Actually, even in Bronze Age myths, life begins when the baby takes its first breath. If anyone wants, you can listen to an in-depth (and often very funny) discussion on Data Over Dogma’s “Abortion and the Bible” episode here.
Sure, but we still need to punish women for having sex. (Genesis 38:24, Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:21, Leviticus 19:20, Deuteronomy 22:23-24, Leviticus 20:18)
This (and policies of not naming a child until it’s lived a certain length of time) are direct consequences of high rates of prenatal and neonatal mortality. That is, life begins at the first breath because otherwise you have to consider an outright crushing number of dead babies. And when you are arguing divine justice is a thing, that gets real hard real fast.
Absolutely. I’m sure high infant mortality rates had a huge influence on the parts of Hammurabi’s Code that got adapted into laws in the Bible. Until it could survive on its own, a fetus was basically the property of the would-be father (though so was the would-be mother, yuck), so they were obviously quite desensitized.
Actually, even in Bronze Age myths, life begins when the baby takes its first breath. If anyone wants, you can listen to an in-depth (and often very funny) discussion on Data Over Dogma’s “Abortion and the Bible” episode here.
Sure, but we still need to punish women for having sex. (Genesis 38:24, Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:21, Leviticus 19:20, Deuteronomy 22:23-24, Leviticus 20:18)
This (and policies of not naming a child until it’s lived a certain length of time) are direct consequences of high rates of prenatal and neonatal mortality. That is, life begins at the first breath because otherwise you have to consider an outright crushing number of dead babies. And when you are arguing divine justice is a thing, that gets real hard real fast.
Absolutely. I’m sure high infant mortality rates had a huge influence on the parts of Hammurabi’s Code that got adapted into laws in the Bible. Until it could survive on its own, a fetus was basically the property of the would-be father (though so was the would-be mother, yuck), so they were obviously quite desensitized.