"Aborting Roe v. Wade"

Nick S. Wallace

June 24, 2022 will go down in history as a major win for life. On this day, the United States Supreme Court overruled its earlier decisions Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, decisions which had recognized an alleged "constitutional right" to abortion, requiring states to allow the killing of the unborn. Now that full authority to ban abortion has returned to the states, there will be much public discussion and policy debate moving forward. Many will wonder if the Bible addresses this subject. The time in which we find ourselves furnishes a ripe opportunity for Christians to provide answers to the world. While the word abortion does not appear in most translations of the Bible, a simple argument against the practice can be constructed as follows:

P1: Taking innocent human life is immoral.
P2: Abortion is taking innocent life.
C: Therefore, abortion is immoral.

To establish the conclusion that abortion is immoral, one needs only to establish the two premises above, that taking innocent human life is immoral and that abortion is tantamount to taking human life. When engaging others on abortion, a simple first question could be, "Would you agree that killing innocent people is wrong?" The first premise appears self‐evident, as most would recognize that murder is wrong. Furthermore, the Bible specifically tells us that if a person sheds man's blood, the murderer's blood should itself be shed by man, since man is made in God's image (Gen. 9:6). "Hands that shed innocent blood" are listed among the seven abominations in Proverbs 6:16–19.¹ As John writes, Christians should exemplify love rather than murderous hate: "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him" (1 John 3:15). While the Bible supports the taking of life judicially (Gen. 9:6; Ex. 21:12; Acts 25:11; Rom. 13:3–4), the taking of innocent life is clearly immoral.

With the first premise demonstrated, all we have left is to establish the second premise, that abortion takes innocent human life, to reach the conclusion. Over the decades, many proponents of abortion have argued that a fetus is not a living child but merely an appendage of mass; abortion just surgically removes a mother's body part, according to this view. While not necessarily the case in the 1970s, when Roe v. Wade was decided, the scientific consensus among biologists today agrees that human life begins at fertilization. In one study of 5,502 biologists from 1,058 academic institutions, 95% of those surveyed (5,212) agreed with the statement that "a human's life begins at fertilization," with supermajorities even among biologists identifying as "very liberal."² Biologists are learning what Christians already knew through God's word. Jacob and Esau, before being born, are called "children" (Hebrew, ben) who "struggled together within" their mother, Rebekah (Gen. 25:22). The Hebrew word, ben, commonly means "son." John the Baptist was even filled with the Holy Spirit before being born (Luke 1:15), and his mother could feel the movements of her "babe" (Greek, brephos) upon hearing the greeting of Jesus's mother, Mary (vv. 41–44). Therefore, an unborn child is a living human, "fearfully and wonderfully made" by God (Psalm 139:13–16).

"Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people" (Prov. 14:34). From what we have seen, the Bible clearly condemns the taking of innocent human life (Gen. 9:6; Prov. 6:16–19; 1 John 3:15), and it's also clear that the unborn constitute living children (Gen. 25:22; Luke 1:15, 41–44). Therefore, to practice abortion is to kill the innocent. While many practices in society can discourage us, Christians can rejoice when society makes positive changes. "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things" (Phil. 4:8).

2 Jacobs, S. A. (2018, August 6). Biologists' consensus on 'when life begins'. SSRN. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.Cfm?Abstract_id=3211703