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Last month the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Mississippi law banning nearly all abortions in the state. Fierce debate, large protests, and even acts and threats of violence quickly followed, highlighting America’s growing cultural and political division.
With many self-proclaimed Christians on both sides of this issue, it is important that we – as principled followers of Christ – set aside our partisan allegiance and personal experiences and consider Dobbs on its Biblical and Constitutional merits.
Biblical Merits
The central question of the debate over the original Roe v Wade ruling and now the Dobbs v Jackson case is whether the U.S. Constitution grants women the right to terminate their own pregnancies without intervention from any civil government. This then begs two more questions:
- Is the fetus a human life and, if so, does it have the same rights as born human life?
- What is the role of the civil government?
God’s Word is unequivocally clear that taking a human life as the aggressor is wrong:
You shall not murder. ~ Exodus 20:13
Furthermore, He ordained civil government as an avenger of those who lose their lives at the hands of violent aggressors:
Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man. ~ Genesis 9:6
For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. ~ Romans 13:3-4
Throughout His Word God also makes it very clear that life exists and is precious from the earliest moments in the womb. The Old Testament repeatedly emphasizes that God is our Creator in the womb and therefore our God-given rights and responsibilities already exist at that time:
Did He who made me in the womb not make him, and the same one create us in the womb? ~ Job 31:15
Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb; You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon You from birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb. ~ Psalm 22:9-10
For You created my innermost parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. ~ Psalm 139:13
This is what the Lord says, He who made you and formed you from the womb, who will help you:
Do not fear, Jacob My servant, and Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. ~ Isaiah 44:2
And now says the Lord, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him. ~ Isaiah 49:5
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you as a prophet to the nations. ~ Jeremiah 1:4-5
God even placed legal protection for the preborn in the Mosaic Law:
Now if people struggle with each other and strike a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely, but there is no injury, the guilty person shall certainly be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. ~ Exodus 21:22-25
Furthermore, the Mosaic Law also prohibits children from being killed for their father’s sin:
Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin alone. ~ Deuteronomy 24:16
According to 2018 CDC data, unmarried women accounted for 85% of all abortions, meaning that tens of thousands of babies are being killed each year for the sins of their fathers in direct violation of God’s moral law.
Strong indications are also given in the New Testament that the preborn is fully human. John the Baptist is an excellent example of this. While still in his mother’s womb, he was filled with the Holy Spirit (implying preborn babies are spiritual beings) and physically responded with emotion to human voices (implying he also had a soul as defined by having a mind, will, and emotions).
For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother’s womb. ~ Luke 1:15
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how has it happened to me that the mother of my Lord would come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy.” ~ Luke 1:41-44
Furthermore, the Greek word for baby referencing the preborn John the Baptist is the same word used to describe babies outside the womb elsewhere in the New Testament. Thus, no distinction is made between babies in the womb and babies outside of the womb.
From these passages the testimony of Scripture is clear: the fetus is a human life with a body, soul, and spirit and the civil government is charged in both Old and New Testaments to avenge the taking of human life. Therefore, we can conclude from Scripture that the Dobbs ruling was just, as it removed a barrier prohibiting civil government from fulfilling its God-ordained ministry.
Constitutional Merits
The Constitutional merits of the case are laid out quite clearly in the majority opinion, authored by Justice Samuel Alito:
The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.
Justice Alito went on to elaborate that Roe was:
egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided…It imposed the same highly restrictive regime on the entire Nation, and it effectively struck down the abortion laws of every single State…[it] was remarkably loose in its treatment of the constitutional text. It held that the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is part of a right to privacy, which is also not mentioned.
When we look back into the opinions of the Founding Fathers, we see that they were overwhelmingly opposed to abortion and clearly did not intend for such a right to be read into the Constitution.
For example, the committee of three tasked with writing the Declaration of Independence and who came up with the phrase “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” all gave substantial evidence that they opposed abortion. Benjamin Franklin wrote passionately against the practice in two articles published in a Philadelphia newspaper and Thomas Jefferson also spoke of the need to civilize the native Americans in part because the native tribes regularly committed abortions. John Adams wrote a narrative extoling a man for discouraging his brother’s widow from aborting her preborn child, even though it cost him a rich inheritance.
Another Founding Father, Dr. Benjamin Rush, openly opposed abortion. He was a medical doctor and signer of the Declaration of Independence, who also asserted that life began from the moment of fertilization.
Last, but not least, three of the most influential philosophers on the founding generation – John Locke, Montesquieu, and William Blackstone – all stood against abortion as well. Locke explicitly stated that procuring an abortion was against the laws of nature, regardless of whether it was acknowledged as wrong by men or not. He also stated that:
the body of an embryo, dying in the womb, may be very little, not the thousandth part of an ordinary man. For since from the first conception and beginning of formation, it has life.
Montesquieu called abortion a “crime” and said:
There is among savages another custom … it is the cruel practice of abortion
Mr. Blackstone stated in his highly revered legal work Commentaries:
human life, from its commencement to its close, is protected by the common law… an infant in the mother’s womb, is supposed in law to be born for many purposes. It is capable of having a legacy … it may have a guardian assigned to it; and it is enabled to have an estate limited to its use, and to take afterwards by such limitation, as if it were then actually born.”
The evidence from the founding era is abundant. Aside from the fact that life is listed as the first – and therefore most important – of our unalienable rights from the Creator in our Declaration of Independence, the writings of the Founding Fathers themselves along with their greatest philosophical influencers clearly speak out against abortion. Without an explicit granting of abortion rights in the Constitution, the evidence is overwhelmingly against the case for a Constitutional right to abortion.
Conclusion
We know from analyses of the writings of the Founding Fathers that their most cited sources were the Holy Scriptures and the works of Montesquieu, William Blackstone, and John Locke. Remarkably, all four of these sources, the three Founding Fathers who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and a medical doctor signatory of the Declaration stood explicitly against abortion.
Therefore, we can conclude that the notion that a Constitutional right to privacy contains within it an implied right to abortion was not only absent from the original intent of the Founding Fathers, but it is also diametrically opposed to the will of the Creator who gave us our rights in the first place. The Dobbs ruling was not only just, but also of utmost importance to our national welfare. As Psalm 2 concludes:
Take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!
Written by contributing author Samuel Smith
About the Author
Samuel Smith was born in Dallas, Texas but spent the majority of his childhood in Cairo, Egypt where his father was involved in Christian ministry. Following high school, he earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering and mathematics from the United States Military Academy at West Point and then served as an active duty commissioned officer in the U.S. Army.
Today he lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with his wife and four children. He is a former major party nominee for State Representative and currently runs an investment research business. His mission in life is to educate others about God’s design for government and has written a book to that end called Government for the Christian.