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.”
[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.
