I’m beginning a new series in the bulletin articles looking at why abortion is wrong. This week I want to show it is sinful because infants are made in God’s image.
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. Encyclopaedia Britannica gives four general reasons for an abortion: ‘to preserve the life or physical or mental well-being of the mother; to prevent the completion of a pregnancy that has resulted from rape or incest; to prevent the birth of a child with serious deformity, mental deficiency, or genetic abnormality; or to prevent a birth for social or economic reasons.’
The Bible understands that we have to be very careful in terminating the life of another human, as to kill someone without good reason is murder. Murder is seriously wrong because God has made all humans in the image of God: ‘Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them’ (Genesis 1:26-27). To be made in the image of God is understood to mean many things but essentially means that human beings are like God and represent him on earth like no other creature. Thus murder means you destroy one of God’s representatives and such an action is condemned by God: ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man’ (Genesis 9:6).
But is an embryo made in the image of God? Once conception takes place and two cells become one, a unique human life has begun. To define the beginning of human life at any other stage is very difficult. The only difference between an unborn human and a born human is their location, size, level of dependence and level of development. None of these differences suggests that an embryo does not bear the likeness of God.
Is the abortion of an infant an unforgivable sin? No. Through repentance of your sin and trust in Jesus’ death for your sins you can be forgiven for any sin, including the wrongful termination of another human.
Do you recognise that abortion is wrong because all humans are made in the image of God?
Joel Radford.
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