Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 146:582 (Apr 1989)
Article: Exodus 21:22-25 and the Abortion Debate
Author: Robert N. Congdon

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BSac 146:582 (Apr 89) p. 132

Exodus 21:22-25 and the Abortion Debate

Robert N. Congdon

Physician
De Soto, Illinois

As a member of the medical community in America, it is with special shame that this writer views the medically sanctioned, continuing slaughter of millions of unborn infants. George F. Will cogently stated that “just as prenatal medicine was beginning to produce marvelous life-saving and life-enhancing achievements, Supreme Court justices made it the law of the land that the patients for such medicine have no right to life.”1 The awful paradox is that despite tremendous scientific and technological advances improving the quality of life in the United States, an equally strong advance of the humanistic ethic has undermined the intrinsic value or sanctity of all human life.

Montgomery commented, “While all sins are equal, some sins are more equal than others.”2 God’s wrath, he wrote, seems particularly kindled against certain sinful acts. Uzzah (2 Sam 6:6–7) or Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) are examples. Along with His concern for the welfare of the family and the institution of marriage and for the welfare of the Jews, God seems particularly interested in the welfare of children. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me,…for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matt 19:14, NIV).

Destruction by the horror of being thrown into the sea with a millstone around the neck is associated with Babylon in Revelation 18:21 and with

BSac 146:582 (Apr 89) p. 133

those who do harm to little children in Matthew 18:1–6. A little child—unable to save himself and fully dependent—is, like the Jewish people, one of those “weak things of this world” chosen by God to “confound the wise.” Those who harm them do so at their peril, both in time and in eternity.3

Many biologists, geneticists, and physicians agree that biological life begins at conception.4 The Scriptures clearly add to that foundation by teaching that God places value on unborn life as sacred (see for instance Exod 4:11; Job 10:8–12; Ps 139:13–16; Jer 1:5;

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