Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site eosp1.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!eosp1!robison
From: robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison)
Newsgroups: net.abortion,net.politics,net.religion,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Abortion and Capital Punishment
Message-ID: <1253@eosp1.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Nov-84 18:24:12 EST
Article-I.D.: eosp1.1253
Posted: Mon Nov 12 18:24:12 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Nov-84 19:12:11 EST
References: <ccice5.570> <1782@burdvax.UUCP> <136@pyuxww.UUCP>
Reply-To: robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison)
Organization: Exxon Office Systems, Princeton
Lines: 36
Xref: princeton net.abortion:345 net.politics:1558 net.religion:1067 net.philosophy:218
Summary: 

In article <136@pyuxww.UUCP> mbets@pyuxww.UUCP (Mary Beth Fifield) writes:
>
>	I'd like to know where the Bible says it's okay for 
>another man to take a life.  If a man must forfeit
>with his own life if he kills another then ... those people who
>have condemned a man to death are subject to the same rules, aren't
>they?

Somewhere in the first five books of the bible is a particularly
clear counter example, called "the law of the pursuer" in discussions
of Jewish law.  I will post the specific citation to net.philosophy
soon.  The situation is that if person A is pursuing person B, possibly
with intent to kill, then person C who notices this is allowed,
possibly even required, to come B's aid,  killing A if necessary
to save B's life.

By the way,
doctors who perform an abortion that is sanctioned under Jewish law
(which provides very few justifications for abortion) are deemed to
be acting under this law, and thus are themselves not guilty of murder.
That is, the fetus is viewed as the pursuer, threatening the mother's
life, and the doctor is the innocent bystander who has come to her
aid.

The bible contains numerous other examples of cases where a
person was killed in the public good, and the person committing the
killing is obviously not punished.  The bible clearly shows by example
that certain deaths are permitted.

For the acts that the bible prescribes death by stoning, there is
no suggestion that the stoners should then be treated as criminals.

	- Toby Robison (not Robinson!)
	allegra!eosp1!robison
	or: decvax!ittvax!eosp1!robison
	or (emergency): princeton!eosp1!robison