Life Begins at Conception

WHEN DOES LIFE BEGIN?

One may argue here that they agree that it is wrong to murder, but they still don't see how a fetus necessarily qualifies as a human being. Perhaps God doesn't feel the same way about a very young fetus, as He does an older fetus, a newborn, or a 50-year-old. It may be a different issue altogether with Him. Does the Bible say anything specifically about unborn children?

In Exodus 21:22 God gives a specific law regarding social order for the Israelites. He stated that if two men were fighting and hit a pregnant woman, thus causing her to give birth prematurely, they must be fined according to any damage done to the baby. The fine must be paid in relation to the amount of damage inflicted upon the child. If God would make a law specifically referring to the rights of the unborn, then surely the unborn must mean something to Him!

It has been stated If the womb had windows, there would be no abortion. As humans, we are not omnipresent and cannot know the full scope of what each human life is worth. We cannot dwell in the womb with a fetus, nor can we see it as it matures. But God can.

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW

Just 18 days after conception, the baby's heart begins to beat. At six weeks, brain waves can be measured. At eight weeks the vital organs are functioning and fingerprints have formed. At nine weeks, the unborn baby is able to feel pain. Over 700,000 abortions each year are performed after this point in the pregnancy. By the beginning of the second month, the unborn child, small as it is, has begun to look distinctly human, though the mother may not even be aware that she is pregnant! By the time the baby is eleven weeks old, he or she breaths (fluid), swallows, digests, sleeps, dreams, wakes, tastes, hears, and feels pain. Babies born prematurely can survive outside the womb as young as 20-25 weeks old. Yet, all that is necessary to make the baby a grown human being is already there from the moment of conception. All it needs is time to mature.

Former Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop stated "We now know when life begins because the test-tube baby proves that life begins with conception. What do you have in the dish? An egg and a sperm. What do you add to it to get a baby? Nothing." Though it is wee, it is still a real person, just as a crumb of bread is still real bread. No one who has been given the gift of life should dare despise the day of small beginnings. Have we forgotten so quickly that we were once as small?

"In the tiny, almost invisible thirty two cell blastocyst--in that one gram or so of tissue--there is a physical potential and moral destiny unparalleled in our universe. Next to it, a gram of plutonium is a triviality: plutonium cannot compose a symphony, cannot cure cancer, cannot plan our course to the stars". -Bernard Nathanson, M.D. and former abortionist-

A SPIRITUAL VIEW

God said to the prophet Jeremiah, Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Jeremiah 1:5 God knew this man before he was born. As he was forming in his mother's womb God gave him his personality, talents, and temperament. If his mother had gotten an abortion, the "fetal tissue" she aborted would have been a real person named Jeremiah; a mighty prophet of God and the gift of God's voice to the nations, though she would never have known.

The Lord hath called me from the womb: from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. Isaiah 49:1 KJV

Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us within our mothers? Job 31:15

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:13-14

The above verses are only a sampling of the many Biblical references we find to life inside the mother's womb. From them, it is clear that life begins when God creates it, not at some later point in time when it has grown to look like a newborn. God does not judge things according to their stage of development the way humans tend to. According to the above passages, even the tiniest embryo is the subject of His love and care. God sees each of our lives in the realm of our total existence, whether we are yet unborn, a young woman in the prime of her life, or an old man on his death bed. He is patient with all of us, longing to bring each one of us into His maturity.

From Bible Answers.