Rex Banks

Abortion and the Slippery Slope to Infanticide

A recent television documentary dealing with the topic of infanticide in India, featured an interview with a very pleasant, cheerful, young woman who calmly described how she planned to choke her newborn baby girl to death by feeding her dried rice. The young mother was not a monster. Like her parents and her parents' parents she had inherited a world view which permitted her to destroy the fruit of her own body without guilt or remorse, and history tells us that this same casual acceptance of infanticide has been found in many different cultures.

Spartan law required that weak and deformed children be put to death, and Aristotle enjoined the exposure of feeble and defective infants as a means of population control. In his Apology (9), Tertullian charged the Romans with "infant murder" accusing them of "choosing some of the cruellest (kinds of death) for their own children, such as drowning, or starving with cold or hunger, or exposing to the mercy of dogs; dying by the sword being too sweet a death for children." Throughout history, the gods of many peoples have been placated with the blood of children, tiny lives have been extinguished on the basis of economic considerations, and wild animals have fed upon the flesh of unwanted offspring.

Now today's sophisticated intellectuals in modern western democracies who are advocates of infanticide would recoil at the thought of exposing little boys and girls on mountain tops or feeding them to alligators, but they are quite insistent that in certain cases the humane disposal of newborn babes is acceptable. For example in an article entitled Children from the Laboratory, Nobel Laureate James Watson (famous for having cracked the genetic code) pointed out that most birth defects are not discovered until birth, and adds:

"If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice...the doctor could allow the child to die, if the parents so choose, and save a lot of misery and suffering." (AMA Prism, Ch. 3, p. 2, May 1973)

In a 1995 article entitled Killing Babies Isn't Always Wrong, Philosopher Peter Singer suggests that "like the ancient Greeks, we should have a ceremony a month after birth, at which the infant is admitted to the community. Before that time, infants would not be recognized as having the same right to life as older people." In his Humanhood: Essays in Biomedical Ethics, Joseph Fletcher opines that any child with an I.Q. below 20 on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test does not have a life worth living. (He refers to infanticide as "post-natal abortion".) In his 1985 book Abortion and Infanticide, professional philosopher Michael Tooley writes:

"The claim I wish to defend is this: An organism possesses a serious right to life only if it possesses the concept of a self as a continuing subject of experiences and other mental states, and believes that it is itself such a continuing entity."

According to Tooley, the new born baby does not qualify as "an organism (which) possesses a serious right to life." We could multiply quotations from leading scientists, philosophers and intellectuals which express the same sentiment, but it would be even more depressing, and anyway the point is clear - among the brightest and most influential members of our society, there are those who are seriously suggesting that infanticide needs to be recognized as a legitimate option in certain circumstances. And many are listening to these suggestions.

The reason that many are listening is that when modern western society sanctioned the practice of abortion in the name of free choice it set foot upon the slippery slope to infanticide, and having now grown accustomed to the wholesale slaughter of unborn children we may be about to take the next logical step. I say "next logical step" because when we cut through all the fancy rhetoric the fact is that our acceptance of abortion is the fruit of a world view which is quite compatible with infanticide as well. You see after years of evolutionary indoctrination, many in our society are convinced that man is the end product of forces which are mindless, purposeless and completely naturalistic, and a good number realize that if this is the case, human life has no more intrinsic worth than the moss growing on the side of a tree. Thus Singer asks the question: "Why - in the absence of religious beliefs about being made in the image of God, or having an immortal soul - should mere membership of the species Homo Sapiens be crucial to whether the life of a being may or may not be taken?" (The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Australia) October 10, 1995, quoted in The Baby-killers by Robert Doolan, Creation Ex Nihilo 18 (1):4 December 1995-February 1996). Good question! Untrammeled by "religious beliefs" Singer is convinced that there is no difference between infanticide and abortion, and in his Killing Babies Isn't Always Wrong, he makes this point forcefully:

"If I accept that it is justifiable for a woman to kill her fetus in the womb because she considers her family complete, or would rather have a child at a time that would better suit her career plans, or because a prenatal test has shown that her child will have Down syndrome, I know that I cannot continue to hold conventional views about the sanctity of human life at other times and in other states."

Singer's conclusions are perfectly consistent with his world view.

