Abortion

Abortion is not a new moral challenge for Christianity. The early Church Fathers confronted it directly as one of the first social evils they addressed. In ancient Rome, abortion and infanticide were widespread. Abortion methods included sophisticated drug-induced techniques and surgery, while infanticide, especially of deformed, sickly, or unwanted infants (often girls born to slaves or the poor)—was brutally simple: exposure to the elements or wild animals. Midwives and attendants sometimes justified these acts as social goods or services to the mother.

To the pagan mind, humanity was the measure of all things. Secular thinkers of the age saw no moral conflict in prenatal or neonatal killing as a form of birth control, population control, or quality control of human life. Ironically, pagans accused Christians of ritual infant murder and blood feasts, prompting early Christian apologists to defend the faith by condemning abortion and infanticide. Athenagoras, in his A Plea for the Christians (AD 177), wrote: “How can we possibly kill anyone, we who call those women murderers who take drugs to induce an abortion, we who say they will have to give an account before God one day!”¹

Twenty-first-century Christians in America still affirm that we will give an account before God for our actions (Romans 14:12; 2 Corinthians 5:10). Yet some now question whether abortion is a matter that concerns God or requires the Church’s attention. Shouldn’t we simply focus on sharing the gospel and making disciples?

Evangelism and discipleship remain central, but church leaders must recognize that unaddressed sin—including abortion—can block people from a deep relationship with God. The “murderers” Athenagoras described sit in our pews today. These women and men need to hear that God’s forgiveness extends even to those involved in abortion. The Church must address this sin with the same grace and truth it offers for others.

A second reason the Church must speak is that abortion is a profoundly Biblical issue, addressed from Genesis to Revelation. God places extraordinary value on human life because every person is made uniquely in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). We are distinct from the rest of creation and called to steward it (Psalm 8:4-8, NIV):

What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,
the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

Scripture portrays the meaning and purpose of each human life as beginning before birth.

It often speaks of conception—not birth—as the starting point. God knows, forms, protects, and calls individuals while they are yet in the womb (Isaiah 49:5; Jeremiah 1:5; Psalm 139:13-16). The Hebrew term yeled and the Greek brephos—words used for newborns and young children—are also applied to the unborn, underscoring continuity in God’s view of human life.

God forbids the killing of innocent human life.

The Sixth Commandment is clear: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). Scripture draws no distinction in human value based on size, age, stage of development, or location (womb or outside it). From conception to natural death, innocent life is sacred.

God also commands His people to protect the weak and vulnerable:

“Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 82:3-4).

The call to “carry each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2) includes supporting mothers in crisis pregnancies with practical care, resources, and compassion.

A third reason is spiritual: Satan seeks to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). From Cain’s murder of Abel to Pharaoh’s slaughter of Hebrew boys, to Herod’s massacre in Bethlehem, to the dragon in Revelation 12 poised to devour the newborn child, the enemy has targeted image-bearers of God. Abortion continues this ancient assault on life. At its root, it is not merely political or legal but a battle between life and death, good and evil, God’s truth and the liar’s deception.

Abortion has a long history predating Roe v. Wade (1973). At its core, it is not about rights or laws but about one person claiming the authority to determine the value of another innocent human life. Though the word “abortion” does not appear in Scripture, the Bible speaks clearly and powerfully against the destruction of the innocent.²

Abortion ends the life of an unborn child and deeply impacts the mother, father, medical personnel, and often extended family and friends. Secular debates frequently pit the mother’s rights against the child’s. In the Church, the question is how we can equip, support, and empower the mother to receive her child as a blessing while honoring both lives.

Research from LifeWay and Care Net (2015) highlights the Church’s critical role. Among 1,038 women who had abortions, 70% claimed a Christian religious preference, and 43% had attended a church service within thirty days prior to their abortion. With roughly 1.1–1.14 million abortions in the United States in 2024, this suggests hundreds of thousands involved women who may have been reachable by a supportive church community. 

Many of these women reported that churches seemed more likely to judge single pregnant women (65%) or oversimplify complex decisions (54%) than to offer practical help. Fewer than half believed churches were prepared to assist with unwanted pregnancies, and only about three in ten, thought churches provided accurate information on options.

Most women seeking abortions are not hardened activists or calculating murderers. They are often afraid—fearful of financial ruin, lost opportunities, disrupted education or careers, violent partners, additional children they struggle to feed, or simply the physical and emotional demands of pregnancy. Many fear judgment from others. At crisis pregnancy centers, a common thread is this pervasive fear.

Abortion advocates present it as empowering for women, yet post-abortion testimonies and research reveal significant physical, psychological, relational, and spiritual consequences.