Abortions have made many headlines in the UK over the past few weeks.
Women in the UK Parliament vote to decriminalize women who end their pregnancy at any point until birth. NT Wright says it’s best to abort as quickly as possible in exceptional cases (such as rape or incest). Paramedics secretly administered abortion pills to his mistress, causing her to miscarriage her child.
How do you handle all of this?
What does the Bible have to say about abortion?
Each of these produced a considerable amount of commentary, and when I navigated through crowd meditation, I concluded that it is wiser to evaluate commentary in truth than to refer to commentary in truth. So what does the Bible have to say about abortion?
It’s a simple study because the word does not appear in the Bible, but considering that the word “Trinity” does not appear either, I think that the approach is more likely to land in a ditch than revealing wisdom from the Bible.
When words appeared in the Bible, we can get our clues from the text, but when not, I found it more useful than leaning back to the Bible. Of the possible lines of inquiry here, I settled on this: What must the Bible say about the human beings who were born? Here are some of the things I found:
Known by God
Before they were known, seen or recognized by someone else, they were precious and realistic to God.
Isaac. Samson. Jacob and Esau. Josiah. John the Baptist. Jesus. What these fetuses, newborns, infants, boys, teens, and men have in common is that they were prophesied before they were born. Before they were known, seen or recognized by someone else, they were precious and realistic to God.
This is not just about the few choices that birth was prophesied, but also about other biblical figures like David and Jeremiah, whose walking with God means revelation of his years of attention and affection to them. They came to know him, so God could not know them better. Their approach to God made it clear how well he knew them all the time.
What was known to God before each of these people was born does not correlate with the auspicious circumstances surrounding their birth and tasty stories about their concepts. What is clear is that the formation within the womb itself is a stage of the journey of beings with origins in the heart of God.
“I knew you before I formed you in the womb of your mother. Before you were born, I made you stand out and appointed you my prophet to the nation.” Jeremiah 1:5 (NLT)
“You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every day was laid out before every day passed. God, how precious is your thoughts about me? Psalm 139:16–17 (NLT)
God’s knowledge of us precedes our own knowledge.
God’s knowledge of us precedes our own knowledge. His evaluations precede our evaluations of ourselves, others.
His scope of plans and purposes includes invisible reality, time and space, and cultural and legal frameworks that are visible.
Loss… to God?
In the case of the paramedic mentioned above, Stephen Doohan, judge, said Doohan left the victim in the face of a “life of pain and loss.” Given the weight of these words and the (justified) public protests against Doohan’s actions, we reveal fault lines of public thought regarding the lives of birth.
Doohan’s victims suffered lifelong losses. Because while she presumably retains the ability to get pregnant, what she loses cannot be replaced with subsequent pregnancy, or Duhan’s sentence, or sum of financial compensation.
What she lost was a child, and although it had never been born, it had been invested.
What was lost to her was a child, and while it was never born it was invested. This is not true by Doohan’s rebukeable actions, but it is clearly easy for our society to acknowledge this truth for them.
He didn’t want this child, but the fact that she solved the question of whether this was a real loss. it was. that’s right. That continues.
I assert the reality of this loss to the mother of the child and to investigate the above passage reveals an even heavier dimension of this loss: God’s investment in this man. An indelible link between this child and his heavenly Father. A truncation of God’s purpose for this life.
“When a loved one dies, the Lord carries deeply,” Psalm 116:15 (NLT)
Perfect confusion
The general approach to the fetus seems to be consistent to me and inconsistent. The broader consensus on the evils of abortion is not surprising that abortion is limited to unconsensual and abomination cases. Because we recognize that we have a legitimate claim to the life in which God has borne is acknowledging that God claims to be after birth, that is, that the Bible argues and points out, and that we humans are inherently resisting. So, I don’t expect this to pioneer in the country’s outlet anytime soon, but I try to reject the consistent contradictions of culture in favor of the dignified clarity of the Bible.
Would you like to do it?
Originally it was made public because it was human. It was reissued with permission.
Damilola Makinde is the advocacy engagement lead of the UK Evangelical Alliance. Her background is led by law, public policy, sermons and worship. Damilola was originally from London, but grew up within the Nigerian diaspora, Ireland.
The British Evangelical Alliance joins together for the Gospel, consisting of hundreds of organizations, thousands of churches and tens of thousands of individuals. The Evangelical Alliance, representing our members since 1846, is the oldest and largest evangelical unity movement in Britain. Uniting with missions and voices, we exist to serve and strengthen the work of the Church in our communities and society as a whole. Emphasizing the important opportunities and challenges facing the Church today, we work together to fund Christians so that Christians can act on their faith in Jesus and speak in the fields of gospel, justice and their influence.