Of course many who are pro-abortion and who share Singer's naturalistic world view are not yet prepared to accept his conclusions about infanticide, and they insist that there is a basic difference between abortion and and the taking of a child's life. Some in this group take the so-called decisive moment view that while human life does indeed begin at conception, it is not until a later stage that the unborn child has a right to protection. Others in this group take the so-called gradualist position which holds that as the unborn child develops he or she gains more rights

(although the mother always has the greater rights). Clearly such arguments are subjective and such distinctions are arbitrary, but more to the point, as Singer points out, "in the absence of religious beliefs" they make no sense at all. This is the case because naturalism ascribes no special value to human life anyway. Unhampered by spiritual considerations and given time to adjust, there is no reason why the modern day naturalist should not become as accepting of infanticide as the ancient Spartans, proving once again that rotten philosophies produce rotten fruit.

Believers Breaking With the Past

Thomas Huxley sarcastically described the Bible as a book which is "...so marvellously flexible that it can be made to mean whatever its users might wish it to mean," and while it is not the case that the Bible is vague or contradictory on important matters, it is true that throughout history many believers have gone to great lengths to make its doctrines conform to the spirit of their age. Witness for example the attempts to harmonize the Genesis account of creation with the theory of evolution since the time of Charles Darwin. The sad fact is that many vicious enterprises and indecent proposals have been "justified" on the basis of a mutilated text, and tragically some Bible believers today seek to accommodate the spirit of our own age by appealing to Scripture to justify abortion. In doing so these individuals depart from the position held by most early believers and this is readily apparent from the writings of those who lived in the early post apostolic period.

In the Letter of Barnabas (19:5) which likely dates from the first century we have the following:

"Thou shalt not doubt whether a thing shall be or not be. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain. Thou shalt love thy neighbor more than thine own soul. Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion, nor again shalt thou kill it when it is born. Thou shalt not withhold thy hand from thy son or daughter, but from their youth thou shalt teach them the fear of God."

There is no ambiguity here: abortion is murder. In the Didache (2:1) which some recent scholars think may be as early as 100 A.D. we have:

"And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born."

In the so-called Apocalypse of Peter (25), which dates from about the middle of the second century the writer speaks of future judgment upon women who "conceived out of wedlock (?) and caused abortion".

Sometime about 177 A.D., Athenagoras of Athens writes that Christians "say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder (and)...will have to give an account to God for the abortion." He explains that Christians " regard the very foetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God's care..."( Early in the 3rd century Tertullian charged the Romans with " the sin of putting their offspring to death" adding that "murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the foetus in the womb"

Another 3rd century writer, Hippolytus of Rome says in his Refutation of All Heresies (9:7) that women who "gird themselves round, so as to expel what was being conceived" are guilty of "murder".

The 4th century writer Basil the Great says bluntly "The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. With us there is no nice enquiry as to its being formed or unformed". (The reference to "formed" and "unformed" refers to a distinction which Tertullian and others had made in connection with the unborn child.) Basil's contemporary John Chrysostom was just as blunt, describing abortion as "murder before the birth". The picture is clear.

Unfortunately, mainly (but not solely) due to the influence of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354 - 430 A.D.) some details of the picture are less clear after the 5th century. Aristotle had taught that at the time of conception the future child possessed vegetative life only, that this was replaced by an animal soul after a few days. Later still, according to Aristotle, this was replaced by a rational soul. Augustine adopted a similar position, arguing that the foetus did not possess a human soul until some time after conception (40 days in the case of a male and 80 days in the case of a female). However Augustine also taught that abortion is a violation of natural law and is sinful.

In the centuries which followed, penalties for abortion were lessened by the Roman Catholic Church and distinctions arose between abortion and murder. Early abortion and late abortion were also viewed differently. However " though the opinion of Aristotle or similar speculations, regarding the time when the rational soul is infused into the embryo, were practically accepted for many centuries, still it was always held by the (Catholic) Church that he who destroyed what was to be a man was guilty of destroying a human life" (Catholic Encyclopedia).

In 1869 Pope Pius 9 declared that the soul was present from conception, which is the position of the Roman Catholic Church today. Among the Reformers, the position is generally the same. Discussing the "wickedness of human nature" Martin Luther speaks of girls who "kill and expel tender fetuses," (Works vol 4) while in his comments on Exodus 21 John Calvin speaks of the destruction of the unborn child as "an almost monstrous crime."

The bottom line is that those who seek to accommodate the spirit of our own age by appealing to Scripture to justify abortion, find little support from influential Bible believers of the past.

Scriptural Justification for Abortion?

When we turn to Scripture itself we find that "little support" becomes no support.

