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Special Report
Religiously Demanding Obamacare Abortion Funding
Just in time for the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
Just in time for the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Washington-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) pledged to bring its “moral force to bear” to ensure “full coverage of abortion services” through Obamacare’s tax-funded state insurance exchanges set to begin in 2014. Of course, as part of last year’s deal with pro-life congressional Democrats, President Obama signed an executive order that his administration claims will prevent federal funding of abortions. At the time, RCRC denounced that “an unconscionable deal” for offering any potential impediment to government facilitated abortion. Pro-life skeptics doubt the executive order ultimately will have much legal force. And pro-abortion rights groups like RCRC will determinedly push against it.
Mostly Mainline Protestant groups founded RCRC (originally less euphemistically called the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights) in 1973 in the immediate wake of Roe v. Wade to ensure widespread religious backing for the U.S. Supreme Court’s overthrow of state restrictions on abortion. For years RCRC was based in the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, which is the headquarters for most Mainline Protestant lobbies. The primary author of Roe v. Wade was Justice Harry Blackmun, himself an active United Methodist. RCRC in its early years got funding form the Playboy Foundation and later from philanthropies like the Ford Foundation. In recent years RCRC has been headed by a black Baptist pastor and has emphasized outreach to historic black denominations. But revealingly, no historic black denominations belong to RCRC, whose membership primarily includes nearly all white denominations like the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, and the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Liberal Mainline Protestant support for abortion rights, and rejection of the historic ecumenical Christian stance against abortion, partly resulted from the sexual revolution of the 1960s, partly from prejudice against Roman Catholicism, partly from exaggerated ecological scenarios about over-population, and partly from an elitist preoccupation with suppressing ostensibly unmanageable growth in lower income and racial minority communities. Ironically, although Mainline Protestant elites were often in the forefront of backing the Civil Rights Movement, they were often simultaneously dehumanizing the unborn in ways that would especially afflict racial minorities.
So it was entirely appropriate that a small but persistent pro-life caucus for United Methodists hosted a former civil rights activist for its January 24 Sanctity of Life service in the Methodist Building. The official United Methodist General Board of Church and Society stalwartly remains within RCRC, defending abortion rights at every turn. But the Methodist pro-life group borrows the lobby office’s chapel on every anniversary of Roe v. Wade for some subversive worship. This year’s speaker was Edwin King, a Mississippi Methodist clergy, medical ethicist now retired from the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and a white veteran of the Civil Rights Movement. He was a close associate of famed Mississippi black civil rights warrior Fannie Lou Hamer, whose pro-life views his sermon spotlighted.
“Mrs. Hamer said to me that we should see the white racism in the legalization of abortion,” King recalled visiting her after the Roe v. Wade decision. “She said that whites had always tried to control blacks, from slave breeding while slave marriage was denied to a share cropping system that depended on large families but now there were too many blacks in America so this new genocide was the answer to the victories of the Civil Rights Movement.” Having not yet seriously considered the issue, King was convicted by Hamer’s strong words. “She was a new prophetic voice telling me and others that abortion is murder.”
King noted that U.S. abortion rates have been dropping but nationally, a “black child in the womb is twice as likely to be killed as a white child.” And in Mississippi, the black unborn are three times as likely to be aborted as whites. “There are many reasons for this,” he admitted, citing “poverty, lack of education, women raising children without a father present, abortuaries located in cities and close to black and Hispanic populations, but, as Americans, as Christians, we surely know that such racial differences in the slaughter rate must indicate some racist aspect that we have not yet understood or acknowledged.”
Hamer lost her job and her home because of her civil rights work in Mississippi. Shots were fired into the house where she stayed with friends. She later was badly beaten and permanently injured after a 1963 arrest. Perhaps most famously she was a passionate spokesman for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which challenged the state Democratic Party’s all white delegation to the 1964 Democratic Convention. Hamer was a major irritant to Lyndon Johnson for disrupting the desired harmonious coronation. She got seated at the 1968 Democratic Convention and remained politically active until her premature death in 1977.
Like Hamer, King also paid a steep price as a white civil rights activist in 1960s Mississippi, enduring jailings and beatings. He recounted having been in the Methodist Building on Capitol Hill before, when he and others sought sanctuary there after being tear-gassed at an anti-Vietnam War demonstration on the U.S. Capitol grounds. Hamer and King, like the recently deceased Sargent Shriver, recall an almost disappeared strong liberal tradition that was devoutly religious, both Protestant and Catholic, and ardently pro-life.
