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“While it’s appropriate for Christians to anchor their pro-life arguments in God’s special revelation, being pro-life is not an exclusively Christian claim. The truth of the natural law reveals the necessity of being pro-life as well.”
–WILLIAM WOLFE
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court finally released its official decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case that centered around a Mississippi law that banned abortions after 15 weeks. Right on the first page of the ruling was this line:
“Held: The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”[1]
And with that, after nearly 50 years, we are suddenly living in a post-Roe world. But that doesn’t mean the pro-life cause has come to an end — far from it. The policy battles now move to state legislatures, state courts, and the ballot box, and therefore Christians must equip themselves to continue to make the pro-life case and counter pro-abortion arguments
Christians must always be unapologetically pro-life. Why? Because God is both unapologetically and only pro-life. There is no other position on the question of abortion that is legitimate within a biblically-informed Christian worldview. And that is good news! This should never be cause for concern nor be allowed to become a temptation for compromise. Our good, holy God created men and women in His image and likeness, endowing us with glorious purpose and inherent dignity and worth. We are His creation — His image-bearers. God is the author of life; therefore, humans have no right to unjustly assume the role of executioner, and certainly not over innocent, defenseless, unborn humans.
However, while it’s appropriate for Christians to anchor their pro-life arguments in God’s special revelation, being pro-life is not an exclusively Christian claim. The truth of the natural law and the plain evidence of science reveals that being pro-life as well is the only morally acceptable position on the issue. At the root of the issue is this unavoidable question: “Is this unborn baby a human life?” Science and reason prove, unequivocally, that it is. And if the unborn child is alive, and is human, then it deserves full and equal protection under the law, including the right to life — regardless of anyone’s religious views or metaphysical faith commitments.
First, it means we value all life. And as alluded to already, the reason we, as Christians, value life is because we recognize that we are gifted life from the life-giver, God, and that we are made in His image. Genesis 1:27-28 teaches us that mankind didn’t evolve from some primordial goo, but rather that we were made to reflect the communicable attributes of our Creator:
“God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So, God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
Second, it means we recognize that, just as our first parents were miraculously created by the Triune God, so too, in the act of conception, God brings forth a new life. A human life. An image-bearer — worthy of all the rights and respect that someone stamped with the Imago Dei is due. We see this clearly in Scripture, specifically in Psalm 139:13-14, which reads, “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.” As Dr. Scott Rae has summarized it, “The Bible teaches that abortion stops the handiwork of God.”[2]
Third, and most specifically for this particular moment in American political history, it means that pro-life Christians — which should be all Christians, without exception — are committed to using every legitimate means of political power or available avenue to make abortion illegal in all 50 states. For over 50 years, the most pressing goal of the pro-life movement was to bring about the end of federally-protected abortion, which began in the United States with the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. So, for decades, being pro-life meant, first and foremost, wholeheartedly supporting the entire overturning of the Roe decision.
Now that Roe is overturned, the question of the legality of abortion has been returned to the states. Now, being pro-life entails a state-by-state effort to legally prohibit and abolish abortion while simultaneously working to enact a “Right to Life” constitutional amendment, as well as pressuring Congress and the President to pass a law that makes abortion illegal for the entire country. This is the irreducible commitment of being pro-life: Casting every possible vote at the federal level to protect the Dobbs decision overturning Roe and working on a state-by-state basis to end legal abortion forever.
This means Christians must never vote for pro-abortion politicians — and especially not for a pro-abortion presidential candidate that would appoint pro-abortion Supreme Court justices.
Finally, being pro-life means a commitment to the well-being of hurting mothers and fathers who are considering the possibility of abortion. The goal of a crisis pregnancy center is to help eliminate the crisis, not the pregnancy. This stands in stark distinction to Planned Parenthood, which exists to eliminate the pregnancy. The reality is that the pro-life movement puts their money where their mouth is on this point. As pastor Randy Alcorn recorded,
“Thousands of pro-life organizations around the country and throughout the world provide free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, counseling, support groups, childcare classes, financial management education, babysitting, diapers, children’s clothes, and housing.”[3]
Now, let’s examine the top 10 most common pro-abortion arguments and consider how Christians can refute them.
