The Bible and Abortion

The late John Murray said, “Nothing shows the moral bankruptcy of a people or of a generation more than disregard for the sanctity of life.”[1] Abortion is an indicator of the moral bankruptcy of people in this generation and demonstrates the exceeding wickedness of sin. The Bible reveals that man is created in the image of God, and therefore to murder man is to assault the divine majesty.[2] The fact that man is created in the image of God is not true only of healthy adults, but is true of man in every phase of his life. Man is the image of God before the fall into sin (Gen 1:26-28), after the fall into sin (Jas 3:9), in the womb (see below), as a child (Lev 18:21; Eph 6:4), as one physically handicapped (Lev 19:14; Mk 10:46-52), as an elderly person (Lev 19:32; Prov 16:31; 1 Tim 5:1), and as having dominion over the animals (Gen 1:28; Ps 8:6-8).

With specific reference to the preborn, the Bible speaks of nations coming from the womb (Gen 25:18-23). Job highlights the providence of God in his life which began in the womb (Job 10:8-12; cf. also 31:13-15). When David confessed his sin before God and traced his native depravity, he did so to his mother’s womb (Ps 51:5).  David was not suggesting that marital intercourse was sinful, but that at the moment of conception he (David, not a product of conception) was a sinner.  The Psalmist marvels at the omniscience and omnipresence of God in Ps 139 and in verses 13-16 he rehearses God’s power in creating man in the womb.  The Prophet Jeremiah was called from his mother’s womb (Jer 1:5) as was the Apostle Paul (Gal 1:15).  In the birth narrative concerning Christ recorded in Luke’s gospel, John the Baptist was called “the babe” in verse 41 which is the same word used in Lk 18:15 for “out-of-the-womb” children.  In Lk 1:44, Christ is referred to as “Lord” while in the womb! If the modern proponents of abortion had their way and successfully influenced Rebekah, Job’s mother, David’s mother, Jeremiah’s mother, Mary, and Paul’s mother with the propaganda of “choice,” nations would not have been, Job, David, Jeremiah, and Paul would not have been, and all of us would have died in our sins.

The Bible does not only reveal the dignity of man; it also regulates conduct with reference to man. When we understand the personhood of man as summarized above, we must understand that every prohibition given regarding murder, applies equally to babies in the womb. In addition to this, there was a specific case law given in Ex 21:22-25 that demanded punishment for those who would inadvertently murder a baby in the womb. The law specified that if two men got into a fight and during the fight a pregnant woman was struck, if she went into premature labor and her children (the word is plural) came out (the OT language for birth) but were not harmed, then the guilty man had to pay a fine. If however, the children came out and there was harm to mother or children, then the guilty man was subject to the lex talionis (the law of retaliation) up to and including death for the guilty man. Before our modern sensitivities are violated by such a proposal, remember that most nations operate according to the lex talionis principle today; it is the basis upon which we say “the punishment must fit the crime.”

In light of this particular passage, it is interesting to note that the Bible demands increased protection for the preborn.  If men engaged in a fight were held legally accountable and punished for accidentally causing an abortion, how much more are state-licensed, government subsidized abortion “clinics” guilty of this horrendous crime?  John Calvin rightly commented, “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 fetus in the womb before it has come to light.”[3] Solomon records what God hates in Prov 6:16-19 and one of them is applicable to the abortion situation:  “hands that shed innocent blood.”

Finally, abortion should be criminalized by the state. Not all sin is necessarily crime (covetousness), nor is all crime necessarily sin (preaching Christ in a Muslim nation), but abortion is both sinful and criminal. The modern state rightly applies the 6^th word, “You shall not murder,” in most situations. In order to be consistent, abortion must be a criminal offense which is punishable by the governing authorities, not paid for by the governing authorities.