Why Conservative Christians Are Only Using Half a Bible Verse to Justify Being Anti-Abortion

Let’s stop using half of things to justify a whole bunch of bullshit.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I’m surrounded by Jailhouse Jesus’ (JJs)and they all have strong opinions about the recent overturning of Roe vs Wade. In fact, they’re all just thrilled about it. As for myself and my good buddy Monk, we think it sucks. We’re probably the only two men in here who are left leaning, at least on our block. I would bet my friend Tisdale is, too, but he’s on a different block now.

1 Corinthians 7:4 The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband.

That’s the bible verse that gets thrown around constantly by the JJs when discussing abortion and why the Bible says it’s not okay. Now, most people don’t know this, but I used to teach Sunday School many years ago and my Pops was a Methodist minister. I was pretty sure there was more to that particular verse than what I was hearing, so I looked it up.

1 Corinthians 7:4 The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.

Well looky there, I was right! Isn’t that cute. After checking to make sure I was correct, I approached one of the JJs and asked, “So, that means if you believe the Bible is saying abortion is wrong because the husband says so, then by that same reasoning, a wife has possession of her husband’s body too. So, if the wife decides he should get a vasectomy, you know to keep pregnancy from happening to start with, then that’s what should happen. Right?”

Of course, that started a whirlwind of yelling, complaining, and bible thumping.

Before y’all come for me in the comments and say there are myriad other verse that say man and woman should be having sex to procreate, not to do things to the body that offend God, etc. Trust me, I know. That isn’t the point at all.

My point is this, let’s stop only quoting half of something in order to justify a whole lot of bullshit. Or better yet, let’s stop using thousands of years old advice to justify things in the here and now. That’s better.