"ABORTION"
Consider this statistic: forty three percent of American women will have an
abortion in their lifetime, if current rates are sustained.1
Roughly 1.4 million women have abortions each year—89 percent
before the twelfth week of gestation, and 44 percent have had at least one
previous abortion.2 These are the results from
the 1973 Supreme Court decision, Roe vs. Wade, which legalized abortion.
In this paper we will look at the arguments for one’s right to have an abortion and then we will notice what the Bible teaches on abortion.
ARGUMENTS FOR ABORTION
1. A woman has the right to with her body whatever she chooses.
This is by far the most frequently presented argument in favor of abortion, that the woman has the right to choose. This is foundational to the woman’s constitutional right to privacy—and this extended to her womb allowing her the right to end her pregnancy. Many people who personally oppose abortion and would never have one themselves nevertheless support a women’s right to choose abortion on the basis that it is her body and, therefore her choice.
In response we would note that a person’s right over his body is not absolute. In most states prostitution is illegal, and in no state is it legal to intake illegal drugs into one’s body.
2. If abortion becomes illegal, we’ll return to the days of the back-alley butchers.
This argument takes one back to the days prior to the Roe vs. Wade decision, when most abortions were illegal and women had to go to less than ideal settings to obtain them, thereby putting their health at a significantly greater risk Desperate to be relieved an unwanted pregnancy, women would endanger themselves in the process of obtaining an abortion in an back-alley clinic. No one, the argument goes, would want to go back to those days, and if the pro-life movement has its way, that is exactly where society is heading.
In response, one in support of abortion must assume that the fetus is not a person. Otherwise, the person advancing this argument would be arguing that society has the responsibility to make it safe to kill people who have the right to life. Unless the fetus is a person, this argument has little force, for if it is a person, and abortion amounts to killing a person, then the issue of making it safe for a person to do so is not only irrelevant, but it is also absurd. The only way that the safety of the mother can be a legitimate concern is if the fetus is not a person and if abortion is comparable to any other type of surgery in which a part of the woman’s body is removed.
This argument also seems to overstate the potential danger to women receiving illegal "back-alley" abortions. The statistics o the number of women who died because of receiving illegal abortions have been clearly inflated. For example, according to numbers available from the Bureau of Vital Statistics, roughly forty women died from such abortions in 1972, the year prior to Roe vs. Wade.3 It is misleading to insist that the majority of illegal abortions were performed by unqualified physicians, since prior to 1973 roughly 90 percent of illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians in good standing with state medical boards.4
3. Forcing women, especially poor ones, to continue their pregnancies creates an undue financial hardship.
This argument is based on the economic hardship that will likely result from women being without the option of abortion in order to control the size of their families. Without safe and legal abortion, these women will be condemned to a life of poverty, which is also unfair to the children that they bring into the world.
In response, this argument also assumes that the unborn poor are not persons. Otherwise, this argument could be used as a basis for exterminating all those people who are financially burdensome to society. Only if the fetus is not a person can we say that financial burdens is a criteria for elimination. The solution to unwanted pregnancies is not in eliminating them; by comparison, we could easy solve the problem of poverty by exterminating all the poor of America. Adoption would be one solution to consider rather than abortion and also we must recognize that hardship, no matter how severe can not justify intentionally killing someone.
4. Our society should not force women to bring severely handicapped children into this world.
This is becoming routine in prenatal care, when a deformity in the fetus is detected in utero through the process of amniocentesis and frequently genetic counselors assume that a woman will have an abortion if test reveal a deformed fetus. Advocates of abortion consider it unfair and insensitive to force a woman to carry a pregnancy that she knows will result in a severely deformed child.
In response, abortions in the case of deformity are a small percentage of the overall number of abortions performed annually. This argument also has to assume that the fetus is not a person. For if the fetus is a person, then this argument can be used to justify killing all the handicapped. There is absolutely no moral difference between the abortion of an handicapped fetus and that of executing handicapped children. Yet no one accepts the right of parents to kill their handicapped children, precisely because they are persons. Unless the assumption that the fetus is not a person is true, then the argument for aborting handicap babies collapses. In addition, it is arrogant to assume that a handicapped life is not worth living and should be aborted.
