The topic of abortion is central to politics today, although not near as central as it should be given the gravity of the situation. The debate boils down to the idea of human value. We all agree that it is immoral to kill humans without some sort of justification, because humans lives have value. Today, the largest movement against abortion is the pro-life movement. While there are instances of Christians within the movement, including some appealing to Christian truths, the movement is largely secular. It is supposed by many, including the majority of if not all politicians who claim to be supporters of the movement, that abortion can be defeated on “secular” grounds. They, along with most of the movement, which is comprised of Christians, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, and even atheists, believe that they can appeal to the value of life in order to argue the pro-life position. As a result, most Christians today give up the only basis they have to oppose abortion because it is not accepted by the larger society.

To begin, let’s be abundantly clear that human life does have value. And yes, the “life” aspect of this plays a large role. A living human has more value than a limp, lifeless human body. But this aspect isn’t sufficient to establish value. Nobody argues for the protection of all animals. Nobody cries out when flies are swatted out of the air, or when plants are harvested to feed the family. Nevertheless, these are examples of organic life. They do not all have the biblical concept of life, nephesh, which will be addressed in a future post, but they do have the contemporary secular humanist concept of life. So, there is something different about life that is specifically human which gives it value. While so many people today are arguing over when life begins in an attempt to protect human life, they ignore the most vital part, the true derivative of our value, which is our humanity.

The Christian can unashamedly affirm that we are made in the imago dei (Genesis 1:27, NASB), and thus we have incredible value. Our value is given to humans by God and it is grounded in His image. Because of this, God prescribed capital punishment for the crime of murder. It isn’t an example of vengeance, of hatred. It’s an example of justice which tells us just how important human life is. What is the reason that God gives for this penal sanction?

“Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed,
For in the image of God
He made man.” (Genesis 9:6, NASB)

It is so horrid a crime to end another human’s life without justification that God assigned the punishment of death to all who commit it. And the reason that it is such a horrid crime is not because we have decided as a society that it’s harmful, that it is not helpful in our seeking to flourish. It’s not because there is no objective purpose or meaning to or behind life. It’s because man is made in the image of God. The instant one abandons this point, they have lost all grounds for objecting to the unjust termination of a human life. So all of those who are arguing against abortion simply because “life begins at conception,” “science tells us abortion is wrong,” or “the law defines the murder of a pregnant woman as two instances of murder” are ignoring the only real basis.

Are these bad arguments? Are they false? No. But unless you begin with the Word of God, with the truth that human life is 100 percent meaningful because it is in the image of God, they can’t get you anywhere. Life begins at conception? Sure, but why is human life valuable? Science tells us abortion is wrong? How can science tell us what we should do? It can only tell us how to consistently apply a moral framework which we already have. Yes, the law may define the murder of a pregnant woman as two murders. Yes, this may be a good argument for exposing inconsistency, but the law does not establish human value. It does not establish moral truth. It cannot. God does, and only God can.

There are many who do go beyond simply defending the baby’s status as alive and recognize that its value is in its humanity. However, how often do we see someone truly defend the value of human life? It’s not something we can take for granted. The Christian worldview is the only one which can consistently make sense of these moral truths. When you look at an autonomous, materialistic, naturalist worldview, how can you account for any human value? Some say that it’s wrong to kill humans because it is counterproductive to our goal of flourishing. But why should we flourish? If we are just aggregates of cosmic stardust, the products of physically determined interactions between atoms, whence does our value come? We trample other species in our conquest. Animals, plants. Why are we more valuable than them? These are questions that no secular humanist worldview can answer. The answer lies in God and His Word.

So why do we enter the political realm as if we are neutral, as if they are neutral? Why do we take these things for granted? Not only is it not wise, it’s not obedient to God. We aren’t to join the fool in his folly, that we ourselves might be made foolish. We are to answer him according to his folly so that he doesn’t become wise in his own eyes (Proverbs 26:4-5, NASB). Why do we grant these things to the supposedly autonomous man? Why does he get to claim any stake in the discussion over matters of human value and who has the right over it?

Christians need to have the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of all knowledge (Proverbs 1:6, NASB), at the outset of everything they do. There is no such thing as neutrality when it comes to such fundamental issues as this. Either we stand upon the Word of God or we join the fool in standing upon the futile sands of man’s supposed autonomy which wash away in the waves of his arbitrariness and volatility. Christians: do not try to be neutral. The world isn’t. We must stop appealing to humanist ideas of human value and appeal to the inerrant Word. Instead of defeating abortion on secular grounds, let us gather in the name of Jesus Christ and call not for incremental regulations against the murder of innocent children but for the immediate and complete abolition of this terrible holocaust.

Grace and Peace