"Abortion" by Randy Alcorn

I am planning to attend a fundraising dinner tonight for the Pregnancy Resource Center here in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, an organization that has been used of God to bring many to salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord and to save the lives of many unborn children as well. As I was thinking about the issue of abortion again -- an issue I have taken to praying about every day -- I was also doing some extra reading on the subject and ran across an article by Randy Alcorn at the Ligonier website entitled Abortion. In the article Randy does an excellent, succinct job of explaining the Scriptural view that abortion is indeed murder. Here is the first part of the article:

Some “pro-choice” advocates claim to base their beliefs on the Bible. They maintain that Scripture does not prohibit abortion. They are wrong. The Bible does, in fact, emphatically prohibit the killing of innocent people (Ex. 20:13) and clearly considers the unborn to be human beings worthy of protection (21:22–25).

Job graphically described the way God created him before he was born (Job 10:8–12). That which was in his mother’s womb was not something that might become Job, but someone who was Job—the same man, only younger. To the prophet Isaiah, God says, “Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you” (Isa. 44:2). What each person is, not merely what he might become, was present in his mother’s womb.

Psalm 139:13–16 paints a vivid picture of God’s intimate involvement with a preborn person. God created David’s “inward parts” not at birth, but before birth. David says to his Creator, “You knitted me together in my mother’s womb” (v. 13). Each person, regardless of his parentage or handicap, has not been manufactured on a cosmic assembly line, but personally formed by God. All the days of his life are planned out by God before any come to be (v. 16).

Meredith Kline observes: “The most significant thing about abortion legislation in Biblical law is that there is none. It was so unthinkable that an Israelite woman should desire an abortion that there was no need to mention this offense in the criminal code.” All that was necessary to prohibit an abortion was the command, “You shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13). Every Israelite knew that the preborn child was a child. So do we, if we are honest. We all know a pregnant woman is “carrying a child.”

Please consider taking a few minutes to read the rest of this article, and please prayerfully consider what you may do to help stop abortion in any way that you can.