Concept

Abortion

Intro

Is abortion morally wrong? Few questions in our public life are this raw. Friends fall out over it. So do families. Any honest answer has to deal with two real things at once: the life inside the womb, and the woman whose body that life depends on.

The Christian position is that the unborn child is a human being from conception, made in God's image, and so should not be intentionally killed. That position is held across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, and it is one of the oldest moral teachings in the church. The Didache, a Christian handbook from around AD 50 to 110, says plainly: "you shall not murder a child by abortion."

The case is not just "the Bible says so." It rests on two claims that hold together. First, the unborn is biologically a distinct living human organism from conception. Second, every human being bears the Imago Dei and should not be killed by another for being inconvenient, unwanted, or unwell. If both claims are true, abortion ends the life of a person.

We should be fair to the strongest case on the other side. The bodily-autonomy argument is serious, and so is the worry that hard-line opposition leaves women without support in real crises. The honest Christian answer cannot just be "no." It has to also be "yes" to the woman: yes to help, yes to community, yes to adoption, yes to material care. Saying "the unborn is a person" while abandoning the mother is not a pro-life position; it is half of one.

Holding this position has a cost. It will put a Christian out of step with most of the culture, and it can strain real relationships. The Christian answer is to hold the position with conviction and to hold the person with love, and to refuse to choose between them.

In full

Search-landing page for the abortion question. The historic-orthodox Christian position is that the unborn human is a person from conception, bearing the imago Dei and therefore protected against intentional killing. This is grounded in biblical anthropology (humans as image-bearers from conception), the continuity of personal identity from conception to adulthood, and one of the earliest-recorded Christian moral teachings (Didache 2:2, c. AD 50-110): "you shall not murder a child by abortion."

Christian Position

Human beings bear the Imago Dei from conception, Ps 139:13-16 has God knitting the person together in the womb; Jer 1:5 has God knowing Jeremiah "before I formed you in the womb"; Luke 1:41 has John the Baptist (still in Elizabeth's womb) leaping for joy at the presence of the embryonic Jesus.
The genetic-uniqueness + biological-continuity argument: at conception, a genetically distinct, individuated, developing human organism comes into existence. The fetus is not a part of the mother's body but a separate organism dependent on the mother.
The Christian-tradition witness is consistent and ancient, the Didache (one of the earliest non-canonical Christian writings) explicitly prohibits abortion, as do Tertullian, Basil the Great, Augustine, and the conciliar tradition.
The position connects to Pro-Life Premise-Based Argument for the formal philosophical argument.

Common Objection

The standard pro-choice reply argues: (1) bodily autonomy, even if the fetus is a person, the mother has no obligation to let her body be used to sustain it (Thomson's "violinist" thought experiment); (2) personhood is not biological but psychological, personhood requires self-awareness, sentience, or rationality, which embryos lack; (3) the biblical evidence is weak, Exodus 21:22-25 treats causing a miscarriage as a property crime, not homicide; (4) the Bible never explicitly mentions abortion.

Response

On bodily autonomy: Thomson's violinist analogy fails the symmetry test, pregnancy outside of rape involves a prior consensual act that brought the fetus into being; the parental obligation argument is closer to "you cannot unhook a feeding tube from your already-born infant because you no longer wish to feed it." Bodily-autonomy arguments also prove too much (justifying killing born infants and the disabled who depend on others).
On psychological personhood: the criterion is arbitrary and dis-continuous, it cannot explain why a sleeping adult, an Alzheimer's patient, or a newborn (who lacks self-awareness) are persons while a 30-week fetus is not. Genetic-biological-continuity criteria are the only criteria that track the being in question without arbitrary cuts.
On Exod 21:22-25: the Hebrew (yatza yeled) means "the child comes out", most modern translations render it as live premature birth, not miscarriage. The penalty schedule applies the lex talionis (life for life) to either mother or child, consistent with both being human persons.
On biblical silence: abortion was practiced in the Greco-Roman world and was distinguished in the earliest Christian writings (Didache, Epistle of Barnabas) as a uniquely Christian prohibition. The biblical-moral framework of imago Dei + thou-shalt-not-murder is sufficient; the patristic moral tradition makes the application explicit.

Key Passages

Ps 139:13-16 (NASB95), "For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb"
Jeremiah 1.5, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you"
Luke 1:41 (NASB95), John the Baptist (in utero) leaps in Elizabeth's womb at Mary's greeting
Exod 21:22-25 (NASB95), lex talionis for harm to a pregnant woman or her child
Genesis 1.27, imago Dei foundation
Didache 2:2 (c. AD 50-110), "you shall not murder a child by abortion, nor kill that which is begotten"

Imago Dei, the personhood foundation
Pro-Life Premise-Based Argument, the formal philosophical argument
Didache, earliest-Christian moral teaching on abortion

Common questions this page answers

Q: What does the Bible say about abortion?

The biblical witness affirms the personhood of the unborn (Ps 139:13-16, Jer 1:5, Luke 1:41-44 the unborn John the Baptist responding to the unborn Christ); the early Church unanimously opposed abortion (Didache 2:2, Barnabas 19:5, Tertullian) as the killing of a person; the contemporary Christian-ethics position is that abortion is the unjust taking of an innocent human life.