I’ve been wanting to write a little diddy on abortion and the Bible. Right now, as I sit in the SFV office with nothing to do, I can go ahead and do just that.
The question of whether or not it is right to infer the validity of the Bible is not a matter here. All I want to do is see what the Bible speaks of the process of pregnancy and birth, and see if we can gather light on whether abortion would be right according to the Bible. First, in Psalm 139, we read that “You (Lord) made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous and how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book.”
From this Psalm reading, we find that God is specifically interested, in fact involved in, the making of every human life in the womb of a mother. The Old Testament here makes the obvious case that the fetus inside the mother’s womb is alive and is a life, as that life was recorded “In your book” before that person was even born. Further, in Jeremiah 1:4-5 we read “The Lord gave me a message. He said, “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set yhou apart and appointed you as my spokesman to the world.”
Again, another mention of the fact that God is involved in the formation in the mother’s womb. In fact, God had a plan for Jeremiah before he had even been formed by God. However, not only are children the work of God, but they are a gift from God, they are a blessing. In Psalm 127 we read “Children are a gift from the lord, they are a reward from him.” This is written in the context of the past where children were helpful to create wealth. Chidren could work and help on the farm, in fact, Benjamin Franklin said that men who want to be wealthy should have lots of kids. The question is, can we still think this way in the modern world? Children today cost money, there’s college, daycare, dentists trips. Or so a cynic would mention. Ask any parent if they regret having kids, I doubt they’d answer yes.
However, there is an interesting passage in Exodus which speaks of the proper punishment for a person who commits a crime against a pregnant woman that results in a premature birth. “The person responsible must damages in the amount the woman’s husband demands and the judges aprove.”[Exodus 21:22] A fine? Is that all that is necessary? That may incline someone away from the Biblical case against abortion alone.
Despite that, we have another creed from Psalms that tells us that we should protect the innocent: “Rescue the poor and helpless, deliver them from the grasp of evil people.” Here we really can’t infer anything about abortion, other than if you can define the life of an unborn fetus as poor and helpless, you should then rescue that life. I find this important. Despite the Exodus punishment case, the overriding doctrine here is that God is involved in creating life in the womb, and that life has a plan. Punishments aside, that plan should have meaning.
However strong my personal views on the Bible are, I still believe that all pro-lifers should have sound, secular arguments against abortion. Even when I was an athiest, I was strongly Pro-Life. The idea that a life is not worth protecting until it is no longer dependant on its mother is ludicrous. Really, I feel like I should write my “why athiests should be pro-life” article right now, I won’t, I’ll write that later.
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Marty Andrade 