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Is A Fetus, A Living Person?

This is the absolute key issue that impacts all areas of the debate surrounding abortion.  Knowing the answer to this makes addressing the issue clear as day.  If a fetus is not a child or a living person, what's the harm?  It would not be much different than removing cancer or a parasitic growth.  BUT If a fetus is a living, growing, person and a small defenseless child... that would be a moral, ethical, eternal, game changer.  But how do we determine this?  Do we use Human law?  Scientific theories?  Do we depend on subjective human definitions?

We cannot use human laws, human government actions, or humanistic definitions to determine if a fetus is a living person.  The reason is, laws have and in some cases still do, dehumanized people; African Americans and Jews for example.  And just because human action neglects something, does not mean it was worth neglecting; Jews and Slaves are the example.  We can not rely on humanistic scientific theories because, they too, have been used to dehumanize entire people groups; African Americans and Jews for example.  We must go to what transcends humanity, humanistic thought, and human subjectivity; something outside of humanity, not bound by humanity, something objective, universal, and divine.  We must turn to Holy Scripture; which gives the value to life and defines life- because it came from the creator and giver of Life. 
"For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works and that my soul knows well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed, and in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them" (Psalm 139:13-16)

"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)
But when He who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through His grace" (Galatians 1:15)
"While they were there, the time came for the baby to born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son" (Luke 2:6-7)
Was Jesus not Jesus while he was growing in Mary's womb?  The Son of God was just a blob of tissue until he was born and suddenly became The Son of God?  Was The Christ just an parasitic cancerous invader allowed to develop and grow in Mary's womb?  Or was HE already known by God, was He a person?

God acknowledged us before we were formed. God knew us before birth.  We are loved, as a fetus just as a small person. We are given a purpose even before birth.  God sees US before we are even formed!  God takes ownership of us as we are growing in the womb.  He knew us personally, even as an embryo, as a fetus or whatever other modern medical term you want to call your pre-born self.  You were you, known by God, given a purpose, all before you were conceived.  Thus, given what God himself reveals in scripture, an embryo, fetus, human zygote, blastocyst, whatever, you are, they ARE a living, growing person, loved by God.

Injustice and Oppression is unwillingly forced on the less fortunate and those who do not have the ability to defend themselves.
"Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause" (Isaiah 1:17)

"Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy." (Proverbs 31:8-9)
Why is it we feel obligated to fight for the health and welfare of premature babies the very moment they exit the womb, and yet, could have aborted the same baby 30 minutes prior?  What changed in that 30 minutes?  Did they magically become a person?  Even before the entire baby is birthed, are they still not a person, all the while their head can be seen preparing to exit the womb?  Who decides at what moment do these babies suddenly transform into a person?  Do law makers invent a law that decides that?  Do courts decide that?  Does swaying cultural opinion decide this?  Are you defined as a person based on some other person's view of you?  As previously established, they are a person, a person at conception; a person declared by God himself.  They are absolutely in need of our help.  They are mute, they are destitute, they are poor, they are the exact person God is talking about in Prov 31:8-9.
"So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." (Matthew 18:14)
Abortion is not God's will, as Jesus stated.  Not only is it not in His will to let children perish, but it is a commanded duty of the church to defend them (Isaiah 1:17; Prov. 31:8-9).  They are the most in need.  Through this we begin to see how valuable they are; how valuable YOU were at that age.  Not just their own inherent value but their equal value as a person.

It is interesting that a lot of the LGBTQ community claim to have been born with their sexual "identity" yet, have no problem aborting babies that may be LGBTQ.  As a whole, they do not fight for the rights of the unborn LGBTQ persons; yet, claim to have rights because were born with that identity.

We, with our limited, frail, human understanding of biology, debate back and forth about when a fetus becomes a living person;  the moment of conception, the moment the heart starts beating, the moment the nervous system is developed and the fetus can feel pain, and on and on the debate goes.  We fail to see that we do not define life and that the creator of heaven and earth, creator of all things, the creator of LIFE itself, already has.  And THAT is the standard, his own, by which he will judge the world; not by our legal or scientific definitions but by what He has made known in his word.

Obviously, those who do not know God will not see the Bible as supernaturally eternally authoritative word of The Almighty Trune God.  And using Holy Scripture as the reasoning for why A Fetus is A Living Person seems vain.  But its not.  Because now, all those who do not know God, who see this article and hear its reasoning, are exposed to his divine word, rendering his divine judgement perfectly just.  Hearts were revealed and either they love the darkness more than the light or the Holy Spirit convicts and transforms them down the road.  Presenting and proclaiming scripture is never in vain, God's own words, are never spoken in vain.  God's words bring life out of nothing!  God speaks, and a person is declared.


This leads us to the next issue:  How Valuable is a Fetus?

Back to: Abortion main page

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