Consonant with the Christian faith, we must cherish human beings from conception to natural death.
Consonant with the Christian faith, we must cherish human beings from conception to natural death.
T he abortion debate takes many forms, and divides so many groups within our culture and our politics. Recently, the leak of a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade split Court-watchers, and brought the question of abortion’s moral status within Christianity to the fore: Is there a single “Christian stance” on the issue?
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who presides over the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, thinks there is. He recently sent a letter banning House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a native of the Archdiocese, from receiving the Eucharist at Roman Catholic masses in its churches, as a result of her defense of abortion rights. On the other side of the debate, the Associated Press released a story last week about Christians who work in an Alabama abortion clinic and see that work as consistent with their faith, going so far as to tell each other that “God is on our side.”
Frankly, abortion should not be a disputed question within Christianity. Both Church history and Scripture testify against it. Both demand that we as a society welcome the unborn as protected human beings, and face their killing for what it is.
Historically, Christian opposition to abortion goes back to the religion’s earliest period. The Didache, a first-century Christian text, says, “Thou shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten.” Ancient church fathers such as Clement and Tertullian spoke out against the practice, which they defined as unjustly taking human life. Joseph Hall, a 17th-century bishop in the Church of England, unequivocally called abortion murder. Only in the 20th century did some Christians start to view the practice as morally acceptable.
Scripture speaks of the special status of the unborn in God’s eyes. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,” God tells the prophet Jeremiah. This is more than a mere acknowledgment of the unborn Jeremiah’s existence, though that alone would make an adequate pro-life argument; God’s knowledge of Jeremiah includes setting His love and favor toward the prophet. As an unborn child, Jeremiah was loved by God.
In Psalm 139:16, the psalmist writes, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” God saw the psalmist as an unborn child and made plans for that life’s future. The child may have been “unformed,” but God still saw dignity in him. Interestingly, it is hard to find Scripture references that pro-choice persons give to defend abortion. They will argue philosophical ideas or political talking points. They will say the Bible is on their side. But hardly ever will they quote the Bible chapter and verse.
The debate about abortion’s status in Christianity stems from a refusal to make two serious definitions.
First, too many refuse to define what abortion is, using sleight-of-hand terms such as “health care” and “bodily autonomy” to skirt the core issue: the status of the unborn child. Abortion “terminates a pregnancy,” people say, and they’re right: It terminates a pregnancy by terminating the child whose existence makes its mother pregnant. Do we believe this child is a human being? Do we believe he or she possesses the rights our country attaches to human beings, not least among them the right to life? If so, then abortion is morally abhorrent; if not, then abortion is an entirely different matter. It is astounding how often the pro-choice movement refuses to face these questions, because we can make no moral judgment of the practice without answering them, and pro-choicers are plainly afraid that on moral grounds, their stance is weak.
Second, too many refuse to give a real definition of “Christian.” C. S. Lewis warned that a problem like this was apparent in his day. Like the word “gentleman,” he wrote, “Christian” was going from a term with an objective definition to a mere compliment. To deny someone is a Christian, or to deny that his beliefs accord with Christianity, is to insult him and call him a bad person. A Christian, again by history and Scripture, means someone who trusts in the God revealed by nature and in the Bible and attested to by the Church, and who seeks within that Church to love God and his neighbor as God mandates.
Christians do not accomplish these purposes perfectly, hence the importance of grace, mercy, and — above all — Christ’s death on the cross. So a person might hold pro-choice views and still be a Christian. But he holds those views in error. Those who support abortion rights or perform abortions must seek repentance, meaning an acknowledgment of their error, an expression of sorrow for it, and a turning from it. Yet so many self-described believers “not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”
Abortion must be a context where Christians affirm life and seek mercy. Consonant with the Christian faith, we must cherish human beings from conception to natural death. We must hold the line on abortion as a moral evil, and never flinch from calling it the mass murder that it is. But we must love the mother who aborts her unborn child — and even the abortion doctor and the Planned Parenthood worker — too. Christianity is a religion of abundant, transcendent mercy. It is a faith where the broken find healing and wholeness, and sinners find forgiveness. And the more than 63 million abortions performed since Roe v. Wade have left us all in need of that kind of relief today.