Amongst their many other treasures, one of their essays catalogues the pro-choice statements in the Bible, such as the infamous line about killing a woman being an offence punishable by death, but attacking a pregnant woman and causing a miscarriage warrants mere monetary reparations.

There is not a single verse in the Bible that supports the anti-abortion position.

No one has the moral right or moral authority to compel any woman what medical decisions she must make about her body.

Every woman is an autonomous human being with the unique authority to make her own health care decisions about her body and her life. No one has the moral right or the moral authority to deprive her of the God given right to live her life according to the dictates of her own conscience as informed by her personal religious beliefs.

I know it seems like just a triffling bit of tangential snark. But it really goes right to the heart of the special pleading and tunnel vision that's right at the core of the whole anti-choice misconstrual of the Bible.

It was only after he read the Bible for its deeper poetic truth that went "beyond the literal meanings of the words to the moral, allegorical, anagogical, and spiritual meanings to be found in the things literally signified by words of the text" that St. Augistine converted to Christianity.

It is not from the deeper poetic reading of scripture that radical Christians discover a moral condemnation of contraception and abortion. The biblical ban on contraception and abortion is a pious fiction invented out of whole cloth and transmuted into Catholic dogma over the centuries.

The Evangelicals have no position on moral theology that they have not copied off of Rome's paper, so I will only deal with the Catholics.

Contraception was considered immoral by Christians from the beginning because it was considered immoral by Jews at the time of Jesus. Unlike the cleanliness (God hates shrimp) laws, or ritual laws, this was considered a moral law and kept by the early Christians.

(In all fairness, considering 1st century contraceptive technology, this was not an entirely unreasonable position.)

Unfortunately, heresies and falsehoods of all sort crept into Christianity, the most notable in this particular case being Manicheanism, because St. Augustine fell in with the Manicheans for a time and he is probably the most influential Christian theologian in the post-biblical times. (Remember, Luther was an Augustinian monk.) To make a long story short, Manicheans believed that what is physical is evil but what is spiritual is good. The physical included sexual desire, procreation, and marriage. Augustine rightfully condemned the Manichean attitude toward the last two, but held to the idea that sexual desire was somehow sinful. Taken along with St. Paul's explaination of his preference of the unmarried state in 1 Corinthians 7, this melded together so that the only purpose for sex that was not considered sinful was procreation. They believe that if one was truly holy, one would give up marriage and sex altogether, an attitude that is far more of Mani than St. Paul.

It is worth noting that in the East, where Augustine had considerably less influence, they have not had the same problems to the same degree. Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches have had married priests since biblical times and have thought nothing of it.

The Reformation was a step forward, as Martin Luther saw no biblical reason for clerical celibacy and got married. Even Henry VIII, who opposed most reforms, allowed this one, along with  worship in English. However, at Trent, the Catholics considered this to be a Protestant idea, so in true Counter-Reformation fashion, they did everything they could to reinforce their old ideas.

In the 20th century, (in part, I'm sure, to improved, less intrusive, contraceptive technology) most mainline Protestant denominations came to recognize that marriage is about more than just procreation and believed that married couples should make their own decisions on the matter. Most Catholics agreed with this reasoning.

However, the Catholic Church did not. A certain Polish bishop had just written a book defending the Church's teaching and convinced Pope Paul VI that the old ban still applied and that it applied to the new pill as well. More importantly, he argued that after 1968 years, the Church could not change its teaching without a credibility problem. (Being infallible means never having to say you're sorry. Historical and logical consistancy is what drives Catholic moral theology more than anything else, including the Bible itself.)

I think you can figure out what happened to that Polish bishop.

Interestingly enough, John Paul II turned the teaching upside-down, yet arrived at the exact same conclusion. Instead of sex being base, vile, and sinful, he put it on a pedistal. (That's what his book was all about) Sex was holy. Contraception or extramarital sex defiled the holiness of sex, so they were sinful. (Celebacy was still holy, too, but in a different way) It's a great ideal to be sure, but one obviously written by someone who has no experience in that area.

Of course the old ideals die hard, and get mingled with the new. The authoritarians, both Catholic and Evangelicals have little use for moral theology anyway, because moral theology asks why when an authoritarian would always answer "because I said so".

As for abortion, St. Augustine took the view that St. Thomas Aquinas would later take. Specifically, early term abortion was sinful because it was contraception and that late term abortion was sinful because it was murder. Due to advances in medical knowledge and technology, the teaching of the Catholic Church has not changed on the sinfulness of the act, but on the reason why. Now they say all abortion is murder.

As for myself, I believe contraception is neither salvation nor damnation, but a choice every married couple must make for themselves. Some couples, even a few non-Catholics, are happy following Catholic teaching and avoiding artificial contraception, while for others, this is an unrealistic burden.

On abortion, I agree with Jimmy Carter. It's not possible for me in my own concept of Christ to believe that Jesus would favor abortion.