Does the Bible say abortion is wrong?
Not explicitly.
Does this make abortion morally justified?
Not in the least.
But that does cause some consternation for those Christians who limit their morality to only that demonstrable in the Bible… but I digress.
NO CRISIS OF FAITH NEEDED
Does the Bible say abortion is wrong? No—not explicitly at least, and it need not to. We know abortion is gravely immoral by use of our reason.
The Bible never makes the claim to contain all the moral tenets of the Christian faith.
Those pro-aborts, like Whoopi Goldberg, who think the Bible’s silence on direct abortion is proof of its moral licitness are only fooling themselves.
Besides, the Bible also condemns adultery (Hebrews 13:4, Revelation 2:22, etc.), homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26-28, etc.), and many other moral evils. And we don’t see these same people abiding by the Bible there.
In the end, you cannot prove anything by silence.
POPE SAINT JOHN PAUL II WEIGHS IN
The late Holy Father, Pope Saint John Paul II addressed the Bible’s silence on direct abortion. He speaks about it in section 61 of his papal encyclical, Evangelium Vitae (‘The Gospel of Life’).
“The texts of Sacred Scripture never address the question of deliberate abortion and so do not directly and specifically condemn it. But they show such great respect for the human being in the mother’s womb that they require as a logical consequence that God’s commandment ‘You shall not kill’ be extended to the unborn child as well.
“Human life is sacred and inviolable at every moment of existence, including the initial phase which precedes birth. All human beings, from their mothers’ womb, belong to God who searches them and knows them, who forms them and knits them together with his own hands, who gazes on them when they are tiny shapeless embryos and already sees in them the adults of tomorrow whose days are numbered and whose vocation is even now written in the ‘book of life’ (cf. Ps 139: 1, 13-16). There too, when they are still in their mothers’ womb—as many passages of the Bible bear witness—they are the personal objects of God’s loving and fatherly providence.
“Christian Tradition—as the Declaration issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith points out so well—is clear and unanimous, from the beginning up to our own day, in describing abortion as a particularly grave moral disorder. From its first contacts with the Greco-Roman world, where abortion and infanticide were widely practiced, the first Christian community, by its teaching and practice, radically opposed the customs rampant in that society, as is clearly shown by the Didache mentioned earlier.
“Among the Greek ecclesiastical writers, Athenagoras records that Christians consider as murderesses women who have recourse to abortifacient medicines, because children, even if they are still in their mother’s womb, ‘are already under the protection of Divine Providence.’ Among the Latin authors, Tertullian affirms: ‘It is anticipated murder to prevent someone from being born; it makes little difference whether one kills a soul already born or puts it to death at birth. He who will one day be a man is a man already’” (all emphasis my own).
FOR THE RECORD, THE BIBLE DOES MENTION ABORTION… IMPLICITLY
If you have read my ebook, 7 Biblical Passages Against Birth Control… And How to Use Them to Defend Life, then you already know this. For, Scripture actually does speak about abortion, albeit implicitly.
What am I referring to?
St. Paul condemns “sorcery” in Galatians 5:19-21. As well, St. John condemns “sorcery” twice in the Book of Revelation (9:21, 21:8). The Greek word for “sorcery” is pharmakei.
I will now quote from my ebook, which you can get for FREE here, if you wish.
“These three passages all share a few commonalities. Namely, they list sorcery as serious sins. The Greek word these New Testament passages use is pharmakeia. Modern Bible translators render it ‘sorcery,’ but it can also be translated ‘drugs.’ It is where we get our modern words like ‘pharmacy’ and ‘pharmaceuticals.’
The authors of the Bible were aware of a common practice in their day of consuming mixed herbs and potions in order to prevent or to end a pregnancy. Thus, murder is also condemned in these same passages. The earliest Christians understood these passages to be condemning oral contraceptives.
For instance, take the Didache, a first-century document written by the earliest Christians, contemporary with authors of the New Testament. It states plainly, ‘You shall not murder… You shall not commit fornication… You shall not practice magic. You shall not use potions. You shall not procure abortion’ (Paragraph 1a).
Notice that the use of potions (translated here as ‘practicing magic’) are linked in this ancient, Christian document as well. Except this one directly pairs these with the sin of procuring an abortion. Thus, this is very strong evidence of what the New Testament writers intended in condemning pharmakeia.
Modern oral contraceptives do cause abortions as well. They do this by disrupting the lining of the uterus, preventing a newly-conceived embryo from implanting. The baby thus starves and dies, before passing out of the mother, often without her knowledge.
Thus, abortifacient contraceptives were common in First Century, when the Christian faith was budding. Several times Scripture condemns this practice. The chemical abortions caused by the drugs were morally evil then, just as they remain so today.
YOUR TURN
So, does the Bible say abortion is wrong? You now know the answer.
Please share your thoughts below, as I imagine you will want to weight in.