“The greatest witness people of my Movements can make today is that we never thought we would live to see most of the changes we proclaimed,” King recalled with civil rights successes in mind. “We have a rare blessing that some of us did live so long and do understand the doubts and depression of many struggling for the Right to Life.” The civil rights veteran promised: “What we are now doing is not pointless, is not fruitless, and must be done in faith.”
Will the sterile amorality of groups like RCRC prevail in their quest to insinuate abortion into every aspect of American life? Or is the old civil rights veteran correct to be hopeful? The angels, and tides of history, almost certainly side with the latter.
About the Author
Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. You can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (46) | Leave a comment
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The Bishop| 1.25.11 @ 8:01AM
Roe v. Wade is a benchmark of the US moral plummet. To have mainline Prostestant denominations sign on to support it is a measure of how far this nation wishes to disassociate from the creator. He will be merciful but to those who turn and repent. May these prophets of Baal perish before the nation does.
Alan Brooks| 1.25.11 @ 1:14PM
Crocodile tears on abortion for blacks- you care about YOUR kids. Who runs AS? whites. With Codevilla guesting as token Latin. But he wont admit the ruling class has been corrupted by the right as much as the left
Fine, you have your market share- so does your opposition; which is what the Tea Party is, opposition-- and nothing more.
KyMouse| 1.25.11 @ 3:30PM
Mr. Brooks, how do you know that the rest of us don't care about black children?
I'm one of the many people who volunteer in a pro-life ministry, and I've done so for more than a decade--contributing time, talent and money for people without regard to their race. How about you?
Honi soit qui mal y pense, Mr. Brooks.
Alan Brooks| 1.25.11 @ 3:52PM
You did not address the issue of AS being a white venue. If AS wanted credibility it could guest an article by Thomas Sowell titled "The Black-Abortion Death Panels"
A title morbid yet eye-catching.
KyMouse| 1.27.11 @ 10:38AM
Mr. Brooks, you seem far more interested in what you believe is racism at TAS than in the fact that almost half of all black pregnancies in this country end in abortion. Why is that?
Clint Lovell| 1.25.11 @ 4:44PM
At least you won't be bitter about it. The truth sets you free as we can all see. hahahahahaha...
Alan Brooks| 1.25.11 @ 10:06PM
At least blacks would have a voice at AS.
If blacks are- say- 12 percent of the population, then Tyrrell could give 12 percent of the articles at AS to black conservatives.
Sowell would be #1 on the black queue at this rag IF this magazine really cared what he thought. Or someone else of his experience & ability.
Booger | 1.25.11 @ 8:24AM
From the desk of President B. Hussein Obama:
Dear Comrades in The Struggle,
It is with deep concern that I have watched the events unfolding in Philadelphia the last few days. The continuing persecution of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, whose work in protecting the right of womyn to exercise free choice has been a beacon of social justice that all medical professionals should emulate, has been placed in jeopardy by an overzealous prosecutor and a grand jury with a lack of legal understanding and no knowledge of constitutional law.
First of all, let me begin by saying that Roe v. Wade has settled once and for all that womyn have a right to terminate their pregnancies at any point, up to and including the fourth trimester. This right is absolutely essential in My Struggle and social justice. Without the right to abortion on demand we would find amerikkka back in the throes of the patriarchal dictatorship when people were supposed to exercise "restraint" rather than being able to freely express themselves in whatever way they saw fit. Dr. Gosnell, with his heroic actions to preserve free choice for womyn, has shown the way forward for all of My faithful followers. Our commitment to the preservation of choice must be absolute, trumping any other concerns.
Secondly, I wish to point out that had the rest of the Senate had the foresight to follow My leadership against the dictator Bush, this would not even be an issue. I stood alone against the puritanical sex police who shoved the Born Alive Infants Act down this nation's throat. The trouble Dr. Gosnell currently suffers is due entirely to this vile law and its pernicious, unconstitutional insistence on trying to attach "human rights" to an insignificant blob of cells.
You people out there have got to accept the truth. The truth is that if womyn don't want to be punished with a baby, then it is there absolute right to not be punished with a baby. The stage of development for the fetal tissue is completely irrelevant to this argument. The ONLY thing that matters is the preservation of womyn's right to choose. NOTHING else has any meaning whatsoever in this debate. The fascist, anti-choice right would have you believe that they are trying to preserve "life". Well, the Supreme Court has already determined what is and what is not "life", and once the Supreme Court has given a ruling I agree with then the matter is settled for all time.