This might be the single most popular argument made by abortion advocates and chanted by pro-abortion activists. However, the simple reality is that it’s false. The unborn child growing inside of a mother’s womb is an entirely different body. Just because a human child gestates inside of a woman’s body in no way makes it a part of her body. A pre-born baby is a body that is, for the time being, inside of another body. It is not one with the mother, but very much distinct. The fact that a mother survives an abortion when the child does not very clearly show this to be the case. But how should Christians respond to this claim? Well, Christians know this to be false both by general revelation (like nature and science) and special revelation — God’s Word.
First, we know it’s true because God makes it clear. In Psalm 139, David praises God for the marvel of procreation, exclaiming that “you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). Who is being knit in the womb? David. Not an extension of his mother, but rather an entirely different body.
Second, we know from science that the baby is not the mother’s body, given the baby’s unique DNA and biological blueprints. The unborn child has its own chromosomes, its own skeletal structure, its own organs, its own body. It is not the same life, but a new life. It is not the same body, but an entirely new body, in active development.
In summary, one of the best ways to respond to this claim is to agree with the abortion advocate, and then surprise them. The answer? “Sure, your body, your choice. But the unborn baby isn’t part of your body.” Just because a car is parked in a garage doesn’t make it part of the garage. And this is exactly why we have laws in our nation — because people don’t have the right to do whatever they want to others and certainly not to end their life.
One Sentence Summary: You’re right, for the vast majority of medical procedures, you have the right to exercise bodily autonomy and choice — but the child inside your womb isn’t your body, and therefore what happens to it is not your choice.
Key Verses: Psalm 139:13-16.
Pro-abortion advocates routinely argue that it’s “uncertain when life begins.” Not only that, but even if they will admit that the fetus is alive, they will argue that it isn’t truly a person. They will often deflect claims that “life begins at conception” as a purely religious view. While we certainly can have confidence from the Bible that life begins at conception, medical science and reason also show this to be true. The moment an egg is fertilized, a new life has begun — and with that life, an entirely new person. Dr. Alfred Bongioanni, an obstetrics professor, explains it like so:
“I learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception…human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood…any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human life.”[4]
Furthermore, reason informs us that neither size nor stage of development is what constitutes personhood. A zygote is no less a human in comparison to a newborn than a newborn is in comparison to a fully grown adult. Degrees of development are not what constitutes whether someone is a person or not. There is no magical point after conception at which a fetus becomes a “human being” or a “person” — rather, the unborn baby, from the first spark of new life, is an entirely new human person. Scripture teaches this clearly, in Psalm 139, but also we see that in Luke 1:44, which recounts John the Baptist as an unborn child leaping in his mother’s womb, the “Greek word used for baby (βρέφος) is the same word used for children after they are born (e.g., Luke 2:16). This indicates that babies, whether born or unborn, share the same status as humans after birth.”[5]
One Sentence Summary: Human life, and therefore personhood, begins at conception — there is no other reasonable, logical, scientific, moral, or Christian position.
Key Verses: Genesis 1-2, Luke 1:44, and Luke 2:16.
In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court drew an arbitrary line at the start of the third trimester, allowing states to legally prohibit all abortions, except where necessary to protect the life of the mother, after this gestational threshold. In the subsequent Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court adopted a new framework. Where Roe’s ruling essentially prohibited states from banning abortion before the third trimester, Casey prohibited states from banning abortion pre-viability, which at the time was unofficially declared to be the same timeframe as the end of the second trimester. But viability is an arbitrary and changing standard that ultimately has nothing to do with the personhood of the unborn child in question.
Even though Roe and Casey are gone, many states will continue to use the unscientific and arbitrary standard of “viability” when it comes to making abortion laws, unless the pro-life movement stops them.
Consider this: Newborn infants are still entirely dependent upon care from their parents to live. They are not any more viable in the moments and even months after birth — capable of surviving on their own — than they were in the moments or months before birth. And yet, at the same time, if we are using the term “viable” to refer to the ability to survive outside of the womb, modern medical advancements have pushed that moment up earlier and earlier. As reported in November 2021, “An Alabama boy who weighed less than a pound at birth after his mother went into labor at only 21 weeks and one day of gestation has been certified as the world’s most premature baby to survive.”[6]
As Carl Trueman so helpfully summarizes in his ground-breaking work The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, “There are numerous contexts in which one person is dependent for survival on another person in which we do not regard the latter as having the right to kill the former.”[7] In short, viability is an arbitrary standard, and simply because a human, whether 7 months old in utero or 77 years old in an assisted living facility, needs support from other humans in order to stay alive does not in any way vitiate their right to life.
