God-Given Rights

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Where do Rights Come From? Human rights do not come from the government, for then they wouldn’t be rights; nor from the majority (consider America and slaves, Germany and Jews); nor from the doctor or hospital. For rights come from our Creator, at that moment we are created, as Jeremiah 1:5 quotes God, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”

The Bible and Abortion: The Bible contains passages that have bearing on the abortion issue in America, and specifically to the crime of killing the unborn child, and generally, to the principles of life and death. Alphabetically by topic:

 Clickable Contents

Abortion for Incest: “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin.” –Deuteronomy 24:16

Once a person sees that the Bible clearly teaches that it is wrong to kill a child for the crime of his or her father, that frees the person to get beyond the cliché and look more closely at the actual result of abortion for incest. Because it is wrong to kill the child for the crime of the father, there are other terrible consequences, including that abortion for rape and incest emboldens those criminals and increases such crimes against women. Abortion for incest is cruel, as for example, Planned Parenthood abortionists cover up the crime of incest, and typically send the victim back home to her rapist. Even worse, they often send her home with her rapist, the same criminal who brought her to the clinic to dispose of the “evidence” and help him get away with his crime. Abortion for incest actually emboldens a criminal to rape his young relative and then tempts him to repeat his crime, and is not compassionate because it kills a baby and increases the woman’s suffering.

Abortion for Rape: “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son… the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” –God, Ezekiel 18:20

Of course incest is a particular kind of rape, and the same scriptural teaching, here as spoken by God Himself, condemns all such punishment of the child for the crime of the father. This principle as recorded by the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel explains that a good man would love and protect the baby, but instead many lawyers and others will treat the rapist with respect and protect him, but kill the baby.

Children in the Womb: “Rebekah his wife conceived [and] the children struggled together within her.” –Moses, Genesis 25:22
“Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. Now drink no wine or similar drink… for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb…” –Judges 13:7
“[John] will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And… the babe leaped in her womb…” –Luke 1:15, 41
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…” –Jeremiah 1:5

The most famous twins in the history of the world, Jacob and Esau, fraternal twins, are called “children” in the Scriptures while they are in the womb. And of course, to this day, twins grab hold of one another in the womb, and unborn children suck their thumbs, play with their toes, sleep, dream, and even learn the melodies of songs, and their own mother’s voice. Regarding God’s command to the woman who later bore Samson, to not drink wine, her “child” would be a Nazirite “from the womb,” for a Nazirite is a person who, among other things, does not drink alcohol. Modern child-welfare laws in 18 states (AZ, CA, FL, IL, IN, IA, MD, MA, MI, MN, NV, OK, RI, SC, TX, UT, VA, WI) recognize that a pregnant mother who drinks alcohol not only can harm her child, but can inflict him or her with fetal alcohol syndrome. Also, fetal thirst helps regulate the amount of amniotic fluid in the womb. Excess amniotic fluid, called hydramnios (or polyhydramnios) affects 2% of pregnancies and can be somewhat alleviated by fetal swallowing (and eventual expelling) of amniotic fluid, which swallowing can be increased by injection into the womb of an artificial hunger stimulator (peptide) or even by the mother eating sweets.

Crime of Killing the Innocent: “Do not kill the innocent.” –Exodus 23:7
“On your skirts is found the blood of the lives of the poor innocents. I have not found it by secret search, but plainly… Yet you say, ‘Because I am innocent, Surely His anger shall turn from me.’ Behold [says God], I will plead My case against you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.'” –Jer. 2:34-35
“Your eyes and your heart are for nothing but your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, and practicing oppression and violence.” –Jer. 22:17
“For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands… and even sacrificed their sons…” –Ezekiel 23:37
…that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech. –2 Kings 23:10
“You shall not murder.” –God Exodus 20:13

The intentional killing of the innocent is murder. Abortionists refer to the unborn children they kill as tissue and tumors, and many “conservative” politicians refer to the babies they support killing as “exceptions.” But God didn’t care about all the fruit Eve did not eat; nor did He mention all the women David did not violate; nor list the children whom Herod did not kill. God looks at the exceptions. He calls them children, who are made in His image and likeness. Because abortion is a public venture, except for those individually forgiven by God through faith in Jesus Christ, there is a corporate guilt for the shedding of innocent blood.

