It looks like a ban on partial birth abortion will finally be implemented after a battle that has lasted more than a decade. Back in 1995, Representative Charles Canady of Florida began a crusade against a gruesome procedure known as partial birth abortion.

In many ways, it shouldn’t have even been called abortion. Essentially it was 4/5th infanticide and 1/5th abortion. The procedure involves almost completely giving birth to the baby breach and then stabbing scissors into its skull and suctioning out the brains.

When members of Congress and the general public heard about the procedure, they were horrified and ready to ban it. But the process has been long and tortuous.

On two separate occasions, the House and the Senate sent legislation to President Bill Clinton to ban the procedure. Twice he vetoed the attempts. And when President George Bush signed another bill sent to his desk in 2003, liberal judges overturned the law. Finally, the will of the Congress and the will of the people were vindicated by this week’s 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court.

The ban is now the law of the land and demonstrates that persistence pays off even in the face of opposition from activist judges who attempted to prevent elected representatives from banning the unpopular procedure. Nevertheless, other challenges are certain to laws banning this procedure and other forms of abortion.

Past Debate

Publicity over the partial birth abortion procedure has helped build momentum. During the debate in October of 1999, Senator Rick Santorum and Senator Barbara Boxer engaged in the following exchange.

Santorum: But, again, what you are suggesting is if the baby’s toe is inside the mother, you can, in fact, kill that baby.
Boxer: Absolutely not.
Santorum: Okay. So if the baby’s toe is in, you can’t kill the baby. How about if the baby’s foot is in?
Boxer: You are the one who is making these statements.
Santorum: We are trying to draw a line here.
Boxer: I am not answering these questions.
Santorum: If the head is inside the mother, you can kill the baby.

Discussion and dialogue like this helped solidify and bolster public opposition to partial birth abortion. Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called this procedure “near-infanticide.” Opinion polls showed that he was not alone in his assessment. Even citizens and politicians who were sympathetic to abortion rights are repulsed by partial birth abortion.

The Biblical Perspective

What is the biblical perspective of abortion? A key passage in this discussion is Psalm 139, where David reflected on God’s sovereignty in his life.

The psalm opens with the acknowledgment that God is omniscient; He knows what the psalmist, David, is doing. God is aware of David’s thoughts before he expresses them.

Wherever David might go, he could not escape from God, whether he traveled to heaven or ventured into Sheol. God is in the remotest part of the sea and even in the darkness. David then contemplated the origin of his life and confessed that God was there forming him in the womb:

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Here David wrote of God’s relationship with him while he was growing and developing before birth. The Bible does not speak of fetal life as ere biochemistry. This is not a piece of protoplasm that became David. This was David already being cared for by God while in the womb.

Verse 13 speaks of God as the Master Craftsman, weaving and fashioning David into a living person. In verses 14-15 David reflected on the fact that he was a product of God’s creative work within his mother’s womb, and he praised God for how wonderfully God had woven him together.

David drew a parallel between his development in the womb and Adam’s creation from the earth. Using figurative language in verse 15, he referred to his life before birth when “I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.” This poetic allusion hearkens back to Genesis 2:7, which says that Adam was made from the dust of the earth.

David also noted that “thine eyes have seen my unformed substance.” This shows that God knew David even before he was known to others. The term translated "unformed substance" derives from the verb "to roll up." When David was forming as a fetus, God’s care and compassion were already extended to him. The reference to "God’s eyes" is an Old Testament term connoting divine oversight of God in the life of an individual or a group of people.

While there are certainly other passages in the Old and New Testament that speak to the sanctity of human life, I believe that Psalm 139 is sufficient to show why Christians must oppose abortion, especially partial birth abortion. The unborn baby is a human being whom God cares for. He nor she should not be sacrificed in the womb for convenience (or even for fetal parts that might improve the medical condition of another person, another related issue). The unborn must be protected at every stage of development.

© 2007 Probe Ministries

About the Author

About the Author

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it is National Director of Probe Ministries International. He holds masters degrees from Yale University (science) and from Georgetown University (government). He is the author of several books, including Christian Ethics in Plain Language, Genetic Engineering, Origin Science, and Signs of Warning, Signs of Hope. His new series with Harvest House Publishers includes: A Biblical Point of View on Islam and A Biblical Point of View on Homosexuality. He is the host of "Point of View" (USA Radio Network) and regular guest on "Prime Time America" (Moody Broadcasting Network) and "Fire Away" (American Family Radio). He produces a daily syndicated radio commentary and writes editorials that have appeared in papers such as the Dallas Morning News, the Miami Herald, the San Jose Mercury, and the Houston Post.

What is Probe?

Probe Ministries is a non-profit ministry whose mission is to assist the church in renewing the minds of believers with a Christian worldview and to equip the church to engage the world for Christ. Probe fulfills this mission through our Mind Games conferences for youth and adults, our 3-minute daily radio program, and our extensive Web site at www.probe.org.

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