It is generally held that the Church is pro-life. However, there is a small constituent who believe otherwise. From what I can tell this crowd is mostly, if not all, non Christians who are trying to have a “gotcha” from the Bible.
[English NASB] Numbers 5:11-31:
11: Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
12: “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘If any man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him,
13: and a man has intercourse with her and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband and she is undetected, although she has defiled herself, and there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act,
14: if a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife when she has defiled herself, or if a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife when she has not defiled herself,
15: the man shall then bring his wife to the priest, and shall bring as an offering for her one-tenth of an ephah of barley meal; he shall not pour oil on it nor put frankincense on it, for it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of memorial, a reminder of iniquity.
16: ‘Then the priest shall bring her near and have her stand before the LORD,
17: and the priest shall take holy water in an earthenware vessel; and he shall take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water.
18: ‘The priest shall then have the woman stand before the LORD and let the hair of the woman’s head go loose, and place the grain offering of memorial in her hands, which is the grain offering of jealousy, and in the hand of the priest is to be the water of bitterness that brings a curse.
19: ‘The priest shall have her take an oath and shall say to the woman, “If no man has lain with you and if you have not gone astray into uncleanness, being under the authority of your husband, be immune to this water of bitterness that brings a curse;
20: if you, however, have gone astray, being under the authority of your husband, and if you have defiled yourself and a man other than your husband has had intercourse with you”
21: (then the priest shall have the woman swear with the oath of the curse, and the priest shall say to the woman), “the LORD make you a curse and an oath among your people by the LORD’S making your thigh waste away and your abdomen swell;
22: and this water that brings a curse shall go into your stomach, and make your abdomen swell and your thigh waste away.” And the woman shall say, “Amen. Amen.”
23: ‘The priest shall then write these curses on a scroll, and he shall wash them off into the water of bitterness.
24: ‘Then he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings a curse, so that the water which brings a curse will go into her and cause bitterness.
25: ‘The priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy from the woman’s hand, and he shall wave the grain offering before the LORD and bring it to the altar;
26: and the priest shall take a handful of the grain offering as its memorial offering and offer it up in smoke on the altar, and afterward he shall make the woman drink the water.
27: ‘[a] When he has made her drink the water, then it shall come about, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, that the water which brings a curse will go into her and cause bitterness, [b] and her abdomen will swell and her thigh will waste away, and the woman will become a curse among her people.
28: ‘But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, she will then be free and conceive children.
29: ‘This is the law of jealousy: when a wife, being under the authority of her husband, goes astray and defiles herself,
30: or when a spirit of jealousy comes over a man and he is jealous of his wife, he shall then make the woman stand before the LORD, and the priest shall apply all this law to her.
31: ‘Moreover, the man will be free from guilt, but that woman shall bear her guilt.’”
The argument goes as follows:
“God allows for an abortion to be performed (v27b), therefor, being pro-choice is a biblical stance.”
This argument has the following assumptions:
- This is about the baby, not proving the woman’s (im)purity
- The woman is pregnant after having sex with the man who isn’t her husband
- v27 is an abortion, and not just sterilization
- Dirt and parchment is enough to abort a baby
- The abortion is voluntary / the woman’s choice
Assumption 1
This seems to come from a place of wanting to hate on men. They think that the man is just insecure and is forcing the woman to go through this humiliating ritual just for the man’s uneasy mental state. However, they don’t seem to mention the fact that it’s very possible the woman has cheated. And God, instead of letting this issue fester in the marriage, gives a methodology for solving the issue definitively. As I read this I don’t see the “humiliation ritual” or whatnot that others seem to pull out of these verses. On the contrary, living above reproach so that when accusations come your way, they fall off you (Titus 2:8, Philippians 2:14-15, 1 Peter 2:12) is a normal part of your life. Clearing your name when you’ve done nothing wrong, is not in the least bit humiliating.
Assumption 2
Obviously, it mentions the woman having sex with another man (v20) but this doesn’t strictly mean that she got pregnant from the encounter. Depending on the time of month and if the man “spills his seed” or not, which, ostensibly, he would do if he were cheating with her, she may have not have gotten pregnant.
Assumption 3
The supporters of this argument would claim that v27b is an abortion (thus implicitly containing assumption #2). Contrarily, v28 makes this seem more like a sterilization, seeing as when not guilty, the woman is free to conceive children (in the future). Meaning that the opposite option, when the woman is guilty, is that she will not be able to conceive children (in the future).
Assumption 4
The ingredients (from a strictly natural perspective) are: (v17) water + dust, (v23) ink + paper. Hardly would that be enough to make a woman’s body eject a viable pregnancy, though some people make this claim the other way.
Assumption 5
As mentioned above, this verse is used by pro-choice-ers to justify abortions. However, at no point in these verses is this the woman’s choice considered, even if this were an abortion. At best (assuming this really is killing a small human) it is God’s judgment in the matter: v19,21. However, this would be contrary to verses like Galatians 1:15, Psalms 139:13, Luke 1:15, which all have to do with the pre-born. The possible counter arguments to those verse would be:
- (Galatians) God foreknew that who Paul was, specifically him, and this verse has no meaning to the rest of us.
- (Psalms) Being “woven together in the mother’s womb” is what all mammals experience, it is nothing deeper than a rabbit being created. However, the counter-counter argument is that if you read the rest of Psalms 139 it’s talking about how much God knows about us, not just any given animal. His inescapable knowledge and caring. It would be odd to acknowledge all of the care God put into a human, just to say “well but it annoys me, so I shall kill it”.
- (Luke) John the Baptist is seen being filled with the Holy Spirit while being a pre-born (human). If John were not a human (as it would be required for an abortion to not be murder), how was he filled with the holy spirit?
It would seem that the best argument that can be made in the pro-choice-ers favor; is that God can kill people if he wishes. While the pro-lifers argument for these verses is that they are irrelevant and have nothing to do with abortion, only adultery.