As Reformed Christians, we rely on God’s revealed Word, the Bible, for determining truth, and we look to it as our only infallible guide for faith and action.  It is our authority for understanding the distinction between good and evil and for determining what is moral and immoral.

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THE BIBLICAL CASE FOR THE PROTECTION OF PREBORN HUMAN LIFE FROM THE MOMENT OF FERTILIZATION

 

The position on abortion of Presbyterians Protecting Life is built on Scriptural truths:

 

1. God places higher value on human beings than on the rest of his creation.

 

Human beings are made uniquely, in the image of God (1), and are not only distinct from the rest of creation (2), but also are rulers and stewards of everything else created by God (3). Fertilization and the resulting birth of a baby are not simply acts which continue the human race. Rather, fertilization is a blessing of God (4). This fruit of the love between a husband and wife is one evidence of God's love and sovereignty (5). The birth of a baby is a reward; a gift or heritage from God (6).

 

2. The meaning and purpose God has for each human life begins before birth.

 

Scripture commonly refers to fertilization, rather than birth, as the moment of our beginning (7). God speaks of us as known, cared for, protected, and loved by Him before birth (8). He  often announces His specific purpose for individuals before they are born (9). The Hebrew word yeled and the Greek word brephos, used to refer to newborns and youth, are used in Scripture to refer to the unborn. This teaches us the continuity of existence before and after birth (10).

 

The teaching of medical science regarding the unborn is consistent with Scripture (11). Scripture and science both provide us with a clear demarcation for the beginning of human life: the moment of fertilization.

 

3. God forbids us to kill innocent human life (12).

 

Scripture makes no distinction regarding our humanness, born and unborn. Therefore, it forbids the destruction of innocent human life including unborn babies. The Westminster Standards, a confessional statement shared by most Reformed churches, includes in the sins forbidden by the sixth commandment "...neglecting or withdrawing the lawful or necessary means of preservation of life" (13).

 

4. God requires us to protect and care for the needy and helpless (14).

 

The duty to "bear one another's burdens" applies to pregnancy exactly as to every other aspect of human need. It is our task as Christian disciples and servants, even in the most desperate of circumstances, to use the resources God has provided to find solutions to problem pregnancies that allow both mother and baby to live and prosper.

 

5. God freely offers forgiveness and restoration to the repentant (15).

 

God is rich in mercy and slow to anger. He offers forgiveness, healing, and new life through Christ. We, the Church, are God's agents of reconciliation in the world, and it is our calling to extend the compassion, understanding, and grace of God both to those involved in sex outside of marriage and to those who have had abortions. We are to make the forgiveness, healing, and restoration available in Christ known to women and men who find themselves in these difficult circumstances and to lead them gently toward repentance and faith in Christ (16).

 

6. Scriptural teaching regarding the value of human life and our responsibility to protect and care for innocent life applies in every case (17).

 

Just as those of us already born who were conceived in incest or rape, or who are handicapped, or who live in dire situations of need are protected from being killed by the injunctions of Scripture, so those yet unborn who are conceived in the same circumstances are protected.

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In circumstances where physical complications of pregnancy develop, every attempt should be made to preserve the lives of both mother and child (18).

 

 

​What can you do to lower the number of abortions in your community?

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1. Attitudes on the value of human life and abortion begin in the heart. Share the good news of the love of God and Jesus Christ with your friends! Talk with them about what Scripture teaches about the worth of every human being,

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2. If you are truly repentant, God will forgive you of every sin. That means first confessing that a thought or action, or inaction is a sin (not an attitude of “well, if it is a sin, God will forgive me” which shows the lack of true repentance.) Many people who have not had an abortion themselves still need forgiveness for facilitating, encouraging, or failing to prevent abortion.

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3. Encourage leaders of your church to provide support for a local resource center to help women choose life for their children and provide the spiritual and practical help they need to raise their children. Many of these centers can use volunteers as well as financial support.

