The Bible Doesn’t Say Life Begins At Conception
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(OPINION) A while back, something possessed me to come up with a five-part series on the state of Christendom in contemporary American culture.
During the time when I was creating that series, the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court. This threw me off quite a bit, and the last three parts of the series dealt in different ways with the issue of abortion.
After the third and final time I stated my views, I thought: “I seriously doubt anyone even understands what I’m trying to express here. People are so caught up in this maddening anti-abortion versus abortion rights dichotomy, they seem to have to dub me one or the other. Either that or they figure me for some wishy-washy dude who can’t take a solid stand. I don’t want to write on this topic anymore.”
People also approached me — mostly men, by the way — telling me I was “fighting a woman’s battle” and that I should stick to fighting my own battles.
I suppose I could commence to fight the battle of the straight White male, but I don’t exactly feel like I represent the straight White male either.
Well then, who do I represent?
As a Christian, I certainly strive to represent Jesus Christ: his word and his truth. If I had to identify with a social group aside from the body of Christ, I would say I represent the homeless people of this world. I don’t represent straight people, gay people, women, old people or children. I may be two or three of the above, but I don’t represent them.
So, it’s not a question of fighting anyone’s battle here. It’s a question of what the Bible actually says, and how its words have been manipulated on all sides of every fence in order to promote political agendas.
And I’d said enough. No one really understood me. I didn’t care to argue, especially when no one I was arguing with seemed to understand what I was saying to begin with. So I told myself I would get off the topic.
Apparently, the Lord had other ideas.
So, does the Bible teach life begins at conception?
I kept being drawn toward Ecclesiastes 11, for some reason. I saw the words “cast your bread upon many waters” and figured maybe I was supposed to submit my musical to multiple theatre companies.
Well so I did all that, and no one replied. Par for the course. Theatre companies accepting new works get so many submissions, I can’t expect my own work to get special attention.
But I still kept being drawn toward that chapter. I kept feeling that there was something in that particular chapter that I was supposed to see.
Then one day, I saw Verse 5, and I soaked in its implications:
“As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” (Ecclesiastes 11:5)
Extracting the words “the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child,” there appears to be a strong suggestion — if not a direct announcement — that life enters the fetus at a time when there are already “bones” in the developing baby.
This would seem to support my natural suspicion that life — in the sense of conscious, cognizant human life — is not something that is present in the unborn baby until some significant period of time following conception.
Yet anti-abortion adherents often tout the slogan “life begins at conception.”
This is nowhere in the Bible. Nowhere.
What then does it mean God “knit me together in my mother’s womb?
Another thing that happens is the persistent usage of a single verse by anti-abortion activists:
“You formed my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13)
This verse, like all Scripture, is certainly true. But it still does not specify when life begins in the womb. We were all formed in our mother’s wombs, but at what point did that formation constitute a human life? A life that, if aborted, could conceivably be construed to have been murdered?
The answer is also in Ecclesiastes 11:5, and all throughout the book of Ecclesiastes. Let’s look at that verse one more time:
“As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” (Ecclesiastes 11:5)
See the words I have underlined. Twice we are told “you do not know.” That statement is clear.
We don’t know how life comes to the baby in a mother’s womb. We don’t know the workings of God’s mysteries in any way. So who are we, mere humans, to declare when life begins?
Now please don’t get me wrong. I am a Bible-believing Christian who does not believe in sex outside of a committed monogamous relationship (marriage). Sex is intended to be a holy act of love between two devoted partners. It is not something to be cast to the four winds. It is not for us to commit adultery or experiment with multiple partners. Nor is it a recreational activity. It is, once again, a sacred act of marital love.
Is abortion murder?
So I don’t take abortion any more lightly than I take lightly the indiscriminate nature of promiscuity that appears to have infested our culture. But I still cannot find it in me, or in Holy Scripture, to support a trigger law or pretend that the removal of 12 cells not a nanosecond following conception could justly be deemed “murder.”
Yet anti-abortion adherents often tout the slogan “abortion is murder.”
This is nowhere in the Bible. Nowhere.
There are numerous passages making reference to the process by which life is formed within a mother’s womb. I will cite three: Job 31:15, Psalm 22:10 and Isaiah 49:5. Do any of these passages refer to a moment when life begins? No. All of them refer to a process — a mysterious process by which God gradually brings the life associated with human identity into the mother’s womb.
Now someone will object: “What about Jeremiah 1:5?”
“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.” (Jeremiah 1:5)
This would certainly suggest that God knew us even before we were in our mother’s wombs. And I will not contest that. I am a Christian, I lean Reformed, I believe in predestination, and I fully believe my name was written on the Book of Life before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).
I believe all this. And it still doesn’t say that I got into my mother’s womb at the “moment of conception.”
We don’t know what we don’t know
Consider an illustration. Suppose my soul — the identity of Andy Pope — was created at the beginning of time, when God created the whole works. Imagine my soul cruising around the spirit world, just waiting to be placed into the womb of Mary Pope — who by the way was also created at the beginning of time.
Supposing all this to be true — and I believe it is — does it say anything about when that soul is going to put into the womb?
No. It simply doesn’t.
What it does say is “we do not know.”
Given all this, it is obviously not an easy task for legislators to decide if and when an abortion is truly murder. Under no force of public pressure can I come out and say I am “pro-abortion,” because at some certain stage, I believe abortion is clearly murder. In that case, it ought not to be the woman’s choice.
But what I can do is throw down a certain gauntlet, as I believe the Lord has wanted me to do. So I ask my fellow Christians these questions:
Where did we first hear “abortion is murder?”
Where did we first hear “life begins at conception?”
We did not read them in our Bibles. They simply are not there.
We heard them when they were pounded from the pulpits of our pastors and preachers — whether they believed them or not.
My purpose in writing this?
And I don’t wish to belabor this any further. Consider the gauntlet to have been thrown. I did not write this column because I wanted to.
I wrote it because I had to.
My views on this theme have been stated here, here and here as well. I don’t expect unbelievers to hear me, especially if they feel that casual sex is all right. Sex isn’t supposed to be casual. Sex is supposed to be holy.
But I do hope one of my brothers or sisters in Christ will hear me. I do not want to state these views for a fifth time.
This piece originally appeared at Spokane FaVS.
Andy Pope is a freelance writer currently residing in Moscow, Idaho, where he is a member of Moscow First Presbyterian Church. His work on social justice has appeared in Classism Exposed in Boston, Berkeleyside in Berkeley, California, and also in the Bay Area newspaper Street Spirit, where his regular column, Homeless No More, encourages those making the transition from homelessness to housing. An accomplished pianist and lifelong musical theatre person, Andy is also the author of “Eden in Babylon,” a musical about youth homelessness in urban America.