Some cite Exodus 21:22-25 in support of their contention that Scripture does not attribute full humanity to the foetus, but their use of this passage simply draws attention to the weakness of their argument. The KJV text reads:

If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

The argument is that according to this passage if the mother dies, the man will be put to death ("life for life") but if pregnancy is terminated ("her fruit depart from her") only a fine is levied ("he shall pay as the judges determine"). Allegedly this proves that the foetus is not human, because whereas the loss of the mother's life is a capital offence, ("life for life") the destruction of the foetus is not. However there are a number of problems with this argument.

1) First of all we cannot apply this argument consistently. For example in vs 28-32 we read that if an ox gores a man or woman to death, and if the owner of the ox had been warned that the animal was in the habit of goring "the ox shall be stoned and its owner also shall be put to death." (Provision is made for the redemption of the owner's life by payment of ransom.) However if the ox gores a male or female slave, the law demands that the owner give his or her master 30 shekels of silver and that the ox be stoned. Clearly the same reasoning which "proves" that the foetus is not human also "proves" that the slave is not human, but no one argues this way.

2) Next consider the following from Walter C. Kaiser on Exodus 21:22-25:

"The R.S.V., Berkley Version, New American Bible, Amplified Bile, Dhuay-Rheims, Moffatt, Goodspeed and other translations and numerous commentaries such as the Broadman, Wesleyan, Wycliffe, New Bible Commentary, Beacon Bible Commentary and Interpreters Bible Commentary are all in gross error in referring to a miscarriage here. The text literally reads "so that her fruit go (or come) out." The K.J.V. says "so that her fruit depart." The verb...(means) "to go (or) come out" and is the regular word for "child" (emphasis mine) ...with the only irregularity being that the noun...is in the plural. The use of the term "child" makes it clear that a human being is in view here; (emphasis mine) and the plural is generic to cover the contingency of multiple births or either sex. In fact, Hebrew does have a word for miscarriage that is not used in Exodus 21:22 - 25...." (Toward Old Testament Ethics)

(Although the NASV has "she has a miscarriage" the margin has "lit. her children come out".) Kaiser's point is that the expression "so that her fruit go (or come) out" does not refer to a miscarriage. This passage is not dealing with miscarriage, but with premature birth.

3) This is consistent with the Sept. rendering. The Jewish scholars who translated the Old Testament into Greek in the 3rd century used the word "paidon" to describe what proceeds from the woman's body. Arndt and Gingrich tell us that the word means "a very young child, infant" and Thayer has "a child, boy or girl." According to Thayer, the translators used "paidon" for the Hebrew words "naar" which primarily means boy, lad, and "naarah" which primarily means girl, maiden. Their then their use of this term here is significant.

4) The text says: "And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that (margin) her children come out yet there is no further injury..." (NASV) The text does not say "And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with the trial so that (margin) her children come out yet there is no further injury to her... " Keil and Delitzch make the good point that "The omission of lah ('to her') also, apparently renders it impractical to refer the words to injury done to the woman alone". (Old Testament Commentaries vol 1) Thus the "further injury" (v.23) envisaged would include the death of the child. If either the woman or the child dies, the "life for life" law (v.23) is to be applied. Kaiser is surely correct when he says that "the foetus is fully regarded as human and viable, and a life of the murderer is required". (ibid) Keil and Delitzch point out that "A fine is imposed, because even if no injury had been done either to the woman, and the fruit of her womb, such a blow might have endangered life."

5) Finally it is important to keep in mind that even if this passage did prove that an individual who accidentally caused a miscarriage did not forfeit his life, this would certainly not constitute justification for the intentional termination of pregnancy by abortion.

The meaning of Exodus 21:22-25 then is this:

"When men strive together and they hurt unintentionally a woman with child and her children come forth but no mischief happens - that is, the woman and the children do not die - the one who hurt her shall surely be punished by a fine. But if any mischief happens, that is if the woman dies or the children die, then you shall give life for life." (Cassuto quoted by Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes Of Biblical Law)

The fact is that far from providing support for the pro-abortion position by proving that the foetus is not human, Exodus 21:22-25 does exactly the opposite.

Other very curious arguments have emerged from the attempt to find Scriptural justification for abortion. Some draw attention to the fact that the Lord commanded Israel to destroy whole nations and that this would have included pregnant women. The point is not clear to me. All lives belong to God since they are His creation, and besides if this sanctions abortion it also sanctions the killing of men, women and infants. Some point out that only babies one month old were numbered by Israel (Num. 3:15) but again if this justifies abortion it also justifies killing babies less than one month old. Job's statements to the effect that it would have been better had he never been born (Job 3:2-4; 11-19; 10:18,19), along with other equally irrelevant passages have been turned into convoluted arguments in support of abortion, but it is difficult to take them seriously.