Crime of Killing the Unborn is Murder: “If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” –Exodus 21:22-25

Exodus 21:22 is the first fetal homicide law and concerns the child killed unintentionally during a separate assault. Pro-abortion theologians wrongly interpret this passage to mean that the baby is dead (miscarriage) and only if the woman dies is the penalty then life for life. But the passage distinguishes between the baby who survives the assault and the baby who dies. The meaning turns on whether the woman has a miscarriage or gives birth prematurely. And the Hebrew verb used is NOT that for miscarriage. Therefore the passage imposes only a fine on the criminal who accidentally causes a premature birth, but the punishment is life for life if the baby then dies. This shows that God equated the life of the unborn with that of the born, and abortion with murder. This passage, like Exodus 21:33-36, 22:5-6, and others, teaches that those who cause injury are responsible for their actions, even if the harm was unintentionally. If Exodus 21:22 spoke of an assault that caused a miscarriage, the teaching would then support abortion in that it would show that the life of a fetus is worth only a fine, and if the mother later died, her death would require taking the criminal’s life. But note the word used to describe the consequence of the crime described in Exodus 21:22, “If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely,” the Hebrew word for miscarriage, shaw-kole, is NOT used. If the baby came out dead, a monetary fine would indicate a less than human value for the life of the fetus. However, because Exodus 21:22 says premature birth, and not miscarriage, the passage does not support a right to kill an unborn child, as contended by many who mistranslate this text. Rather, the text values the unborn child’s life equal to that of any other person. The author Moses (Mat. 12:26) mentions the idea of a baby coming out of the womb twice within three chapters. In Exodus 23:26, he uses the Hebrew word for miscarriage, speaking of barrenness and shaw-kole (miscarriage). But the word at Exodus 21:22 is yaw-tsaw, which means to come out, come forth, bring forth, and has no connotation of death but in fact the opposite.(וְכִֽי־יִנָּצ֣וּ אֲנָשִׁ֗ים וְנָ֨גְפ֜וּ אִשָּׁ֤ה הָרָה֙ וְיָצְא֣וּ יְלָדֶ֔יהָ וְלֹ֥א יִהְיֶ֖ה אָסֹ֑ון עָנֹ֣ושׁ יֵעָנֵ֗שׁ כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֨ר יָשִׁ֤ית עָלָיו֙ בַּ֣עַל הָֽאִשָּׁ֔ה וְנָתַ֖ן בִּפְלִלִֽים׃) The Hebrew Scriptures use yaw-tsaw 1,043 times beginning with Genesis 1:24 where God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature…” In Genesis and Exodus alone Moses uses this word about 150 times such as in Genesis 25 describing the births of twins Jacob and Esau. Thus the Mosaic law requires the criminal to pay financial restitution to a woman unintentionally injured by a criminal if she “gives birth prematurely.” But then if the baby dies, the text applies the full Hebrew idiom which means that the punishment should fit the crime. If there is harm beyond a premature birth, and the unborn child dies, then the punishment is “life for life.”

The Fetus Has Emotions: “As soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.” –Luke 1:44

The Scripture refers to the fetus as a baby (brephos) and does not use a non-human or non-personhood term. In Greek Ἐλισάβετ… ἐσκίρτησεν τὸ βρέφος [transliteration brephos, babe, infant] ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ mοu. Thus the baby, who would be named John, experienced the emotion of joy when Mary, being pregnant with the incarnate Jesus, entered Elizabeth’s home.

Judging with Righteous Judgment: “You have rightly judged.” –Jesus, Luke 7:43
“Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” –Jesus, John 7:24
“Why, even of yourselves, do you not judge what is right?” –Jesus, Luke 12:56-57
“First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly [to judge, i.e.] to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye” –Jesus, Mat. 7:5
Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? –1 Cor 6:2-3
“Those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them.” –Prov. 24:25
He who is spiritual judges all things… for… we have the mind of Christ. –1 Cor 2:15-16

Jesus commanded men to judge rightly and He said, “judge not.” Did the Lord contradict Himself? Or does the Bible say more about judging than many realize? Jesus taught men to judge rightly insisting they “judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24). And the Apostle Paul shamed the Corinthian Christians because no one among them was willing to even “judge the smallest matters” (1 Cor. 6:2). Otherwise, Christians would have to give a pass to terrorists and child pornographers. Today, millions of Christians have been seduced into relativism, where there are no absolutes, except for turning Christ’s qualified don’t judge itself into an absolute. Churchgoers repeat that mantra if anyone admonishes them for sexual immorality or for killing their child, thereby replacing God’s absolutes with the moral relativist dream. (For a full treatment of the Bible’s teaching to judge correctly and not according to appearance, see Judge Rightly is Not Some Guy’s Name.)

