Is Abortion Ever Justified?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Psalm 139

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--is-abortion-ever-justified
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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Well, first let's start with the overall context. We do teach that abortion is the wrongful taking of an innocent human life that's created in the image of God. We see this in Psalm 139 that God forms the child in the womb. Uh and the whole concept is every child is is created in the image of God. We see God having a plan for Jeremiah while he was in the womb, for John the Baptist while he was in the womb, and of course Jesus Christ.

So the overall teaching of scripture says that unborn child is a child. And of course, science says that child is a human. What what else could that child be? Um, and if you try to decide when does it become human, when does it become alive, there really is no biblical or scientific place. People have proposed other times after so many weeks or or at birth or when they're viable, capable of living outside the womb on their own, which of course that depends on medical technology. But all those are rather arbitrary. The only one that you could actually draw a clear line would be conception. So that's why we as the UPCI take a biblical stand that abortion is wrong.

Now, uh sometimes there are exceptions proposed. The three that are most prominent are um rape, incest, and preserving the life of the mother. I would hasten to add and the statistics may vary but the last I checked only about 3% of legal abortions come under that category 97% of abortions are are actually elective and so if we are you know in the US with Ro v Wayade being overturned the matter is left to the states and some states their liberals allow abortion pretty much on demand up until the moment of birth and some ethicists propose it should be allowed 7 days after birth which would be infanticide but other states pretty much restrict abortion.

Many states are in the middle and there is a probably in America there's a consensus if you had a consensus there's hotly debated views and you could say the pro-life and proabortion are almost evenly divided but if you allow those few exceptions the overwhelming majority of people support that. Now, as a biblical position, we would oppose any abortion. But as a political pragmatic choice, we would ally ourselves with people that would um pass legislation to block 97% of abortions as opposed to allowing 100% of abortions. So, where each person falls on that politically, they will have to decide. uh we don't want to compromise our belief but we do want to be pragmatic and be effective in getting legislation actually passed that will address the vast majority of the problem but just looking at it from the perspective of biblical the Bible first of all the life of the mother actually this is not really very hard the way I think the way from my perspective it is something that has to be carefully written into laws because sometimes proabortion people say, "See there, you're so strict, you're going to kill the mother." Well, here's the way I look at it.

Most medical cases, thank thankfully with modern medicine, there is usually a way uh to preserve the life of the mother. It's very rare. But if it's truly a case where here we're in emergency, we're in a crisis. This mother is expecting and she's going to die in the next 24 hours. To me, if you take the baby out of the womb, you're not trying to kill the baby. You're you would like to preserve both if possible, but if you don't, if there truly is that case, which is rare, if there truly is that case, well, they're both going to die, right? I mean, it's possible maybe the the baby might be viable outside the womb, but if you do nothing, the mother dies, the baby's still there, the baby's going to die.

So, in the rare case where the doctor says, "This mother is going to die in the next day or two if we don't take the baby." So, you say, "Well, we're opposed to abortion. We're not going to take the baby." What's going to happen? They're both going to die. If you do take the baby, the mother lives. And maybe if the baby is viable, maybe the baby lives. So I would argue in that case, you're not taking a human life. You're not abort maybe the medical term might be abortion, but you're not h uh you're not performing an abortion to kill the child. You are trying your best to preserve two lives.

And if it's impossible to preserve two lives, you want to preserve the one life. So to me that if it's framed properly medically and I'm not a medical doctor I would say that issue we should make allowance for let's preserve the life of the mother. The goal is not to kill the baby. The goal is to preserve two lives if possible but in a case of emergency to at least preserve one life the life of the mother. So to me I don't really regard that as an exception because your intention is not to kill the child. Your desire is not to kill the child. Your utmost desire is to save both.

And there's a role you know prayer. God could heal. God could deliver. God could show you a way out. God could confirm that if you patiently wait this problem is going to be resolved. So to me that's not an exception to abortion. But that we do have to understand we should do what's what we can medically to preserve the mother's life. Now the more difficult case rape and incest in the ca case of rape and incest it's very we're very sympathetic towards the victim here because there's a true victim but the solution but the child is innocent. So the way to help one victim is not to make another victim.

And although it's easy for me to say because I would not be in this position, but I would appeal to the person even though it's dreadful. If you carry that baby for 9 months, you can give that baby up for a Christian adoption. They can have a blessed life. And yes, it has been a traumatic experience of your life, but a very short in the big scheme of things or short time, but you in the future will be thankful that you gave life. And it's amazing. Obviously, God would never want abortion or or would never want rape or incest, but what's amazing about God, he can take make good things out of bad situations.

So there are children of rape and incest who've grown up to be very blessed, productive people. It's amazing how God has done a miracle. So I would appeal to a person choose life even in those cases. Now very practically in the in these cases especially rape unfortunately sometimes is in incest is not discovered until too late but the chance of someone getting pregnant my understanding is only about 6%. But what you can do is immediately go to the doctor and you can take medication, the morning after pill. And I'm not talking about a pill that causes an abortion. There are pills that can actually prevent ovulation.

They prevent the egg from descending. So they prevent conception. So there's nothing wrong with conception. Preventing contraception. There's nothing wrong with pre preventing conception. So, we're not talking about an abortifacing drug. We're not talking about a medical abortion. We're talking about within, and again, I'm not a medical expert, but what I've learned is within about 72 hours, sooner if possible, there's an opportunity to actually prevent conception, even if it might be going to happen. So, there's a only a 6% chance it's going to happen. But if you immediately go to the doctor, get the emergency contraception, which is they have several options, um you can prevent um the pregnancy.

So, so the when weighing the factors, there's a horrible rape, which is not God's will, which is evil, which is sinful, where there's a victim. But you have got two choices. One choice is to immediately prevent any possible conception. the the other choice is to wait. So I would say choose that choice. So prevent the conception. But then if you didn't do that, you allowed to continue. Well, then you've made a choice. Now there's a life and that life is innocent. So it's not really fair to that child to take their life because of the evil perpetrated by the father. And I and I would not blame the victim in any way, shape or form, but I would just say with the weighty issue of life at stake, there is a responsibility if you can immediately get the medical tension that you need.

Then you can eliminate this uh ethical dilemma. And and I would say also in the case of incest, if that's possible, that that would be the same answer. Of course, sometimes there is a miscarriage. And so sometimes in God's plan and and especially with incest because there is one of the problems of incest is the higher potential for birth defects and so on. So it's very possible that God would help the person out of this dilemma by a natural miscarriage in which case would accept that as the will of God. So to summarize, we stand against abortion. We stand for life. We don't believe that there should be exceptions uh to the concept because you are it is a to abortion because it is the taking of a human life.

We do believe that we can try in every way to preserve the life of the mother and in most cases you're not facing an absolute choice thanks to modern medical science. And again in these cases immediately go to the proper medical personnel to get the best possible care. And in most cases, you can avoid the the difficult choice that otherwise may come your way.