Abortion's Violations
Today marks the third day of Judge Samuel Alito's Senate hearings. By now it is evident that, to Democrats, the debate is about two things: (1) President Bush's power, and (2) a woman's "constitutional right" to have an abortion.
Alito's refusal to march to the pro-choice agenda's beat has flustered Senator Chuck Schumer, who said in the opening day of hearings, "...your record of opinions and statements on a number of critical Constitutional questions seems quite extreme." Senator Dick Durbin opined, "Judge Alito, millions of Americans are very concerned about your nomination. They are worried that you would be a judicial activist who would restrict our rights and freedoms." Most of what comprises this so-called "extremism" is Alito's personal stance on abortion, which is pro-life.
Using these Democratic panic-attacks as a background, let me share with you a few biblical principles violated by abortion, a practice that takes the lives of 1.3 million unborn children every year in this nation.
In Involvement: Social and Sexual Relationships in the Modern World, John Stott names gives three of these principles, to which I add a fourth. The evidence silences critics who claim the Bible has nothing to say in defense of the unborn child.
1. The Principle of Creation. In Psalm 139:13 David wrote, "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb." Here, two images describing God’s creative skill can be detected: A potter “forming” David’s “inward parts” (i.e., his “body” in the womb); a weaver “knitting” David in his mother’s womb. In response to these wonders David says, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well” (v. 14). Therefore, the development of a child in his mother’s womb is neither accidental or automatic, but it is the result of God’s creative skill and, thus, should be marveled at.
Other passages teaching the principle of creation are Job 10:11 and Acts 17:25-28.
2. The Principle of Continuity. Still in Psalm 139, David expresses a principle declaring the continuity of his person from the prenatal stage on to adulthood. Notice that in verse 1 he speaks in the past tense using the personal pronoun: "O Lord, you have searched me and known me." Then, the same language is used in the present tense in verses 2-3: "You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar, you search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways." Furthermore, these pronouns describe his future state: "Even there your hand shall ead me, and your right hand shall hold me" (v. 10). Finally, they are used to describe his prenatal stage, in the womb: "...you knitted me together in my mother's womb" (v. 13).
Personal pronouns are not used of persons to refer to themselves as non-living globs of tissue. They are only used by individuals who want to refer to their own person. This is key, for the abortion debate is over when the developing human becomes a person. Everybody agrees that it is murder to terminate the life of a person. David's words, then, provide strong evidence against abortion because they declare the personhood of the fetus.
Other passages that teach the principle of continuity are Ex. 21:22-23; Job 3:11-16; Lk. 1:41, 44; 2:12, 16; 18:15.
3. The Principle of Communion. A striking feature of Ps. 139 is the personal way it describes God’s relationship with man. The “I-you” relationship is discussed in almost every line. The first-person pronoun (I, me, my) occurs 46 times in this psalm, and the second-person pronoun (you, your), 32 times. This “communion” does not begin in adulthood, or even just after birth, but in the womb. Therefore, each of us was already a person in our mother’s womb because God knew us even then, and loved us!
Other passages teaching this principle are Jd. 13:5; Isa. 59:1, 5; Jer. 1:5; Gal. 1:15.
4. The Principle of Care. The unborn represent the most defenseless and innocent among the human race. The very idea that we should snuff out their lives, instead of nurturing and protecting them, is an affront on God's infinite compassion.
The Father commands us to look out for the weakest of our number and provide for their needs (Ps. 82:3-4; Prov. 24:11-12). Abortion demands the exact opposite.
Abortion activists claim this debate is about a woman’s right to choose. But what about the rights of defenseless babies still in their mothers’ wombs?
There is a parallel to this issue from the days of slavery. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates of the 1850s, Douglas was pro-choice on slavery. He argued that the Supreme Court had spoken in the 1857 Dred Scott decision, and it was a basic constitutional right to own a slave. He said he himself was personally opposed to owning slaves, but that it was a slave owner’s “right to choose” to own a slave. Lincoln’s answer applies just as directly to today’s abortion debate as it did then to slavery. He said, “No one has the right to choose to do what is wrong.”
