When does life actually begin? Is it okay to take another person’s life or suggest that someone should take their own life? As there is a current uprise in America over a leaked draft of an opinion that would reverse the longstanding opinion on the constitutional right to have an abortion. Both sides have been yelling and screaming at each other and the rest of us as well. Threats of physical violence against Supreme Court Justices have been made. I have also seen suggestions from prolife people against a young lady holding a sign that said I wish my mother had chosen abortion suggest that the young lady should choose to end her life. Where has decency in our rhetoric gone? Let me address what I have learned.
When I look into the medical facts about life, let us start at the beginning. Conception occurs approximately on the fourteenth day of a twenty-eight-day menstrual cycle. I do not know anyone would declare they are pregnant on day twenty-nine of their cycle. In most cases it is several days after their cycle was supposed to end that they would get a pregnancy test. Here are some medical facts about the development of a baby in the womb. (I am using baby rather than fetus which is defined as “an unborn offspring of a mammal, in particular an unborn human baby more than eight weeks after conception” or embryo which is “an unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development, in particular a human offspring during the period from approximately the second to the eighth week after fertilization” because contained in these to terms often used by people who support abortion in order to make it seem like the baby in the womb is somehow different than the baby who is born.) According to the Cleveland Clinic, “Within 24 hours after fertilization, the egg that will become your baby rapidly divides into many cells.” According to Prolife Across America, the baby’s heart starts to beat 18 days after conception or four days after a woman’s menstrual cycle was suppose to end. So medically I would conclude that at least life must begin when there is a heartbeat or even earlier within 24 hours when the cells start to divide. You decide. I actually could defend an even earlier start of live based on what the Bible says. I certainly can defend the idea that it occurs sometime before conception. Jeremiah 1:4-5 says, “Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (ESV)
I could defend the idea that life actually began before the foundations of the earth. “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” Ephesians 1:4 (ESV) To me it is clear both medically and biblically that life begins in the womb. You decide.
As to abortion it is defined as “the removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy.” Methods that are used can be found here. In reviewing them the most common method appear to me to be quite violent. You decide.
What I also learned that even though the Bible does not specifically address abortion, perhaps because the idea of willing ending a pregnancy would have been abhorrent in those days, it does address the termination of a pregnancy. Exodus 21:22-25, “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” (ESV) So, if the baby dies the punishment is the same as if he harmed an adult man.
In order to keep this short and readable I will address the rhetoric next week in part two. Please check back next week.
Join me in standing for life as both God and medical facts define it. Be careful however in how you defend the position of being prolife. Pastor Doobs of Grace Church Eden Prairie addressed our behavior in his Mother Day sermon. In the meantime trust the Holy Spirit as you speak or post or write on this issue that you will not hurt the cause of Christ by how you communicate the message. Know that the Holy Spirit is with you as you communicate. The Holy Spirit comes to us when we accept Jesus. Understanding that the hope you have is because of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross satisfying the penalty for sins. His payment satisfies all my sins from the past, in the present and in the future. My penalty and yours was satisfied on the cross by the death of Jesus, God’s greatest act of love and wrath, who became sin for me and you. It was also God’s greatest act of faithfulness because “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (ESV) Because holiness shows us, we need to believe in Jesus. I hope that you join me in helping others to choose Jesus.
If you have not read my previous blogs, you can find them here.
You can find my book, Hope Amid Hopelessness: Our Abba Father Provides a Way Through Mental Illness here.
eBook or Audiobook versions can be found at Westbow Press or Christianbook.com at Amazonor Google
