Who Am I?Sýnishorn

Psalm 139 makes clear that God is the Giver of Life and the way He creates people compels praise. This underpins the way we as followers of Jesus can discern His Will as it relates to abortion (which we’ll consider today) and reproductive technologies (which we’ll consider tomorrow).

The Bible is clear: the womb contains a person formed in the Image of God. Although the unborn is visibly hidden from man, he or she is never hidden from God. God sees and works. He’s forming, knitting, creating, nurturing, shaping, and crafting in a way that evokes praise and awe. Once this is realized, there’s absolutely no adequate justification for abortion. It can only be seen as an assault on that Glorious Work of God and an attack on God’s intimate relationship with the unborn, whom he fashions (Job 31:15), values (Exodus 21:22–25), knows (Jeremiah 1:5), calls (Galatians 1:15), and names (Isaiah 49:1).

As verse 14 of Psalm 139 spells out, all of God’s Works are wonderful. Much of the contemporary defense for abortion involves denying this reality. Abortions happen because childbearing is seen as inconvenient, costly, or inadvisable. Yet God delights in taking difficult circumstances, even evil circumstances, and turning them into good (Genesis 50:20). He takes all things, even what seem to be tragic things, and works them for good. This is who our God is (Romans 8:28).

So what do we do with God’s Word to us in light of a world of abortion around us?

• Look around and step forward. If you’ve had an abortion, share your burdens from the past. If you’re contemplating abortion, share your struggles in the present.
• Speak up before God in prayer and fasting, pleading for children in the womb in our world today.
• Speak up before the government to the extent that you’re able. Work for a government that promotes the good of all people, including children in the womb and children when they come out of the womb. It makes no sense for us to talk about doing justice while a mom is pregnant but not do justice once the child is born.
• Work for justice in high-risk communities, give to pro-life causes and ministries, serve women and men with unwanted pregnancies, and support abortion alternatives through fostering or adopting children.

Brothers and sisters, moral or political neutrality here is not an option. In the words of Randy Alcorn, “To endorse or even to be neutral about killing innocent children created in God’s image is unthinkable in the Scriptures, was unthinkable to Christians in church history, and should be unthinkable to Christians today.”