One Sentence Summary: Personhood is not determined by whether the person in question can sustain their life entirely on their own or not — such as individuals who need oxygen, are on life-support, etc. — therefore, this arbitrary and changing standard provides no moral justification for willfully killing someone, unborn or otherwise.
Key Verses: Proverbs 31:8-9
In this fallen world, marred by sin and subject to great evil and darkness, the hard reality is that horrible instances of sexual assault, such as rape, do occur. And those rapes can and sometimes do result in pregnancies. Pro-life advocates and Christians must be sensitive, kind, compassionate, and show Christ-like love to all victims of rape and sexual assault.
At the same time, the value of a life — a child — is not diminished by the sad and terrible reality of the circumstances of conception; in other words, human value is not contingent on the circumstance of its conception. Thus, it cannot be morally permissible to allow abortion even in the case of conception by rape. Imagine looking a 5-year-old in the eyes and telling him, “It would have been completely legal and just fine for us to end your life as an unborn child because of the circumstances of your conception, but your mother decided to let you live anyway.” As Alcorn puts it, “The point is not how a child was conceived but that he was conceived. He is not a despicable ‘product of rape.’ He is a unique and wonderful creation of God.”[8]
In recent years there has been a rise in pro-life activists who were conceived in rape and yet their brave mothers carried them full-term to birth. One such activist is Ryan Bomberger, who has declared: “I am not the residue of the rapist. I am the resilience of my birth mom.”[9] The enduring truth of “two wrongs don’t make a right” may sound simple, but in cases like these, it is profound. Rape is a tragedy all by itself — adding an abortion on top of that is to heap misery upon misery and crime upon crime. Therefore, even in the case of rape, abortion is wrong and should be illegal.
It is critical to remember that in the event of a rape there is only one guilty party — the rapist. Therefore, the rapists should always be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and be subject to the most serious penalties available for their horrific crime. The victim is just that, a victim, innocent and in need of care and treatment. But in the event of a pregnancy resulting from rape, the child is also innocent. Now, some try to justify abortion in rape cases by arguing that the woman did not seek pregnancy, nor was she negligent in getting pregnant via rape, thus she shouldn’t be responsible to carry the child. While it’s inarguably true that pregnancy from rape is not desired nor planned, the value of life of the unborn remains. In this context, pregnancy from rape is not the woman’s fault nor is it the child’s fault. Allowing legalized abortion in cases of rape ultimately punishes the innocent child more than it punishes the rapist.
Rape is a grievous act of disempowering another person. But to abort a child conceived in rape compounds the disempowerment, multiplies the wickedness, and adds an even greater burden of grief to an already traumatized mother. As tragic as things can be in a fallen world, the reality remains that human life has value — and that value can never be negated by the crimes of another.
One Sentence Summary: God is the author of every life. And even the most tragic circumstances of conception don’t devalue the life of the child conceived. This is a fantastic opportunity for the Church to meet the needs of the rape victim, empower her in motherhood, or prepare her for adoption.
Key Verse: Ezekiel 18:20a
On January 22, 2022, President Joe Biden tweeted,
“The constitutional right established in Roe v. Wade 49 years ago today is under assault as never before. We must recommit to strengthening access to reproductive care, defending the right established by Roe, and protecting the freedom of all people to build their own future.”[10]
And on August 2, over a month after Roe had been overturned, the White House Press Secretary continued to repeat this false rhetoric, claiming that “the Supreme Court made this extreme decision to take away a constitutional right. It was an unconstitutional action by them, a right that was around for almost 50 years…”[11]
This begs the question of whether the right to an abortion is, or ever was, a constitutional right. The answer? Well, for almost 50 years in America the official answer was “yes” but the true answers has always been “no.” The truth is that in a staggering act of naked judicial activism, Justice Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, found (read: invented),
“an unenumerated fundamental right to privacy that included a right to abortion, arising from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (‘No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law’).”[12]
How did Justice Blackmun arrive at this conclusion, along with six other Supreme Court justices? They just made it up in their own heads. As Dr. O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and professor of law and concurrent professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, explains, “Every factual premise of the opinion in Roe v. Wade—historical, scientific, medical, or sociological—was the product of the Justices’ own private reflections, untested for reliability or accuracy by the adversarial process.”[13]
And one of the sickening ironies of the Roe ruling is that, of all amendments, it found the “right” to an abortion within the very amendment that guarantees that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law. In summary, then, we can conclude that the 1973 ruling in Roe was many things — social, political, etc. — but one thing it was not was constitutional.
