Competing arguments

Oftentimes the different views on abortion, pro-life and pro-choice, are portrayed as coming from diametrically opposed views of morality. And let’s be honest, this is true in some cases. However, for many people there is a surprising amount of moral agreement to be found. To see this we’ll look at one of the most common arguments for and then against abortion.

Pro-choice

• Innocent people should be protected from harm
• Pregnant people are innocent people
• Some innocent pregnant people are harmed by the fetus
• Consequently, those pregnant people should be protected from harm by the fetus.

So, this seems quite reasonable! Now of course, all pregnant people are not innocent in every way. However, it is to say that being pregnant is an innocent quality, as opposed to being a lying person, or a murdering person. And it is definitely true that some pregnant women are harmed by their fetus and pregnancy—in a multitude of different ways. Abortion, on this view, is the attempt to protect innocent women from harm. Once you look at it this way you can see why some people get up in arms about the attempt to outlaw abortion. To them it looks like an attempt to outlaw protecting an innocent person from harm!

Now interestingly a pro-lifer might agree with all of these propositions but still conclude that abortion is not a good way to protect the pregnant from harm. There are a number of arguments for this (e.g. the mental health of the mother, the physical health of the mother, etc.) but we’ll just look at the most foundational one.

Pro-life

• All innocent people should be protected from harm
• All the unborn are innocent people
• All the unborn should be protected from harm

On the flip side we have the pro-life argument, which is quite straightforward. But notice that both the pro-life and pro-choice arguments share the exact same premise! They both agree that “All innocent people should be protected from harm.” The crux of the matter then comes in the second line, are “all unborn humans innocent people”? If its true then unborn should be protected from harm just as the mother should. Now one can deny that this in two different ways. The first is by saying the unborn are not innocent, the second is by denying their personhood. Most people opt for the second choice. Why? Well, it’s hard to make the case that the unborn are not innocent—here innocence simply means they haven’t done anything morally wrong that deserves that they be punished by us humans. Most of us agree a fetus has not done something like steal, lie, murder, etc. and so deserves capital punishment.

But this still leaves us the question, are all the unborn people? People have argued vehemently for both sides.

The Bible and the humanity of the unborn

Well, a good question for Christians to ask at this point would be, what does the Bible say about the issue? And indeed, this question has been asked and answered many times. Here we’ll just hit the most common verses and arguments used by both sides. We start with the pro-life verses, and then we’ll get to the ones used by pro-abortion.

Genesis 22:23

“Two nations are in your womb,

and two peoples from within you shall be divided;

the one shall be stronger than the other,

the older shall serve the younger.”

This verse is relevant because it talks about two brothers, Jacob and Esau, before they are born. Here we see that the two entities in the womb are already identified with the persons Jacob and Esau, and even the nations that they father. There is no indication that Jacob and Esau are something other than innocent humans in the womb or that they become human at some later stage. However, it must be noted the verse never directly says anything like, “The younger and older are fully human—with full human dignity and rights.” This is a pattern you’ll continue to see below.

Psalm 51:5

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,

 and in sin did my mother conceive me.

This is the psalm of King David’s where he talks about being caught in adultery. Now it might be tempting to think verse 5 is referring to David being an illegitimate child—but he wasn’t. What this is talking about is that from the very beginning, from conception to birth, King David was a sinner in some sense. The NLT puts it this way, “For I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.” This is important because sin is a moral property and only moral beings, i.e. persons, can be sinful. A rock or a tree isn’t sinful. Even a lion isn’t sinful when it commits infanticide, we don’t try it for murder, God doesn’t tell it to repent and be saved. So the argument is this, the unborn David had a moral quality and this means that even the unborn David was a person. Further, this verse states that the moral quality (and consequently personhood) goes all the way back to the moment of conception.

Psalm 139:13-16

13 For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

This passage is a hymn to the beauty and awesome nature of the human being and it clearly states that this awesomeness applies even to the unborn. This passage, more clearly than the Genesis 22 passage, makes the claim that the unborn thing, and the writer, probably David, are the same thing with the same body. The unborn David was not a different thing that became the adult David; they are one and the same thing. How is this relevant? The argument goes like this, since the adult David is a person, and the unborn David is the same thing as the adult David, then the unborn David is also a person.

 Jeremiah 1:5 

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

The point of this verse is much the same as the one before. The unborn Jeremiah is portrayed as the same thing as the adult Jeremiah. The most relevant extra bit here is that the unborn Jeremiah was appointed as a prophet by God. But prophets are persons (neither trees, nor tarantulas, nor tumors can be prophets) and consequently the unborn Jeremiah must be a person.

 Luke 1:35-44 

35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. 36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.