Scripture and the Unborn Child

Frequently we are told that the Bible is silent on the subject of abortion, but this is not the case. What scripture teaches in unambiguous language is that man is created in the very image of God, and that for this reason human life is sacrosanct. (Gen. 1:27; Gen. 9:4-6; Ex 20:13; Deut. 5:17; Num. 35:33; Jas 3:9) These passages show that the murderer and slanderer are guilty of terrible crimes because the human being derives his worth from the fact that he bears the image of the divine. Now since Scripture also teaches that the unborn child is fully human, it follows that the life of the unborn child is also inviolable. Some, (e.g. Crick and Fletcher above) have suggested that humanness is dependant upon the possession of a certain level of I.Q. or upon self-awareness, memory and such like, but according to Scripture what makes man special and valuable is the fact that he bears the very image of the divine. Passages of scripture which refer to the unborn child are consistent with this fact.

We have already said a word about Ex 21:22-25 and in a footnote to his discussion of this passage Kaiser says "On to basis of Job 10:8-12; Ps. 51:5-6; and Ps.139:13-16, we conclude that the child in the womb was regarded and valued as a human person and under the protection of his or her Creator." Certainly the Bible recognizes the personhood of the unborn child, and although many today, as in the past, attempt to make Aristotelian type judgments about when the unborn child becomes human, these distinctions are simply unknown to Scripture. The fact is that there is simply no Scriptural basis for denying the full personhood of the unborn child at any stage of existence. In this context the following passages (among others) are instructive:

James 2:26: We read that "the body (soma,) without the spirit (pneuma, the immortal nature of man ) is dead." Clearly since the body is "dead" in the absence of the spirit, and since the zygote (cell formed by the union of two gametes) is living, the only possible conclusion is that the spirit is present from the point of conception.

Job 10: 8-12: "Your hands fashioned and made me altogether, And would You destroy me? Remember now, that You have made me as clay; And would You turn me into dust again? Did You not pour me out like milk And curdle me like cheese; Clothe me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews? You have granted me life and loving-kindness; And Your care has preserved my spirit."

John E. Hartley says that the two words life and loving-kindness (v.10) "emphasize both the bestowing of the life principle and the sustaining of that life". (Book of Job N.I.C.) In his pre-natal state Job was the object of God's "loving-kindness" and protection no less than in his post-natal state. Many commentators point out that Job describes conception itself, "The sperma (being)...likened to milk (and the ) embryo which is formed from the sperma is likened to...cheese (curd)". (Keil and Delitzsch, Old Testament Commentaries vol 3) K/D also make the good point that

"According to the view of Scripture, a creative act similar to the creation of Adam is repeated at the origin of each individual; and the continuation of development according to natural laws is not less the working of God than the creative planting of the very beginning."

It is not viability or I.Q. level which accounts for the Lord's intimate involvement with the unborn child, but rather the fact that the child bears the very image of the Divine.

Ps. 139:13-16. "For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skilfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them."

Like the Job passage, these words of David emphasize that God sets great value upon the unborn child. K/D comment on v.16 ("the days that were ordained for me"): "Among the days which were performed in the idea of God...there was one also, says the poet for the embryonic beginning of my life" (vol 4). The day of David's conception, like the other days of David's life, was written in God's book from eternity. In light of these verses it is not appropriate to treat as metaphorical those verses which indicate that the Lord deals with the unborn child as a person. Paul says that God set him apart even from his mother's womb, (Gal. 1:15) and the Lord reassures Jeremiah with the words "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". (Jer. 1:5) In light of James 2 it will not do to dismiss such language as poetic expressions of God's foreknowledge which say nothing about the nature of pre-natal life.

Luke 1:41- 45: "Now at this time Mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud voice and said, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.' ''

Several significant points are found in passage. First of all it is noteworthy that the word translated "baby" in v.41 (brephos) is the same term frequently used of infants and newborn babies (e.g. 2:16; 18:15; Acts 7:19;1 Pet 2:2). No distinction is made. Next we note that the unborn baby "leaped ...for joy" in Elisabeth's womb (v.44 cf. 41) and thus scripture ascribes human emotion to John in his prenatal state. Keep in mind that Elizabeth was in her sixth month when Mary visited her (v.36) and that Mary stayed with her "about three months" (v.56). This coupled with the fact that Mary "went with haste" to visit Elizabeth (v.39) indicates that Mary was in the very earliest stage of her pregnancy when she arrived at Elizabeth's home. John's joyful reaction and Elizabeth's blessing ("blessed is the fruit of your womb [v.42]) strongly suggest that the personhood of Jesus was recognized even at this early date in Mary's pregnancy.

