N.T. Wright distorts pro-life ethic in incomprehensible answer to question about abortion

British theologian N.T. Wright, known for authoring works like “Surprised by Hope” and “The Resurrection of the Son of God,” recently made waves by offering a confusing answer to the question of whether and why Christians should protect life in the womb.

Key Takeaways:

• N.T. Wright disappointed many Christians in a recent podcast episode in which he appeared to advocate for abortion in cases of rape, incest, or fetal anomaly.

• He claimed he was not qualified to decide when a preborn human being had achieved the point of gestational development at which he or she should be treated as valuable.

• Wright ultimately sidestepped the issue of abortion by pointing to the fact that he is male.

• Several pro-life Christians in various spheres of influence condemned Wright’s remarks, which did not reflect any sort of scriptural, pro-life ethic.

The Details:

Wright’s controversial comments were made during a recent episode of his podcast, “Ask N.T. Wright Anything” after a listener asked him to explain the Christian case for the pro-life ethic. Throughout his response, Wright and his co-host Mike Bird offered several disjointed excuses for why they believe abortion can occasionally be justified, claiming, “We can’t assume this is a black-and-white answer when every case is going to be somehow different.”

While the vast majority of Wright’s explanation was inconsistent with a basic pro-life ethic and biblical worldview, several errors stood out to biblical scholars and commentators as the most egregious.

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Abortion in difficult circumstances

• Wright suggested abortion may be justified in difficult circumstances, such as rape, incest, or a prenatal diagnosis of a disability.

Wright stated that mothers can proceed in these instances “with sorrow, because we do not want to do this in principle, but with sorrow and a bit of shame, the best thing to do is as soon as possible to terminate this pregnancy.”

Ken Ham, CEO of Answers in Genesis, countered Wright’s claim with simple pro-life logic: it is always unethical to kill a child (that’s what the euphemistic “terminate this pregnancy” phrase chosen by Wright actually means), regardless of manner of conception or disability. Ham argued:

But why is killing a baby for a fetal anomaly ‘the best thing to do’ in the womb, but outside of the womb, it’s the evil of infanticide? The only thing that changed was the baby’s location or, perhaps, level of development. But is that what makes us a person with value? No! Our status as an image bearer of God is what gives us value.

Ham concluded that Wright’s acceptance of abortion in difficult circumstances allows mankind to play God, determining which infants are unworthy of being born based on arbitrary criteria such as the presence of a disability or the circumstances of conception.

“We don’t get to be the arbiters of who lives and who dies,” Ham noted. “God has fearfully and wonderfully made each and every human life, in his image, and he alone holds the power of life and death.” 

What Does the Bible Say About Abortion?

Similarly, Live Action founder and president Lila Rose responded to Wright’s defense of abortion in cases of rape, affirming that children conceived through rape are not responsible for the crime and should not bear the punishment for it. Rose wrote in a post on X:

N.T. Wright is absolutely wrong. Abortion is murder and a child should never be punished for the crime of his father. Punish the rapist, not the innocent baby. Save the baby. Let the baby live.

Confusion about when life begins

• Wright claimed that in cases of “severe deformity” (as well as rape and incest), committing an abortion “the sooner the better” is best, because he is not “medically qualified” to say when “this is a viable human being that should then be cherished.”

Despite claiming he is unqualified to state when a preborn human should be valued, Wright confidently condemned laws that permit abortions “the moment before the woman is ready to give birth,” calling these cases “not only wrong but repulsive.”

In a response for the Christian publication First Things, Sebastian Milbank, executive editor of “The Critic,” pushed back on Wright’s excuse that he is not medically qualified to determine when life begins:

This is, to be blunt, just not good enough from any public intellectual, let alone a Christian theologian.

I would be very surprised indeed if he thought that the ethics of bombing civilians was a matter for explosives experts or if the evils of child abuse are a question for social workers.

Colson Center authors John Stonestreet and Shane Morris responded with incredulity, writing, “… if Wright doesn’t have the credentials or chromosomes to say when a child should be cherished, how does he know it has anything to do with viability?” 

Too “sensitive” for men to discuss?

• Wright’s ultimate conclusion is that he cannot offer his listener a definitive answer — because abortion is too “sensitive” a topic for him to speak on as a male. 

“As people now say, the optics of that are pretty bad,” Wright stated of hypothetical male church leaders recommending against abortion to a young woman in their congregation. “That’s part of the same system of male bullying, which we have to avoid like the plague,” he added, seemingly equating any male with a strong pro-life stance to an oppressor.

“Every one of Wright’s arguments are familiar and his inconsistency obvious,” wrote Stonestreet and Morris. “In fact, that’s the point of these re-hashed arguments for abortion. The scattershot approach confuses the issue rather than illuminates it, and they all start with the premise that the preborn aren’t valuable human beings. That Wright has absorbed them and is repeating them shows he is either unaware or intentionally ignoring the actual case for life.”

Commentary:

For Christians who adhere to a biblical worldview, there should be no question of when life begins, since scripture consistently affirms that God establishes life in the womb.

Psalm 139:13–16 details how God forms our inward parts in our mothers’ wombs; Jeremiah 1:4–5 takes it a step further, saying that God knows us before we are even formed in the womb.

A biblical scholar like N.T. Wright cannot genuinely use a lack of medical knowledge to excuse permissiveness about ending lives in the womb when scripture speaks clearly on the subject.

In addition, by using his gender and lack of medical expertise as an excuse, Wright neatly sidesteps his listener’s question, invalidating his perspective as a male in order to shield himself from taking an actual moral stand. In doing so, Wright not only fails to describe a biblical worldview on preborn life, but he also demonstrates a major issue plaguing many churches in the United States today: conformity to the culture.

The Bottom Line:

Christian thinkers and leaders belong at the forefront of the pro-life movement, but occupying that space requires facing difficult conversations head-on, equipped with scripture and without concern for what the inevitably offended masses will say.

As Stonestreet and Morris noted, “… [E]ven if pro-lifers are tired of making basic pro-life arguments, we must continue to make them, even to eminent theologians.”