Is Abortion
Murder?
Is abortion murder? At first it seems offensive even to ask the question. An adequate answer requires a brief review of what has been affirmed so far:
(1) That every man is of equal value without regard to his quality of life (intelligence, ability to produce, sociability, and desirability).
(2) That every man is unique and inviolate (which is the meaning of personhood) because of his special relationship to God as His image-bearer.
(3) That personhood begins at the moment of man's conception.
Three New Affirmations
Building on the above foundation, I also affirm it to be my judgment:
(1) That murder (intentional killing of an innocent human being because it is considered inferior and expendable rather than equally valuable and inviolable) of any human being at any stage
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of its development from the point of conception to the point of death is morally wrong and should be subject to punishment meted out by duly constituted authorities.
(2) That all abortion (except critical abortion described below) is murder and is never permissible under any circumstances.
(3) That loss of life to the unborn that occurs as a result of an attempt to save the life of the mother when, on those rare occasions, it is reasonably certain that unless a critical abortion is performed both mother and child will die, is not murder.
"Thou shalt not kill." Certain scholars more knowledgeable in the original languages than I have said that the Hebrew word for "kill" (rasach) can better be translated "murder," and the New English Bible has so rendered Deuteronomy 5:17, "Thou shalt not murder." The word "kill" in and by itself carries no moral weight; neither does it speak to the humanness or nonhumanness of its object. In the sixth commandment God was really speaking about the deliberate destruction (inimical to the human community) of innocent human life without regard for its God-given absolute value and inviolability.
Four Ingredients of Murder
Therefore in thinking of abortion, I talk about the wrongness of murder. Four fundamental ingredients are identifiable in the definition of murder as I have given it:
(1) A person is killed.
(2) He is killed intentionally.
(3) The person killed is innocent.
(4) There is unlawful or sinful motive involved in the killing.
Such is murder. If any one of the four ingredients above is lacking in a particular killing, the killing is not necessarily murder. For example, it is not even murder to butcher cattle for food. The death of a person caused accidentally by someone else is not ever murder. The intentional killing of
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a person guilty of a capital offense is not necessarily murder, though (spiritually) it may be if there is hidden sinful motive that supersedes the explicit legal reason (lack of innocence). By religious standards the man who intentionally kills an innocent person, but not out of sinful motivation, is not morally guilty of murder though by the standards of the state he can still be so accused and prosecuted.
Abortion — and The Four Ingredients of Murder
What about Abortion? Is it murder? Are all of the ingredients involved in murder present in an abortion? Consider:
(1) In abortion a human being is killed (see Chapters 3 and 4)
(2) In abortion the human being is killed intentionally, by an act of the will.
(3) In abortion the human being who is killed is innocent.
(4) In all abortion cases, except critical abortion, there is unlawful motive.
Points three and four require further explanation.
It is argued by some that the unborn child is not innocent since its life is attacking the life of the mother. Dr. Joseph Fletcher in his Situation Ethics, commenting on the case of an insane patient raping and impregnating another insane patient, says of the conceived one: "The embryo is no more innocent, no less an aggressor or unwelcome intruder!" 1 But has a crime really been committed by the unborn child? The thoughts of David Granfield on this matter in The Abortion Decision are, as usual, incisive and to the point:
A crime has two elements: a mens rea, or unlawful intention, and a actus reus, or unlawful conduct. Although the law does not punish mens rea alone, it may impose civil liability if there is an actus reus without mens rea, thereby sanctioning the actor for his unintended but
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unlawful conduct. An automobile fatality subjecting the drivers to imprisonment if intended, may subject him only to tort damages if unintended, and even to no damages if he is excusable. The physical act was the same, but the responsibility in each case was radically different. 2
The unborn child's conduct, on the other hand, is neither immoral nor criminal. No law requires the fetus to stop growing. Even if the child knew fully what was happening, he would find it impossible to control his normal and natural embryo-logical development. The child is doing what all children do.
It is not solely the lack of evil intention, and infantile mens rea, that makes the child innocent; it is primarily the lack of any evil deed, any even infantile actus reus. In total innocence, the child has an inviolable right to life. He forfeits this not by any principle of justice, but only by the principle of expediency. 3
Another factor favoring the unborn child's innocence at the time of abortion is that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees to every person the right of due process of law before its life can be taken away. Since the unborn child is a person, and since a person charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty, and since abortion is done without due process of law, the aborted child is done a grave injustice.
But is it true that in all abortion cases, except critical abortion, there is unlawful (sinful) motivation involved? Yes. Take, for example, what might be the most difficult situation facing a woman and her doctor resulting in an abortion that would seem to be killing not involving improper motivation: the case of a mother who was brutally raped. The mother has been deeply hurt; her emotions are frayed; her husband resentful of the pregnancy
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and wants no part of a "lunatic's seed"; the mother feels she has been done injustice. And she has! But by whom? Who is the guilty one? Who brought this upon her? The rapist. He is the one who should be sought out, prosecuted and punished. The unborn child? What has he done? What can he do differently? Is he to suffer for the crime of the rapist? The mother, in her understandable frustration, diverts her hostility to her unborn. Irrationally she thinks she is "getting back" by having the child aborted. Maybe the child is innocent, she thinks her more rational moments, but its life in this case is of less value than her own, and therefore it becomes expendable. The only possible rational reason for abortion following rape is the conclusion (value judgment) that the child's life is not equally as valuable as the mother's life and is not inviolate before the surgeon's hand.
