Abortion and the Value of Human Life, Part I
(a series of articles by Vicar Eric Phillips, Ebenezer Lutheran Church, Spring 2013)

The last weekend of January saw the 40th March for Life in Washington, D.C. It’s been that long since the U.S. Supreme Courtdeclared laws banning abortion to be “unconstitutional,” and in the intervening time, over fifty million abortions have been performed in the United States. Some of these have been deemed medically necessary-as a response to-an ectopic pregnancy, for instance, where the baby is sure to die anyway and the mother’s life is seriously threatened in addition-but such cases account for only a tiny percentage of all abortions. The vast majority are elective, usually performed because the mother fears a baby would interfere with her schooling or career, or that she doesn’t have the money to take care of a child, or that she will end up as a single parent-or some combination of those factors. All three are compelling fears, and would adequately explain a host of other decisions, but they fall far short as justifications in this case. What is the greater evil? Having to drop out of school, or killing an innocent human being? If we’re talking about an already-born baby, almost no one has any doubts about it. People who leave their newborns in a dumpster for such reasons are not only prosecuted for murder, but regarded with horror by society. What makes abortion different? Continue reading →

Abortion and the Value of Human Life, Part III
(a series of articles by Vicar Eric Phillips, Ebenezer Lutheran Church, Spring 2013)

In the previous columns, I’ve argued that the moral debate over abortion boils down to the question of whether human life is sacred, or just human personhood. Those who support a right to abortion-on-demand end up arguing the latter, that although a fetus is biologically human it is not yet a person, and therefore can be destroyed at will, without moral outrage. Those who seriously maintain the former, on the other hand, must conclude that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, and thus something that must be permitted only in those rare cases when it can be expected to prevent an equal or greater evil from occurring (e.g. the death of both the mother and the baby). In part II, then, I demonstrated from a few foundational biblical passages that the former is the position taught by the Christian faith. A human being is made in the image of God, and is transcendently valuable for that objective reason, before we consider all the wonderful ways in which this image manifests itself through the development of human personhood. But there’s more. If we continue looking at the biblical witness, we will see that even if we were to allow the morality of abortion to be judged on the basis of human personhood rather than human life, it would fail that test too. Continue reading →