Consider the heart of an unborn child. Barely a fortnight after fertilization the heart is forming. By the next week the heart will divide into chambers and start beating. Or consider the striking images which show us that merely six weeks after conception the unborn child is recognisably human.This image of a vulnerable human being calls for a humane response. If we are commanded to love or neighbours – and even our enemies – then we must extend love to the unborn child. Christians are also called to love justice – and we cannot achieve social justice by deliberately dismembering innocent human beings.
Abortion is often justified on the grounds that an unborn child is not an individual; it is a foetus and not a baby. The foetus has no wishes, ambitions, desires or emotions: it lacks a personality. If no individual personality exists in the womb then abortion violates no one’s rights. However, we should not lazily equate personality with personhood. A human can lose their personality – while in a coma, say – yet remain a person (a personal being). All humans require, at various times and for various reasons, care, nurture and protection, being on occasion unable to fend for themselves. These needs ground universally acknowledged rights which can be applied to all: all, that is, except the unborn. Why should they be excluded?
In fact, it is not at all clear that the unborn child does not have a developing personality. Everyone can agree that the human personality is inextricably linked to the human body. And all the information required for the on-going development and formation of that body is already contained in the fertilised human egg. Many of our present attributes were shaped within the womb- for example, the unique features which make up your face began to form only four weeks after your conception! So the unborn child not a “potential life” or a “potential human”; it is a human life with the awesome potential to choose, know, love and be loved.
In any case, do not have rights because we have relatively high IQs or because we are self-aware or psychologically complex. If that were so, some adults – those who are more self-aware or intelligent- would have a greater right to life than others. Rights attach to humans because of the kind of beings that humans are. Every human is considered to be worthy of protection.
But how do we account for the significance of the individual human? Science cannot explain it by describing our origins, or labelling our parts and identifying how they interact. And whatever value we attach to ourselves is inconsequential. Our existence is too fleeting; we are ephemera on the surface of an insignificant planet fuelled by a perishing star. There is nothing under the Sun that explains why the weakest human beings have such intrinsic value.
So the Scriptures ask us to believe in something greater than the sun, the moon and the stars. A divine source has carved his image on us , investing each of us with an awesome significance; because human beings are made in the image of God they possess inherent value regardless of anything they do or achieve. The Psalmist knew that God knew him before his birth; before he was awake and aware, God knew who he was. He was made to love and be loved by the creator. God creates and sustains everything else; he is as valuable as it gets. Age and maturity are neither here nor there. If God made each of us to be loved by him, then it is a scandalous and horrific crime to excuse the massacre of innocents.
See also:
“Four Reasons Why Every Christian Should Be Pro-life” by Daniel Rodger, Premier Christianity
“Abortion Matters” by Terry Schlossberg, Touchstone Magazine
A non-religious case against abortion