Is Abortion a Capital Offense?

 

Is abortion a capital offense?

Dr. Paul Manuel—2010 revised 2022

 

     Some ethical questions arise from contemporary events, especially as the ethics of one issue may clash with the ethics of another issue. For instance…

Was Scott Roeder justified in killing Dr. George Tiller?

Such was Roeder’s claim in response to the many abortions Dr. Tiller performed. Nevertheless, God does not address the issue of abortion directly, let alone describe it as murder, and His law makes no special provision for the unborn, despite their so-called “innocence.”[1]

 

     The prohibition against murder (e.g., in the Decalogue) does not pertain to abortion;[2] it pertains to the homicide of an adult.[3] The death sentence for other crimes illustrates the point. In none of them that involves a woman is the possibility of her pregnancy a mitigating factor in her judgment, and the penalty accords no immunity to an unborn child.

 

     •    Adultery

If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife…both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death. (Lev 20:10)

     •    Immorality

Moses was angry with the officers of the army…who returned from the battle. “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. “They were those who followed Balaam’s advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so….kill every woman who has slept with a man. (Num 31:14-17)

     •    Idolatry[4]

At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed them—men, women, and children. We left no survivors. (Deut 2:34)

We completely destroyed them, as we had done with Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying every city—men, women, and children. (Deut 3:6)

These last passages also show that the sixth command does not apply to infanticide (Manuel 2006). A child is not immune from suffering for the sins of the parents.[5]

 

     The term “right to life” may be relevant politically, as a reference to the “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” clause in the Declaration of Independence, but it has no relevance biblically. The only “right” God promises us is to a fair trial.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. (2 Cor 5:10)

To assert that the unborn should have the same legal protection as adults (e.g., in the sixth commandment) goes “beyond what is written” (1 Cor 4:6). God makes no such declaration.

 

     There are passages that speak about God’s involvement in prenatal development and birth:

I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb…. I was woven together in the depths of the earth…Your eyes saw my unformed body. (Ps 139:14-16)

There are also passages that indicate His plan for certain unborn children:

Your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations… You must keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. (Gen 17:5, 9)

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. (Jer 1:5)

It does not follow, however, that the unborn have any special status or protection from God. Only widows, orphans, and resident aliens can make such a claim and can point to legislation for that purpose.[6]

 

     A common assumption of Christians who hold a pro-life position is that they represent God’s perspective and that He values life above all else. Were that the case, He would not assign the death penalty to crimes such as adultery, immorality, and idolatry. That He does require execution in those cases demonstrates that the highest value in God’s economy is not life but holiness, which derives from obedience. Holiness is God’s preeminent attribute, being the divine trait man must emulate above all others. As He says through Moses:

I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. (Lev 11:44)

Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. (Lev 19:2)

You are to be holy to Me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be My own. (Lev 20:26)

This entails a radical revision of priorities. It means ordering our lives according to His perfect standard versus personal gratification, ever mindful of the difference between God and us. As He says through Isaiah:

My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways…. 9 As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa 55:8)

That difference may be why His actions are difficult to understand, such as when He prescribes the abortive death of unborn children, something pro-life advocates are hard pressed to accept.

 

     In a sense, those who claim to be pro-choice have taken a more biblical title (not a more biblical position), because God does allow man to choose (Manuel 2020). The problem with the pro-choice movement is that it applies the title late in the decision-making process, after people have made the more important decision, the one that results in conceiving a child.[7] That choice, especially as it pertains to the vast majority of abortions, almost 75% of which involve unmarried women,[8] offers a more biblically defensible point of opposition. That is, pro-life advocates would be on firmer scriptural ground by concentrating on the prevention of unintended conception[9] and by streamlining the process of adoption.

 

     Was Scott Roeder justified in killing Dr. George Tiller? No, Scott Roeder was not justified in killing Dr. George Tiller. Far from upholding the biblical prohibition against homicide (by action he was not authorized to take), Mr. Roeder was guilty of transgressing the very prohibition he claimed to defend and was deserving of the penalty that violation carries, despite the doctor’s horrific record. In fact, Mr. Roeder’s sentence of life in prison is far more lenient than he deserves.

 

    Abortion is not a capital offense, nor is it a violation of the sixth commandment, which applies to the unlawful termination of a life already born. It is, however, a potential affront to God’s holiness, subject to His judgment, and “it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31).

 

 

Bibliography

 

Manuel, Paul http://paulwmanuel.blogspot.com

     2006       “On Hostility” (Exod 20:13), a sermon in the series The Decalogue: A Summary of God’s Precepts for God’s People.

     2009       “Understanding What God Has Said: A Mini-Course in How to Discover What a Biblical Passage Means.”

     2020       An Essay about Free Will: Man’s Will and God’s Will, Complimentary or                              Contradictory

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[1]In support of their position, pro-life advocates often appeal to a passage that allegedly accords a fetus the same status and legal rights as the mother.

Exod 21:22 If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

It is unclear in this passage if the “serious injury” that requires compensation is to the mother or to her unborn child. For pro-life advocates to make their assertion (of the latter) violates an important hermeneutical principle:

    •  Do not base doctrine on a single passage, especially if it is unclear (see Manuel 2009, n. 158).

A parallel statute in another code (with many similarities to Mosaic law) removes the ambiguity.

Code of Hammurabi (c. 1700) 209 If a man struck another man’s daughter and has caused her to have a miscarriage, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for her fetus. 210 If that woman has died, they shall put his daughter to death.

The death of the fetus is subject to a fine; only the mother’s death is a capital offense, and that is likely the situation in Exod 21 as well.

        In any case, the stated punishment (“eye for eye”) occurs in two other instances of conflict between adults that result in injury, and both apply to the offending adult.

Lev 14:19 If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him: 20a fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

Deut 19:16 If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime…. 19 then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you…. 21 Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

[2]For treatment of this and other misapplications of the sixth Decalogue commandment, see Manuel 2006.

[3]There is no evidence that God’s people understood the precept to have wider application. All specific cases in scripture involve adults.

[4]Hosea presents an especially graphic declaration of judgment.

Hos 13:16 The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.

[5]The most famous case is that of David’s son.

2 Sam 12:15 …the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill…. 18a On the seventh day the child died.

Cf. Exod 20:5 …I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers…

The state of David’s child, innocent or not, was immaterial to the judgment God prescribed.

      Children may suffer for their parents’ sin, which often has repercussions long after the original perpetrators are gone, such as the product of an illicit sexual union. Nevertheless, each person is generally responsible for his own sin.

Exod 20:5 I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

Num 14:18 He punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.

Deut 24:16 Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.

[6]God makes special provision for the needy:

Deut 14:29 The aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

_{Ps 68:5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling}

Isa 9:17 Therefore the Lord will take no pleasure in the young men, nor will he pity the fatherless and widows.

Mal 3:5 I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me,” says the LORD Almighty.

Jms 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

[7]Ronald Regan said, “I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.”

[8]This statistic is from “Abortion Facts” at The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform website (www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.htm).

[9]A recent study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health showed the success of an abstinence-only program of sex education for adolescents.