Furthermore, the Court certainly has a track record of overturning previous rulings that were once considered constitutional but were clearly not, such as Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal) which was made moot 56 years later by Brown v. Board of Education (ending school segregation). There’s never been a constitutional right to take someone’s life, so it was well past time for the Supreme Court to overturn the fictional right to do so to an unborn child.
One Sentence Summary: There is no such thing as a constitutional right to an abortion; the Supreme Court has a demonstrated track record of issuing horrible rulings and, often decades later, overturning those rulings and finally getting the legal question right. That’s exactly what they did in the Dobbs decision—they made it clear that there is no constitutional right to have an abortion, and there never had been.
Key Verses: Exodus 1:15-12, Leviticus 19:15, John 7:24.
The truth is that abortion is already a dangerous procedure. In fact, if performed correctly, it is a lethal one — for the unborn child. No abortion is safe. Period. It always results in a tragic death. However, to put things in historical context, before the Roe decision in 1973, “abortion was outlawed or subject to significant restrictions in the vast majority of U.S. states.”[14] And yet, even with many states having largely restrictive laws prohibiting most abortions, there was no statistically significant record of women dying from back-alley abortions. Even the aggressively liberal Washington Post corrected “Planned Parenthood’s false stat [that] thousands of women died every year before Roe.”[15]
According to Dr. Rae, “In reality, most abortions before 1973 took place in licensed facilities with properly licensed physicians [re: abortionists].”[16] The horrific reality, again, is that abortion is never safe — not for the child, of course, but also not for the mother. Recall the case of prolific abortionist and convicted serial killer Kermit Gosnell. Dr. Gosnell operated what was described as a “house of horrors,” an abortion clinic in Philadelphia that catered to and preyed upon the weakest and the most vulnerable. Gosnell was ultimately convicted of “the murders of three infants who were born alive after botched abortion attempts, [and] was convicted of manslaughter in connection with the death of one woman during an abortion procedure.”[17]
There is no such thing as a safe abortion. Therefore, we have a moral obligation to legally prohibit abortion to the greatest extent possible. The sad truth is that people will still commit crimes despite the laws that are on the books, but we shouldn’t use that as a reason to neglect the pedagogical function of the law — that is, as a teacher. If abortion is illegal, the right response to the illegality of it isn’t to try and find an underground abortion clinic but rather to adjust your behavior accordingly under the due threat of the penalty of law. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”
One Sentence Summary: There is no such thing as a safe abortion in the first place since it always results in the death of the unborn child; however, the fact that people break the law is in no way an argument against the need for a law, particularly if the new law is needed to protect innocent life.
Key Verses: Leviticus 18:21, Jeremiah 7:31, Romans 7:12
The white-hot pressing moral question at hand in our nation is not “Will there be government-funded pre-K?” but rather “Are unborn children full persons deserving of life and equal protection under the law that they currently do not have in the United States?” The debate isn’t over post-maternal care, it’s about whether or not an adult woman (or even a teenage girl) is legally allowed to kill her unborn child on-demand, at any moment, and even, in some states, up until the moment of birth.
In other words, to conflate the question of stopping the unmitigated slaughter of the unborn with economic conditions or a social safety net is to miss the point. It’s essentially the same thing as arguing that we shouldn’t have rescued the captive prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, living under the threat of imminent death in the gas chambers, unless we also supported the Marshall Plan to rebuild the European economy.
Such an argument is preposterous, but let’s draw out the analogy. Today, in America, unborn children are essentially living in the concentration camp of their mother’s womb. How so? Because at any moment the mother can take them to a Planned Parenthood or another abortion clinic — the modern-day equivalent of the Nazi gas chambers — and put them to death. Pro-life advocates want to put an end to that. We want to remove the threat of death that hangs over the unborn. We want to liberate the modern-day Auschwitz of the womb, ensuring that children who are conceived are given the guarantee of life — the right to continue living while in the womb and during subsequent birth. Imagine, if you will, running up to the Soviet army right before they liberated Auschwitz in 1945 and shouting, “Wait! What’s your plan to provide government-funded social safety net services for these captives? Are you really pro-life or just anti-gas chambers?” Do you see how absurd that sounds? But that’s exactly how those individuals sound when they pillory those they pejoratively label as being just “pro-birth.” In other words, don’t let anyone try to tell you that you aren’t really advocating for the unborn unless you support cradle-to-grave government spending to take care of every child ever born. Frankly, that’s an anti-family policy on its own merits. And supporting such an expansive, socialistic vision for government is in no way a prerequisite for being pro-life.
