Be careful quoting the Bible when it comes to abortion – this is what it really says...

Ron DeSantis, Republican governor of Florida and former US election candidate, might like to portray himself as “God’s fighter”, but his stance on abortion is distinctly unbiblical.

Florida, which used to provide more abortions than all the other states – apart from California, New York and Illinois – is currently subject to regressive anti-abortion measures. In April last year, DeSantis signed restrictions into law that meant women can’t have abortions in Florida after the sixth week of pregnancy – which is before most people even realise they’re pregnant.

Like Trump, when Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022, DeSantis might want us to believe that abortion bans are God’s will. But perhaps they should read the bibles Trump’s been flogging on his presidential campaign trail – if they did, they’d find that the Bible isn’t actually or explicitly anti-abortion, after all.

It isn’t even “pro-life” – just ask all the humans and animals who weren’t allowed on to Noah’s ark in Genesis 6; or Lot’s wife who was turned to salt for looking back at her homeland in Genesis 19; or all those innocent first-born sons killed by God in Exodus 11.

Then again, right-wing anti-abortionist Christians can be astonishingly selective about which human lives are sacred. The same people who condemn women for having abortions can often be pro-gun, pro-war, pro-death penalty and even anti-welfare benefits, the social insurance that helps children not to be born into abject poverty.

Foetuses, it seems, are the only form of life that’s sanctified.

Right-wing anti-abortionist Christians are also fond of relabelling abortion as “killing babies.” Again, we’re on thin ice – biblically. The Bible is very much not anti-baby-killing. Far from it.

In fact, the Christian sacred text is fonder of baby killing than of condemning abortion altogether. Even if we ignore Noah’s ark and the plague of the first-born – when hundreds if not thousands of babies would have drowned in God’s flood or been struck down by God’s plague – then there’s the genocide in 1 Samuel 15, when God commands Saul to kill all the Amalekites, including children and babies.

Or, if that’s not dark enough for you, give numbers 31:17-18 a try: “Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him. But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.” That’s not a verse you’ll hear much in church.

But what about all the explicitly anti-abortion biblical quotes spouted by Republican politicians in the US, like Mike Pence; or daubed across placards outside abortion clinics in the UK? I hate to be the one to break it to them, but there are no explicitly anti-abortion passages in the Bible.

There is, however, a disturbing segment in numbers 5:11-31, when there seems to be a divinely-sanctioned abortion. God prescribes a test for unfaithful wives, which he relays to Moses, to be performed by a priest before God. It involves concocting a potion during a ritual that, if the woman is guilty of infidelity, results in the induced abortion of a foetus.

“When he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall discharge, her uterus drop, and the woman shall become an execration among her people. But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be immune and be able to conceive children.”

It’s perhaps unsurprising that an ancient text might not help us to make sense of women’s reproductive rights in the modern world, but it’s shocking that women’s experiences right now aren’t making any difference to reproductive law. Because if ever there was any doubt that banning abortions endangers women’s lives, then we should be well and truly certain.

Women die because of abortion restrictions. That’s not a matter of perspective. It’s not a discussion point. It’s not something over which we can agree to disagree. It’s an indisputable fact.

In 2021, Josseli Barnica, a 28-year-old mother, died from sepsis after miscarriage treatment was delayed due to the abortion ban in Texas. In October 2023, Nevaeh Crain, a pregnant Texas teenager, also died from sepsis because she was unable to get the medical care she desperately needed – despite attending ER three times for help with miscarriage pain. In both cases, essential life-saving medical care was delayed because doctors could still detect a foetal heartbeat.

Both young women have paid the price for the loss of abortion rights in the US – and their needless, and wholly preventable deaths should have taught us the cost of limiting women’s reproductive rights. Unfortunately, the stories of Josseli and Nevaeh are only two among many.

Right-wing anti-abortionist Christians, like Ron DeSantis, may continue to disguise state violence against women with the moral gloss of religious piety – but the Bible doesn’t tell us so.

Katie Edwards is an author, broadcaster and academic specialising in the use of the Bible in contemporary culture