Is the Bible Silent on Abortion?

When you hear someone say, “The Bible is silent on [blank],” you need to listen carefully. Often, this statement is an excuse to neglect clear biblical teaching. Another similar argument is, “Jesus never talked about [such and such], so we shouldn’t make such a big deal out of it.” Again, this is usually a pretext for biblical compromise!

As a matter of fact, Jesus endorsed every portion of the Old Testament, emphasizing the importance of the tiniest detail! Pastor Kevin DeYoung ably demonstrates this in this blog, as well as in a full-length book entitled Taking God at His Word.

Some will say, “The Bible never talks about abortion,” or “Jesus never condemned abortion,” but these are simplistic – and simply incorrect – arguments. Are we to conclude that anything the Bible does not condemn, it condones? Against this idea, Scott Klusendorf writes, “The Bible does not expressly condemn many things including racial discrimination against blacks, killing abortion doctors for fun, and lynching homosexuals, yet few people proclaim these acts to be morally justified.”[1] In fact, biblical principles speak to each of these issues, along with the issue of abortion. Alleging that the Bible is “silent” is therefore a dishonest tactic.

One important pro-life argument goes like this:


Are the unborn really innocent human beings? Are they entitled to the same protections as a 1-month old, an adolescent, or a full-grown adult? Does life and with it, personhood, begin at conception? Or only when a newborn baby takes his or her first breath?

One argument used by Pro-Choice Christians to throw doubt on Premise #2 above comes from Genesis 2:7. In that passage, God breathes into Adam’s nostrils the “breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” From this, they conclude that the life of every human being begins at first breath, not before. They would add that other passages that talk about the “breath of life” (e.g., Genesis 6:17; Job 27:3; Isaiah 42:5) support this understanding.

But is that what Genesis 2:7 teaches? Does it expressly teach the biological truth that humanity is defined by breath? Does it also teach the metaphysical truth that personhood begins with breath? When understood in context, it is clear that those two questions must be answered in the negative.

Genesis 2:7 does not speak to when life begins. Adam, physiologically, was a mature adult when God created him. The emphasis in God’s “warmly personal” gift of life, as he breathes the “breath of life” into Adam’s nostrils, is on the man’s nature as a spiritual being. Humans are embodied souls, made to have communion with God. While Adam is a case of special creation, his descendants came from the natural process of reproduction. Genesis 5:1-3 clarifies this. God “created man…in the likeness of God” (5:1), then Adam “knew Eve his wife” (4:1), and produced sons “in his own likeness, after his image” (5:3).

In other words, Genesis 2 describes the historical creation of the first man and woman, highlighting man’s uniqueness before God. It does not define when life begins. Subsequent scripture and natural revelation reveal the wonder of the reproductive process, and the consistent witness of Scripture is that life in the womb should be protected. Passages like Psalm 139:13-16, Jeremiah 1:5, Isaiah 49:1, Job 31:15, and Luke 1:41, among others, underscore the value, dignity, and personhood of the unborn.

So-called “Pro-Choice Christians” cannot hide behind the alleged argument from silence. So they must attempt to explain away the Bible’s clear teaching on the dignity of unborn life. Next time, we’ll consider more of the poor exegesis used by Pro-Choice advocates, but in the meantime, let’s be wary of any teaching that begins, “The Bible is silent on…”

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[1] Klusendorf, Scott, The Case for Life, 136.