For these reasons I am issuing a full pardon for Dr. Kermit B. Gosnell. I am also directing Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a full scale criminal probe into the actions of both the prosecutor and the grand jury in this case. A.G. Holder has assured Me that he expects to return indictments against both the prosecutor and all members of the grand jury for civil rights violations against Dr. Gosnell no later than the end of business today.
As an added measure, I have determined that this attempt to stifle womyn's right to choose requires immediate action to protect that right by Myself.... Read the rest here... http://beautifulletters-bls.bl.....n-for.html
Nick| 1.25.11 @ 4:52PM
President Dither,
"[...] womyn have a right to terminate their pregnancies at any point, up to and including the fourth trimester."
You are being disingenuous, as usual, MISSSSSTER O'Bama!
(using my best Keith Olbermann-child righteous indignation voice)
We all know that you bleeding heart liberals want abortion up to the 400th trimester. I believe you guys call it "dying with dignity."
Normal people call it euthanasia, or just plain murder.
Steve in Pittsburgh| 1.25.11 @ 8:38PM
You should write screenplays and comedy routines. Unless you already do.
Frisbee| 1.25.11 @ 9:37PM
Riotous Booger. Thanks.
Dan Hirsch| 1.25.11 @ 9:22AM
Mr. Booger;
I thought that the primary driver for legalizing abortion was because of the army of Dr. Gosnells who had set up shops in every back alley in America.
No matter where it is, it's still a baby. And if you kill it, you are a murderer. 'nuff said.
Booger | 1.25.11 @ 1:19PM
Dear Mr. Hirsch,
Well, yes, that is what we were told by our rulers, wasn't it? Yet here we find the "back alley" in plain view, and magnified a thousandfold across the country. But of course our ruling class would never lie to us.
Cordially,
Booger
chris haynes| 1.25.11 @ 9:52AM
Astonishing. Moslem Saudi Arabia values human life. While our elites and our Protestant establishment have given us 50 milion dead, the greatest holocaust in history.
The Saudis punish abortion , and as a result, have a child mortality rate 10% of ours. While they have a benevolent king to protect the weak and innocent, we have Barabarians like Guilianni, Bloomberg, Scott Brown, Holocaust Joe Lieberman, and the entire Democratic party.
RCV| 1.25.11 @ 12:19PM
Please, Chris - move to your haven, governed by the benevolent king.
Rancid Contemptibe Vomitus| 1.27.11 @ 5:04PM
I don't care about silly abortion issues on real Christian love matters.
Laurey Boyd| 1.25.11 @ 10:50AM
Thank you for this article, and the tone and hopefulness of it. This helps in not "growing weary in well doing."
chris haynes| 1.25.11 @ 12:48PM
Okay, who governs better?
The king of Arabia, who believes in human equality and rights, and who punishes abortion to protect the innocent?
Or, say, Tom Ridge, the Republican governor of Pennsylvania. He holds that some men are inferior, and have no rights whatsoever, and can be killed on a whim. He supported such killing of 350,000 children on his watch,and goulishly covered up the mass murders in Phialdelphia.
Sneer at the Moslems, but give them this. They dont have the greatest holocaust in history going on. But we do. Right here in the good old USA. Brought by our elite, our best and our brightest, and our vaunted Constitution.
Alan Brooks| 1.25.11 @ 10:07PM
Border state wingnut.
Ryan| 1.26.11 @ 9:35AM
Go into Saudi Arabia, open a Bible, and see what happens to human equality and rights.
Neil | 1.25.11 @ 1:12PM
Excellent article. As often as we can should do the following:
1. Remind those theological Liberals that the policies they support result in a 3-to-1 ratio of black abortions to white. And they have the nerve to play the race card against us?
2. Do not let them get away with euphemisms like "reproductive choice," especially in their names. It is a scientific fact that the unborn are human beings, so abortions are done for the sole purpose of killing human beings that have already reproduced. So reproductive "choice" or "rights" would only apply to birth control. Whether they mislabel themselves out of ignorance or duplicity, we should never miss a chance to call them on it.
da monk| 1.25.11 @ 2:02PM
No one! has the right to tell my wife, your wife, my daughter, your daughter what to do with her body! No one!
