Relaxing of laws concerning abortion has sparked a national debate upon this volatile subject. Both sides support their premise and conclusions with vigor, perhaps so much so that the arguments become more important than the issue. I do not pretend to have all the answers. But I have one, a solid Biblical answer concerning the nature of man—central, as we shall see, to the controversy over abortion.
History of abortion
The earliest recipe to induce abortion is thought to be more than 4,500 years old. 1 It is well known that induced abortion was used as a means of birth control long before the Christian era. In fact, it became such a common practice that laws were enacted to regulate both abortion and infanticide. The legal objectives were to safeguard maternal life and to ensure that husbands would not be deprived of children by wives who were vain, fearful, or otherwise unwilling to become mothers. 2
The earliest Christian objections to abortion were raised on neither of these humanitarian grounds, but on speculation about the soul—its origin, its existence in time, and its ultimate destiny. Perhaps the most perplexing question was When does the soul enter the body?
Tertullian believed that the soul (anima) came into existence with the body as a biological transmission from Adam. In reality, he believed it came through one's immediate parents but could be traced back to Adam. 3
Clement of Alexandria held that the soul was immediately and directly created by God. His view was known as "creationism." 4
Augustine of Hippo presented the view that no soul was present in the fetus until "quickening"—that moment when the mother-to-be could detect the baby moving around within her body.5
Later, during the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas formulated the predominant medieval view that the soul is not created at conception but when it is "infused" into the body. Infusion occurred around the fortieth day in the male embryo and at about the eightieth day in the female embryo. 6
One can readily understand why there has been so much confusion over abortion when we consider the confusion over the nature of man.
When does life begin?
Conception: One who holds that "personhood" begins at conception erects a psychological ladder to sup port his argument: "At conception man is called a zygote; at implantation, an embryo; at two months' gestation, a fetus; at birth, a baby; at fifteen years, a juvenile; and at twenty-one years, an adult. Zygote, embryo, and fetus are mere descriptions of a man at different stages of his development." 7
About seven to nine days after conception, contact with the uterus is made, and nourishment begins. Already there are several hundred cells formed before the implantation. Blood cells form at 17 days and a heart as early as 18 days. The heart begins to pulsate irregularly at 24 days, and a week later smooths out into rhythmic contractions. The zygote becomes an embryo upon implantation and is called by this name until the third month. From that time on it is a fetus.
Brain waves have been noted at 43 days (of course the brain was formed earlier), and organs such as heart, liver, and kidneys are already functioning. After the eighth week, no further organs will form. From this point until adulthood, when full growth is achieved somewhere be tween 25 and 27 years, the changes in the body will be mainly those of dimension and gradual refinement. At the end of the first month the embryo is about a quarter-inch long and by birth will have increased its weight six billion times from what it was to begin with.
Fetus: Those who hold that human life begins with the fetal stage admit that all tissue, including fetal tissue, is made up of living cells composed of the same chemicals. Yet, fetal tissue is unique. "Of all the tissues in the body, it alone has a fixed genetic makeup different from that of the body in which it is lodged. A woman cannot say of fetal tissue, this is mine, in the sense she can say of her kidney tissue, this is mine. She cannot keep it, any more than she can give it to someone else; she must surrender it in birth—or die." 8
Quickening: Very few today hold that life begins at quickening. Modern science has proved that any law based on quickening is based upon shifting sands—a subjective standard differing even among races. 9 The fetus actually moves be fore this time. But some courts and legislatures have continued to consider quickening as the point when life is magically infused into the unknown. 10
Viability: This is a commonly held view among many physicians today. As used with abortion, it means the capability of the newborn infant to live outside the womb. In the past, viability was thought to be approximately twenty-eight weeks. Thanks to modern science, this has now been brought down to around twenty weeks. Some predict it will be brought as low as twelve weeks by the turn of the century. 11
Birth and breath: Other doctors prefer to equate humanity and "personhood" with the first breath, holding that it is at this moment that God gives not only life but the offer of life. 12
However, we must consider four important facts. (1) A unique 46- chromosomal pattern is present from the moment of conception. (2) The placenta, the fluid in the sac, and the cord are all organs of the body; (3) attachment does not make the child part of the mother any more than a car becomes part of the pump filling it with gas. (4) The mother provides the same protective environment outside the womb as she did inside, including nourishment. (Note: there is no exchange of blood.) Actually, dependency is such a relative term I question whether it can ever be used to determine "personhood."
