Christian leaders rip Washington Post article claiming abortion fight based on misreading of Bible passage

Pro-life Christians reacted vehemently recently after a newspaper article claimed the pro-life movement was based on a misreading of the Hebrew Bible, specifically a passage in Exodus.

In the article, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg and pro-abortion Baptist minister Katey Zeh claim that much of Jewish and Christian opposition to abortion derives from "a single word being mistranslated more than 2,000 years ago."  "Our beliefs about the sanctity of life aren’t just tied to a single verse that some may try and find fault with — they are wrapped up in the entirety of Scripture."  "The Christian pro-life teaching is organic to the whole of Scripture and was refined across millennia." "The Christian faith affirms that the unborn child demands our defense and that abortion is a grave sin."

They point to Exodus 21:22-23, a passage setting forth a law about what happens when a man hits a pregnant woman, causing her baby to come out. Ruttenberg and Zeh trace the history of a mistranslation through key Christian thinkers like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, claiming the ban on abortion after "quickening" resulted from this mistranslation.