Abortion: Explicit v. Exception
Two questions worth getting clear before any conversation about abortion goes anywhere:
Is the Bible explicit about abortion? Stated clearly, in detail, leaving no room for doubt?
Does the Bible have exceptions for abortion? Carved out for certain situations?
The answer to both is no.
That sounds like a problem until you sit with it. Old Testament scholar Meredith Kline put it this way:
“The most significant thing about abortion in Biblical law is that there is none. It was so unthinkable that an Israelite woman should desire an abortion that there was no need to mention this offense in the criminal code.”
Israelites viewed the pre-born as children. Killing them by abortion would have been murder. They took for granted that the Sixth Commandment — thou shalt not kill — covered it. So God didn’t have to spell it out.
The absence isn’t permission. It’s the opposite. The category was so far outside acceptable practice that there was no need to name it.
What does science say?
Take the religious framing out for a minute. Scientifically, when does life begin?
That depends on who you ask. You can’t ask Christians, conservatives, and liberals and expect a consistent answer — they’ll each give you what their values predict.
So who’s the authoritative source? If you’re religious, the answer is Jesus/God/Bible. Take that out, and the next-best authority is the people who study living organisms for a living: academic biologists.
In Steven Andrew Jacobs’ research at the University of Chicago, biologists were asked at what moment a human’s life begins. 95% answered: at fertilization.
If 9 out of 10 biologists agree, and they say it starts at fertilization, that’s when human life begins. Day one.
Language gives it away.
Nobody says “my fetus just moved.” Nobody says “I am with fetus.” Nobody, after a miscarriage, says “I lost my fetus.”
If you’re pregnant, you are not with fetus. You are with child.
The Bible used the same language. Psalm 139:16:
“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 is talking about himself, not a clump of cells. God knew him before the form was finished.
The exceptions.
Once you settle when human life begins, the conversation moves to conditions. Rape. Incest. The health of the mother.
I don’t think the answer to when does human life begin should get tangled with the worst things people do to each other. Evil has gotten enough of our time. The answer to the underlying question doesn’t change because of the circumstances around how that life began.
The health of the mother is a real and serious question. That belongs between the mother, the father, the child, and the doctor — not a blog post.
Why this matters now.
We can’t agree on what a man is. We can’t agree on what a woman is. Pregnancy emojis include pregnant men. If we can’t define those, how do we expect to define what a baby is?
The conversation has to start from the underlying source. Not from emotion. Not from the conditions surrounding any particular situation. From the foundation:
When does human life begin?
The Bible doesn’t dodge the question. The biologists don’t either.
Data: Steven Andrew Jacobs, “Balancing Abortion Rights and Fetal Rights: A Mixed Methods Mediation of the U.S. Abortion Debate” (University of Chicago).