A basic issue
A basic issue in the abortion controversy concerns identity of the zygote-embryo-fetus. But does this identity depend upon a separate entity called a soul? James Barr notes: "The soul is not an entity with a separate nature from the flesh and possessing or capable of a life on its own. Rather it is the life animating the flesh. Soul and flesh do not therefore go separate ways, but the flesh expresses outwardly the life or soul. . . . Man does not have a soul, HE IS A SOUL." 13
The Old Testament offers no indication of a separate soul. "The body was not something really extraneous to the soul. It was the man in action. A man was not like an angel driving a body about. It never occurred to a Hebrew to think of man as a soul, who had to carry around a piece of luggage called a body. A man was animated flesh." 14 With this view in mind, when does man acquire that special something called a "soul"? The answer: He doesn't! Man is a living soul. The early church picked up the Hellenistic concept of the soul and body being two separate parts and thus caused confusion.
"The speculations are myriad be cause the supposition is false. Man is one being, whole man, image of God from beginning to end and presenting a body and soul aspect. Man begins one, is born one, dies one, and this is the glorious promise and sure hope—he is resurrected one." 15
Thus we return to a question basic to the abortion debate: When does man begin? The Bible presents a holistic view of man. Nowhere does it support a body-soul dualism. Man, Biblically understood, is both a bio logical organism and a responsible self.
Circumstances and abortion
Before considering the question of circumstances and abortion, I would like to point out that our view of children is significant in our view of abortion. In the Bible, children were viewed as a gift from God. A man was greatly blessed if he had a large family (see Judges 8:30). In other words, children were an asset. The more children one had, the greater his economic status was likely to be. This remained the predominant view down through history until the past few decades. Suddenly the world is overpopulated! The child has be come a liability rather than an asset. He is no longer viewed as a blessing from God, but as an unwanted by product of sexual pleasure. Thus, the views that lead to contraception cannot help but carry over into our attitude concerning abortion.
This is not to suggest that contraception is wrong. Obviously contraception involves the "possible" person (and thus becomes an option of the husband and wife), while abortion involves the fetus (or zygote-embryo-fetus) as a "potential" person. 16 Therefore, the decision not to conceive children is much different from the decision to terminate life. But can we fully separate ourselves from this mind-set of convenience? Can we look upon the "potential" person as an asset when obviously it is a liability?
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists agreed on three reasons for therapeutic abortion (before the Supreme Court ruling of 1972): 17
1) When the life of the mother is threatened or her health is seriously impaired.
2) When the conception is the result of rape or incest.
3) When indications are that the child will have grave physical deformities or mental retardation.
What of the mental health of the mother-to-be as grounds for abortion? In support of this position, almost 90 percent of the members of the American Psychiatric Association favor abortion if there is a significant risk to the mental or emotional health of the mother. 18
But is it a sound assumption that abortion is going to cure her mental problems? Recent studies show that it compounds the problem. "Many psychiatrists now believe that the risk of suicide for women who have had abortions is much greater than for women who have not had abortions." 19 "The psychically normal find it more difficult to stand the stress of a legal abortion. This means that the greater the psychiatric indications for a legal abortion are, the greater is also the risk of unfavorable psychic sequelae after the operation." 20
It seems evident that we must exercise extreme caution before we advise abortion on psychiatric grounds. There is much more at stake in the mother's mental health than her immediate situation.
The deformed fetus
Another commonly held reason for abortion concerns the deformity (or possible deformity) of the fetus. This question confronts us with an equation involving quality versus quantity of life. At what stage does a fetus become abnormal? How many faculties must be distorted? Who makes this decision? the government? the individual? the A.M.A.?
Because of problems in accurately detecting deformities in the unborn child, some have opted for infanticide as a more logical and humane method of controlling deformed individuals. Of course mathematical probability offers more than just a clue to deformity. But what if the fetus was normal? Does anyone ever say to the aborted mother, "I'm sorry, but your fetus was normal and you would have delivered a perfectly healthy child"? In the case of the mother who has German measles, the chances are 50-50 that the child will have from one to five serious deformities. Not very good odds, so abortion may be given serious consideration. Yet what about the 50 percent that would have been born normal?