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4. Live lives, and encourage your friends to live lives, that are unlikely to lead to the temptation of abortion. Most abortions involve pregnancies where the parents are not married to each other. Pray for and exercise self-control over sexual intimacy until, after, and only within marriage. Avoid mind-altering drugs. Not only do they make sex prior to marriage more likely, but they also put great strain upon marriages.

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What can your church do?

 

For almost everyone in our congregations, during some or all of their reproductive life, abortion has been legal and condoned by much of society. Even in many life-affirming churches, abortion is a subject avoided by pastors. Whether your congregation is overtly pro-life, or whether members are known to have varying views, on the average well over 25% of members, men and women, have been involved in elective abortion, from encouraging, procuring, financing, demanding, or having an abortion, to having lost a child, grandchild, sibling or other relative, or friends’ child to abortion over their objections, or without their knowledge at the time – or merely condoning through failure to speak or act when help was needed.

 

God assures us that if we confess our sins, He will forgive us. Involvement in abortion is not an unforgivable sin. Many in the church, as well as outside it, need this forgiveness and healing. While hearing nothing but condemnation will not facilitate this healing, neither will denying the sinfulness of abortion, nor silence from church leadership.

 

Abortion is first a spiritual issue. As Christians, we rely upon the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments for answers to questions such as “What does God require of us”? “What value does God place upon human life prior to birth”? If our congregations are divided, should we not first look to and study what Scripture has to say?

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What are you teaching the youth in your congregation?

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Do you discuss God’s love for them and for all children—before and after birth?

 

With older youth, do you discuss God’s good provision of sex for within the marriage of a man and a woman and its misuse outside of marriage? Do you stress to young men the benefits of self-control and the need to provide emotional, financial, and spiritual help to their children throughout their childhood and adolescence? Do you teach the need to be good role models? Do you encourage setting priorities of God, family, and then self?

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​THE GOAL OF PRESBYTERIANS PROTECTING LIFE WITH RESPECT TO ABORTION

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PPL calls the Presbyterian and Reformed family of churches to promote the protection of human life from fertilization to natural death and to address pregnancies with challenges, in ways that enable both mother and baby to live and receive the blessings of God. Some Reformed denominations call for the protection of human life, while others place the moral judgment of humans above that of God. PPL's calling is not to political activity (which is the calling of others), but to change hearts and minds in churches, and to encourage church leaders to address this as a spiritual issue.

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Endnotes

1. Gen 1:27; Job 10:8-12; Eph 4:24

2. Gen 1:26; Gen 2:20; Ps 8:5

3. Gen 1:26; Ps 8:6-8

4. Gen 4:1; Gen 29:31-35

5. Gen. 25:21; Ps 128:3

6. Ps 127:3-5; Gen 21:2; Gen 29:35; I Sam 1:20; Mt 1:20,21

7. Ps 139:13-16; Jer 1:4-5; Job 31:15

8. Gen 16:11-12; Gen 25:23; Is 49:1; Jer 1:4-5; Gal 1:15-16; Mt 1:18-25

9. Gen 25:21-24; Luke 1:13-17

10. Exo 21:22; Ruth 1:5; Gen 22:21; I Pet 2:2; Luke 2:12; Acts 7:19; 2 Tim 3:15; Luke 1: 41, 44; Luke 18:15

11. Human sperm and eggs both have 23 chromosomes. At fertilization, when the cell membranes of sperm and egg fuse, a single cell of 46 chromosomes is formed. From that point on all that’s added is time and nourishment.

12. Gen 9:5-6; Ex 20:13; Ezek 20:31; Amos 1:13; Lev 18:21; Jer 32:35

13. Westminster Larger Catechism, Q&A 136.

14. Prov 24:11,12; Ps 10:17,18; Ps 41:1; Mt 18:10

15. Is 55:7; I John 1:9

16. 2 Cor 5:18

17. Westminster Larger Catechism, Q&A 134-136.

18. “… for the fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life, which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.” – John Calvin, Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1950), 3:41, 42

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​(Adopted June 1988, revised April 2025)

 

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