Tim the Enchanter| 1.25.11 @ 2:26PM
We're not telling your wife, daughter, etc. what to do with their bodies. We're telling them that they're not allowed to murder someone else whom temporarily occupies a space within their bodies. Not the same thing.
Clint Lovell| 1.25.11 @ 4:47PM
To the true Democrat every life is sacred - except those who can't defend themselves or vote! There's always another group waiting to be exterminated - whether it is the unborn, the lame, the mentally-handicapped or just plain "surplus labor" there is always a ready excuse to excuse the inexcusable tyranny of liberalism.
Nick| 1.25.11 @ 4:59PM
Da Monk,
I do.
And, I will.
Whitey O'Carr Kennedy Dukakis| 1.25.11 @ 10:11PM
Beggorrahhh! Can your wife have a smoke? How about yer daughter? Here in the Soviet of MA. they tax the tobacco and talk of it's evil while legalizing the Mary-no-juwanna. And they still cannot collect on the misdemeanor fines for smoking the weed!
KyMouse| 1.25.11 @ 2:18PM
The RCRC web site (rcrc.org) has a sermon from January 20, 2010 which says that "the biblical story of the Good Samaritan offers a lesson. The story teaches us that we have a responsibility to care for everyone. A person in need should not be left to suffer..." Amazing. Who is more in need than a helpless baby? Do these people really think that Jesus told that parable as justification for killing babies?
Da Monk, perhaps you didn't see my comments the last time you tried making the "it's her body" defense of abortion. Here it is again:
It is not the mother's body that is cut into pieces and dumped into the trash. It is the baby's.
A baby is connected to his or her mother's body, but isn't part of it in the same sense that a tooth or kidney is. A mother is always female, and yet her baby may be male -- a son -- how is that possible if they have the same body? And each baby has a unique genetic code (DNA) made from the father and mother's codes, but uniquely the baby's.
And the baby has a heart that is not the mother's, a brain that isn't hers, and so on.
None of us has the absolute right to do whatever we please with our bodies. We aren't, for example, allowed to drive our bodies down the street at 100 miles per hour, because we might kill someone. Abortion, too, kills someone -- the baby (and sometimes the mother, even in legal abortion mills).
It's nice to talk about rights, but what about responsibilities?
Mothers deserve better than abortion.
Every child deserves a chance.
Frisbee| 1.25.11 @ 9:40PM
Right on KyMouse!
Tim the Enchanter| 1.25.11 @ 2:38PM
G. K. Chesterton once commented that when the Anglican/Episcopal church approved contraception, he knew that he was in a false church. What more could be said of these, who have run the gauntlet from Onanism to murder?
chris haynes| 1.25.11 @ 3:38PM
You pro abortion people should take Science 101. It's not the woman's body. The baby has its own unique DNA.
Your wife,your daughter, when she kills it, she murders an innocent and helpless child. They deserve the electric chair. And if you pay for it, you deserve it too, for procuring murder.
Which brings up this. What do we do with the likes of Lieberman, Gulianni, all the Democrats? The Saudis, who could teach us how to respect innocent life, would know how deal with these barabarians. Nuremberg trials for crimes against humanity, perhaps.
JShizzle| 1.25.11 @ 4:07PM
No idea how anyone who has watched an ultrasound and then had a child could support this horrible crime. It is murder. If you are too irresponsible to raise the child, give adoption a chance. There are many people unable to bear children that would love to raise your unwanted child.
mames| 1.25.11 @ 4:28PM
RCRC may be religious but it is not in any way Christian or Biblical in it views.
Frisbee| 1.25.11 @ 9:41PM
Hmmm, maybe they are as Christian as Judas was.
Clint Lovell| 1.25.11 @ 4:49PM
OH power is such a whore! The extent to which white liberals will go to for the purposes of sustaining their own sense of political power and entitlement never ceases to amaze me...
Steve in Pittsburgh| 1.25.11 @ 8:29PM
These discussions about abortion are very sad, depressing.
And I'm white. And Yes, Alan, I care about black children.
Wintery Knight | 1.25.11 @ 8:31PM
Don't forget that legalized abortion also means legalized SEX-SELECTION abortions. Everyone who favors abortion rights favors the right to kill a baby just because it is the wrong sex.