One Sentence Summary: The most pressing issue of the pro-life movement is to secure the complete prohibition of abortion. That is what is most fundamental about what it means to be “pro-life,” so don’t let anyone guilt you into supporting big government social programs under the guise of being “more holistically” pro-life.
Key Verse: Exodus 20:13
Yes. Yes, it will. But it won’t be a negative impact — it will be a wonderfully positive one. If anyone accuses you of being a racist or aiming to hurt the black community by banning abortion, confidently respond: “If we ban abortion, there will be millions more black lives born into our nation, not fewer. Don’t you want that?” Staggeringly, according to Dr. Carol Swain, “Eighty percent of Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinics are within easy walking distance of minority neighborhoods and 60 percent are in minority zip codes.”[18] Keep in mind, Planned Parenthood was founded by a deeply racist individual, Margert Sanger. Sanger was a “eugenicist who believed society would be better off without immigrants, blacks, and people with mental disabilities.”[19] Sadly, her eugenics-fueled effort has paid off. In a recent piece, Gary Franks — who served three terms as U.S. representative for Connecticut’s 5th District, was the first black Republican elected to the House in nearly 60 years, and changed from being pro-choice to pro-life — explained that “nearly 40% of all abortions in America since Roe v. Wade have been from Black Americans. This equates to more than 20 million Black pregnancies aborted…Yet Black people make up just 14% of the U.S… [meaning, as a result] abortions amount to a 50% reduction of the Black population.”[20] Given these sad statistics, the truth is evident: The black community has been disproportionately hit hardest by legalized abortion. Bringing an end to abortion is the first step in restoring some of the most hurting communities in our country.
One Sentence Summary: Far from hurting the black community, making abortion illegal will help save millions of black lives, since sadly, black babies account for 40 percent of all abortions despite the fact that blacks are only 14 percent of the population.
Key Verses: James 2:1-13
This is a classic argument made by pro-abortion activists. This argument not only lacks logical sanity, but it also wreaks of sexism. Discrediting someone’s opinion based solely on their sex is textbook sexism. The sexist nature of this argument speaks for itself, so I’ll move on to another point.
Pro-abortion activists claim that since men can’t get pregnant, they aren’t allowed to have an opinion or a say on abortion policy, sometimes referred to as “reproductive rights” or “reproductive freedom.” But is that right? Well, according to the Bible, there is no such thing as “gendered knowledge.” The moral truths of the universe apply equally to men and women. Women aren’t given a “get out of the Sixth Commandment free” card. No, the commandment “You shall not murder” applies equally to men and women alike (Exodus 20:13). If the unborn child is an innocent human person, neither men nor women have the right to take the child’s life — regardless of their reproductive organs or lack thereof. What a woman can do is make other choices. She can choose abstinence and chastity to avoid the possibility of pregnancy in the first place, but if she does become pregnant, then she can choose motherhood or, with the consent of the father, adoption.
The sad truth is that many men don’t want any responsibility for the repercussions of their sexual choices, so they are often some of the strongest supporters of on-demand abortion. In his brilliant book The Unaborted Socrates, Peter Kreet, via Socrates, criticizes the “convenient injustice of abortion” and suggests that it may continue to exist “because the men make most of the laws…statistics show, you know, that men consistently favor abortion more than women do.”[21]
So, despite the popular chant that “men can’t tell women what to do with our bodies,” reality reflects that many men are happy for women to have the option to get an abortion because it potentially absolves them any responsibility to care for their child. This is ungodly and unjust and shouldn’t be tolerated by Christians. Not only are men duly entitled to have an opinion on laws in our land regarding the protection of life, but they are also morally responsible to care for any women they impregnate and any offspring they produce. God cares about this as well. In 1 Timothy 5:8, we read that “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
But in conclusion, the reality is that God’s revealed truth and moral order apply to all men and women equally. When it comes to the great matters of justice and moral significance — such as the life and death of the unborn — everyone in society not only has the right to have an opinion but they are also obligated before God to have the right opinion, for men and women alike will one day be judged by God for their actions, and opinions, in this life.
