The Abortion issue is a very controversial one. Many today state: "Women have a right to choose." One writer states: "I realize anytime people bring up the issue of abortion they're are asking for trouble, especially when they do it in print, as I am about to do. But I can't keep quite any longer. I'm getting really tired of listening to pro-life advocates spouting out their cries of murder and injustice." Let me hasten to say that I agree with much the writer says. It is wrong to violate the laws of the land. But just because the justice system has legalized abortion doesn't make it right.
The writer makes reference to an unborn child as a fetus as though it is not a person. In 1992 the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that, "A fetus is a person under Missouri's abortion law, and a woman who caused the death of a fetus in a drunk-driving wreck is guilty of manslaughter." Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh said "the unborn child at every stage of development has all the rights, privileges and immunities available to other persons." That language necessarily implies that the unborn children are persons. The other six judges agreed.
Sure, a woman should have rights over her own body as long as it doesn't infringe upon someone else, or violate God's law. God chose a woman's womb as an incubator for a baby. The baby is not part of the woman but a separate individual. God, twenty five times in the Bible, makes reference to a woman in various stages of pregnancy, as being "with child." Those scriptures are: "Behold, thou art with child"(Gen. 16:11); "Thus were the daughters with child"(Gen. 19:36); "She is with child...I am with child"(Gen. 38:24-25); I Sam.4:19; II Sam. 11:5; II Kings 8:12; 15;16; Eccl. 11:5; Isa. 26:17-18; Isa. 54:1; Jer.31:8; Hosea 13:16; Amos 1:13; Matt. 1:18; 1:23; 24: 19; Mark 13:17; Luke 2:5; 21: 23; I Thes. 5:3.
We read in Ex. 21:22: "If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall surely be 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 shall give life for life." If two fighting men caused a pregnant woman to give premature birth, then the penalty was to be meted out according to the seriousness of the problem.
When Jacob and Esau were conceived, they were called "children." "And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children struggled together within her..."(Gen.25:21-22).
God's word clearly teaches that life begins at conception. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Gen. 1:27). Job asked, "Did not one fashion us in the womb" (Job 31:15).
The word "fetus" is not found in the KJV Bible. Many references are made to the unborn "child." In Prov. 6: 16-17, among the seven things that God hates, is the "hands that shed innocent blood." It may be legal to kill the unborn, but God is the supreme judge. He will pronounce the final sentence. "The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day" (John 12:48). "For it is written, as I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God" (Rom. 14:11).
"If any man speak let him speak as the oracles of God" (I Pet. 4:11)
Don H. Noblin
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