Abortion

Answer: To answer this question, let's first consider some background material. Today, most people only look to their own human reason instead of the Bible for guidance in this area. As you may already know, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1973 (Roe vs. Wade) sparked a huge controversy. There is no issue since slavery that has so divided the population of the United States. The two opposing views on this issue are generally called "pro-life," meaning those who support the rights of the unborn, and "pro-choice" for those who say a woman should have control over her own body.

Many who favor allowing abortion have argued that abortions should be safe, legal and rare. Yet statistics show they are anything but rare. In the United States some 3,700 babies are aborted every day, amounting to over 1.3 million per year. Statistics also say that 93 percent of abortions occur not because of serious potential health problems or rape or incest, but because of social factors. The child is either unwanted or inconvenient.

The biggest area of debate in the abortion question is when life begins. Those who favor abortion might argue that it doesn't begin until sometime near birth, when the child could be viable on his own. Others point out that at the moment of conception a unique genetic package comes into existence that contains everything that person will become—from height, size of feet and color of eyes, to factors such as whether he is predisposed to contract diabetes by age 50.

Growth and development after conception are rapid. Within 18 days a new heartbeat is there. At around three weeks, eyes, a spinal cord and digestive system are forming. At around a month and a half, brain waves are detectable. By about two months, fingers and toes are beginning to show and by the 18th week, the fetus is moving and kicking.

While the Bible does not mention the word abortion, there are indications that God views the unborn as individuals. He told the prophet Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5). God indicates He knew Jeremiah as a person and designated him for a special job extremely early in the gestation period. This implies "personhood" and God expressly forbids murder in the Sixth Commandment.

Additionally, Job said this about other people, "Did not He who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same One fashion us in the womb?" (Job 31:15). Job understood God to be at work in the process of human gestation in the womb.

God views human life as very valuable and the verses above indicate He views life as beginning at conception. So while He doesn't mention the modern issue of abortion in the Bible by name, these passages indicate that God would label abortion as a sin.

If you want to read more on the subject, you can read an article in our May/June 2000 Good News magazine titled, "The Abortion Quagmire: Who Will Speak for the Children?" It can be viewed on-line at http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn28/abortion.htm. We also have a Teen Bible Study Guide on this topic, available on-line at http://www.ucg.org/teenstudy/abortion.htm.

Answer: According to the Bible and biology, a human being comes into existence at conception. From this point onward, there is no question as to what this life will become should it continue to grow and develop.

It will not be a cat or a bird or a fish. It is clearly human.

Several scriptures confirm that God considered babies in the womb to be people with whom He was already working (see Jeremiah 1:5 and Job 31:15) and beings capable of reacting to things happening outside their mother's wombs (Luke 1:41, 44).

Coupled with the understanding that unborn babies are human beings, we note that God says He is "not willing that any should perish" (2 Peter 3:9). In 1 Corinthians 15:22-23 we also read that "in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order." Since the Bible speaks of unborn children as human beings, it seems apparent that they will be resurrected.

The belief that a human being doesnt become a human being until he or she breathes on his or her own outside the womb is sometimes derived from Genesis 2:7, which says, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."

Yet, while this is the way Adam (and apparently Eve) came into existence, it is not the way the rest of us have come to have life. We came into existence through conception and being carried in our mothers wombs—not being shaped first as full-grown adults and then having life breathed into us.

As the article explained, the Bible says that life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:14) and that within four or five weeks of conception babies already have their own blood system. In the womb via the mothers blood, a baby receives nutrients and oxygen—thus receiving "the breath of life" prior to being born. A baby in the womb has blood circulating through its body and is "breathing" by loose analogy like a fish breathes in the water.

As a fish gathers the oxygen from the water, so, too, the baby draws oxygen from its mothers blood.

The book Principles of Anatomy and Physiology (Tortora and Anagnostakos, fifth ed., pp. 750-751) states about this process: "They [chorionic villi, microscopic fingerlike projections that make up the placenta] continue growing until they are bathed in maternal blood sinuses called intervillous spaces. Thus, maternal and fetal blood vessels are brought into proximity.

"It should be noted however, that maternal and fetal blood do not normally mix. Oxygen and nutrients from the mothers blood diffuse into the capillaries of the villi. From the capillaries the nutrients circulate into the umbilical vein. Wastes leave the fetus through the umbilical arteries, pass into the capillaries of the villi, and diffuse into the maternal blood" (emphasis added).

The blood of the mother and the baby dont mix. The baby has its own blood and is equipped to receive the oxygen and nutrients and dispose of waste materials via its mother. Its heart is beating, circulating its own oxygenated and deoxygenated blood through its body. It is even conscious at times—looking around, kicking its feet, and sucking its thumb (quite unlike the initial creation process of Adam or Eve).

These are a few of the reasons we believe babies in the womb are "living souls," and thus, why it is murder to abort them and why we believe they will be resurrected.

Regarding the future of fetuses that are naturally aborted during the first few days of life and possibly prior to developing their own blood system, we simply have to leave these matters in Gods hands to determine. Even so, we can be comforted knowing that God is love and that He is looking out for all of humanitys best interests (1 John 4:8).