Bible Students

The right of a mother over her fetus is frequently appealed to in the discussion of abortion. The mantras of “my body, my choice” and “reproductive rights” have permeated much of American culture. These slogan statements come from the evolving landscape of reproductive bioethics, specifically in the realm of abortion ethics. The two main sides in the ethical-cultural debate are “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” The disagreement essentially boils down to the rights of a “preborn baby.” 

Taking a step back, what is bioethics, and why is it important? Bioethics varies significantly from the science of biology. Bioethics is in the realm of philosophy, and is used to evaluate what should and should not be done to living organisms, though many hot topics revolve around human treatment. This paper will focus almost entirely on the philosophical foundations for the abortion debate, rather than the scientific foundations. This is because the scientific foundation, as in many areas of bioethics, has little to do with the discussion. While the existence of a new set of DNA in a preborn child is often mentioned by those on the pro-life side, there is not much serious scientific debate that the unique genetic life of the cells begins at conception. The disagreement is on the right to life of an impersonal living thing. 

Now, it may be impossible to speak on this topic objectively, as this is currently a very hot disagreement, and all terms are emotionally loaded. All previous terms placed in quotation marks, especially in the first paragraph, are emotionally loaded terms.¹ What are the supposed rights of a preborn baby in the pro-life and pro-choice camps, and what do those camp names mean? 

¹ For multiple reasons, the use of “mother” in the previous paragraph would be one of the more strongly-opposed terms by the politically progressives. The proper term would be “birthing individual,” acting as a gender-neutral term including transgendered individuals. The author has chosen to use mostly politically conservative terms throughout the paper.

Definitions 

The answer will be given in reverse order to the questions. First, the pro-choice camp believes a pregnant mother has the right to terminate (another loaded term) the life of her preborn child, up until a certain point. The discussion on when termination becomes murder is more nuanced, though there are essentially two sub-camps. While many pro-choice advocates would argue abortion is acceptable up until the point of viability in the baby (that is, the baby could live outside the uterus without “extraordinary measures,” and would not pose a serious threat to the mother’s life during birth), many others would argue the right to an abortion up until birth.² The latter is a much more radical position, though is philosophically justified according to the reasons for abortion, discussed below. The pro-life camp advocates that a pregnant mother does not have the right to terminate her pregnancy at any point, though some leeway is given for cases where a mother would die giving birth. As mentioned above, the disagreements come down to the rights of the individual in the womb and the rights of the individual carrying. 

Why do these camps believe the way they do? There is a certain difficulty with discussing motivations for these actions. The pro-choice camp will often label pro-life as religiously motivated, and pro-life will often label pro-choice as politically motivated. These are valid to a point, though there are special motivations for each camp. To begin, the pro-choice camp is motivated by the rights of the already born individual. The advocacy of rights to sexual freedom are incredibly important to the political progressives in today’s social landscape.³ The right to “sex without consequence” means the advocates of sexual freedom must eliminate the responsibility of having children as the consequence of sex. 

² “Know Your Rights: Abortion Access in California,” ACLU Northern California. Accessed Aug. 5, 2023. https://www.aclunc.org/our-work/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-ab ortion-access-california³ See Carl Trueman’s, Strange New World for a survey of the ongoing development of the western sexual revolution, and the expression of identity through sex. 

The pro-life camp essentially believes there is no hard line where people gain rights. Because there is no hard line where people gain the right to life, all human life should be protected, unless there is an outstanding reason for termination (in cases of execution, war, or the potential death of the mother while giving birth). 

Some Good Points 

One point well-made by the pro-life camp is the critique of the “slippery slope.” If abortion is only not allowed if the child could be kept alive without extraordinary measure, who defines extraordinary measure? The pro-life advocate is quick to point out that this is extremely subjective. Additionally, at what point is there a low enough support needed to keep the baby alive? If one was to take a child who had just been born, how many days ago could they have been aborted? At what point did they gain their rights, and for what purpose? The point of this question is to show that a pro-choice advocate must arbitrarily make a “line in the sand,” a certain day where a preborn child gains human rights. The day before, the preborn child had no right to life, but by some miracle (fully tongue in cheek), the next day the preborn child has the right to life. Because the pro-life advocate has their basis for the right to life as the individual DNA and potential for life, they can extrapolate the right to life to go all the way back to conception. 

One point well-made by the pro-choice camp is the critique that a fertilized egg does not meet the bare requirements for personhood. The label of personhood requires certain abilities of the agent, including self-determination, moral capabilities, and self-awareness.⁴ A single-celled organism (a fertilized egg) does not meet these requirements. Therefore, it may be likely they do not qualify for human rights if they do not meet the requirement for personhood. 

