Despite the confusion circulating over the web for years, the Bible unambiguously upholds the sanctity of prenatal life. Abortion is a sin, but a forgivable and redeemable sin.

Let’s begin.

All verses are from the NIV, unless otherwise noted.

I. Scriptures Supporting Prenatal Life

A. Narrative

In Genesis 25:21-24, one of several major narrative or story sections of the Torah, matriarch Rebecca is carrying two babies, later named Jacob and Esau.  She feels them struggling in an extra-strong way.  “Why is this happening to me?”  Then she inquired of the Lord, who graciously answered her: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided ….”  So the babies are not merely preborn infants; they are two nations.  Even in the womb, God proclaims them to be the progenitors of two numerous peoples.  Talk about the ultimate potentiality argument!

Here are the verses:

²¹ Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. ²² The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord.

²³ The Lord said to her,

²⁴ When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. (Gen. 25:21-24)

Objection: Can you really reach such conclusions from stories or narratives? Reply: Yes. Truths are embedded everywhere. Also, in that passage God breaks in and speaks directly.

B. Poetry

Psalm 139:13-16 talks about the formation process that David, future king of Israel, underwent in the womb, mysteriously directed by God.

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day. (Psalm 139:13-16)

Those verses say your baby is quite a creation! God knows him or her inside out. He knows every forming bone. God is watching him or her grow, like an open book. He or she is growing in all the stages of life, from conception to birth. “The days of my life all prepared before I had lived one day.”

⁹ Yet you brought me out of the womb;
    you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
¹⁰ From birth I was cast on you;
    from my mother’s womb you have been my God. (Ps. 22:9-10)

The psalmist had the right to life and to be born.

Objection: The Psalms are poetry. Can you really get such truths about prenatal life from a poetic context? Reply: though poetry might use metaphors (see “knitted”), this does not hide the truth so much that we can’t see plain ones. The truth in those verses is clear enough.

C. Isaiah

He writes of the birth of Jacob, which is expanded to include the entire nation of Israel:

² This is what the Lord says—
    he who made you, who formed you in the womb,
    and who will help you: (Is. 44:2)

And this verse is about the servant of the Lord. He is the Messiah:

⁵ And now the Lord says—
    he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
    and gather Israel to himself,
for I am^[a] honored in the eyes of the Lord
    and my God has been my strength— (Is. 49:5)

God can call people from the womb. We should not short-circuit or abort their mission.

D. Jeremiah

Jeremiah the prophet enjoyed the same special care from God as David did. Here is what he says about the prophet Jeremiah, who shook the nations and wept over them (that’s why he’s called the “weeping” prophet). God is speaking to him in this verse:

“Before I shaped you in the womb,
I knew all about you.
Before you saw the light of day,
I had holy plans for you:
A prophet to the nations—
that’s what I had in mind for you.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

So God knew Jeremiah before God formed him in the womb. He called Jeremiah. God is calling your baby to great things. He has holy plans for him or her. God in his omniscience knew Jeremiah even before he was conceived.  At the next stage, God placed a special calling on him, while the baby was being formed in the womb.

However, attempting to use reductio ad absurdum, an objector counters: “Are you claiming to protect even the preconceived? That’s absurd!”  No, that’s not our claim, but God’s omniscience does teach us that his plans for babies all along the stages of life are sacred and special, and we abort babies at our own social and personal harm.

E. New Testament

This passage in the Gospel of Luke 1:39-44 teaches us that babies can be blessed in the womb.  Mary is pregnant with Jesus, and Elizabeth is the mother of John the Baptist.

This is a description of John the Baptist in the womb, leaping for joy, when Mary, the mother of Jesus, greeted both Elizabeth and baby John.

³⁹ At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, ⁴⁰ where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ⁴² In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! ⁴³ But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴ As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵ Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:39-44)

The Greek word for “baby” (“child”) is brephos, and it is also used of Jesus, just born (Luke 2:12, 16). It is also used for Jesus blessing babies (Luke 18:15). Therefore, brephos can be translated as “baby,” whether inside or outside the womb.  God loves you and your baby just the same whether inside or outside the womb.

F. Summary

Thus, the Bible is unambiguous and consistent about preborn human life. The legal portion or the narrative or story portion of the Torah, the Psalms, the Prophets, and the Gospel of Luke – along with the flow of the entire Bible – uphold the highest human status for the spiritual and moral and biological life in the womb.  According to the Bible, God sees pre-born babies in the future, as adults fulfilling special callings he places on them.  And God says they are blessed in the womb, just as grownup Elizabeth was blessed and pre-born baby John the (future) Baptist responded.

In God’s eyes, the prenatal baby is just as sacred and deserving of a right to live as the postnatal baby.

Note: I did not use the term “person” because it is a distraction from the simple and clear “human life.”

