THE ISSUE OF ABORTION IS NOT merely academic to me; it’s personal. My youngest sister, Heather, was adopted into my family when she was just four weeks old. Even though I was only in fourth grade at the time, I will never forget the first time I held her as a newborn baby. Like all newborns, she weighed only a few pounds and was so precious and innocent. Now she is a beautiful wife and mother of three wonderful kids, my nephew and nieces.
Her birth mother was a young, unmarried teenager, totally unprepared to support a newborn. Years later, when Heather met her birth mother, she discovered that she had been conceived through rape. An older man forced her mother to have sex, and she became pregnant with Heather. Given her mother’s unpreparedness, the forced pregnancy, and the shame that is often associated with young teen pregnancies, her mother could have easily chosen to have an abortion. But she didn’t. She knew that every human life has value, regardless of how that life was conceived. Our family is grateful she chose life. We can’t imagine our lives without Heather.
Quite obviously, not everyone chooses life. There have been tens of millions of abortions in the United States (and hundreds of millions worldwide) in recent times. As a result, many more people than you can imagine have had an experience with abortion. While not everyone who has had an abortion regrets it, many do. There are women who carry around the pain of having had an abortion and need to experience forgiveness. There are men who have encouraged their wives or girlfriends to have an abortion who need healing. There are many people who have been involved with and affected by abortion. If you have had an experience with abortion, please know that God forgives you.
As we attempt to consider this topic with grace and truth, let’s remember: this issue involves every one of us. We can all be thankful our parents chose life, because if they hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here.
The Biblical Case for Life
The Bible never says, “Thou shalt not commit abortion.” Why not? The main reason is that abortion would have been unimaginable to a Hebrew woman. Children were considered a gift from God (see Psalm 127:3). God was viewed as being sovereign over the womb (see Genesis 29:33; 1 Samuel 1:19-20). It was considered a curse to remain childless. The Bible is silent about abortion because it was unthinkable to the Hebrew mind.
Yet a simple case can be made that the Bible is pro-life.
First, the Bible prohibits taking innocent human life. The Ten Commandments condemn murder (see Exodus 20:13), and Jesus reaffirmed that human life should be protected (see, for example, Matthew 19:18).
Second, the unborn is an innocent human being. The same words are used in both the Old and New Testaments to describe the born and the unborn. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word geber was used to refer to a person at conception and a grown man (see Exodus 10:11; Deuteronomy 22:5; Judges 5:30; Job 3:3). In the New Testament, the word brephos is often used for unborn, newborn, and younger children (see Luke 1:41, 44; 18:15; 1 Peter 2:2). Scripture makes no relevant distinction between a preborn fetus and a newborn baby.
Therefore, the Bible is against abortion, which is taking the life of an innocent human being. Whether in the womb or out of the womb, the Bible condemns the unjust taking of innocent human life.
I’ve seen people argue on social media that the Bible is pro-choice, using Exodus 21:22-23, which discusses the penalty for men who struggle with one another and hit a pregnant woman. If the woman had a miscarriage, the argument goes, then the man would face a fine. But if one of the men killed the woman, then he would get the death penalty. Doesn’t this prove the Bible values the unborn less than adults?
This is creative thinking, but it misses the point of the passage. For one, the word “miscarriage” is not used here. Proper interpretation indicates that the woman had a premature birth, not a miscarriage. The baby did not die in the process but was born early. Thus, the man should be fined. But if the mother or the unborn die, then the penalty is “life for life.” Rather than undervaluing the life of the unborn, the passage considers it equal to the mother.[1]
The Bible unequivocally—in these passages as well as many others—prohibits abortion as the taking of an innocent human life.
But what does science say about this issue?
The Scientific Case for Life
Not long ago, I visited a pregnancy resource center. In touring the facility, I saw the piece of technology that convinces most pregnant women to choose life: the ultrasound machine. As soon as women are able to see a picture of the unborn baby inside them, they immediately realize it is a member of the human family. This intuition is supported by scientific data.
