The issue of abortion is both painful and emotional, so we might find it odd that there is no explicit reference to abortion in the Bible. While methods and medical practices have changed over the years, abortion was practised in the ancient world and the Bible writers would have surely known about it. Some have suggested that opposition to abortion would have simply been assumed by the writers of the Bible, while others have argued that the Bible’s seeming silence gives approval of the practice.
The absence of a single verse that speaks about abortion does not mean that the Bible is silent on the issue. Rather, we need to look at the wider Biblical narrative to understand how to approach abortion. As Wyatt Graham notes in an article on the moral reasoning around abortion: “When it comes to abortion, we need to look to the full scope of what the Scripture says about life, its origin, and its dignity to come to reason morally about abortion in accordance with Scripture.”
We cannot turn to a solitary ‘proof text’ about abortion which, given the emotionally charged nature of the debate, is probably a good thing. Instead, God calls us to think carefully and deeply about what he has said about life, birth and death.
The value of human life
The starting point for the Bible’s narrative about abortion begins with the value which Scripture puts on every human life. The Bible begins with the affirmation that men and women are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).
The Bible acknowledges that every person has inherent value because they bear God’s image. Their worth is not dependant on age, race, or gender. It does not change based on their physical or mental ability. Many advocates for abortion would argue for certain criteria to distinguish someone as a ‘person’. This ‘personhood theory’ might consider rational thought, or moral responsibility, as the deciding factor when it comes to defining a person worthy of respect and protection. The Bible, however, gives the status of a person to every human being made in God’s image, and affirms their value and worth on this basis, not on any ability, or lack of them.
When sin enters the world through Adam and Eve’s disobedience, the result is violence and bloodshed. Cain murders Abel, and Lamech boasts about his violent actions (Genesis 4:23). God is grieved by humanity’s sin and, after the flood, he declares to Noah:
Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.
The highest penalty of death is given for taking another person’s life. To kill another is to defile the image of the Creator. The expression of God’s image in every person means that every person is of immense value in His eyes.
When Israel is brought out of Egypt to become God’s covenant people in the promised land, this prohibition of killing is codified in the nation’s law. The Ten Commandments contain the simple imperative: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13).
God’s people are given authority to take another life only if the law demands it. They are not to decide who lives and who dies; only God is to do that. Perverting the course of justice in order to put someone to death is never permissible among God’s people:
Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.
The Old Testament Law is clear: human beings are precious because they bear the image of their creator. Murdering another person is therefore wrong and immoral. We cannot destroy what God has created and those on whom God has imprinted his own image.
The same value of human life is affirmed in the New Testament. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeats the command not to murder, intensifying it even to hatred of another person. Hating someone who bears the image of God is tantamount to murdering them. Destroying another person, someone who has God’s image, is an act of enormous sacrilege, detestable to God (Proverbs 6:16-19).
The value of the unborn baby
The Bible affirms the immense value of human life. But what about an unborn child? Do they have the same value as a human life outside of the womb?
Part of Israel’s Law in Exodus deals with the situation of harm coming to a pregnant woman:
If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Here is a situation where people are fighting and accidentally hit a pregnant woman, causing her to give birth prematurely. If there is no serious harm, there is occasion for a fine; if serious harm is caused then there is a right to appropriate retribution.
The word choice in this passage is important. Some translations have ‘give birth prematurely’ while others translate the same phrase as ‘miscarries’. The literal meaning of the Hebrew here is ‘her child comes out’ and the most natural way to read this in the context of the rest of the passage would be as a premature birth.
If the child is born prematurely, but there is no harm, then a monetary fine is appropriate. But if there is harm to the premature child or their mother, then the penalty is commensurate with the harm caused. If the child dies, for example, then the person responsible faces capital punishment.