One Sentence Summary: Possessing a certain set of reproductive organs is not a prerequisite for moral reasoning nor for holding an opinion on how society should best care for the most vulnerable among us; far from being quieter, men need to show more leadership, both in working to end abortion and being willing to provide for any children they father.
Key Verses: Exodus 20:13, 1 Timothy 5:8, Romans 3:23
To this, you can answer 1) yes and no, 2) not really, and 3) definitely not. Let me explain. First, Christians aren’t trying to “use their religion” for anything. In fact, we understand that we are bound by and ultimately subordinate to our religion, which comes from God our Father, and since we are not sitting in a position of authority over our faith, we are not using it for anything. But the unavoidable reality is that our faith makes ethical claims and moral judgments — one of those being the primacy of the value of human life. God reveals this premium in Genesis 9:6 when He institutes the principle of retributive justice after the flood: “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.”
So, while we aren’t using our religion for anything, we are seeking to live according to the truth and the goodness of God’s wisdom, which He indelibly set into creation order in accordance — and that means opposing the unjust slaughter of the unborn. If this isn’t an animating principle for you as a Christian, you haven’t fully grasped the implications of our faith. So yes — and no.
Second, to the charge that we are “trying to seize power,” the answer to that is “not really.” Arguably, some Christians should aspire to run for political office and all Christians should desire to see that those who do have power wield it according to good, just, and right ends. Proverbs 29:2 teaches us that “When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan.” If we care about our neighbors — and the answer is, of course we do, because we are commanded to (Mark 12:31) — then that includes our unborn neighbor. And that includes loving our unborn neighbors enough to ensure their lives are safe and protected. Since their lives are currently and tragically disposable in our nation, loving them as our neighbor means that Christians must actively petition our government to right this wrong. That petitioning should also include seeking to secure political power and influence, through legitimate means, to bring an end to abortion.
This brings us to subpoint three: Do Christians secretly want to turn America into a theocratic slave state? Of course not. “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a farcical and absurd take on classic Christian theology. The reality is that Christians are simply trying to be faithful to the same faith commitments we have held since the advent of Christianity. For example, the Didache, one of the earliest non-canonical Christian documents, clearly states, “You shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born.”[22] Thus, pro-life values — and the logical extension of voting for pro-life platforms by Christians — is not some modern, Western construct created by the Moral Majority as a means to seize power but rather the millennia-old interpretation of the teachings of Scripture. While Christians may or may not have the possibility of holding political power in any given national context, Christians must always be pro-life. There is simply no other option.
Also, it should be noted that when Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a mother of seven, was appointed to the Supreme Court, pro-abortion activists donned costumes from “The Handmaid’s Tale” to illustrate their concern that Barrett’s appointment would compromise or diminish women’s rights. To rephrase: Women claimed that women’s rights would be stripped because of the appointment of a woman. In a twisted irony, pro-abortion activists declared that a woman who has excelled expeditiously in a very demanding and male-dominant profession, ultimately finding herself on the highest court in the land, would be responsible for reducing women’s value to that of property and second-class citizenry.
The irony is fascinating. But this was never about women’s rights. This is about abortion. This is about evil.
One Sentence Summary: Christians aren’t trying to turn America into a dystopian theocracy; we are just living out our faith in the public square, calling on our nation to be a just nation that affords equal protection under the law to all of its citizens, and availing ourselves of whatever political power we may secure through legitimate means to do so.
Key Verses: Genesis 9:6, Mark 12:13
This is the pro-life cause. It is grounded in God’s creation and the inherent respect due to the Imago Dei stamped on all human life. It is a loud and unapologetic voice for the most innocent and defenseless among us, the unborn. It utilizes faith, reason, science, and the natural law to defend the personhood of the unborn baby — one that is fully deserving of equal protection under the law. It was committed to overturning Roe v. Wade — a realization for which we rejoice — and is now committed to ensuring that the Dobbs decision stands. Furthermore, the pro-life cause is committed to bringing about a legal prohibition on abortion nationwide. Finally, with a generous and Christian spirit, it is committed to helping mothers and fathers who are faced with unplanned pregnancies.
At the end of the day, there is no greater injustice in the United States right now than the permissible murder of children through abortion. Yet there is no greater — no more fundamental — human right than the right to life. There is no greater civil right than the right to be born. There is no greater systemic institution of injustice in our country than the abortion industry. There is no more heart-dropping statistic than the fact that over 60 million infants have been killed in the womb since the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973.