Kids Especially Loved by God: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you… –Jeremiah 1:5

Jesus created children: Isa. 43:7; John 1:3; Col. 1:16; Ps. 139:13-16
Then God the Son became flesh: Jn. 1:1, 14; Phil. 2:5, 7; Isa. 7:14
The Babe was born in Bethlehem: Luke 2:1, 4-6; Ps. 87:5-6; Micah 5:2
He lived as a Child: Isa. 9:6; Luke 2:42, 48, 51-52
Jesus loves children including in the womb: Jer. 1:5; Mat. 18:2, 5; Mark 10:14-16; Gal. 1:5
He is the Friend of every child: [Heb. 2:17-18; 4:15]
He healed children: Mat. 15:28; 17:18
He saved a child from death: Mark 5:23, 41-42
He blesses others through them: Ps. 127:3; John 6:9-10
He praised the childlike attitude: Mat. 18:2-4
The Lord attracted children: Mat. 21:15
Their Friend just happens to be the eternal God, born of mankind:
 – eternal: Micah 5:2; Isa. 9:6; Rev. 1:8
 – of Adam & Eve, Abraham, and David: Lk. 3:23, 38; 1 Cor. 15:45; Gen. 3:15; 22:18; 2 Sam. 7:12-13
Jesus warned against harming children: Mat. 18:2, 6; Mark 13:12
Blesses believers who protect children: Mark 9:36-37; Mat. 25:41-46

Love Your Neighbor – Responsibility to Intervene: “Deliver those drawn toward death.” –Proverbs 24:11
Do not “do evil that good may come.” –Romans 3:8
“If anyone is found slain…and it is not known who killed him, then… measure the distance… to the surrounding cities… And it shall be that the elders of the city nearest to the slain man… shall answer and say, ‘Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it… do not lay innocent blood to the charge of Your people… So you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD.” –Deuteronomy 21:1-3, 7-9

No Christian in America can say to God about abortion, “We did not know it, our eyes have not seen it,” for child killing is openly bragged about, and God gives no believer the latitude to be apathetic toward these children nor their families, which apathy itself would be a form of hatred toward one’s neighbor. Individual Christians have the forgiveness purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. However by requiring the authorities to measure the distance and determine the city nearest to the crime, God is recognizing the corporate guilt of society knowing that the community that tolerates the shedding of innocent blood becomes increasingly godless. Children and grandchildren then suffer by living in that increasing godlessness. Of the Samaritans, Jesus told the woman at the well that you “worship what you do not know” (John 4:22) whereas “salvation is of the Jews.” Yet in the Parable of the Good Samaritan when criminals left a victim “half dead… a certain priest… passed by on the other side… But a certain Samaritan… had compassion… Then Jesus said…, “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus did not mean that His followers should behave like the religious leader who was apathetic, but rather, loving God and loving your neighbor requires intervention on behalf of the innocent.

The Sanctity of Unborn Life – Biblical Fetology: “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb… My frame [skeleton] was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth [womb; see below]. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.” –Psalm 139:13-16

God wrote the book of fetology, that is, the development of the baby in the womb which is described in the human genome and the gametes of the parents. That book documents the course of a child’s fetal development and birth. In verse 16, David is bragging about God’s extraordinary design of the development of the baby in the womb. The embryo goes through the trimesters of development not haphazardly but by direction from God. The child forms in the womb by God’s intricate plan of fetal development, which we now know He recorded in the written instructions of our DNA and in the cells of the ovum and sperm which unite to form the single-celled brand new human child (organism). That single cell contains step-by-step, day-by-day directions of the 280 days of gestation which the Spirit inspired David to write about, the days of the child’s development in the womb. “You formed my inward parts; you covered me in my mother’s womb,” explains that God designed the process by which the baby is formed, protecting the little one (Latin, fetus) within his mom. “My frame [skeleton] was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.” David praised God, for even as he developed in the womb, God could see his frame (Hebrew, skeleton, lit. bones) being knit together, “skillfully wrought,” in “my mother’s womb.” The Hebrew idiom, “the lowest parts of the earth” was a common expression for “the womb” as one can see from the reverse use of the idiom in Job 1:21, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there.” No one returns to their mother’s womb at death, but rather, goes into the grave, i.e., the lowest parts of the earth, which phrase came to be a Hebrew figure representing the womb, even as Man was made from the earth, the dust of the ground. The genetic code written by God describes the development of the baby in the womb, so God reveals, “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed (as the baby travels down the fallopian tube, even before he is formed in the womb, Jer. 1:5) and in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.” God sees the child, who he or she really is, the baby’s substance, all through the extraordinary DNA code which God wrote (which David of course had no concept of, but which as the author, God knew all about). So, from the moment of conception, “being yet unformed,” that is, as just a single cell in my mother’s fallopian tube, God saw me, and knit me together, and in His book of instructions for the baby’s awesome development in the womb, all “the days fashioned for me,” that is, all the days which God decreed for the fashioning of a fetus, they were written and set from the very beginning, before a single day’s growth unfolded, even before the first cell divided into two, all 280 days of gestation, beginning with that moment of fertilization. So regardless of one’s theology about predestination and free will, Psalm 139 does not teach that if a child is aborted, that moment of death was written in God’s book. Rather, the book and its pages describe the development of the fetus, not his lifetime and ultimate death. Psalm 139:16 presents a couplet, a simple Hebrew parallelism. The two sentences of Psalm 139:16 both speak of the same topic, with each further explaining the other. Thus “the days fashioned for me” were not the days of my childhood, or my marriage, nor do they describe the child’s death certificate, for these were the days when only God could see “my substance, being yet unformed.” For He knows what each a human being is like, in the most extraordinary detail, at the moment of conception.