What about critical abortion? Is this not murder, too? No. Loss of life to the unborn that occurs as a result of an attempt to save the life of the mother when, on those rare occasion, it is reasonably certain that unless a critical abortion is performed both mother and child will die, is definitely not murder. Why? Because even though an innocent human being is intentionally killed, there is no sinful motive involved necessarily.
(1) The motive is sinless in that the child is not killed as the result of a choice concerning the comparative value of two lives, but rather as the result of a choice to save the only life that can in this situation be saved.
(2) The motive is sinless in that the child is not killed as the result of a choice concerning its violability or inviolability, but rather as a result of the tragic circumstances having rendered all choice on the question meaningless (as for example in an ectopic pregnancy) and leaving as the only choice whether or not to save the one life that can possibly be saved — the mother's.
If in fact a situation arises in which a very real choice has to be made by the mother (the fetus not yet existentially
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capable of choice) whether she will die so that her child may live or the child will die so that she may live, then, it would seem to me, that ideally the mother could be expected to respond in the same way that she would probably respond if that threatened child were three years old: by sacrificing her life, if the situation called for it, to save the life of her loved one. Has not such an act always been exalted by mankind as an exemplary expression of highest humanness? How many congressional medals of honor, awarded posthumously, have been awarded for heroic acts of self-sacrifice. Such morality, however, issues from the heart; it cannot be legislated and ought not be subject to punishment or condemnation if not fulfilled.
In summary, then, of the ideas expressed in this latest section, I again flatly stated that all abortion (except critical) is murder. And if to some people the word "murder" sounds a bit harsh, then maybe the uneasiness this word causes them is due to a lack of understanding of what abortion is actually like. The picture is ugly.
Four Methods of Murder by Abortion
Abortion is the act whereby the unborn child is intentionally removed from it mother's womb and encouraged to die (as in hysterotomy abortion), or is intentionally destroyed and then removed from the mother's womb ( as in a dilatation and curettage abortion or suction abortion), or is intentionally destroyed and then allowed to be stillborn by natural process (as in a salt poisoning abortion).
A more detailed description of the four methods of murder by abortion is as follows: 4
(1) Suction Abortion: A tube attached to a powerful suction apparatus is inserted into the mother's uterus. The unborn child, with its placenta, is literally torn apart limb from limb and deposited in a jar as just so much fetal waste material. Suction abortion is by far the most
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popular method of aborticide (accounting for about 75 percent of all abortions in the United States and Canada).
(2) Dilatation and Curettage Abortion: The word "dilatation" refers to the forced enlargement of the cervix or neck of the uterus. The word "curettage" refers to the use of a curete (an instrument resembling a sharp-edged spoon) for scraping the so-called "products of conception" from the uterine cavity. As might be expected, the unborn child is cut to pieces by the surgeon's knife, and after removal, is reassembled by the operating nurse so as to make sure that no parts remain in the womb that might cause further bleeding or infection. This method may be used until the twelfth week, after which it is unsafe.
(3) Salt Poisoning Abortion (Saline Amniocentesis): It is generally considered unsafe to do an abortion between the twelfth and sixteenth weeks. After the sixteenth week enough fluid has accumulated in the amniotic sac to make it possible to inject either a 20 percent saline solution or a 50 percent glucose solution. The injection is made with a large needle through the abdominal and uterine walls, and the baby is poisoned to death within an hour's time. Anywhere from twenty-four to thirty-six hours later the mother goes into labor and delivers a dead baby which has the appearance of a candied apple because its skin has been burned off. This method of abortion ranks second in frequency behind suction abortion.
(4) Caesarean Section Abortion (Hysterotomy): This method of abortion becomes an available option after the unborn child has advanced beyond the fourteen-week stage. It is like a normal Caesarean section delivery in which the child is removed surgically through an incision made in the abdomen and uterus. But there is one difference: the child is not given the care it needs after its cord is cut; it is simply discarded in a stainless steel bowl and is heartlessly left to die — usually an asphyxial death.
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Two Related Matters
Two other matters related to the question raised in this chapter still require attention.
First of all, for those who are interested in Scriptural exegesis and try to base their thinking on biblical authority, the Exodus 21:22-25 passage often has come into the realm of discussion on the matter of murder. It reads:
When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows [italics mine], the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman's husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows [italics mine], 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.
The exegetical debate on these verses has focused on how the two "harms" mentioned in verses 22 and 23 are to be interpreted. Two contrasting positions with their conclusions are as follows:
(1) Position A 5
vs. 22: "and yet no harm follows" — The child is miscarried, but does not die.
vs. 23: "If any harm follows" — The miscarried child and/ or the mother dies.
Conclusion: This passage does not place a higher value on the life of the mother over the life of her child, but requires "life for life" if harm (death) to either one or both occurs. If neither dies, a fine must still be paid because the woman has suffered emotional hurt in the forced premature birth of her child.