And even though Roe is gone, its gruesome legacy lives on in states like New York, California, and Colorado, where they allow abortion for almost any reason up until the moment of birth.
Ultimately, all other political rights, causes, and efforts are secondary to the movement to stop the legalized institution of on-demand infanticide in America. That’s why we, as Christians, are obligated before God to speak out and up — loudly — for those who are never given the chance to speak or cry, or even to breathe. That’s why we fight for justice for those in the womb. There is no cause so clear cut, so unquestionably just and aligned with the law of God and His purpose for mankind, so tied to absolute truth, so grounded in God’s revelation that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, so respectful of His creation, and so valiant in defending His image than the pro-life cause.
As the pro-life movement celebrates the outcome of the Dobbs case, we still pray to God that He will “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” on our nation (Amos 5:24) in all the states which still permit abortion.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade was an enormous accomplishment that deserves to be celebrated. But it’s not the end of the pro-life movement. May God grant us all grace, wisdom, charity, love, and strength to continue to “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves” (Proverbs 3:8) until such a time as abortion is illegal in every square inch of our country.
William Wolfe
A 10-year veteran of the conservative political movement, William Wolfe served as a senior official in the Trump Administration, both as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon and a Director of Legislative Affairs at the Department of State. Prior to his service in the Administration, William worked for Heritage Action for America and as a Congressional Staffer for three different members of Congress, including the former Rep. Dave Brat. He has a B.A. in History from Covenant College and is currently finishing his Masters of Divinity at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Combining his political experience and theological education, William plans to pursue a Ph.D. with a focus on Christian ethics and public theology, enter pastoral ministry, and engage at the intersection of faith and politics, cultural commentary, and Christian worldview issues. Originally from outside of Charlotte, N.C., he is married to Lauren Wolfe and they have two boys, Evan and Jack.
[1] Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization of Jackson, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf, Syllabus, 1.
[2] Scott B. Rae, Introducing Christians Ethics: A Short Guide to Making Moral Choices (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2016), 69.
[3] Randy Alcorn, Why Pro-Life? Caring for the Unborn and Their Mothers (Carol Stream, IL: Hendricksen Publishers, 2012), 20.
[4] Alcorn, Why Pro-Life?, 26.
[5] David Closson, “Biblical Principles for Pro-Life Engagement: Personhood, Scripture, And Church History,” Family Research Council, https://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF21F36.pdf.
[6] WVTM 13, “Alabama boy born at 21 weeks named world’s most premature infant to survive;” https://www.wvtm13.com/article/alabama-boy-born-at-21-weeks-named-worlds-most-premature-infant-to-survive/38214303#.
[7] Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 318.
[8] Alcorn, Why Pro-Life?, 80.
[9] Ryan Bomberger, https://blackchristiannews.com/2019/06/watch-pro-life-activist-ryan-bomberger-declares-i-am-not-the-residue-of-the-rapist-i-am-the-resilience-of-my-birth-mom/.
[10] Biden, Joe, Twitter, January 22, 2022, https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1484958420318961668.
[11] Price, Greg, Twitter, August 3, 2022, https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1554885788772585475.
[12] O. Carter Snead, What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020), 113.
[13] Snead, What It Means to Be Human, 112-113.
[14] O. Carter Snead, What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020), 110.
[15] Glenn Kessler, Planned Parenthood’s false stat: ‘Thousands’ of women died every year before Roe, Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/29/planned-parenthoods-false-stat-thousands-women-died-every-year-before-roe/.
[16] Scott B. Rae, Introducing Christian Ethics: A Short Guide to Making Moral Choices (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2016) 68.
[17] Kermit Gosnell, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Gosnell.
[18] Carol Swain, “Systemic Racism at Planned Parenthood,” First Things, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/02/systemic-racism-at-planned-parenthood.
[19] Swain, “Systemic Racism at Planned Parenthood,” First Things.
[20] Franks, Gary, “Black babies are nearly 40% of U.S. abortions,” TRIB Live, https://triblive.com/opinion/gary-franks-black-babies-are-nearly-40-of-us-abortions.
[21] Peter Kreeft, The Unaborted Socrates: A Dramatic Debate on the Issues Surrounding Abortion (Madison, WI: Intervarsity University Press, 1983), 146.
[22] The Didache, https://legacyicons.com/content/didache.pdf, 5.
