The Bible is an influential authority on the moral views of the world’s 2.4 billion Christians who turn to the holy book for guidance on how to live Christlike lives. Yet, when it comes to induced abortion (the direct and intentional killing of preborn children), many of those same Christians turn a blind eye to what the Bible says. Some even make the erroneous claim that the Bible doesn’t offer any thoughts on abortion, while others falsely claim the Bible is “pro-choice.”
But as a recent Live Action video noted, the Bible is 100% pro-life:
When life begins
The Christian faith centers on the belief that God became human in the person of Jesus Christ at the moment of conception (fertilization). Christianity teaches that God didn’t become human at birth or age 18, but at the exact moment when Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit inside Mary, his mother.
There’s a telling scene in Luke’s gospel when Mary greets her cousin Elizabeth. Both women are pregnant — Mary with Jesus, and Elizabeth with John the Baptist. When Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting, Luke explains that John the Baptist “leaped in [his mother’s] womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud voice and said, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy.'”
Elizabeth referred to Jesus as “my Lord” while He was still in the womb, and the preborn John the Baptist leaped for joy. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus and John were both living human beings in their first stages of life before birth.
In that scripture, the Greek word “brephos” is used for “baby” and “infant.” This term is used in the New Testament elsewhere to refer to both the child in the womb and to an already-born child. In other words — a child not yet born is viewed as the same as a born child in the Bible.
Therefore, since Jesus did clearly speak out against murder (which is what abortion ultimately is) in Matthew 19:18, this command to refrain from murder would apply to all human beings equally, including humans still in the womb. In Matthew 15:19 -20, He emphasized that murder is an ‘evil thought’ that will “defile a person.” In Matthew 5:21-22, He also said that murderers “will be liable to judgment.”
Recognition of the full humanity of life in the womb doesn’t only occur in the stories of Jesus and John pre-birth. It’s also displayed routinely throughout scripture, including in the Old Testament, in which children are consistently referred to as being “conceived and born” — not simply “born.”
The first example is the pregnancy of Eve with Cain. The Bible states, “Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain.” Similar wording can be seen in multiple verses of Genesis including when “Cain had relations with his wife and she conceived and give birth to Enoch,” and “Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham.”
God’s promise to Abraham was that the world would be blessed through his offspring, which begins to be fulfilled with the conception of Isaac. The Bible continues to speak to the humanity of children in the womb in the story of Isaac’s children, Jacob and Esau, who are described as struggling together within their mother Rebekah’s womb, with the Lord declaring, “[T]wo nations are in your womb.”
In the book of Judges, God instructs a preborn Samson’s mother not to eat certain foods, because Samson was to be “a Nazarite of God from the womb.” Samson, still in the womb, was living with the dietary restrictions that were part of a Nazarite’s special declaration to God.
Furthermore, Psalm 139 says God “wove me together in my mother’s womb” and in Isaiah 49, God formed Isaiah “in the womb to be His servant.” Jeremiah states, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”
In the New Testament, St. Paul writes that God “set me apart even from my mother’s womb.”
All human beings have dignity
The Bible is clear that a new human being exists at the moment of fertilization, so when it speaks about the dignity of human beings, it is speaking about preborn children as well.
In the first chapter of the Bible, it states that God created all human beings in His image. In the Ancient Near East, it was widely believed that only the king was made in the image of God, but the Bible introduces the understanding that this is true of all humans regardless of age, sex, race, ability, nationality, or background, from conception to natural death. All human beings have inherent, distinct, and equal value and dignity.
The Bible declares that it is morally wrong to kill innocent human beings. The fifth commandment forbids direct and intentional killing as gravely sinful. Scripture is specific about what is meant by the fifth commandment of “Thou shalt not kill,” which is “do not slay the innocent and the righteous.”
Beyond scripture
Beyond the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that the fifth commandment forbids the deliberate killing of an innocent person as “gravely contrary to the dignity of the human being, to the golden rule, and to the holiness of the Creator.” It also clarifies that this commandment prohibits the act of murder as well as the voluntary cooperation with murder, and states, “Infanticide, fratricide, parricide, and the murder of a spouse are especially grave crimes by reason of the natural bonds which they break. Concern for eugenics or public health cannot justify any murder, even if commanded by public authority.”
In addition, the first Christians also understood that killing innocent human beings was wrong at any stage of life. One of the earliest Christian documents apart from the New Testament is called the Didache, the Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles. It states, “You shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill a child once born.”
