The Law and Life: The Beginning of Life – The Law of God and Public Policy

The Law and Life: The Beginning of Life
The Law of God and Public Policy

The Law assumes that life begins in the womb.

“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” Exodus 21:22-25

According to the Law of God, human life begins in the womb.

Our text is deliberately not specific concerning the stage of development of the children who are forcibly ejected from the womb by outside violence. That abortion occurs indicates that a crime has been committed against life; justice has been upset, and restitution and retribution must follow in order for justice to be restored.

The present “pro-choice” mindset in America is insane. Consider the “logic”: The basic idea is that a woman who becomes pregnant is free to choose whether or not to carry her child to term. This is not a question of “reproductive rights” or “sexual freedom.” The underlying premises behind this agenda are two: First, it is taken for granted that a child in the womb, though a living being, is not a person to whom the rights and privileges of life apply. Second, abortion advocates insist that a woman carrying a child is competent to decide whether or not that which is conceived in her womb should be allowed to come to life beyond the womb.

And precisely how, we wonder, has an individual woman arrived at the level of competence for such a decision which neither scientists, philosophers, nor politicians today have attained?

Neither of these two premises is amenable to any kind of proof, whether scientific or otherwise. They are assumed arbitrarily, as acts of faith, and as matters of mere convenience, to accommodate the changing (declining) morality of the day. And they have been unjustly enacted into law, precisely because those who might have insisted on public policies grounded in better law—the Law of God—have not prevailed. Our failure to understand how just and righteous laws, laws revealed by God, should govern public policy decision-making has allowed the enthronement of the god of convenience as the ruling deity in this aspect of our moral and cultural experience.

The god of convenience, ruling capriciously in the hearts of frightened, lonely women, and represented by greedy, self-interested prophets in the guise of abortionists and abortion-rights advocates, is the putative lord of life and death where children in the womb are concerned. This situation is an abomination in the eyes of God.

Christians for a generation now have resisted the practice of abortion, rejecting the false premises of the pro-choice agenda and arguing for a definition of life more in line with the teaching of God’s Word. We have been right to do so, and we must not back down from this commitment. The present tendency in national politics to focus on matters of economics more than on social policy represents a tilt away from an economy of justice toward an economy of material prosperity.

Yet it is precisely devotion to this view of the economy which has made the practice of abortion as a matter of convenience so widespread.

Christians must insist that all political candidates seeking their support be firm in their commitment to resist and overthrow the present abortion regime and to expose the lie of the pro-choice agenda by every available means.

The Law of God is holy and righteous and good. Abortion is unholy, unrighteous, and evil. If we want a just and loving society, we will worship God and obey His Law, and we will work to dethrone the god of convenience and to expose the folly and self-interest of all its followers.

Visit our website, www.ailbe.org, and sign up to receive our thrice-weekly devotional, Crosfigell, featuring writers from the period of the Celtic Revival and T. M.’s reflections on Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition. Does the Law of God still apply today? Order a copy of T. M.’s book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, and study the question for yourself.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.