 

39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

Here the angel is talking to Mary who will become the mother of Jesus. In this passage, we find no distinction between child “to be born” and the child after he is born. For instance, Elizabeth’s fetus (John the Baptist) is called both ‘son’ and ‘baby.’ More important, the unborn John felt the emotion of joy, something that only living beings can feel. But most important is that Mary is called “the mother of my Lord.” The argument here is this: Elizabeth’s ‘lord’ must be a person because the only thing that can be lord over humans are persons (either human persons or divine). Since the unborn fetus is a lord, and a lord must be a person, then the unborn fetus here is a person. Also, if we work out the dates, it is mostly likely that Mary was less than three weeks pregnant here, which means that the unborn fetus is a person from 3 weeks old or earlier.

These verses strongly indicate that scripture takes the unborn to be the exact same thing as the born person that he/she grows into. It also uses terms that typically only apply to persons to refer to the unborn (sinful, lord, prophet, etc.). Consequently, one can make a good case that scripture takes the unborn to be human persons. Do I think this is a foolproof case? I don’t think so, but it is a good case.

But what of the verses commonly cited by the pro-life side?

Numbers 5:20-22

20 But if you have gone astray, though you are under your husband’s authority, and if you have defiled yourself, and some man other than your husband has lain with you, 21 then’ (let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse, and say to the woman) ‘the Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people, when the Lord makes your thigh fall away [womb miscarry] and your body swell. 22 May this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away [womb miscarry].’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen, Amen.’

27 And when he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has broken faith with her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become a curse among her people. 28 But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children.

Now there a number of things here that sound very odd to modern ears, but we’ll have to pass by them to keep our eyes on the relevant issue—abortion and personhood. The argument here is that the women is given a potion which she drinks resulting in the death of the unborn. This then is an approved example of abortion in the Bible.

However, there are immediate interpretation problems here.  Does the passage refer to a miscarriage or a swollen saggy belly and thigh area, or maybe even barrenness? I tend to think its certainly the second and quite possibly the third as well, that the woman would get swelling and damage of her uterus. While one could think that a miscarriage is implied, it is not directly mentioned, and isn’t actually the point of the exercise. The whole point is to find out if the woman was sexually immoral, and one can be sexually immoral without getting pregnant. So if we interpret this as miscarriage, then in the case of a sexually immoral woman who isn’t pregnant, there is no ill effect—which is contra the whole point of the exercise.

More importantly, even if we assume that a miscarriage happens, this doesn’t help the abortionist. Killing the unborn isn’t the point of the exercise, finding immorality is. And even if the unborn dies it is the result of God’s direct action not the result of a human killing the fetus. It is “the Lord [who] makes your thigh fall away.” Consequently, it doesn’t speak to the issue of humans killing fetuses at all. And God, harshly to our ears, is willing to kill all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons, think David and Bathsheba’s already born baby, the firstborns of Egypt, Uzzah for touching the Ark, and the list goes on. There might be a moral quandary here, but it’s not one about abortion. I don’t think the death of a fetus is at issue here, but even if it is, the passage doesn’t give any support for, or against, abortion or the personhood of the unborn.

Exodus 21:22-25

“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out (miscarry), but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

This text comes a passage of legal code in the Pentateuch. How does the argument for abortion work here? The penalty for fighting and accidentally causing the death of the unborn (a miscarriage) is a monetary fine. However, in the case of the death of the mother the penalty is death. Since the penalty for the killing of the fetus is less than the penalty for the killing of the mother, this indicates that the value of the fetus is less than the mother. If we value of all persons is equally, this would indicate that a fetus is not a person.

Now there is an immediate problem with this last thought, and that is the Bible consistently portrays slaves as full human persons but gives lower penalties for their injuries (just read the rest of Exodus 21). While, again, this creates moral conundrums, it shows that lower penalties do not indicate non-personhood. The most this passage could show is that the death of a fetus was valued less than the death of a pregnant woman.

Yet even this view runs into interpretative problems. The passage only straightforwardly states that the child comes out prematurely thanks to the mother being struck. But there is no mention that the child is dead upon ‘coming out.’ If we read the next part “but there is no harm” as referring to both the child and the mother (which I think is most likely) then this means that the fine is given for what we would call reckless endangerment—for doing something stupid, something you ought to know better than to do. But since no harm comes about, only a fine is given.

However, “if there is harm” to either the mother or the child, then there is a different charge at play. The degree of injury to the mother or child determines the degree of injury the perpetrator must suffer. In modern language this would be a charge of negligence which could range from not too serious, to criminally negligent manslaughter. This latter would result in the death penalty. It is negligence because the men should know better than to do something that could endanger the fragile well-being of a pregnant mother and unborn child.

Again, note that there is no direct support abortion here. At most, the passage could indicate that fetuses were valued less than adults-but not that they weren’t persons. Also note that there is no blessing of the killing of the unborn. This is a case of accidental death of a fetus that results in a penalty. So again, in the most charitable interpretation for the pro-choicer, we don’t see any indication that the deliberate killing of the unborn was ok.

