There are many things we don’t understand as finite humans. This is one of the reasons religion exists — to answer the unanswerable. Yet religions generally seem to be used to excuse actions or reject/condemn people, rather than look to God for real answers. Case in point: abortion. It’s easy to shout “thou shalt not kill!” with a closed Bible. But once the Bible is opened we see it’s not an open and shut case.
In legal terms, the question asked of science is, “when does life begin?” Their answer seems to be when the fetus can live on its own. The Bible seems to agree with this idea.
The Breath of Life: Old Testament
According to the creation story, Adam was not alive until the breath of life was given to him by God (Genesis 2: 7). The question then becomes, what was this breath? Was it life (his soul), or was it the Lord bringing his creation intelligence? Was this the breath of life or the breath of consciousness that separated Adam from the other humans that existed at that time?
Isaiah makes this idea a little clearer and a little more confusing:
“Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein” –Isaiah 42:5.
Here, spirit could be life, and breath could be the covenant — as the verse after this refers to holding the hand of the righteous and the Lord guiding those in his covenant. In other words, the spirit he gives could be life and the breath could be the intelligence. Both together could be why he guides us, because we are both God’s spiritual and physical creations.
Yet Ezekiel seems to contradict this idea, telling us that the breath is life clearly what he saw in vision;
“Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.” – Ezekiel 37: 1-5
But again, these bones are the house of Israel — so does the breath of life come to those who are alive in the Lord? If this is referring to the Resurrection, then the breath here would be life immortal.
The Breath of Life: New Testament
This idea seems to find a home in the New Testament as well:
“God that made the world and all things therein…seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth… That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.” – Acts 17: 24-27
To the Lord, life is a dual nature: life and breath. In other words we can be alive physically (a body given a spirit) and alive in him (the Lord breathing the breath of Salvation/the Holy Ghost/Spiritual life). It appears that it is the breath of life – a spirit obtaining a body – that makes us alive physically, but also the breath of the Lord (gaining the gift of the Holy Ghost) that makes us alive spiritually.
When Life Begins
The question we must now ask, getting back on the topic of abortion is, when does physical life begin? The scriptures make it clear that the soul God created must enter the body in a semi-permanent way to be alive. By semi-permanent I mean alive until physical death. If one cannot physically die on their own, they are not alive. If the fetus ceases to live without the mother host, they have not taken the breath of life, and thus cannot die. They are a part of the mother, rejected by the body.
It seems clear that spiritual life begins when the Holy Ghost enters the body of a person — when they are born again. Physical life comes when the soul is semi-permanently attached via the first breath. Until then the fetus is a potential life relying on the mother. Physically, it is true that there is a greater chance of survival after a certain point in the womb, yet the permanent attachment of the soul to the body will not happen until the first breath is taken.
However, this is merely my take on the scriptures. It seems clear that there is no official doctrine as to when life begins. We cannot whip out our Bibles and condemn people for murder when we cannot even say for sure when life begins.
Mother or Child?
The real question, in my mind, is the battle between pro-life and pro-choice. I should clarify that these are both marketing terms, and they don’t really mean anything. Is one really pro-life if they let a woman die rather than abort the baby as we saw in Ireland? Are we really pro-choice if a mother is forcing her 16 year old daughter to abort a baby she wants?
No, the real question is whose life is more precious or important: the mother’s or the fetus’? Who has more rights?
Looking at the Bible, for those who claim to be “Biblical” or “Bible-based” Christians, we find that God himself rejected the fundamentalist Christian view that abortion is a form of murder.
“If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her [she has a miscarriage], and yet no mischief [or other harm] 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, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” – Exodus 21: 22-25
Again, this is Old Testament law – the really hash stuff. It was back when God seemed to be angry and vengeful — much less forgiving than in the New Testament. These are literally the verses just before the “eye for an eye” that many Christians still use today to push execution for murderers. What it is saying is clear: if a man (or person, generally speaking) looks to hurt a woman maliciously and the baby dies, the husband has the option to take them to a judge and ask for money – compensation for lost property, so to speak. This implies two things. If the injury is an accident and of no ill intent, it’s no harm, no foul. And if the husband wanted the baby to miscarry, again it’s no harm, no foul. It is only a crime if the person kills the fetus when it is against the man’s wishes.
This negates the idea that the Bible is against abortion. The Bible is merely against killing the living woman and loss of future property. This is clear because all of the retribution seems aimed at hurting the living woman, not the child she is carrying. The Lord clearly cares for the life of the mother, much more so that He does the life of the unborn child. The fetus is an afterthought.
The Law of Christ
This is the Old Testament, the lesser law – not the higher law of Christ found in the New Testament. So the argument can still stand that the higher law would be against abortions. However, the New Testament is silent, leaving us to look for more information if we want answers to this question.
While there are other scriptures that could be used to argue against abortion, such as those that talk about the blessing of having children (Psalms 127: 3-5), and mankind is in fact commanded to have children (Genesis 1: 28), etc., the problem comes in the form of Numbers 5:11-31, which demands an abortion if the woman conceived the child in adultery. If the husband has no proof of the adultery, a ritual is preformed, and God will abort the baby if it’s not the husband’s. Now keep in mind that the penalty for adultery is death according to Leviticus 20:10.
To the modern Christian, this would be spiritual death until the woman repents, Christ having died for her on the cross (same for the man and the fetus; though the fetus has nothing to repent of). Regardless, it is clear that the Law of Moses normally used to push the “pro-life” agenda doesn’t hold water. The life of the mother, according to the Bible, should be protected first and foremost.
No One is Pro-Abortion
Does this make abortion a good thing? No. Neither side is really pro-abortion. Those calling themselves “pro-life” are more likely just anti-woman and/or anti-poor. Laws that prevent abortions, even with exceptions, would potentially prevent the poor from getting needed medical treatment, while allowing the rich to buy the procedure for their own wants. Therefore, as a Christians, we should teach correct principles, and strive to protect our neighbor’s rights — rather than using the Bible as a weapon to push a political agenda. The fact that anyone reading this will likely keep the same opinion they have before they read it just proves why we need to keep religion out of politics.