Abortion, the Unborn, and the Bible

The Numbers We Don't Talk About

Canada averages roughly 100,000 abortions every year. That's about 274 every single day. In the United States, the number climbs to nearly one million annually. Since abortion was legalized in the US in 1973, over 61 million babies have been aborted, roughly one and a half times the entire population of Canada. About 24% of women report having had an abortion.

These aren't just statistics. They represent lives ended, mothers grieving, and a culture that has normalized something the Bible calls a grave evil.

What Is the Culture of Death?

In 1995, Pope John Paul II coined the phrase “culture of death” to describe a growing trend in Western society to devalue human life. He identified two primary roots.

The first root he named was the loss of God. When people ignore God, they lose a sense of the sacredness of life. Peter Singer, one of the most influential bioethicists alive today, illustrates this clearly. He has argued that a newborn baby has no greater moral worth than a pig. His reasoning is consistent: without God, worth must be assigned by capacity rather than by being. If self-awareness, independence, and consciousness are what give a life value, then a baby in the womb, a person with severe disabilities, or someone with advanced dementia all become candidates for elimination.

Take God out of the picture and the anchor for human worth shifts from outside ourselves to inside ourselves. We become the ones who decide who counts. History has shown us, repeatedly, what happens when humans get to make that call.

The second root was a distorted notion of freedom. Our culture has redefined freedom as the right to do whatever you want. The slogan “my body, my choice” sounds like freedom language, but it has a fatal flaw: it treats freedom as something purely individual, ignoring that one person's choice can end another person's life entirely.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:12, “I have the right to do anything, but not everything is beneficial.” And in Galatians 5:13, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”

Christian freedom isn't the absence of limits. It's the ability to choose what is actually good. Self-control feels restrictive but creates freedom. Self-indulgence feels free but creates bondage. When freedom means “I can do anything,” the strongest person wins. When freedom means “I am responsible to do what is right,” the weakest person is protected.

Pope John Paul II's analysis was sharp, but I'd add two more roots of my own to what he named.

Demonic influence. Jesus said of Satan in John 8:44 that he was “a murderer from the beginning.” Scripture is clear that there is a spiritual dimension to this conflict. We are not just fighting bad ideas. We are pushing back against forces that delight in the destruction of image-bearers.

Misplaced compassion. Our culture suffers from what could be called toxic empathy. It conflates eliminating the sufferer with relieving the suffering. The word “compassion” comes from Latin roots meaning “to suffer with.” True compassion enters into someone's pain. It does not remove the person experiencing it.

The Biblical View of Human Life

Scripture grounds human worth in something immovable: we are made in the image of God.

Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness’… So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

Being made in God's image means human life has intrinsic worth. Not earned. Not conditional. Not based on capability. Every person, regardless of age, development, ability, or circumstance, reflects something of God himself.

This is why murder is so serious. Genesis 9:6 tells us, “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.” Without the doctrine of imago Dei, human worth becomes negotiable. With it, you cannot abort, exploit, or discard a person without committing an offense against God himself.

Scripture is also remarkably clear about the unborn:

• Psalm 139:13-16 says God knits us together in the womb.
• Jeremiah 1:5 declares, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”
• In Luke 1:41-44, John the Baptist leaps in his mother's womb at the presence of Christ.

One of the most striking passages is Exodus 21:22-25. It addresses what happens when men fighting accidentally cause a pregnant woman to give birth prematurely. If there is no harm, there is still a penalty. But if there is harm, the penalty is severe: “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.”

This matters more than it first appears. Elsewhere in the law, accidentally causing someone's death did not require “life for life.” The person could flee to a city of refuge (Numbers 35). But in this case, accidentally causing the death of an unborn child carried a heavier penalty than accidentally causing the death of any other person in Israelite society.

If God treats accidental harm to the unborn that seriously, what does that say about intentional harm?

