Arguments abound around the topic of abortion, and for good reason. Life is at stake.
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade in 1973 that a woman’s right to privacy gave her a right to choose to have an abortion, mankind tried to take over God’s job — creating life.
So, I thought I’d consult humanity’s “Factory Owner’s Manual” — the Bible — to help determine when, where and how conscious, sentient human life comes into or goes out of existence. Here’s what I’ve learned:
Much of the abortion question centers around, “when does a person become a person?”
Does the fetal “viability” debate mean anything at all? Aren’t those first, second or third trimester divisions just arbitrary lines in the sky?
If we are not a “person” until we emerge from the womb, then before that, we are presumably just a mass of cells like a tumor. So, if we are just cells, it should be OK to excise the unwanted growth surgically, just like any other unwelcome squatter and dispose of the remains as hazardous waste. Right?
Trouble is, this forces us into the unenviable position of having to make an “informed” judgment as to when that mass of “inviable” impersonal cells magically transforms into a “viable” living, breathing person. Let’s face it, such judgments are above our humble “pay grades” by miles, scientists included.
So, who’s to know?
Remember that “Factory Owner’s Manual” just referred to? So, when does our Creator and Sustainer consider human “life” to begin (come into existence)?
In Matthew 1:18-25, it is written that “… when His (Jesus’) mother, Mary, had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit … an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph (Jesus’ legal stepfather), son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a Son; and you shall name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
Clearly, the emphasis is on “conceived IN her,” not “born OF her” after passing some sort of government required “viability” test. If the fetus in Mary’s womb was just a mass of unviable cells, why did the angel of the Lord refer to it/Him by gender as male and by His name as Jesus at conception?
What’s all the fuss about?
As spiritual beings, humans are not primarily an assembly of body parts. What defines us is that we possess an eternal spirit that is temporarily housed in a physical body, as noted in Genesis 2:7: “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living person.”
There is that word “person” again. This is the vital distinction between man and animals. Reading further in Genesis 2:19, “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the sky …” God formed the animals out of the same “dirt” as he did Adam, but more important, without breathing His own spiritual life into them.
The instant the eternal spirit is infused into the physical “cells” of fertilized egg and sperm at conception, God considers the result a “living person,” endowed with all the necessary spiritual faculties to reflect the image and likeness of his Creator.
How About You?
In a May 5 Wall Street Journal column, “The End of Roe v. Wade Will Be Good for America,” author Peggy Noonan wrote: “The mistaken abortion decision, a product of vanity, roiled and distorted our politics and poisoned our culture. I am pro-life for the most essential reason: That’s a baby in there, a human child … we have decided that we can extinguish the lives of our young … the children grow up … thinking, ‘We end the life within the mother here,’ ‘It’s just some cells’.”
She concluded insightfully, “And if Roe is indeed overturned, God bless our country that can make such a terrible, coldhearted mistake and yet, half a century later, redress it, right it, turn it around. Only a thinking nation could do that. Only a feeling nation could do that. We’re not dead yet, there are still big things going on here.”
What do YOU think? Is the point of conception enough to define life? Or would you prefer to define God’s creation later in pregnancy?
Regardless, is it really our decision? I don’t think so. God has a plan for every life, the moment it is conceived. And it is good.
— D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianity’s basic “value proposition.” Click here for more information, or contact him at don@peervalue.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.