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A PERSON EVEN IN THE WOMB
by
Dr. James M. Boice
Here we have to talk about abortion and the Bible’s teaching about the individuality of a child while it is still in its mother’s womb. David is not writing about abortion, of course. Nothing could be farther from his mind. But no one can read these verses thoughtfully today without reflecting on their obvious bearing on this important contemporary problem.
What is the chief issue in discussions about abortion? The chief issue concerns the identity of the foetus: Is the embryo a human being? People who argue for the right of a woman to have an abortion - “It’s my own body; I can do with it as I please” - usually argue that the foetus is not yet a person, but is only a part of the woman’s body, like a gall bladder or appendix that she can elect to have removed. That is why language describing the unborn child has changed so radically. A generation ago everyone referred to the unborn child as a baby, and pregnant women knew they were carrying a baby. But it is hard for anyone to think calmly about killing a baby. So today people talk about the foetus or the embryo or even “mere tissue” instead. To get rid of “tissue” doesn’t seem so bad. We can live with that vocabulary. But this is not the way the Bible speaks of the unborn child.
What is more, growing medical knowledge of unborn children undermines that comfortable delusion. When does the embryo become a person? The great Greek philosopher Aristotle speculated that the foetus becomes human when it quickens in the womb, that is, when the mother feels it move. But we know today that the movement of the foetus is only a matter of degree. The baby is moving all the time. Others have argued that the foetus becomes human only when it is old enough to survive outside the womb. But that is relative, too, since advances in the care of premature babies make it possible for even extremely small infants to survive, certainly infants that are younger and smaller than many that are being aborted. It is increasingly common today to identify life with brain activity. But we know that there is brain activity in the unborn child even before the mother is aware that she is pregnant. For that matter, there is a beating heart and the circulation of the baby’s own blood as well.
The problem with trying to determine a point before which the developing child is not fully human is that there is no easily identifiable point to do it. There is an uninterrupted development of the child from the very moment in which the sperm of the father joins the ovum of the mother and the cell begins to divide. The father’s seed cannot multiply by itself. Nor can the mother’s egg. But as soon as the two sets of chromosomes combine, not only does the development of life move forward steadily unless interrupted, either accidentally or deliberately, but the life that is developing is a unique life. There is no other combination of chromosomes exactly like these new ones. The foetus is already a uniquely determined individual.
Isn’t this what David is pointing to in the perceptive wording of this psalm? He is speaking of his unique individuality from the first moments of his existence in the womb. From that very first moment, God knew him and had ordained what his life was to be.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be (v. 16).
If that is how God views the unborn child, dare we call it only tissue and destroy the unborn, as we are doing in this country at the rate of more than a million and a half babies each year?
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