5. Our society should not force a women who are pregnant from rape or incest to continue their pregnancies.
Since the woman had sex forced on her against her will, it is argued that she should not be forced to continue a potential pregnancy. This was not from an act of carelessness, but rather a lack of consent to sex that made her pregnant. Thus society would be punishing the victim of a violent crime by making her a victim again. The main thrust of this argument is the premise that a women should not be held responsible for sex that is forced upon her, and that she should have the right to end a pregnancy that came as a result of rape or incest.
In response, the number of pregnancies that result from rape or incest is very small—roughly 1 in 100,000 cases.5 Yet how the pregnancy was conceived is irrelevant to the question of the personhood of the fetus. This argument can only work if one assumes that the fetus is not a person, since you can not justify the homicide of another person just to relieve the mental distress resulting from a trauma such as rape.
Another fact one must realize is,
That conception does not occur at the moment of climax. Rather, it takes several hours for the sperm to reach the ovum in the fallopian tube. This being the case, the woman who is so unfortunate as to experience a rape, need never to face the choice of an abortion or giving birth to a child of rape. We must inform our wives and women of this fact so that they would know to immediately go to an emergency room and be treated with a spermacide. There is a vast difference in stopping conception from occurring and in destroying new life once conceived. The one is not wrong, the other is.6
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ON THE QUESTION OF ABORTION.
Let us notice some Biblical principles forbidding abortion. Paul says in Acts 17:25 that life is a gift from God, "He giveth life and breath to all things."7 As the creator and sustainer of life, God alone has the right to take the life of men (Gen. 50:15-19). Only human life is made "in the image of God" (Gen. 1:26). This elevates human life to a plane above all other forms of earthly life. Man from the earliest times has been forbidden the right to kill his fellow human because of this image of God, which all men share (Gen. 9:6) The penalty for thus killing an innocent neighbor was death.
The bible does not distinguish between prenatal and postnatal life. God spoke to Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee" (Jer 1:5). Unborn John the Baptist leaped in his mother’s womb when the expecting mother of our Lord greeted Elisabeth (Lk. 1:41). Notice what David says,
For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. Psalm 139:13-16
God recognized David as a person even as he was being curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
The Word of God has always taught "Thou shall not kill" (Rom.13:9). Literally thou shall do no murder. Murder is the deliberate taking of innocent human life without provocation or just cause. Abortion is the planned intentional murdering of a human life. The victim of abortion is innocent, having done nothing amiss towards the mother, her doctor or society. In most abortions there is a selfish motive for the interest of others are placed above those of the baby.
Some objections to our position considered.
It is argued that since Adam did not become alive until God breathed into him the breath of life, and since the baby does not breath until he leaves the womb, that the unborn baby has no soul and can be killed without guilt. But there can be no parallel drawn between the two. Adam had no life, period, until God breathed into him. But the baby from the minute of conception is alive and growing. Oxygen is supplied to him through his umbilical cord. At birth he exchanges his system for getting oxygen from one suited to his environment in the womb to one suited to his new world. James tells us that the body apart from the spirit is dead (James 2:26). But the baby in the uterus is unquestionably alive or else there would be no need for an abortion. Therefore one can conclude that the living baby in the womb must have a spirit in his body.
Some feel that they have found scriptural proof that the unborn child is of less value than the mother, therefore they have concluded that the mother has the right to kill the baby if it is a bother to her. Let’s take a closer look at this passage,
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life (Ex. 21:22,23).
They argue that if the baby is killed only a fine is imposed, but if the mother is killed, capital punishment is given. Therefore their conclusion is that unborn babies are not persons.
But notice in verses 28-37 of the same chapter: If a man’s ox gores a free man, the owner and the animal shall be put to death, but if it only gores a slave the owner of the ox shall pay a fine. Since the slaves death is punished more lightly than the free-man’s, shall our conclusion be that slaves are not full persons and can be killed with impunity. If the case of the woman and her unborn baby teaches that the baby is a lees valuable life, then so does this passage.
But if one views the context of this passage of scripture, he would see that the fine is for the injury which caused the early delivery and that the death penalty is for the causing of a death of either the mother or the child. Moses is dealing with the accidental damage of either the mother or the child. In abortion a willful decision is made to destroy the living baby in the womb by both mother and doctor. This scripture lends no comfort to the abortionists.
Conclusion
Ever since the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision it has been all right for a women to choose to abort her baby. But when one looks at their arguments and the basis of their arguments, which is that the unborn baby is not a person. From both a logical standpoint and from the word of God, abortion is wrong, either logically or Biblically.
ENDNOTES
Mike Gurganus
PO Box 916
Henderson, NC 27536