On the view more charitable to a pro-lifer (the more likely grammatically and contextually in my opinion) this passage strongly indicates that killing the unborn is bad. Even the accidental killing of the unborn results in a death penalty—which is an even stronger penalty than normal. In most cases an accidental killing does not result in a death penalty.

Conclusion of pro-choice verses

The pro-choice verses at most provide problematic examples of law code. In the case of Numbers this looks like misogyny while in the case of Exodus it looks like inequal treatment. While these are very real issues, neither of the passages deal with humans deliberately killing the unborn (abortion) and neither passage can answer whether the unborn are persons or not. Only the Exodus passage is even relevant to whether the unborn have equal value to adults and the result depends on which interpretation you take. On one interpretation that answer is no, on the other (in my judgment, more probable) interpretation, the answer is a strong yes, the unborn are just as valuable as adults.

Evidence summary

The conclusion here is a bit less extreme than you might hear from either side. On the one hand, abortion doesn’t get any real support from scripture. However, on the other, it is never directly condemned either. And this is not because abortion was unknown in the ancient world. It did exist and was practiced by Israel’s neighbors. This silence has led some to think that it was permitted. However, in the few places that the Bible that make relevant comments they all seem to indicate that the unborn are valued and are fully human persons, and there are no places that contradict this. If we are trying to make a deductively conclusive case one way or the other, I think we’ll wind up being disappointed. However, if we were trying to fairly weigh the evidence in the balance and see which way the scales lean—I think we should agree they lean very heavily in the full human personhood direction. When combined with the prohibition on killing innocent persons, we have good evidence that the Biblical data condemns abortion.

One way to check this is to see how early Jews and Christians interpreted the Bible and taught on abortion–and they consistently condemn the practice. For instance, in the late second temple Jewish writing, the Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides (50BC – 50 AD) is says “a woman should not destroy the unborn in her belly, nor after its birth throw it before the dogs and vultures as a prey.” Our most important Jewish historical source for the first century, Josephus, writes this, “the law orders all the offspring to be brought up, and forbids women either to cause abortion or to make away with the fetus” (Against Apion 2.202). Here we see that Josephus thinks that the Jewish scripture itself forbids abortion. And, as far we know, there are no contrary Jewish sources.

When we get to early Christianity we find much the same thing. The Didache, a handbook for Christian living and liturgy (50 – 150AD) says “thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill them when born” (2.2). In the second or third century Tertullian says, “In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed” (Apology 9:8). Again, as far as I know, where abortion is mentioned, the church fathers are in agreement. It is wrong—there are no exceptions.

Quickening / ensoulment / formed 

There remains the issue in church history about whether there is some period of time before which the unborn are not fully humanly alive, and then the subsequent question of whether you could abort the unborn at that early time. The words quickening, ensoulment and formed all refer to slightly different things, but in one way or another make the same distinction. Quickening usually referred to the time when a pregnant woman could first feel the unborn move. Ensoulment is the time when the unborn is given a human soul. And to be formed—as opposed to unformed, refers to when the mass of tissue in the womb takes on a human shape / structure / form. All of them were used at times to refer to this pre fully human time for the unborn.

The short answer is, yes, some church fathers, notably Jerome and Augustine (and later Aquinas has become famous this as well) did hold that there was a period when the unborn was not a fully alive human person. Consequently, they thought that abortions before that period did not constitute murder. Others, such as Basil of Cappadocia held the opposite—there was no formed / unformed distinction. What was unanimous was this, abortion was always considered to be evil, even if it happened before ensoulment, formation, etc. As Augustine writes, “Sometimes this lustful cruelty or cruel lust comes to this that they even procure poisons of sterility, and if these do not work, they extinguish and destroy the fetus in some way in the womb, preferring that their offspring die before it lives, or if it was already alive in the womb, to kill it before it was born” (Marriage and Concupiscence 1.15.17). To kill even the unborn, even ‘before it lives’ is a lustfully cruel act.

Conclusion 

The conclusion of the early church and the Bible is pretty clear, abortion is bad. Does the Bible stridently declare that abortion is evil? No. But it does stridently say that murder of persons is evil. And, where it discusses it, it treats the unborn as persons and consequently their killing would be evil. Could the Bible be more clear on this? Yes, certainly. But can a good case be made for abortion or the non-personhood of the unborn from the Bible? Not really. And supporting this interpretation are the statements of the early Church and Jews. Where they speak of the issue they universally condemn it. Even those that think there’s a period of time before the unborn are fully human persons condemn abortion at all times. One can, of course, come to a different conclusion. However, to support abortion is to take a novel position contrary to historic Christianity.

But how are we supposed to weigh issues like abortions in deciding how to vote? Next time, we’ll look at decision matrices, and how they help us weigh different issues and come to a decision.