Frisbee| 1.25.11 @ 9:33PM
Margaret Sanger, the foundress of Planned Parenthood, was rabidly racist. She wanted to exterminate negros. There's a photo available now showing her whipping up a KKK rally.
Diana| 1.25.11 @ 10:42PM
Gee, all this ranting and raving over Democratic Party support of abortion rights. I recall 5 0f the 7 justices for Roe were GOP appointees including the man who wrote the majority opinion.
Nick| 1.25.11 @ 11:40PM
Diana,
Yeah, so what?
President Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Conner, and she turned out to be a terrible justice, for the most part.
Being against the killing of unborn babies (fetus in Latin) is not a partisan issue.
Vasu Murti | 1.27.11 @ 1:42PM
The Bible supports abortion rights. Pro-lifers need to become secular!
Genesis 38:24. Tamar's pregnancy was discovered three months after conception, presumably because it was visible at the time. This was positive proof that she was sexually active. Because she was a widow, without a husband, she was assumed to be a prostitute. Her father-in-law, Judah, ordered that she be burned alive for her crime.
If Tamar's fetuses had been considered to have any value whatsoever, her execution would have been delayed until after their birth. There was no condemnation on Judah for deciding to take this action.
Exodus 21:22-24. If two men are fighting and one injures a pregnant woman and the fetus is killed, he shall repay her according to the degree of injury inflicted upon her, and not the fetus.
Author Brian McKinley, a born-again Christian, sums up the passage as:
"Thus we can see that if the baby is lost, it does not require a death sentence-it is not considered murder. But if the woman is lost, it is considered murder and is punished by death."
Halacha (Jewish Law) does define when a fetus becomes a nephesh (person), a full-fledged human being, when the head emerges from the womb. Before then, the fetus is considered a "partial-life"; it gains full human status after birth only.
Abortions are not permitted on the grounds of genetic imperfections of the fetus. Abortions are permitted to save the mother's life or health. With the exception of some Orthodox authorities, Judaism supports abortion access for women. Each case must be decided individually by a rabbi well-versed in Jewish law.
The Babylonian Talmud (Yevamot 69b) states that: "the embryo is considered to be mere water until the fortieth day." Afterward, it is considered subhuman until it is born.
Rashi, the great 12th century commentator on the Bible and the Talmud, states clearly of the fetus "lav nephesh hu -- it is not a person."
The Talmud contains the expression, "the thigh of its mother," i.e., the fetus is deemed to be part and parcel of the pregnant woman's body.
This is grounded in Exodus 21:22. That biblical passage outlines the Mosaic Law in a case where a man is responsible for causing a woman's miscarriage, which kills the fetus. If the woman survives, then the perpetrator has to pay a fine to the woman's husband. If the woman is killed, the perpetrator is also killed.
This indicates that the fetus has value, but does not have the status of a person.
There are two additional passages in the Talmud which shed some light on abortion. They imply that the fetus is considered part of its mother:
One section states that if a man purchases a cow that is found to be pregnant, then he is owner of both the cow and the fetus.
Another section states that if a pregnant woman converts to Judaism, that her conversion also applies to her fetus.
Some Jewish authorities have ruled in specific cases. one case involved a woman who becomes pregnant while nursing a child. Her milk supply would dry up. If the child is allergic to all other forms of nutrition except mother's milk, then it would starve. An abortion would be permitted in this case, a potential person, would be justified to save the life of the child, an actual person.
Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform Judaism are formally opposed to government regulation of abortion. They feel that the decision should rest with the woman, her husband, her doctor and her clergyperson. Some Orthodox authorities agree with this stance.
Polls have found up to 90% of American Jews supporting abortion rights.
The New Testament is more permissive than the Old! Jesus repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17), as did his direct disciples (see chapters 10, 15, and 21 of Acts), but Paul referred to his previous adherence to the Law as "so much garbage." (Philippians 3:4-8)
Paul claims further that the risen Jesus said to him three times, "my grace is sufficient for thee" (II Corinthians 12:8-9). Some Christians misinterpret this verse to mean they're free to do as they please--ignoring Jesus' teachings and all of Paul's other moral instructions altogether.
The late Reverend Janet Regina Hyland (1933-2007), raised Catholic but went on to become an evangelical minister, a vegan, and author of God's Covenant with Animals (it's available through PETA), told me they're quoting Paul out of context.
