Of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade at the federal level and the collective celebration evangelical Christians are havjng?Many evangelical Christians love to say things such as,"God's heart breaks when a baby is killed!", "God has made every person wonderfully and individually and he has a purpose for them..", or "A woman should not abort her child because it inconveniences her! She should take responsibility."

What do they usually use as their source? They say it's Yahweh's/Jesus's desires. How do they claim to know the desires of their deity? They will say the Holy Spirit told them or that they read it in the Bible..

Yeah, funny thing about that Bible. You see the writers of the books of the Old Testament and arguably the New Testament depict a deity that has no qualms about making women infertile, sanctioning abortions, infanticide, and cannabilizing one's children. What do I mean?

Genesis 6:9-17

Let's start with Genesis. The flood narrative has some horrifying implications. According to the Bible in Genesis 6:9-17 Yahweh got so pissed and grieved about the wickedness coming from the humans he created that discovered how to sin in the first place thanks to an irresponsibly place tree and an arbitrary set of conditions for suffering he engineered.

God floods the Earth and whether or not you want to argue that it was a local flood or global flood (nevermind the glaring logical contradictions or what calculations demonstrate about how the planet would be devastated by the amount of energy by this flooding) there is a non-zero probability that among his victims were pregnant women, babies, and children. That's thousands if not encroaching upon maybe millions of aborted fetuses, babies, and children. Do you all remember the outrage and sorrow that occurred when Andrea Yates, Precious Bland, and Laurel Schlemmer.

There were some other factors at play here - mental illness, pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic, and pressures from a restrictive husband dead set on not using contraceptives - all contributed to their decisions. Can you just imagine for one second if someone barged into your home, proclaimed that all of your family members including you were wicked, barricaded you all inside your own home, and drowned each and every one of your family members systematically? This would trigger anger in anyone reasonable but since Christians think their god is without error or does good things in "mysterious" ways he gets a pass.

Exodus 21:22-25

Exodus 21:22-25 is a favorite with pro-birth Christians to use as they argue that any form of abortion is immoral and that God has instituted a punishment for it. Let's read what this passage says, shall we?

“If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows.  But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life,  eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,  burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

Evangelical Christians who don't read this passage in context (irony) or twist this passage to suit their agendas are missing the point. First and foremost, this situation concerns miscarriages - not abortions. If the biblical perspective was that a fetus was a fully realized human being, there would be far more severe consequences than a mere fine. We know this because proceeding versus prescribe executions in the case that women die as a result.

So, if a human being is killed, the consequence is execution. If a pregnancy is terminated, there’s a fine. The difference between those two consequences shows that the authors of Exodus, the Hebrew people, did not consider a fetus to be a human being. In short? God seems to value the consequences of a miscarried fetus as no more than financial or proprietary restitution for the affected party.

Of course on a related note - if youbreak the Sabbath, you will be stoned to death. So..technically God considers not resting and worshipping on his arbitrarily designated day worthy of the death penalty, but a miscarriage might run your pockets at the discretion of the husband. And reminder - the guy was just picking up sticks.

I know plenty of Christians that work on the Sabbath - they have jobs and other professional obligations, they clean their homes, help neighbors with chores, etc.

Numbers 5:11-31

WARNING! WARNING! BIG IRONY INCOMING.

One of the cliche arguments or quips often used by "pro-life" Christians when it comes to abortion is that its a convenient method by which promiscuous women can escape the responsibility of delivering a baby that was conceived due to their sinful and lascivious lifestyles.

First, it's important to make the distinction that this quip is slut shaming.

Let's confront the elephant in the room - men can be driven to lust and be risky as well when it comes to sexual activity. Men don't bear the burden of childbirth and our societies traditionally have admired or applauded men who can sexually conquer women. The Bible even permits polygamy for men who can afford to or decide to do so.

Women have been pigeonholed into only having a certain set of roles regarding sex that even conservatives don't want to acknowledge - the loyal housewife that is expected to put out sex for her husband as her "wifely duty", the loyal girlfriend that is enjoyed liberally by her partner, the whore who though she is in a committed relationship can't keep her pants on, and of course the sex worker who conservatives swear to despise but secretly masturbate to or pay for sex.

A man has the potential to impregnate scores of women within the same year through sexual intercourse or by having his sperm used a donor. Societal views on the roles of men with regards to sex are changing in some regards.

However, the Bible since it is an antiquated book with dubious claims has a solution to the question of infidelity by a married woman.

If a man gets suspicious and arguably jealous of the attention his wife is receiving and believes that she has cheated, he can always march down with his wife to the priest and do the magic abortificent ceremony. It goes as such:

• Guy makes a jealousy offering with barley flour
• Guy and his wife go to the priest and the priest once informed will take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water
• Priest loosens the woman's hair - which can be considered in an equivalent sense to writing "slut" on a woman's forehead or undressing her to make her feel/to show she is a whore. Reminder - no one has been declared innocent or guilty yet...
• Preist gives her the spiel - if you are loyal, this won't do anything. If you are for the streets, well..
• If the woman has been unfaithful her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry (non-spontaneous termination- a human agent caused it) and she will become a curse (some translations mention that her thigh or what is assumed to be the womb will rot).

That of course assumes this ritual works. If it does work, this is technically an abortion. On top of that, if this ritual is to be believed the next logical step is that the woman will be stoned to death along with the partner if they confess or it is determined who they are.

So..what was that about abortion and responsibility from conservatives again?

Disobedience? That's an Abortion, Infanticide, and/or Cannibalism..

Of course it wouldn't be Yahweh if there weren't extremely disproportionate punishments for things such as wearing different types of fabric, eating shellfish, or shaving your beard a certain way.

Leviticus and Deutoronomy casually drop in through Moses who God supposedly speaking through that he will wreck Israel's shit if they disobey him. Among those are forced sterilization, miscarriages, and bloody abortions that will kill both the baby and the mother. Nevermind that he promises he will arrange situations so dire to punish the Israelites that they will be forced to gorge on their own flesh, the flesh of their countrymen, and even the flesh of children and babies. Real shit.

Of course, don't stop there. We need to cave in the skulls of children (2 Kings 8:12) as punishment for disobedient parents or rulers, proclaim that God said other countries will never have a child ever again,, destroy unborn children and prevent any woman for getting pregnant even if she desired to do so.

WHY STOP THERE? Just let the women get ripped open!

The Book of Revelation which I don't recommend reading if you are sane also glows lovingly about Jesus who will come back on a bloody warpath to cleanse the Earth of evil. Chances are pregnant women and their unborn children will be collateral as well.

Isn't the Bible so pro-life?