Abortion, Is human life Sacred, and does it begin at Conception?

This post is adapted from a sermon I gave, which was adapted from a debate from L2L I did in 2023.

To prove why abortion is wrong, you could go about it in many different ways. One could argue from a moral standpoint, a scientific and biological standpoint, or even a religious standpoint. You could prove abortion is a sin regardless of which one you take, but the path I’ll take today is the religious one. For the sake of this post, I am going to prove that according to Scripture, 1. Life is Sacred and 2. Life begins at conception.

Life is Sacred

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 1:26

All the way at the beginning of Genesis 1:26, God tells us that He created man “In the image of God”. The word Sacred means “connected to God”, so that means that we as humans are connected to God. It’s important to notice that only men are created in His image, animals and plants, while still alive, is not given the same importance. So if we are the only creatures created in the image of God, and sacred means to be connected to God, humans have to be sacred.

The next argument comes from Exodus 21:22-25. This passage is part of the old law, and although we are not under the instruction of that law, we can still see God’s views on the subject of the law. God’s instructions to men change over time, but God himself does not change, Hebrews 13:8.

“22 “If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, 24 eye for eye,”

Exodus 21:22-25

To sum up this passage, it’s saying that if men accidentally hurt a woman with a child so that she gives birth, prematurely, but no one is hurt, the men only pay a fine. But if harm follows from this, woman or child, then it’s life for life, eye for eye, etc.

Now when I was debating this, everyone knew that abortion was wrong, and so the people who were debating the negative side only did it for practice and so that the affirmative team would have a chance to actually debate. I’m not sure if someone who claimed to be a Christian and supported abortion would use this argument, but some people brought up that the phrase “gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows” means that if the baby is miscarried, yet no harm comes to the mother. However looking at the context, it’s not hard to realize that the verse really means that no harm comes to the mother or child. Just because the woman gave birth prematurely doesn’t mean it was a miscarriage.

Because of this, we see that God values life inside of the womb equally as life outside. It was life for life, even if the baby was in the womb.  Therefore, God views life as sacred. 

This last argument for life being sacred stems from a common argument used to try and prove that life is not sacred. I’m going to tell you the argument, then I’m going to tell you why despite this argument life is still sacred.

The argument goes, in Gen 6-7 God killed everyone including innocent babies’ life, save the 8 in the Akr. Exodus 12:39-30 which was the death of the firstborn, and many many other times God has killed or commanded killing.  They say that life can’t be sacred if God takes the life, or at the very least, God won’t mind if I abort my unborn child.  

Someone who makes this argument is failing to grasp two key concepts, the ownership, and authority of God. Let me give you an example: Say that I create something extremely big and complex from just a bunch of scraps and dirt. You would generally say that if I created it, I would own it. However, this isn’t the purest form of creation, because I used someone else’s scraps, and even someone else’s body and brain. At the highest level, they are God’s because God created the scraps and my body and mind which gave me the ability to create the invention. And remember that while I created it using other things, God created it from nothing. God owns everything at the highest level, and so God is free to do whatever He pleases. He in the purest sense, owns everything.

An example of God’s authority is this: Suppose I locked you in a room for 10 years because you did something I didn’t like. That would be a wrong thing for me to do, after all, who am I to decide to lock you up? Now, suppose that the government or police decided to do the same thing and lock you in a prison. They would be completely in their right to do that because they have the authority to do so. But of course, all authority is given by God, John 19:11. He created us, so He has all the authority to do whatever He wants to do with us. This doesn’t mean we can do the same, we don’t have the same authority. We also can see that God’s ways are higher than man’s, Isaiah 55:9.

Life begins at conception.

A great way to prove that life begins at conception is Luke 1 and 2.

And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Luke 1:41

Here we see a baby leaping for joy while inside her mother’s womb. This in and of itself can prove that life begins before birth, because joy, a human emotion, is being experience by a baby in a womb. But this isn’t even the main point. Just one chapter later in Luke 2:16, we read of Jesus as a “baby” after His birth lying in a manger.

And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger.

Luke 2:16

The interesting thing is in both verses, the word for “babe” and “baby” is the same Greek word, brephos. Because the same word is used, there is no difference between a baby inside or outside the womb, according to the inspired writer, therefore life must begin at conception.  

The Law of Biogenesis tells us that life only comes from life. The only way for us to be here is if we were alive in the womb. Biologically, life begins at conception, that is a scientific fact that no one would argue. The question is then, when does human, or spiritual life, begin? James 2:26 tells us “The body without the spirit is dead”. So when you are conceived, and your biological body comes into existence and is alive, you must have a spirit. Because we know that the body of the unborn baby is biologically alive, then we also know that it must be spiritually alive.

Conclusion

What does this mean for us as Christians? What can we take from all of this? First, it means abortion is murder.  Because life begins at conception, and because it is sacred, for us to take that life, it would be murder, and God has shown time and time again what He thinks of murders. 

But Secondly, we need to be more vocal about this matter.  Almost a million abortions happen every year in the US alone.  Ending abortion around the world would be saving double the lives that finding the cure to cancer would.  As Christians, we cannot sit by and let this evil act continue.  At the very least, we need to have a defense for what we believe, 1 Peter 3, so we can give reasons why we believe that abortion is wrong, and murder. But more than that we need to be more vocal regarding this matter.  We need to stand up, or, rise up, for our faith and the truth.  1 Corinthians 16:13 tells us to stand firm in the faith. We cannot sit and let this evil pass by without doing anything.  We need to stand firm in our faith and the truth, life is sacred, and life begins at conception.