MORE ON THE BIBLE & ABORTION

By chance I heard Biblical scholar Richard Elliot Friedman on a local radio station and during the interview, he pointed out that the closest mention of abortion is found in the Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 20, verses 14-17. Here are several translations.

New International Version
14 Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me not be blessed! 15 Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, who made him very glad, saying, "A child is born to you--a son!" 16 May that man be like the towns the LORD overthrew without pity. May he hear wailing in the morning, a battle cry at noon. 17 For he did not kill me in the womb, with my mother as my grave, her womb enlarged forever.

New American Standard
17 Because he did not kill me before birth, So that my mother would have been my grave, And her womb ever pregnant.

American Standard Version
17 because he slew me not from the womb; and so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great.

New Revised Standard
17 because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great.

Douay-Rheims
17 Who slew me not from the womb, that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb an everlasting conception.

Friedman pointed out that the Hebrew word translated above as "kill" or "slew" is not the same word found in the 7th commandment which is usually translated as "murder" or "kill"-  EXODUS 20:13 "You shall not murder."