
In that same paragraph, the Holy Father made this definitive, if not infallible, statement about abortion:
“Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his successors, in communion with the bishops — who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine — I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium” (n. 62).
Q. I have heard pro-lifers talk about abortion as a “holocaust” because of the tens of millions of victims of this terrible practice. But there are Jews who strongly object to using a term usually associated with the killing of millions of Jews by the Nazis. Is it legitimate to call the abortion tragedy a holocaust? — M.L, Florida.
A. Joseph A. Morris, an observant Jew, thinks so. Morris, who was an assistant attorney general in the Reagan Justice Department, offered the following comments in the November-December 2015 issue of the Population Research Institute Review:
“Some of my co-religionists are annoyed, or worse, when anyone likens any evil to the Shoah, which for some must forever be seen as sui generis and admitting of no comparisons. I agree with caution in the making of comparisons, but I disagree with such a categorical imposition of blinders, which can result, perversely, in moral obtuseness and even hubris….
“In truth, the Shoah was a crime and a criminal conspiracy that, in scope, motivation, and consequences, were sweeping, ghastly, and far beyond comparison with ordinary crimes and inhuman acts. But some evils are, indeed, like the Shoah in material respects. Alas, measured by sheer numbers of victims; by the smugness, self-righteousness, lack of contrition, and banality of the perpetrators; and by the confoundingly blind eyes turned to the truth by much of the rest of our putative civilization, the modern atrocity of industrial-scale abortion is similar enough to the Shoah that we should all be sickened, profoundly disquieted, and moved to humane action and the vindication of human rights.”
Q. How would you respond to those who say that if the federal government defunded Planned Parenthood women’s health care would suffer? — K.R., Connecticut.
A. Planned Parenthood is already a hugely profitable business, generating an annual income of over $150 million by performing 330,000 abortions a year. So taking away $542,000 in taxpayer funds wouldn’t put much of a dent in its revenues — or in the nearly $1 million that CEO Cecile Richards is paid each year to oversee the killing. As for harming women’s health care, even if all 665 PP facilities were to close (please God!), there are still in existence 13,540 clinics that actually serve women’s health needs and do not offer abortions.
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