Paul, she observed, was very strict with himself:
"But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." (I Corinthians 9:27)
Regina Hyland said this verse indicates it's possible for one to lose one's salvation (a serious point of contention among born agains!).
My friend Ruth Enero, a Catholic peace activist whom I very much respect, also says they're quoting Paul out of context.
Paul, she says, had a "thorn" in his side, and asked the risen Jesus about it. The response was simple: "My grace is sufficient for thee."
This was a direct response to a specific problem, not a license to do as one pleases, or why else would Paul himself have given so many other moral instructions?
Reverend Frank Hoffman, retired vegan Methodist minister, and owner of the www.all-creatures.org Christian vegetarian website says, "I agree with Ruth."
Christians focusing only on II Corinthians 12:8-9 MUST be quoting Paul out of context, because otherwise it doesn't make any sense.
On the one hand, Paul is warning that drunkards, thieves, homosexuals, etc. will not inherit the kingdom of God, and on the other hand he's saying if you call on Jesus three times...you can do whatever you want?!
Well, then: "Abortion. Abortion. Abortion."
My problem really isn't with "Christians" unable to follow Jesus or Paul, but with the hypocrisy of saying "I believe," and ignoring the rest of what their religion dictates when it suits them; appealing to scriptures they aren't even following.
Why not just part with your religion and be secular, like everyone else?
Secular arguments are religiously neutral and thus applicable to everyone, including atheists and agnostics.
A secular argument cannot, for example, be met with the counter-argument, "Oh, you're born again. Your views on abortion don't apply to me."
The pro-life movement ALREADY HAS the support of organized religion. Instead of preaching to the choir, i.e., wasting time with religion, pro-lifers should focus on embryology and prenatal development, DNA, RNA, etc. to make their case to mainstream secular society.
And persons telling the rest of our secular society not to kill the unborn are hardly in a position to object when people of other faith, no faith, or vegetarian and vegan Christians tell them not to kill animals!
Nick| 1.28.11 @ 1:33AM
Vasu Murti,
The Bible does not support the killing of the unborn (fetus in Latin.) It condemns it: Thou shalt not kill. (Exodus 20:13)
Your problem with Christianity is that you're not a believer.
Whoever you are copying and pasting from, concerning Tamar, doesn't know what they are talking about.
Tamar was considered an adulterer, not a "prostitute," because she was betrothed to Shelah, until he was old enough to marry. Judah sentenced her to death by burning, the punishment for the daughter of a priest who committed adultery. (Leviticus 21:9)
This person you are quoting from, also seems to be unaware that this is the same Judah who plotted with his brothers to, first, kill their brother Joseph, and then talked them into selling Joseph into slavery.
Judah's sentence of death for Tamar and her unborn baby (fetus in Latin) is not an endorsement by God, or His Scriptures, anymore than his plotting to kill Joseph is. Understand?
Exodus 21:22-25 has nothing to do with abortion. Abortion is the deliberate killing of an unborn baby (fetus in Latin.)
This Scripture passage, also, is not saying that the baby is not yet a person. If two people fighting injure a pregnant women, it is unintentional. If the baby is born, i.e. miscarries, but doesn't survive, it is a wrongful death suit. If the woman is so serverly injured that she dies, then someone is legally culpable.
In both instances the two men fighting didn't intend to kill anyone. Causing a miscarriage, which results in a still birth, is a terrible accident that only requires financial compensation. Just like our wrongful death lawsuits today.
But, causing an injury to the mother severe enough to cause her death is more like reckless endangerment/manslaughter today. The fighter should've known better. Eye for an eye applies.
I cannot comment on your Talmud quotations, as I am a Roman Catholic, if you remember. But, the New Testament is not "more permissive" as you state. Christ did uphold the Mosaic Law. He was the only one who did it perfectly.
The Didache, the earliest Christian writing found outside the New Testament Scriptures, specifically condemns abortion:
"Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery"; thou shalt not commit sodomy; thou shalt not commit fornication; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not use magic; thou shalt not use philtres; thou shalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide; "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods" (emphasis mine)
- Didache 2:2
I always use scientific arguments against abortion, by the way. When, exactly, human life begins is a proven scientific fact: Human life begins at conception.
It is the immorality of killing that unborn human life (fetus in Latin) that brings religion into the equation.
Adidas | 8.11.11 @ 4:43AM
is good
العاب | 4.11.12 @ 3:41PM
by the benevolent king