Government’s Biblical Role
God established government to keep sinful people from wronging each other.
Page Summary:
Arguing that the government should never restrict "choice" is nothing more than an argument for anarchy. Anyone who understands the biblical role of government and deals honestly with the Bible's portrayal of human life (inside and outside the womb) should recognize that biblically speaking, the government must protect innocent human life.
The slogan which sits at the top of every page on the Religious Coalition for Reproduction Choice website says, "Pro-faith, Pro-family, Pro-choice". This schizophrenic declaration is something akin to "Pro-Jew, Pro-Synagogue, Pro-Holocaust". It is an utter absurdity.
If you visit the section of their website entitled, "What Does My Religion Say About Abortion?" you will find the following: "We recognize that in a pluralistic society such as ours, government must not impose laws about childbearing based on any one belief about when personhood begins." In the section, "Why is Reproductive Choice a Moral Issue?" you will find, "As pro-choice people of faith, we believe that the ability to make moral decisions is the very basis of an individual's dignity and autonomy and an expression of our God-given ability to exercise free will."
It is very common for people who reject the Bible as being the authoritative Word of God to nevertheless use the Bible in an attempt to convince Christians that it is unbiblical to try and restrict abortion. They say things like, "Isn't it a sin to judge other people?" "Didn't God give us a free will?"
Dr. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, in her essay, "Respecting the Moral Agency of Women", also available on the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice website makes just such an argument. She says:
According to Scripture, God knew that Adam and Eve would misuse their power to choose. Yet God chose to give them that power, creating them “sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.” We human beings should follow our Creator’s example by giving one another moral elbow room.
On the one hand, this is an astonishing concession because Dr. Mollenkott, in comparing a woman's choice to abort to Eve's choice to eat the fruit, is essentially granting that abortion is sin. The argument goes like this. God left Eve free to sin by not preventing her from eating the fruit. We should leave women free to sin by not preventing them from aborting their children. What is totally ignored is the fact that while God did not prevent Adam and Eve from sinning, He neither spared them from the consequence of their sinful choice. What came of their decision? The condemnation and death of all humanity, a lifetime of toil and labor for all of mankind, pain in child birth, relational strife and exile from the garden of Eden. If abortion is again outlawed in the U.S., women will still be "free" to break the law and have an abortion, just as Eve was free to break God's law and eat the fruit. The difference will be in the legal consequences which result from that decision. While Dr. Mollenkott tries to use Eve's example as an argument in favor of unrestricted abortion, it is a scenario much better suited for illustrating exactly the opposite. It is right and good for appropriate legal consequences to be attached to immoral choices just as it was right for God to attach legal consequences to Eve's immoral choice.
God established government to be His legal representative on earth (Romans 13:1,2). God established government to keep sinful people from doing evil against each other (Romans 13:3). While it is true that individuals are called to "turn the other cheek" (Matthew 5:39), the government is not (Romans 13:4). The government is called to execute judgement upon those who do wickedly. Arguing that the government must not restrict an individual's free moral agency, is nothing more than an argument for anarchy. Anarchy is in no means biblical. Francis Beckwith, in his book Politically Correct Death, notes that, "laws against drunk driving, murder, smoking crack, robbery, and child molesting are all intended to limit free moral agency, yet it seems counterintuitive, not to mention unbiblical, to assert that God does not approve of these laws." If the government has a biblical obligation to oppose murder (and it does), then the government has a biblical responsibility to oppose abortion.
The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) tries to sidestep this governmental obligation by directly appealing to a host of blatant falsehoods. They say, "Being pro-choice means we honor all choices. It means we trust women and their families to decide whether and when to have children." The RCRC does not honor all choices. They certainly don't "honor" the choices Mr. Beckwith listed above, and they don't even honor giving pro-lifers the choice to not fund abortions with their own tax dollars. The RCRC tells us that they, "hold in high respect the value of potential human life, while remaining committed to women as responsible, moral decision-makers." Embryos and fetuses are not "potential life". They are genetically distinct human beings. This is scientific fact. Finally, the RCRC says that "some (people) oppose abortion in all cases because they believe human life begins when the egg and sperm meet. They hold this religious belief even though medical science defines pregnancy as beginning with the implantation of the fertilized egg." The fact that life begins at fertilization is not a "religious belief". It is a clear and provable fact of biology. When the RCRC claims that "medical science" has proven that pregnancy begins at implantation, they fail to cite a single source, nor do they reconcile the fact that every single surgical abortion and most medical abortions kill embryos and fetuses which have already been implanted. If implantation is when life begins, how is abortion justified?!
Misstating the facts of prenatal development is the only way to justify abortion and so this is what the RCRC does. Anyone who deals honestly with the personhood of the unborn, has to conclude that not only does the Bible condemn abortion, it obligates the government to do the same.
This page was last updated on October 24, 2016. To cite this page in a research paper, visit: "Citing Abort73 as a Source."
Parent Page:
- Biblical Teaching: The Bible makes no moral distinction between born children and unborn children.
