If someone murders a woman and her baby dies, the murderer is held guilty on two counts. If a woman takes the life of her own unborn child, it is not murder. It is abortion. This is the society we live in. According to the New York Times, the Supreme Court seems poised to uphold Mississippi’s abortion law.[1]
Will The Law Roll Back?
Mississippi’s law bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. According to Times writer Adam Liptak, the decision would roll back abortion rights the court has defined over the last half century. This crucial decision is at stark odds with the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that upheld abortion and prohibited states from banning the procedure before fetal viability, which is currently around 23 weeks.
Will Abortion Clinics Be Restricted?
On their website dated September 3, 2021, Planned Parenthood advertised they could help their clients in Texas find an abortion doctor.[2] Texas bans abortion after 6 weeks. They say it is difficult to find a doctor who will abort after 12 weeks, but do not discourage people from contacting them for help. If the Supreme Court gives authority back to the states, more clinics will be restricted like those in Mississippi and Texas.
What is the Biblical Concept of Abortion?
“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, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” (Ex. 21:22-25 NKJV)
God values human life. Notice these facts from this Old Testament passage. First, the unborn is called a child. No mention is made as to what stage of pregnancy the mother is in. Second, the mother is vulnerable to losing the child if she is stricken with violence. (3) The punishment for an abuser to force an abortion by violence is capital execution. (4) Equal damage met equal harm.
We are blessed to live under the law of Christ. God still values human life. While Jesus is more interested in what is on our heart than how we pass judgment upon one another, crime is still crime. And sin is still sin.
Biblical Response to Civil Governing Authority
We are grateful to have civil government authorized by God (Romans 13). Sometimes our government acts beyond what God authorizes. Sin remains sin whether it has been legalized or not. Roe v. Wade did not alter God’s ethical standards of what is morally right or wrong in accord with harming the unborn child. Many physicians of our time who perform abortions will do well to read Exodus 21:22-25, even though it was a law to the Jews. It is an ethic that calls to mind a standard all people are amenable to. The bottom line is no matter what the Supreme Court decides, God will never change His mind. Taking the innocent life of an unborn child for no righteous cause is murder and all murderers have no part in the heavenly promise (Revelation 22:15). All human life is valuable.
-Donny Weimar, TBC Online Instructor
[1] www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/politics/supreme-court-mississippi-abortion-law.html
[2] https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/teens/ask-experts/how-far-along-can-you-be-to-get-an-abortion