Zacharias P Thundy

Was Jesus Also Pro-Choice? Zacharias P Thundy

The Gospels portray Jesus not only as a champion of non-violence but also as one not violently and unequivocally opposed to limited abortion in the sense that, when our choice is only between two evils, we must choose the lesser evil. Evidence from the Hebrew scriptures subscribed to Jesus and his contemporaries as well as evidence from the Gospels provides justification for this claim. In other words, there is no evidence in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures to claim that every abortion, which naturally is in itself an intrinsically evil or immoral action, is by itself a mortal sin deserving of capital punishment and eternal damnation. Therefore, the opposition between the generally understood pro-life stance, which purportedly claims that the fetus from the moment of conception is endowed with a human soul and thus a fully fledged human person, and the moderate pro-choice position, which tolerates limited abortion, say, during the first trimester of pregnancy. The first part of this short study will explain Jesus' or the Gospels' rather tolerant or not openly condemnatory view of the basic pro-choice position that not all abortions are necessarily homicide. The second part will show that the basic pro-life position--human life is sacred at all its stages--and the basic pro-choice position are rather complementary. Therefore, we can justifiably be both pro-life and pro-choice, which positions are not at all contradictory but only contrary, as in the motto of the eminent scientist Neils Bohr, "Contraries are complementary" ("Contraria sunt complementaria").