Abortion in the Bible
With the news of the leaked draft of Justice Alito’s majority opinion this week, all eyes are on the Supreme Court for an expected overturning of Roe v. Wade. Over the years, I have run into a startling amount of Christians who are under the impression that the Bible has nothing to say about the matter. So without further ado, let me set the record straight on that.
First, it is a matter of God’s command, as in the sixth commandment: “You shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13). One theologian comments that, “What the sixth commandment basically says is that life and death are God’s business. He is the Lord of life and death, and we may not take life without his authorization.”1 This is an important point because in the law, to “murder” (רָצַח) and to “kill” (הָרַג) are actually two different concepts signified by two different words in Hebrew, the former for murder being the one in the sixth commandment.
Second, as a matter of plain reason, abortion falls under that category of murder and therefore it is condemned by God. When it comes to life in the womb, the question of whether it is a life precedes, logically and morally, the question of which human is doing the “choosing.” Choice is irrelevant in any other case of taking life, and is so here as well. Crucial texts include Genesis 1:26-27, 9:5-6, 25:23, Exodus 20:13, 21:22-25, Ps. 139:13, Jer. 1:5, Job 10:8, 9, 11, Lk. 1:44.
In putting those pieces together, let’s notice that the reasoning is ultimately theological. God’s valuation of human life has everything to do with who he is. We notice that when God assigns human beings to punish anyone who sheds the blood of man, he gives this reason: “for God made man in his own image” (Gen. 9:6). In a very real sense, to violate the life of human beings is to violate God himself.
Nor can we divorce the spiritual and scientific grounds for argument. To speak of the “embryo” or “fetus” in purely material terms simply begs the question: a question that has been settled by science. All of the properties of biological life are present at conception.
Examining Some Biblical Texts
The law of Moses stated:
“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Ex. 21:22-25).
Note two things here: (1) the taking of life is a capital crime, (2) which assumes that the baby is a distinct human life. Calvin commented on this verse, “This passage at first sight is ambiguous, for if the word death only applies to the pregnant woman, it would not have been a capital crime to put an end to the fœtus, which would be a great absurdity; for the fœtus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, (homo,) and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fœtus in the womb before it has come to light.”2
Other texts speak of life in the womb as made and known by God: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:13); and to the prophet, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer. 1:5). Likewise with Job, “Your hands fashioned and made me … Remember that you have made me like clay ... You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews” (Job 10:8, 9, 11).
Then there are those two peoples struggling together in Rebekah’s womb (cf. Gen. 25:23) or again, the infant John the Baptist leaping for joy in the womb of Elizabeth (cf. Lk. 1:44). These may be considered special circumstances; and it is true that we are restricted in how we apply these passages to other doctrines. However, texts like these at least teach us that God is the maker and determiner of life in the womb, and that he knows such lifeforms as more than biological entities, but as living souls: as persons.
Applying the Biblical Teaching to the Debate
The dominant logic of the so-called “pro-choice” position is either about the individual rights of the mother — what is called her “right over her own body” — or else a utilitarian argument about what is good for society. It runs like this: Children who grow up with a low enough quality of life create various strains on society. Or, in the tone of feigned compassion, All children should be wanted. But this raises two immediate questions of objective standard. Who gets to decide what a morally sufficient quality of life is for the child? And how do we assess the greater good to the number of people who are not being aborted as opposed to the good of those who are being aborted for their sake?
And as a test of consistency, if we are against infanticide then we should be against abortion too. Put another way, let us ask the question at every point: Would it be permissible to put this particular child to death after they are born? And if our answer is No, then we should ask ourselves, why exactly is it permissible to put this same life form to death before it is born? I realize that we are used to hearing answers to that question. But what we really need to do is to analyze those answers by this follow up question: What makes the exact difference (1) before, as opposed to (2) after, birth?
The answers that have been given in our generation do not even hold up to the scrutiny of the data.3 Not only are the procedures not safer, but the majority of abortions are never performed for those reasons. In the rare cases that are, the rationale of the Hippocratic Oath always presents other options for the doctor to do his or her best to save life.
The Bible even begins to give moral grounds for our duty. Proverbs 24:11-12 says this,
“Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?”
Much more could be said, but let us at least put to rest the myth that the Bible is silent on life in the womb.
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1. John Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life (Philipsburgh, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2008), 685.
2. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses: vol. 3 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 41–42.
3. For example, a 2003 CDC report showed that only 0.118% of all abortions were performed for the life or safety of the mother. The former U. S. Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, went as far to say that, “Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smoke screen. In my thirty-six years in pediatric surgery I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother's life” — C. Everett Koop. “A Physician Speaks About Abortion”
