Herod and abortion

General Viewpoints on abortion

• Ultra-conservative
  • Completely immoral
  • Never permitted, even if the mother must die. The child’s life is prioritized over against the mother and God will decide who lives or dies
• Conservative
  • Very immoral
  • Permitted only for therapeutic abortion, but only as the lesser of two evils. The mother’s life is prioritized over the fetus, but the mother may choose to refuse a therapeutic abortion
• Liberal
  • Woman’s right to decide about her own body. The fetus’ life has little priority
  • Moral, or may be immoral but the lesser of two evils
  • May have doubts about late-term abortions
• Ultra-liberal
  • Woman’s right to decide about her own body. The fetus’ biological life is not yet true life
  • There is no moral issue because the fetus is only a potential human who has not yet actualized
  • Abortion permitted to the bitter end, as an unborn fetus is still not a person
• Moderate — this position is difficult to define because, depending on the moderate, it will be some mixture or variation of the above beliefs
  • Moderate Conservative
    • Immoral
    • Permitted for therapeutic abortion, rape, incest
    • It should not be allowed for elective abortions and maybe should be limited after a certain number of weeks of gestation
  • Moderate Liberal
    • Immoral
    • Does not believe that he or she has a right to speak into the life of a woman.
  • Other moderate — impossible to define, all types of mixtures of beliefs are found in this group. Sadly the mixture of beliefs is often not logically cohesive

Recently we celebrated the feast of the killing of the innocents in Bethlehem. As you may remember the story, the Magi went to Herod to ascertain where this King was that was advertised by the stars. Herod’s advisors told him that the child was born in Bethlehem and was destined to be the Messiah. One would think that Herod would be overjoyed, however, he only saw the child as a threat to his own reign, and would rather kill the Messiah than give us his reign. And so, he devised a horrific plan, to kill all the children in Bethlehem and the surrounding areas who were two years of age and under.

How many children were killed? Well, certainly not some of the inflated numbers from later centuries. The Coptic Church talks of 144,000 killed. The Syrian Orthodox speaks of 64,000 killed. The Eastern Orthodox talk about 14,000 killed. The Catholic Encyclopedia says that probably between 6-20 children were killed in Bethlehem with an additional 10-20 killed in the surrounding areas. This latter number is the most likely number, given the population of Bethlehem and the area as determined both from ancient history and from archaeological findings.

I should note that Herod was a known thoroughly evil man. Among the many atrocities for which he was known, he killed his own wife and two of his sons. And, he committed atrocities on a regular basis. “According to orders made before Herod’s death, soldiers were to round up many of Judea’s most distinguished men into Jerusalem’s theater and execute them all. Herod justified this final act of cruelty by saying that it would ensure that the Jews lamented his passing. Happily, this order was not carried out. “

I fall into the conservative camp.

Yes, you can see where I am going. Ultimately, I see elective abortion as all too often being killing for personal convenience. Notice that I am not opposed to therapeutic abortion. But, just like Herod killed the children so that he would not have to serve a future King, so too many of those choosing elective abortions will speak of the child coming at a bad time for them. They were either in college, or in a consensual relationship which was not going to lead to marriage, or some other reason. These are the people who, for their own convenience, have no problem with the death of another. These are the Herods of today’s modern world.

But, what about the non-Herods? Uhm, so what do I mean by the non-Herods? The ones for whom I have the most compassion are those that must choose between a therapeutic abortion and/or a probable death. If you notice, the conservative camp does not see that as the type of abortion that needs to be banned, but rather be treated with compassion. I should note that if one goes to the website of the Greek Othodox Archdiocese and searches for “abortion” one can find an article in which the Church also permits therapeutic abortion, in the same way that she permits war. That is, we can never say that abortion or war are good, but in the case of both, there may rarely be a lesser of two evils argument.

Also under the non-Herods, I see those who have been raped or are the victims of incest. They have been traumatized and may not be able to give the fetus they are bearing much of any love after birth. Nevertheless, we do not execute rapists or incestuous persons just to make the victim feel better. Neither should the fetus be executed just to make the mother feel better. At the same time, both the Church and society need to have a very active policy of support. It is the lack of support often experienced by the victim that leads to a state of hopelessness. To force a woman to bear a child to term, but to refuse to support her then, or provide for her after, is a grievous contributive sin on the part of both the Church and society. If we are serious about those who have been raped or experienced incest, then we have no choice but to provide.

Finally, for the elective abortionist, I have neither compassion nor hope in the afterlife unless they repent. They are the sharks who prey on the suffering of others.