Numerous other verses could be cited from the Bible to show that the personhood of the unborn child is taken as a matter of course by the inspired writers of Scripture. (e.g. Isa. 44:2, 24; 49:1, 5) This explains why early believers like Basil and Chrysostom uncompromisingly spoke of abortion as an act of homicide. It also explains the Jewish attitude toward abortion as explained by the first century Jewish historian Josephus who writes:

"The law, moreover, enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, and diminishing human kind; if any one, therefore, proceeds to such fornication or murder, he cannot be clean." (Against Apion, Bk 2, 25)

As we said earlier: The bottom line is that those who seek to accommodate the spirit of our own age by appealing to Scripture to justify abortion, find little support from influential Bible believers of the past and no support at all in the Bible itself.

Abortion and Competing World Views

Those who accept the Biblical verdict that "children are a gift of the Lord (and the) fruit of the womb...a reward," (Ps. 127:3) and who are convinced that every human being, regardless of intelligence, stage of development or capacity for self-awareness bears the image of his Creator, will reject out of hand the notion that innocent human life is expendable. Reverence for human life is the fruit of understanding the true nature of man, and this understanding is a matter of revelation. The naturalist who defends the practice of abortion and/or infanticide is not a monster; he is simply acting in a manner which is appropriate to his world view in the same way that Saul of Tarsus did when he put Christians to death in all good conscience. Ideas do have consequences, and it is only by viewing the modern abortion debate in light of the naturalistic evolutionary philosophy espoused by many of our most influential thinkers that we will come to grips with the real issues involved.

One idea which is the product of evolutionary theory and which has greatly influenced the way many view the unborn child, is the discredited theory of embryonic recapitulation. In his The Long War Against God, Henry M. Morris tells us that according to this theory "in repeating the evolutionary history of its non - human ancestors, the foetus does not actually evolve into the human stage until very late in its prenatal development." Morris quotes the director of Biosystems Research in La Jolla, California as follows:

"During development, the fertilized egg progresses over 38 weeks through what is, in fact, a rapid passage through evolutionary history: From a single primordial cell, the conceptus progresses through being something of a protozoan, a fish, a reptile, a bird, a primate and ultimately a human being. There is a difference of opinion among scientists about the time during a pregnancy when a human being can be said to emerge. But there is general agreement that this does not happen until after the end of the first trimester."

Morris adds "It is not 'murder of course to kill a fish or a monkey, so abortion is no great problem, so they say." Discredited the theory may be, but this idea has greatly influenced the way many view the unborn child. In recent years materialists have used various philosophic theories and biological and scientific facts to define human life and personhood in a way which enables them to deny that abortion involves the taking of human life.

Quite reasonably, pro-lifers frequently respond by citing scientific evidence of their own to show that the unborn child is a separate living being from the moment of conception. They insist that for this reason the unborn child possesses human personhood from this moment. The following quotations are from an excellent fact-filled book entitled Why Can't We Love Them Both, by Dr and Mrs R.C. Willke:

"Human means one of the biological beings who belongs to the species Homo Sapiens. Such beings are unique from all other beings in that they have 46 human chromosomes in every cell...(There are exceptions. For example those who suffer from Downs syndrome have 47 chromosomes." [Rex])

"The pronucleus of the sperm, containing its 23 chromosomes, in about 12 hours migrates to meet the ovum's pronucleus with its 23 chromosomes. Their fusion takes about two hours...This single cell is now either male or female. This human is unique, i.e. never before in the history of the world has this exact individual human existed. Never again in history will another exactly like this human exist. This being is complete, i.e. nothing else - no bits or pieces - will be added from this time until the old man or woman dies - nothing but nutrition and oxygen. This being is programmed from within, moving forward in a self-controlled, ongoing process of growth, development, and replacement of his or her own dying cells. This living being is dependent upon his or her mother for shelter and food, but in all other respects is a totally new, different, unique, and independent being.

Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception [they defined fertilization and conception to be the same] marks the beginning of the life of a human being - a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings." (Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981, p.7)

"Those witnesses who testified that science cannot say whether unborn children are human beings were speaking in every instance to the value question rather than the scientific question. No witness raised any evidence to refute the biological fact that from the moment of human conception there exists a distinct individual being who is alive and is of the human species." (Hearings, S-158, 24 April at 25)

Brain waves have been recorded at 40 days on the Electroencephalogram (EEG) (H. Hamlin, "Life or Death by EEG," JAMA, Oct. 12, 1964, p.120)

"We now know that the unborn child is an aware, reacting human being who from the sixth month on (and perhaps earlier) leads an active emotional life. The fetus can, on a primitive level, even learn in utero. Whether he ultimately sees himself and, hence, acts as a sad or happy, aggressive or meek, secure or anxiety-ridden person depends, in part, on the messages he gets about himself in the womb." (T. Verney & J. Kelly, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, Delta Books, 1981, p.12)

Clearly then, quite apart from "religious" arguments, pro-lifers can appeal to a growing body of scientific evidence in support of their contention that abortion involves the destruction of human life. They can show that the DNA of the unborn child is human, and that all the genetic information determining colour, sex, stature etc is present. What's more, the baby's DNA is different from that of the mother, indicating that the baby is a separate person. Frequently the baby has a different blood type as well. Early in gestation the unborn female baby has fully developed eggs, and those who advocate the harvesting of these eggs to enable infertile women to have children certainly acknowledge that these children would be fully human. This being the case how can it be denied that the egg donor is fully human? Clearly the evidence from science is in harmony with the Biblical picture.

Unfortunately however, such evidence has not had the impact upon the debate that many pro-lifers would have expected and the reason for this is clear. Quite simply naturalistic evolutionary philosophy inevitably leads to the abandonment of moral absolutes (See our Understanding the Times: On Ethics) and this adds a new element to the debate. The following statement by W.B. Provine, Professor of Biological Sciences at Cornell University is representative of the views of many today and helps bring the issue into focus:

"Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear...There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death...There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life and no free will for humans either." (emphasis mine) (quoted in Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal vol. 10 [Part 1] 1996)

Clearly it is pointless talking about the unborn child's innate right to life (or indeed any innate right) in the absence of any ultimate foundation for ethics and any meaning to life. Yes, it is appropriate and useful for the pro-lifer to muster evidence to show that the unborn baby is a living human being, but, as Peter Singer pointed out (above): "Why - in the absence of religious beliefs about being made in the image of God, or having an immortal soul - should mere membership of the species Homo Sapiens be crucial to whether the life of a being may or may not be taken?" That really does bring us to the heart of the abortion debate. The bottom line is that abortion is acceptable today because naturalistic evolutionary philosophy has undermined the idea that human life has innate value; it's as simple as that. An oft-quoted passage from a pro-abortion editorial which appeared in the California Medicine Journal back in September 1970 is instructive:

"In defiance of the long held ethic of intrinsic and equal value for every human life regardless of its stage, condition or status, abortion is becoming accepted by society as moral right and even necessary...Since the old ethic (i.e. 'of intrinsic and equal value for every human life' [Rex]) has not yet been fully displaced it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra-or extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would he ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices. It is suggested that this schizophrenic sort of subterfuge is necessary because while a new ethic is being accepted the old one has not yet been rejected." (emphasis mine)

So there you have it. Yes, abortion does involve the taking of human life but it is inexpedient to say so while the "old ethic" (i.e. "of intrinsic and equal value for every human life") continues to exert an influence upon the thinking of many. Until the "old ethic" is well and truly buried, it is convenient to pretend that the unborn child is not a human being. I guess the same ethic which makes killing acceptable also makes subterfuge acceptable.

Concluding Comments

Tragically, the pervasive philosophy of materialism has made our society a very dangerous place for its most vulnerable members, namely unborn children, and as this same philosophy leads us down the slippery slope to infanticide, it threatens to make society a very dangerous place for newborn babies who are defective in some way. The conviction that man is the offspring of God, (Acts 17:29) a fearfully and wonderfully made creature, (Ps. 139:14) bearing the image of a heavenly Father (Gen. 1:26) who numbers the very days of his life (Ps. 139:16) and the very hairs of his head ( Matt. 10:29) has been replaced by the conviction that human life has no inherent value - and millions of children have paid the price. Let each of us do what we can in our little corner of the world to restore respect for the Scriptural view of children as "a gift of the Lord" a "reward" and a blessing to be treasured. (Ps. 127:3-5)

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