II. Two Problem Passages

A. Brief intro.

First, let’s begin with a passage in a legal section of the Torah (first five books of the Bible) that does not cover abortion as such, but an unintentional injury or death of a preborn baby.  Remarkably, pro-choicers (and even some pro-lifers) use it to lower the human status of the baby, even though the verses teach the opposite.

B. First passage

Exodus 21:22-23 says:

When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life ….

The English Standard Version, quoted here, is a literal rendering of “children” and not simply “miscarry,” as some translations have it.  The plural probably means an indefinite number.  “Children” excludes the claim that the child is a subhuman life-form (for a longer discussion of the Hebrew, go here).

One important note about the verses not quoted here (24-25). They go on to spell out the standard formula of eye for eye, tooth for tooth, foot for foot and hand for hand, and so on. This concept was never intended to be taken literally, but is merely a formula to indicate proportional compensation. One should not get rich quick from of a personal injury, nor should the injured party be denied fair compensation by an inadequate award. Also, the father / husband — one man — must get compensated equally for both his child and wife.

1.. Four interpretations

The first three are off target, while the last one expresses the clear purpose of the verses.

First, pro-choicers (and some pro-lifers) point out that the death sentence is not imposed on the brawler who kills the preborn infant, so the life in the womb is not of equal worth to an adult’s.

But this misses the fact that in the category of homicide or killing, only intentional or willful murder gets the death penalty (Exod. 21:12-14), while this passage is about (possible) unintentional killing.  Also, the plainest meaning of the text says the husband and father – one man – can get compensation for injury or death of either his wife or his child or children, implying that the preborn baby and mother are equals (see the last interpretation, below).

Second, if the accidental death of the preborn baby does not earn the death penalty, what about the willful killing of him (an abortion)?  It would be gruesome to impose the death penalty on the mother who aborted, which implies that the baby does not really have equal human status to the mother. However, we shouldn’t lower the preborn child’s human status to spare her of death, for the clear interpretation of Exodus 21:22-23 says the preborn is elevated (see the last interpretation, below).  Instead, we recognize that the mother is broken and needs help (Rom. 5:10-11, 2 Cor. 5:17-21, Gal 3:10-14, 4:4-7, Eph. 2:1-10).

Would these interpreters execute her if she birthed the baby, put him in a trash bag, and left him in a dumpster so he dies?  If they would, then their clunky, mechanical interpretation of the Torah is extra-harsh.  Indeed, who would argue for her execution even if she choked the child?  The rest of us can clearly see she’s broken – shattered. Once again, she needs help, not death.  But we shouldn’t lower the human status of the newborn baby just to spare her the death penalty.  We instead focus on her and minister to her deep sickness.

Since Exodus 21:22-23 is about unintentional killing, we should not draw far-reaching laws or principles from it about intentional killing.  Let’s lay aside these first two over-wrought interpretations and move on to the one that fits the plainest meaning of the verses.

Third, verse 23 says “harm.” These possibilities present themselves: either the mother or preborn child dies or is injured during the brawl; both the mother and preborn child die or are injured.  Whatever the extent of the “harm,” the text clearly teaches that the man should be compensated for the death or injury to the preborn baby in the same way and to the same degree that he is compensated for the death or injury to his wife – a grownup. The preborn baby is as significant as an adult, contradicting the overworked interpretation in the second point, which denies the preborn baby’s equal human status.

Fourth, the baby was not miscarried but was prematurely born alive. Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason writes:

First, why presume the child is dead? Though the English word “miscarriage” entails this notion, nothing in the Hebrew wording suggests it. Yasa doesn’t mean miscarriage; it means “to come forth.” The word itself never suggests death. In fact, the word generally implies the opposite: live birth. If it’s never translated elsewhere as miscarriage, why translate it that way here?

Source: What Exodus 21:22 Says about Abortion

So the fine is imposed because a premature baby was difficult to raise.

The fourth interpretation is the best because of all the evidence of two Hebrew words that the author at the link brings out (see the link).

2. Objection and Reply

Objection: Exodus 21:22-23 treats the child as property, since the father gets compensation for the child’s death or injury. Reply: it demonstrates, rather, that the ancient Hebrew household was ruled by the male. But even if, hypothetically, the baby is property, then the father / husband gets compensation for his grown wife and the baby. Equality again.

Exodus 21:22-23 is about unintentional loss of life and injury.  The next passages reveal the importance of the preborn baby’s life, explaining why reasonable humans and God see the killing of the preborn infant as a profound loss.