Jeremiah 7:30-34 paints a haunting picture. Judah's sins had reached a point where judgment was inevitable, and one of the sins specifically named was the slaughter of children in the Valley of Hinnom. That valley later became associated with Gehenna, a symbol of divine judgment. The judgment that followed was the Babylonian exile in 586 BC.

Personhood Theory: The New Argument

The cultural argument about abortion has shifted. Defenders of abortion have largely lost the scientific debate. Few seriously deny anymore that an embryo is biologically human and that the life of a unique individual begins at conception.

So, the argument has moved to a new front: personhood theory.

Personhood theory divides a human being into two realms. The lower realm is the physical body, treated as a biological organism with no intrinsic value. The upper realm is the “person,” meaning self-awareness, reasoning, values, and cognitive capacity.

In this framework, being a living, breathing human is not enough to deserve legal protection. You have to earn personhood by meeting an arbitrary set of criteria. If you fail to meet them, you become what bioethicists call a “human non-person.” Being human is not enough. You have to prove your worth.

This is utterly antithetical to the Christian worldview. We don't earn the right to be treated as image-bearers. The unborn, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, all of them are enough simply because God made them, knows them, and loves them. Our dignity is intrinsic. It does not need to be performed.

Engaging the Common Arguments

“My body, my choice.” The baby is not the woman's body. At conception, the unborn child has unique DNA, distinct from the mother. And biblically, our bodies belong to God in the first place: “You are not your own; you were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

“The fetus isn't a person yet.” A distinct human life begins at conception. Psalm 139, Jeremiah 1:5, and Luke 1:41 all assume what science now confirms.

“What about rape or incest?” This is the hardest version of the question, and it deserves to be handled with tenderness rather than slogans. The circumstances of conception do not determine a child's worth. Deuteronomy 24:16 establishes that a child should not be punished for the sins of a father. It's also worth noting that less than 0.5% of abortions are performed for reasons of rape or incest.

“It's better than a child being born into poverty or suffering.” Killing a person to prevent potential suffering is not mercy. Romans 8:28 tells us God works all things together for good for those who love him.

“Abortion is healthcare.” The movement increasingly relies on euphemism: reproductive health, reproductive justice. Stripped of the language, the position is that personal autonomy outweighs another life. The exception sometimes raised, that abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother, accounts for roughly 0.12% of abortions. That rare and genuine medical case cannot serve as the foundation for a blanket moral defense.

A Picture of God's Future Kingdom

Isaiah 65:17-20 gives us a glimpse of where God is taking history:

“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth… Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years.”

The trajectory of God's kingdom is the protection and flourishing of life. Every act of mercy toward the unborn, every pregnancy care center, every adoption, every weary mother supported, is a small foretaste of that kingdom breaking in.

How Should Christians Respond?

Lament. Pray. Speak with clarity and tenderness. Open your home. Open your wallet. Walk with mothers in crisis. Love the children no one expected.

It's worth remembering what the church has actually done in history. For every abortion clinic in North America, there are roughly two pregnancy care centers, and a conservative estimate is that 75% of those are Christian-based. Christians invented hospice care in the fourth century, building institutions of mercy for the dying and the vulnerable when the surrounding culture saw them as disposable.

The church has always been at its best when it shows up for the people the world has written off.

A Word to Those Carrying Pain

If you've had an abortion, hear this clearly: the cross is enough for you. There is no sin Jesus did not carry, no shame his blood cannot wash, no wound his resurrection cannot heal. The God who knit your child together in the womb is the same God who runs to meet you with open arms. Do not let shame keep you from him. He is not waiting to condemn you. He is waiting to restore you.

And if you're a follower of Jesus reading this, ask the Lord what your part is. Some are called to pray. Some to give. Some to open their home through foster care or adoption. Some into the long, faithful work of pregnancy care or counseling.

The culture of death is loud. But the people of God have always answered death with resurrection, despair with hope, and abandonment with love. That is still our calling.

May we be a church that holds the line on truth and holds out our hands in mercy. Both. Always.