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A good question! Abortion is the killing of a human person. There are many ways to kill a human person and not all of them are mentioned in the Bible.
I got an e-mail the other day asking me about abortion and the Bible. This is actually a question I have gotten quite a bit; abortion is not mentioned in the Bible, so how can we say it is a sin?
This question is flawed because it is focused on the procedure rather than what abortion actually is. That is one of the fundamental reasons Christians ignore abortion, they look at it as a procedure. We must look past the procedure to the root of what abortion is.
Abortion is the killing of a human person. There are many ways to kill a human person and not all of them are mentioned in the Bible. Using this logic, you could argue that shooting someone with a gun is not mentioned in the Bible; so therefore it is not a sin. Shooting someone with a gun, like abortion, is simply the procedure used to kill that human person.
We all know that killing someone is a sin; “thou shalt not kill” is pretty cut and dried.
Scripture tells us about the beginning of human life. I am sure you have all heard the most popular verse pro-lifers use about God forming us in the womb. Have you read Psalm 51:5? “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; and in sin my mother conceived me.” From the moment of conception you have sin. What does sin stain? It stains your soul, not your flesh. You have a soul at the moment of conception.
Look at Luke 1:39-45, “At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea. She entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!’”
Elizabeth was pregnant with John the Baptist and was about 6 months along in her pregnancy. Mary was only a few days pregnant with Jesus when John the Baptist recognized the personhood of Christ and leapt in the womb. It cannot be any clearer when life begins.
So again it comes back to the core of the pro-life argument, personhood. In reality almost all the tough questions people ask me will be brought back to this principle.
A child in the womb is a human person.
Killing a human person is wrong.
Abortion is killing a human person.
Abortion is wrong.
That was the long answer to the question.
The short answer is simple; abortion is mentioned in the Bible, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Bryan Kemper is the founder and president of Stand True Ministries, a Christ-centered pro-life group determined to awaken youth and to share the message that the only way to stop abortion is to call out to Jesus and share His love with the nation.