Science, Morality and Philosophy: [God gave to mankind] “…the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness…” ‑Romans 2:15

God put a conscience within man such that even an atheistic scientist like Richard Dawkins who denies this, will not remain neutral but instinctively object if someone else violates God’s commands and tries to steal from him, or attempt to take his wife, or kill someone he cares about, so that his behaving contrary to his denial strongly affirms this biblical truth. Some atheists would prefer that society develop ethical notions scientifically. However the laws of the physical sciences do not use the moral concepts of right and wrong. The laws of logic, justice and reason are not even physical. They have no mass, no temperature, no polarity, etc. So there is a non-physical reality, and that is the domain of justice and reason. Humanist clichés masquerade as science but are easily rebutted.

– There is no truth! Rebuttal: Is that true?
– There are no absolutes! Rebuttal: Absolutely?
– Only the physical realm is real! Rebuttal: That claim itself is not physical.
– Only your five senses provide real knowledge. Rebuttal: Says which of the five?

Albert Einstein, in his book Out of My Later Years, wrote that, “science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be,” necessarily excluding from its domain “value judgments of all kinds.” Thus science could not even prove that the Holocaust or slavery were wrong.

Using a philosophical argument called Euthyphro’s Dilemma, skeptics from Socrates till today claim that goodness does not flow from God. As atheist Bertrand Russell wrote, “If the only basis for morality is God’s decrees, it follows that they might just as well have been the opposite of what they are…” Thus even the devil could be judged righteous if he gets to define what it means to be good. Basing its reasoning upon the Trinity, the Christian Answer to Euthyphro’s Dilemma (as linked to also at Creation.com) fully rebuts the atheist argument that morality must be arbitrary. Scripture describes “the Lord God [as] abounding in goodness and truth” (Ex. 34:6) with “righteousness and justice [as] the foundation of Your throne” (Ps. 89:14), which means might does not make right, so that just because the abortionist is stronger than the fetus does not mean that he is right to tear apart that delicate child. Unlike the arbitrary and capricious Zeus of the Greeks, the triune God of Scripture acts deliberately and justifiably “according to the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11) and so He does not affirm prejudice but rather, “God shows personal favoritism to no man” (Lk. 20:21) as also God the Son does “not show personal favoritism, but teach[es] the way of God in truth” (Gal. 2:6). He declared, “you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32) and He teaches of “the Spirit of truth,” and says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6). Therefore those who are killed unjustly, in heaven, describe Him as the one who will “judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth” (Rev. 6:10).

Vigilante Behavior Condemned: “…all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” -Jesus Mat. 26:52

However the Scriptures also state, “He who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword,” which command is described as “the faith of the saints” (Rev. 13:10). Lethal force in a park to save a child is just. Why is it wrong against an abortionist? American RTL produced a worksheet that puts into perspective the biblical principle regarding the right of self defense (which includes defense of your neighbor) with the restrictions of immanency and escalation of force that God placed on that authority. By those restrictions this ARTL Abortion Vigilante Worksheet teaches that everyone should condemn the vigilante killing of abortionists. Dr. Ronda Chervin wrote, “Dear American RTL, I just read your Abortion Vigilante Worksheet. I am a pro-life professor of ethics. I plan to use this in class. It is the best thing on this subject I have ever read. I just want to thank you profusely for devising it.” See the worksheet for lessons from Genesis from before God delegated governmental authority to punish murderers, and from Exodus differentiating between justifiable self defense and defensive actions that themselves become criminal, and from First Samuel and David’s response to those trying to kill him, and from Matthew and Romans regarding the general principle of submission to governing leaders. This worksheet is written also with the knowledge that many heroes of the faith disobeyed the governing authorities and now appear in the Hall of Faith in the book of Hebrews!

See also Genesis 9:6-7; Job 10:8-12; 31:15; Psalm 22:9-10; 71:6; 119:73; 127:3-5; Proverbs 6:17; Isaiah 44:2; 49:1; Luke 1:42 and 17:1-3.

Colorado Right To Life
1535 Grant Street #303
Denver, CO 80203
303-753-9394
office@ColoradoRTL.org

(Get a pdf download of The Bible and Abortion which is also at ColoradoRTL.org/Bible.)

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