Consider the scientific case for pro-life.
First, the unborn is alive. People sometimes claim that we don’t know when life begins, but scientifically speaking, there’s no doubt. The mom is alive. The dad is alive. The sperm is alive. The egg is alive. The zygote is alive. There is no stage in the process of development when the unborn is not living.
Even if we didn’t know when life began, we should still be against abortion. Why? Consider an example: If I were going to schedule a building for demolition but was unsure whether anyone was inside, should I proceed? Of course not! Former president Ronald Reagan said, “Anyone who doesn’t feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it.”[2] Even if there were uncertainty about when life begins, we should choose life. Nevertheless, we do know life begins at fertilization.
Second, the unborn is separate from the mother. The unborn may be dependent on the mother, but it is a distinct organism from the mother. We know this because the fetus has a unique DNA fingerprint, can have a different blood type from the mother, and if the parents are of different races, it can develop a different skin color from the mother.
And finally, the unborn is human. There is a simple way to know the unborn is human: consider the parents! Since beings reproduce after their kind, if we want to know what type of being an offspring is, ask a simple question: What type of parents did it have? If the parents are human, the offspring is human.
The science is clear: at fertilization, the unborn is a living, individual human being, separate from the mother.
The Philosophical Case for Life
Some pro-choice advocates point to differences between those in the womb and those outside the womb to deny the unborn the right to life. There are four key differences (which spell “SLED”), but none of these are significant enough to deny the right to life of the unborn.
S-Size: The unborn are clearly smaller than newborns. But does size have anything to do with the right to life? Is a basketball player more valuable than a gymnast? Just because the fetus is smaller than an adult does not mean it is not a valuable human being. In Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who, Horton says, “A person’s a person no matter how small.” And that’s certainly true in the abortion debate.
L-Level of Development: The unborn are less developed than newborns and adults. But this difference has no relevance to the essential nature of the unborn as human beings. Are adults more valuable than elementary children because they have gone through puberty? Are people with developmental disabilities less valuable than those without them? Human development begins at fertilization and continues throughout life.
E-Environment: The unborn lives in a different location than newborns and adults, but why is that relevant to its human nature? Do you stop being human when you change your location? How can where you are determine what you are?
D-Degree of Dependency: The unborn is fully dependent upon its mother for survival. But why does this make it a less valuable human being? If your humanity hinged upon how dependent you were, then what about toddlers, the disabled, or those on dialysis machines?
So much more could be said, but one thing should be clear: despite abortion’s prevalence in the world, Scripture, science, and philosophy agree that the unborn being is a valuable human being from the moment of fertilization.
What Should I Do?
In college, Stephanie Gray Connors was planning to be an actress, but a pro-life speaker came to her college and pointed out that more people work to kill unborn babies than work to save them. It rocked her. Now she is a pro-life author and speaker. She was even invited to speak on abortion at Google.[3]
You, too, can make a difference, and there are many ways to do so. Share this chapter with a friend. Make a social media post defending life. Visit a pregnancy resource center. Support pro-life causes. Here’s the bottom line: the unborn cannot speak up for themselves. Will you speak up for them?
Please allow me one final word of encouragement: if you have had an abortion, God loves you and forgives you. Abortion is not the unforgivable sin. Jesus died on the cross for all our sins, and like the father of the prodigal son, he is eager to forgive and embrace you if you are willing to come to him. Many women have had abortions and experienced God’s loving forgiveness. If this is you, please share your experience with a trusted leader. Freedom awaits.
[1] For a more in-depth look at this passage, see Greg Koukl, “What Exodus 21:22 Says about Abortion,” Stand to Reason, February 4, 2013, https://www.str.org/w/what-exodus-21-22-says-about-abortion.
[2] Ronald Reagan, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (Sacramento: New Regency, 2000), 42.
[3] Stephanie Gray, “Abortion: From Controversy to Civility,” YouTube video, June 19, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzzfSq2DEc4.