⁴ “Concept of Personhood,” School of Medicine University of Missouri. Accessed Aug. 5, 2023. https://medicine.missouri.edu/centers-institutes-labs/health-ethics/faq/personhood

Why the Controversy? 

This topic is very controversial in today’s political landscape in America. Reproductive rights (specifically the right to an abortion) has paraded on the back of feminism and the LGBTQ+ rights movements. There has been largescale sexual revolution in America, revolving around the slogan of “sex without consequence.” Sex without consequence should be able to happen between whoever (consensually, barring minors and other protected classes), without social stigma, legal restriction, and especially religious oppression. Sexual expression is held as a form of identity. Therefore, any who would oppose the murder of preborn children is not seen as standing for the rights and sanctity of those individuals, but rather standing against the whole of sexual freedom. Any opposition to abortion is an affront to the entire identity battle of the West. 

This results in a difficult place of cultural tension between traditional religion and modern sexual expression. However, though this sharp contrast is a painful one, the stand must be made. Christians of modernity must be vocal in their opposition of cultural perversions of God’s design and His Image in man. 

Should Christians Care? 

I believe Christians should be pro-life. I do not believe there is any biblical warrant for being pro-choice. I believe the Bible teaches a kind of “virtue ethics,” which emphasizes the character of the one doing the action over the duty of the action or the result of the action.⁵In other words, the Christian should aim to be one of good moral character. In the case of abortion, the Bible states that one should not kill (Exodus 20:13), and seems to treat preborn babies as living agents (Psalm 139:13-16 and Luke 1:44). Therefore, the person of good moral character should desire to protect the life of the preborn child. Additionally, the 

⁵ “Virtue Ethics,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed Aug. 5, 2023. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue

reasons for wanting an abortion are overwhelmingly related to convenience.⁶ The parent is “not ready” for a child. Therefore, they kill the preborn baby to avoid the extra responsibility. In this last point, the pro-choice advocates have come across a fatal flaw in their philosophy. In the name of sexual freedom, they stamp out the lives of countless preborn babies. They sacrifice their children on the altar of sex without consequences. They choose their convenience over the life of another, who otherwise would have grown to be a functional adult. This is the antithesis of good moral character. They choose themselves at the ultimate cost of another. 

The discussion would be entirely different if a large percentage of abortions were due to the potential death of the mother during birth. However, this is not the case. When pro-choice advocates bring up examples of rape victims who would otherwise be forced to carry their rapist’s baby until term, not only are they appealing to less than 1% of the cases,⁷ but they are more importantly only appealing to emotional rhetoric. A Christian of good moral character should not primarily appeal to rhetoric for their justifications. Emotional rhetoric has a place for opening up a conversation, but not being one of the main thrusts of the movement. 

The Bible strongly opposes sexual freedom and liberation. In fact, it is very restraining of sexual expression. This is not to say the biblical picture of sexual expression is limiting to the individual, however. Similar to many other biblical principles such as submission, love for enemies, humility, and servanthood, the limitation of sexual expression is actually a liberation in itself. When sexual expression is practiced where it was made to be, that is, the wedding bed, it finds its fulfillment. Just as when leadership is expressed in servanthood it finds fulfillment, sexual expression restrained to marriage finds fulfillment in how it was made to be expressed. This kind of expression, which is the antithesis of sexual 

⁶ Robert Johnston, “Reasons given for having abortions in the United States,” Johnston Archive. Last updated Jan. 18, 2016. https://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html

⁷ Johnston, “Having Abortions,” 2016. 

“liberation and freedom,” would remove the need for abortion insofar as it is related to the sexual revolution. Apart from the mantra of “sex without consequences,” abortion can not stand. The restoration of the biblical ethic of sex only within marriage would inevitably restore the culture to a pro-life position. For this reason, any Bible-believing Christian (which is all true Christians), will desire to hold to a sexual restriction view. If they believe free sexual expression and “sex without consequence” is anti-biblical (which it surely is), then abortion, which seeks to fulfill that slogan, would be unthinkable. Therefore, Christians who are pro-choice, must hold their desire for sexual freedom above the ethic of the Bible, and show themselves to be Christians who do not care for the Word.⁸ 

Conclusion The abortion debate will continue to be a center-stage conflict between modern western culture and biblical Christianity as long as sexual freedom is valued by the west. Considering that this value has only been claiming more place in the modern mind, the fall of abortion does not seem soon. However, this regress of sexual freedom comes as the worldview shift which is will inevitably cause. The Christian is not without hope. The presence of an enemy of Christian values, which can not be reconciled with biblical ethics, will cause Christians to stand in sharp and unconforming contrast to the culture. The war on abortion is only beginning.