Abortion, as we ordinarily use the term today, is the deliberate termination of a baby’s life prior to birth. Most of those who advocate abortion deny that the pre-born child qualifies as a “human life” in moral or legal terms, so he or she has no rights to be considered in the life-ending decision. This view is often accompanied by a denial of the existence, or at least the moral authority, of God, leaving man answerable to no higher power for abortion “choices.”
The overwhelming American consensus, especially prior to the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision, was against abortion. Besides the average person’s moral horror at terminating a most innocent human life, there have historically been ethical scruples about abortion within the medical profession. The Oath of Hippocrates, the foundation of medical ethics since the 4th Century before Christ, includes a vow that “I will not give to a woman an instrument to produce abortion.” Pro-abortion doctors in recent years have had to treat the oath as an historic relic, devoid of literal meaning.
Abortion supporters usually argue that human life begins not at conception, but at some later time such as “viability” or perhaps not until birth. The U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v Wade chose birth as the beginning of life, ruling that a child has neither human identity nor American citizenship (thus no constitutional protections) until he or she is born. Even that standard has since been liberalized with rulings protecting partial birth abortions and passive infanticide. Serious attention has even been paid to medical ethicists who propose allowing parents several months beyond birth to decide whether to let their child live.
The “viability” standard is reflected in laws that distinguish third trimester abortions from earlier ones, based on the notion that infants become viable (capable of life outside the womb) after the sixth month. This standard is arbitrary in many respects. First, some infants become viable sooner, and others not until later. Second, even the medical experts cannot pinpoint the moment of viability in any individual case. Third, progress in medical science keeps pushing viability earlier into pregnancy all the time. Is a child viable, and therefore human, at the 24th week today, but an identical case a generation ago would not have been?
Scripture and the Sanctity of Life
There are only two points in time when we can objectively say life begins. The first is God’s initial miraculous creation of life out of non-living materials, recorded in Gen. 1 and 2. All human life without exception has descended from that event in an unbroken chain of biogenesis (“life comes from life”). The second point in time is conception, when the unique human being is formed. Every detail of the individual is determined at that moment; nothing genetically new will be added. Any other time chosen as the “beginning of life” is chosen arbitrarily and subjectively.
The Bible consistently portrays the
pre-born child as a divinely-designed person with whom God interacts and for
whom He has specific plans. (See Ps. 139:13-16, Isa. 49:1-5, Jer. 1:5, Lk.
1:15, Gal. 1:15.) Luke, the medical
doctor among Bible writers, makes no verbal distinction between born and unborn
children. He had more specific language
available, but used the Greek word “brephos”
for both John the Baptist (Luke 1:41, 59)
and Jesus Christ (Lk 2:5, 12) before
and after their births. (Similarly the
Hebrew “yelel” had been used by Old
Testament writers to describe children and youths as old as early adulthood,
but was also used for the preborn, as in Ex.
21:22-25.) John the Baptist, at six
months gestation (Lk. 1:36) responds
in Lk.1:41 either to the presence of
the newly-conceived Jesus in the house, or to the sudden indwelling of the Holy
Spirit in his mother Elizabeth.
The Politics of Abortion
Politically, the Roe v Wade decision was constitutionally radical in at least two ways. (See Essay #14, Roe v Wade: Fatal Right to Privacy.) First, it asserted a so-called constitutional “right to privacy” for the expectant mother, eclipsing any imaginable rights for the child. No one had ever seen this right before (See Essay #9, How Do We Know What Is Constitutional?) and you would be hard pressed to find it there now. Second, it federalized an issue that had always been a matter for state-by-state legislation. Some states were permitting some abortions at the time, and others were not. Whether they were right or wrong to do so, the federal government had at least seemed to follow the Tenth Amendment by allowing them to decide. That separation of power ended in a single day, Jan. 22, 1973.
Since then, over 4,000 unborn have been killed daily in America (more each day than the terrorist killings of Sept. 11, 2001) and respect for life overall has declined. One measure of this decline is that outright murders of children less than one year old now equal the murders of teenagers. Keep in mind, this compares a one-year cohort with a seven-year cohort, ages 13 through 19!
The “right” to unrestricted, unquestioned abortion has become America’s most sacred right, superseding the right to life listed foremost in our Declaration of Independence. It can outweigh parents’ right to know about their teenage daughters, pregnant mothers’ right to know the truth about abortion’s medical risks, a father’s right to decide whether his child lives, critics’ right to free speech, states’ right to restrict abortion, and of course the child’s right to life, or even to anesthesia before a painful death.
For years, some states have been legislating on the abortion issue in ways that reflect a growing recognition of the personhood of the child in the womb. Since 1973 they have not been allowed to ban abortion, but have passed laws to restrict it. These include provisions for covering preborn children with health insurance, and laws criminalizing violence that harms children before they are born. Even the U. S. Congress, by a one-vote margin, passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. Public opinion swung more to this pro-life viewpoint as a result of highly-publicized criminal cases such as the deaths of Laci Peterson and her preborn son Conner, apparently at the hands of the child’s father.
Sadly, the 2008 presidential and congressional elections brought new leaders to power who are determined to overturn all limits on abortion. Even laws requiring parental notification when a child undergoes an abortion are now in jeopardy.
II Tim. 3:3 predicts a last-days decay of society in which people will be “without natural affection” (the most natural affection being that for our own offspring). The recent veneration for abortion is certainly a major symptom of such an attitude, and it is the duty of churches and individual Christians to help resurrect respect for the sanctity of human life. (See Essay #53, How to Be a Pro-Life Church.)
For further study:
Randy Alcorn, ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments,
2000, Multnomah Publishers, PO Box 1720, Sisters, OR 97759, www.multnomahbooks.com
John W.
Whitehead, The Second American Revolution
(Ch 10-12),
1982, David C. Cook, Publishing Co., Elgin, IL 60120,
www.cookministries.com
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