C. Numbers 5:11-31: Test for an unfaithful wife.

This long passage is about a jealous husband who suspects that his wife has cheated on him. He is to take her to the sanctuary and ask the priest to test her. He sprinkles a little pinch of dirt in water, and she swears an oath, and the priest puts a curse on her if she cheated. Numbers 5:27 reads of the result if she cheated:

English Standard Version (ESV): “when the Lord makes your thigh fall away and your body swell . . . and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away.”

New American Standard Bible (NASB 1995): “making your thigh waste away and your abdomen swell.”

New King James Version (NKJV): “when the Lord makes your thigh rot and your belly swell.”

For many other translations go to this link: Numbers 5:27. The vast majority of them supports the three quoted above. So miscarriage is not in view, nor was an abortion. It was a test to discover adultery, not a planned abortion.

III. Application

A. Brief intro.

This entire article does not argue against contraceptives just because God can foresee the future of conceived babies. A young couple should feel free to use certain forms of contraceptives, if their consciences allow it.

Here are wonderful Bible verses that explain God’s divine plan for your baby, whether he was unplanned or planned, defects or not.

Click here for the verses:

Spiritual Sonograms: God Loves You and Your Baby

Those verses are spiritual sonograms or how God sees your baby.

Are you ready for a brand-new perspective?

B. Ideas to take to heart

1. Like a sculptor, God is forming your baby.

Your baby is a living soul. Recall the passage in Psalm 139 which says King David had a relationship with God, even from conception to birth: This divine plan for your baby’s life is confirmed in Jeremiah, the weeping, humble prophet.

2. God has a good and important plan for your baby’s life.

3. God can use your baby to create nations or to make this nation great or to make your own dynasty—a divine legacy—his legacy.

I referred to this next passage above. Jacob and Esau, two sons of Isaac and Rebecca, are wrestling in the womb. God explains why they’re wrestling.

But the children tumbled and kicked inside her so much that she said, “If this is the way it’s going to be, why go on living?” She went to God to find out what was going on. God told her,

When her time to give birth came, sure enough, there were twins in her womb. (Genesis 25:21-24)

Thus, two nations were fighting in Rebecca’s womb. God has a divine plan for your kicking baby. Don’t cut it short.

4. Your baby in the womb can be filled with the joy of God.

Did you read how your baby can be blessed in the womb? You can be blessed, as well, as you carry him or her to full term and give birth.

You can be filled with the Spirit right now.

C. Quick questions and answers

1. How can I be blessed and filled with the Spirit when I messed up and got pregnant out of wedlock?

You are a prime candidate for God’s blessing and Spirit. He specializes in redeeming people who mess up and miss out. He can turn your Plan B into his Plan A—his new and better plan.

2. How can my baby be blessed and have a divine plan, when I messed up?

The answer to this question is the same as the first. God specializes in taking Plan B and turning it into his Plan A.

3. I got an abortion. Does God still love me? Does he still have a plan for my life?

Yes, he does. The answer here is the same as the ones in the first two questions. He specializes in redeeming people who mess up and miss out. He loves you and has a new plan for your life.

Here are some great verses for you:

I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. (Jeremiah 29:10-11)

Here’s the best news of all:

Eventually, when it is your turn to go to heaven after you die, you will see your baby and heaven, and the reunion will be spectacular. He will cause all memories of your past and the baby’s past to be expunged and forgotten.

No more guilt and shame Up There, in heaven.

And no guilt and shame down here. Redemption today means you move forward and move on in him.

4. I don’t have the money or family to help me out. How can I carry my baby to full term?

There are plenty of organizations to help you out. Contact them. Just google prolife organizations.

5. What if my baby has a birth defect? Should I abort?

You need to join a church who knows how to pray with you. They can help and guide you.

But I urge you not to abort if your baby has Downs syndrome. Your baby can still live a God-filled life.

God can work miracles.

Get the long range view. After you live out your life down here, you will be together for eternity with your perfectly formed baby in heaven. It will be great!

6. How do I experience this redemption and blessing and be filled with the Spirit?

All you have to do is ask for God’s forgiveness, and pray to receive Christ into your life. Say these words: “Lord, I messed up and missed out. Come into my life  by your Spirit and change me from the inside out. I give you my entire life. Make a new plan for me.”

Then he can lead you down his new path, his new plan.

Here are some verses you can read aloud or from the heart that will guide in giving your life to God through Christ:

 ⁹ If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. ¹¹ As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” ¹² For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, ¹³ for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Rom. 10:9-13)

Always remember God loves you and wants to know your personally and redeem you.

D. Redemption

Redemption means he takes you out of your condemned state (think of a condemned house) and makes you fit for his purposes. He repairs your life.

You have just received an overview of God’s Word on life in the womb. It is precious. We need to protect life, in truth (Scripture) and love (in Christ). We should never condemn women who had an abortion. What’s done is done. We should instead offer them love and forgiveness and restoration. This reflects the character of God.