Contradictions of Religion and Politics in Southeast Asia

The difficulty in working out whether these findings have any real meaning is that it depends on knowing how much someone actually understands what their holy book says. Consider the issue of abortion in the Philippines, over which the Bible and the will of the people do conflict – but in the opposite way than most people think. Abortion is mentioned twice in the Bible. One of those (Exodus 21:22-23:13) says that if two men are fighting and one accidentally injures a pregnant woman who miscarries, the punishment is a fine. But if the woman dies in the melee, the punishment is death. So, the Bible doesn’t say an unborn child is already a living being. The other, Numbers 5:11-31, actually recommends priests should attempt to cause a woman to miscarry (so perform an abortion) as a test for adultery. Nevertheless, the Bible is invariably invoked by Christians as to why the Philippines should maintain one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world.