Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist; pp. 293-299
The following is a work of fanfiction — a mash-up of two of the most appalling things I have ever read: Chapter 14 of Nicolae and Chapter 5 of the book of Numbers (which I quote from here in the New King James translation preferred by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins).
This is my idea of how this passage in Nicolae might have read if Rayford Steele stuck to a truly biblical view on abortion.
Rayford had the difficult task of trying to plead his case without being too obvious. He had asked her, “Hattie, what do you think your options are?”
“I know there are only three, Rayford. Every woman has to consider these three options when she’s pregnant.”
Not every woman, Rayford thought.
Hattie had continued: “I can carry it to term and keep it, which I don’t want to do. I can put it up for adoption, but I’m not sure I want to endure the entire pregnancy and birth process. And, of course, I can terminate the pregnancy.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“What do you mean ‘what does that mean?'” Hattie had said. “Terminate the pregnancy means terminate the pregnancy.”
“You mean have an abortion?”
Hattie had stared at him like he was an imbecile. “Yes! What did you think I meant?”
“I thought you meant doing what the Bible says you must do.”
“The Bible?” Hattie gasped. “Rayford, I know you’ve found religion, but–“
“Yes, the Bible,” Rayford insisted. He worried he was being too forceful, too manly for her girlish sensibilities, but he pressed on. “The Bible says you must go to the priest.”
Hattie blinked with incomprehension.
“The Temple has been rebuilt, Hattie,” Rayford said, grimly. He knew the next part would be hard to say, but he forged ahead. “I’ve spoken to Nicolae, and … and he’s not convinced the baby is his.”
“He’s lying! I haven’t been with anyone else! You know he’s a liar, you said so yourself!”
“If he’s lying, you have nothing to worry about. The ceremony will sort that out. And, anyway, it doesn’t matter. He’s the father, Hattie, he has rights.”
“What about my rights?”
“You have the right to do what the Bible says, Hattie. Nicolae has already presented his offering of one-tenth an ephah of barley flour, now it’s your turn.”
“Oh, Rayford!” Hattie’s eyes filled with tears. She looked frightened. “You know I never was much for church and the Bible. I … I don’t know what happens next. What does the Bible say?”
It saddened Rayford’s heart to realize she truly did not know. So many lost souls had never read the Bible. But it saddened him even more to think of the many believers who also claimed to obey the Bible, yet seemed not to know what God’s Word actually said about terminating a pregnancy.
“You must go to the priest,” he said, reciting from memory the passage he had learned in Bruce’s study: “The priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the temple and put it into the water. The priest shall set the woman — that’s you, Hattie — before the Lord, dishevel your hair, and place in your hands the grain offering of remembrance, which is the grain offering of jealousy. In his own hand the priest shall have the water of bitterness that brings the curse.
“Then the priest shall make you take an oath, saying, ‘If you have not turned aside to uncleanness, be immune to this water of bitterness that brings the curse. But if you have gone astray while under your master’s authority, if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your master has had intercourse with you, then the Lord make you an execration, when the Lord makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge; now may this water that brings the curse enter your bowels and make your womb discharge, your uterus drop!’ And the woman — you, Hattie — shall say, ‘Amen. Amen.’”
“What are you saying Rayford? They’re going to force me to have an abortion by drinking poison?”
“No one’s forcing you to do anything, Hattie. You brought this on yourself when you got pregnant out of wedlock.”
“But Rayford …” He looked at her, sternly, and she caught herself. “But Captain Steele, they can’t really force me to drink poison can they?”
Rayford’s face twisted and sagged into what he imagined was a gently reassuring smile. “It’s only poison if you’ve turned aside to uncleanness. Otherwise it’s just a little bit of dirty water.”
Hattie looked horrified and at a loss for words. She fumbled for her next line and glanced down at her script. “I’m just a woman, so I don’t understand,” she recited flatly. “Please mansplain further.”
He twisted his face at her a bit harder and continued, “The Bible says, ‘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.'”
Hattie’s script was now rolled tightly in her hands, her white knuckles shaking. She stared at the floor and, through clenched teeth, spat out her next line. “Please go on. It’s so helpful to have a man explain this for me.”
“Something is wrong, and so people defend their right to choose,” Rayford said. “But the Bible isn’t ‘pro-choice,’ Hattie. The Bible says you have to have this abortion. You had sex, Hattie. You have to be punished.”
“Please go on,” Hattie screamed, leaping from her seat. “Please explain further!” she shouted as she began pummeling him with the rolled-up script. “Please! Explain! Further!”
Rayford laughed as he defended himself from the smaller woman’s attack, a genuine smile spreading across his face as he seized each of her thin wrists in his hands.
The smile disappeared as her knee struck home. Searing pain, a bright light, then darkness.
The plane had landed safely in Milwaukee when Rayford finally awoke, hours later. The other passengers had all departed and a flight attendant stood next to his chair, shaking his arm gently.
“What … what happened?” he said, groggily.
The flight attendant glanced down at her script, then met his eyes, smiling. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just a woman. You’ll have to explain this for me.”
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