In this command, the unborn baby is given equal value as its mother. Wayne Grudem comments:
Where the Mosaic Law addressed other cases of someone accidentally causing the death of another person, there was no requirement to give “life for life” … This means that God established for Israel a law code that placed a higher value on protecting the life of a pregnant woman and her unborn child than the life of anyone else in Israelite society.
Israelite Law gives both the mother and the unborn child equal protection. Both are viewed as people, made in the image of God, and given value in God’s eyes. Taking the life of another person, even in the womb, has profound consequences.
God’s creation in the womb
The Bible’s affirmation of the value of unborn human life is seen in the way God’s creative power is at work in the womb. As David writes in Psalm 139:
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
David knows the facts of human procreation. He knows that babies are made through sexual intercourse. But he also recognises that God forms us in our mother’s womb. The limits of medical knowledge of the time meant that what happened in the womb was a ‘secret place’ as invisible as the ‘depths of the earth’. Yet God sees us and knows us even in this unseen part of fetal development. We are not hidden from our creator, but he is involved in the creation of a baby just as much as the stars and planets.
God not only sees us and forms us in the womb, he knows us there as well. God says to the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). Isaiah asserts much the same as he says: “Before I was born the LORD called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name” (Isaiah 49:1). David affirms in Psalm 22: “From birth I was cast on you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God”(Psalm 22:10).
Each one of these verses show that there is a relationship between God and the person before they are born. God knows us, he calls us, he speaks our name, and he is our God within the womb. An unborn human life should be valued because they are a person known and loved by God.
The testimony of Jesus’ incarnation
David’s words in Psalm 22 are later appropriated by Jesus. On the cross he quotes the opening words of the psalm: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1 and Mark 15:34). Jesus identifies himself with David’s experience in the psalm, including relating to his Father from before his birth.
We see that demonstrated in Luke’s gospel. After Mary has received the message that she would give birth to Jesus, she goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth:
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
There is much that is profound and wonderful in these verses. The baby in Elizabeth’s womb would grow up to be John the Baptist, announcing the coming of the Messiah. Before he is born, John recognises Mary, and recognises the child in her womb as the Messiah for whom he would prepare the way. John is responding to the knowledge God has given him, relating to God before he is born.
This episode from Luke’s gospel demonstrates that the incarnation of Jesus does not begin at the moment that Jesus is born. It begins before that, as he is conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. As Scott Rae writes: “From the earliest points of life in the womb, Mary and Elizabeth realize that the incarnation has begun.”
The incarnation of Jesus shows how highly God values the life of a baby in the womb. God himself stepped down into humanity, not only becoming human, but becoming an unborn child. God did not “abhor the virgin’s womb” as the Christmas carol, O Come all ye faithful puts it. God did not consider the womb to be a place to be despised, nor did he consider the unborn baby to be inferior or less than a person. God himself become a fetus, a baby in the womb, showing that the unborn are worthy of our highest value and respect.
Jesus is incarnate in the womb of Mary, and John is responsive to the Holy Spirit before he is born. It follows that an unborn baby is a fully human person who is able to be known by God and respond to the Holy Spirit while still in the womb.
Caring for the vulnerable
The Bible asserts that an unborn baby is a person loved by God. As such, they should be entitled to the care and protection from harm we would afford to any other person.
Proverbs chapter six counsels us about a range of things that God detests:
There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.
According to Solomon, the Lord hates “hands that shed innocent blood”. The Bible tells us that the unborn child is a person who is loved and valued by God, seen and known by him. Killing such a person, therefore, would be to shed innocent blood. It is not what pleases the Lord.
Rather, what pleases God is to stand up for the vulnerable and speak for those who have no voice of their own. An unborn child can neither speak for themselves, nor defend themselves. They rely on us to protect them from harm. As the end of the book of Proverbs urges us:
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.
As Christians we have a duty to speak up for those at risk from harm. We are to defend the defenceless and speak for the voiceless. It is true that the Bible does not mention abortion by name. But the Bible is clear: an unborn child is a person who should be loved, cared for, protected, and defended.