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(2) Position B 6
vs. 22: "and yet no harm follows" — Even though the miscarried child dies, no harm is done because the mother has not died.
vs. 23: "If any harm follows" — The mother dies as a result of the blow she suffered.
Conclusion: This passage suggests that death to the child is not a harm and does not come under the "life for life" principle, whereas death to the mother is a harm and comes under the "life for life" principle. Therefore, it seems that a higher value is placed on the mother's life and lesser value on the life of her fetus.
My own views on Positions A and B above and on the Exodus 21:22-25 passage generally are as follows:
(1) If the interpretation of the two "harms" in Position A is correct, then its conclusion certainly follows.
(2) However, even though Position A might seems to be preferable, I am personally of the opinion that the interpretation of the two "harms" in Position B is a more likely interpretation because the focus of the whole passage is very definitely on the woman.
(3) But, even though I believe the interpretation of the two "harms" in Position B is correct, I do not believe that Position B's conclusion necessarily follows. Why?
(4) The reason why death to the fetus is not a harm but death to the mother is a harm has nothing to do with the relative value of the two lives. This most likely has to do with the lack of intentionality in the death of the child but the presence of intentionality in the death of the mother. It is nowhere explicitly stated in the passage whether the hurt suffered by the pregnant
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woman in the miscarriage was intentional or not. It is highly probably, however, that the attack upon her was intentional, because the principle of "life for life" did not apply in Mosaic law to a death accidentally caused. If the pregnant woman were a mere by-stander or by-passer and was accidentally struck by a wild blow, then the Mosaic law would not require "life for life"; it would require something less (like a fine) for life. In verse 14 of the same chapter the law reads: "But if a man willfully [italics mine] attacks another to kill him treacherously, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die." Deuteronomy 19:4-10 actually states that three cities were to be set apart for the protection of people who were involved in accidental manslaughter and were being pursued by hateful avengers.
(5) A likely reconstruction of the incident would be something like this: Two men were fighting. The pregnant wife of one of the two men interfered on her husband's behalf (A dead or injured husband isn't much help when another child comes along). The other man intentionally struck her (it was two against one). The woman was hurt and suffered a miscarriage. The assailant, by law, had to pay a fine if the hurt he caused to the woman did not result injury or death (no harm followed). But if the hurt he caused resulted in injury or death (harm followed), the assailant had to pay with his eye, tooth, hand, foot, burn, wound, stripe, or with his life. The miscarried child's ultimate state (dead or alive) was immaterial because what happened to it was purely accidental.
(6) Evidently, it was so common an occurrence for a wife to interfere in her husband's brawls that a special clause of "fair play in fighting" had to be introduced into the Mosaic law, because sometimes the wife became a bit too vicious. In Deuteronomy 25:11 the law reads: "When men fight one another, and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you
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shall cut off her hand; your eyes shall have no pity."
(7) I would not for a minute contend that a biblical case for saying that the unborn child is of equal value and that the intentional killing of it is murder can be based on an argument from silence, as in Exodus 21:22-25 where nothing is said about what might have happened to the assailant if he had intentionally struck the child in utero causing it to die (which would have been an abortion rather than a miscarriage). But neither can a wrong conclusion about the lesser value of the unborn child, based on this passage (Position B's conclusion), be used as a possible biblical justification for abortion.
Capital Punishment and War
The second matter related to the question about murder, which can be appropriately discussed, concerns the validity of capital punishment and war. If abortion is murder, some ask, then what about capital punishment and war:
(1) In capital punishment and war human beings are killed.
(2) In capital punishment and war human beings are killed intentionally.
(3) In capital punishment and war, however, the human beings killed are not innocent — provided, of course, they are proven guilty and sentenced to death by a court of law (as in capital punishment) or are proven guilty and declared war upon by an act of Congress (as in the case of a just war).
(4) Unlawful (sinful) motive is not necessarily involved in capital punishment and war:
(a) The victim is not necessarily considered inferior, but guilty before the bar of justice and therefore punishable for the sake of justice.
(b) The victim is not necessarily considered violate or expendable. Theoretically at least, the
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person doing the killing is (as a delegated functionary of the state) fulfilling representatively the wrath of God (Rom. 12:9 – 13:7) and thus is not killing as man qua individual man (which would be murder) but as man qua representative of God (which is not murder because man is not inviolate before God).
Chapter 6 || Table of Contents
1. Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966), p. 39.
2. David Granfield, The Abortion Decision (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1969), p. 141.
3. Ibid., p. 142.
4. Cf. "Life or Death," a brochure published by Hiltz Publishing Co., 6304 Hamilton Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45224.
5. Edwin H. Palmer, "Abortion: the Crucial Issue," a reprint available from Reformed Fellowship, Inc., P.O. Box 7383, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49510
6. Henry Stob, "Abortion: Yes or No?" The Banner 106, no. 23 (June 1971): 12. See also articles by Bruce Waltke and Kenneth Kantzer in Birth Control and the Christian, ed. W. Spitzer and C. Saylor (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1969), pp. 10-11, 553-554.