What about the child who suffers deformity after birth? What if he is afflicted with a debilitating disease that causes grave deformity after he is one or two years old? Is that child removed, as well? We are treading on dangerous ground when we consider eugenic engineering. Yet we recoil at the prospect of bringing into this world a badly deformed child that will never enjoy the quality of life God intended us to have. Once again we are faced with a dilemma. At best, the choice must be made with extreme caution and certainly much prayer, while we remember that the real choice is between being abnormal or being destroyed.
Conclusions and controversy
Other factors that should bear on our decision of whether to abort concern the woman undergoing the abortion. In most cases her emotional strain is much greater than in childbirth. There is danger that she will be unable to conceive again. Subsequent babies are more likely to be premature. Abortees suffer more menstrual irregularities and more miscarriages. These factors alone would suggest a search for alternatives to abortion: in the preventive category, sex-education and birth-control procedures (though some of these would be classified by Roman Catholics and others as another form of abortion); marriage (unwed mothers account for a high percent age of abortions); motherhood (the stigma of the unwed mother is not so great today as even a decade ago); adoption.
Of course, many would include other factors: the age of the abortee, her health and economic status, the health of the father, other children in the home, abnormality of the fetus, whether the child is wanted and what the home offers it, whether the fetus is the product of incest or rape, and whether the mother is in the first trimester of the pregnancy.
Inspired counsel
The Christian will turn to the Bible for guidance in his decision. It would be nice to find a text that says simply, "Thou shalt not abort." But guidance is not that direct, though some would find the equivalent in the command, "Thou shalt not kill." Certainly the Bible's pervasive regard for life will be material in our decision. The Bible emphasizes that God is the Giver of life; that all life, including the fetus, develops be cause of God's power; that every living soul belongs to Him; that innocent blood should not be shed. And we will wish to consider Christ's revelation that all law finds its fulfillment in love of God and love of neighbor. Could it be significant, ultimately, that love is more a condition of the heart than an accumulation of facts?
I have found helpful the conclusion of R. F. R. Gardner, a gynecologist confronted often (as few of us are) with the dilemma inherent in abortion: "The human fetus is not merely a mass of cells or an organic growth. At the most, it is an actual human life or at the least, a potential and developing human life." "When a pregnancy threatens the well-being of a patient and her family I will explore the threat just as thoroughly as I would a fever, a fibroid uterus, or an ovarian cyst. Then it becomes a matter of seeking the Lord's will in each particular case. I am confident that He can guide me in these decisions as He does in other areas of life." 21 In the final analysis, what more can we do?
Notes:
1 Harmon L. Smith, Ethics and the New Medicine (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1970), pp. 26-28.
2 Ibid.
3 Tertullian, "DeAnima," 27 (J. P. Migne, ed.), Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina (Paris: Apud Gamier Fratres, 1879), Vol. II, p. 694.
4 Clement of Alexandria, "Stomata," IV, 6, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1951), Vol. II, pp. 413-416.
5 Augustine, "De Anima et ejus Origine," A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff, ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), Vol. V, pp. 315-317.
6 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theoiogica, trans. by Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947), Part I, q. 118, arts. 1-3.
7 Clifford E. Bajema, Abortion and the Meaning of Person-Hood (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974), pp.36, 37.
8 Paul K. Jewett, "The Relation of the Soul to the Fetus," Christianity Today (Nov. 8, 1968), p. 6.
9 Bajema, op. cit., p. 23.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., p. 22.
12 Robert H. Williams, "Our Role in the Generation, Modification and Termination of Life," Archives of Internal Medicine (1969).
13 R. F. R. Gardner, Abortion: The Personal Dilemma (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), p. 110.
14 Lewis B. Smedes, "Christ and His Body," Reformed Journal, vol. 17, No. 3 (March, 1968), p. 16.
15 Bajema, op. cit., pp. 34, 35.
16 John Pelt, "A Study of the Total Person in Contraception and Abortion," an unpublished doctoral dissertation (Fuller Theological Seminary, Dec., 1969), p. 155.
17 Ibid., p. 141.
18 Ibid., pp. 147, 148.
19 Bajema, op. cit., pp. 69, 70.
20 M. Ekblad, "Psychiatric Indications for Therapeutic Abortion and Sterilization," Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology (1964), 7:67.
21 Gardner, op. cit., pp. 87, 130.
