By John Stonestreet and Timothy D Padgett
In February, James Talarico, a U.S. Senate candidate from Texas, claimed that the biblical story of the Annunciation from the Gospel of Luke supports his proabortion position. On the Joe Rogan podcast, Talarico asserted that because the angel sought Mary’s consent, a woman has a right to choose her own procreative destiny.
The most obvious flaw with this assertion is that the angel did not ask Mary’s permission. In fact, the angel of the Lord said, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” Mary submits to accept God’s will, but the only person with questions in that conversation was Mary. The angel declared what was going to happen. Mary was humbled and accepted it as the calling on her life.
The deeper flaw in this and most other proabortion arguments is the assumption that whatever is in the womb is not a human life worth protecting. The inherent value of life in the womb—as evident throughout Scripture from Psalms to Jeremiah to Isaiah to Job to Joshua–is something Christians have insisted upon since the earliest days of the Church. To deny that theological reality, as Talarico did, is also to commit a Christological heresy. In the same chapter in Luke, Elizabeth declared that her baby, who was John the Baptist, leapt in her womb when he heard the voice of “the mother of her Lord.” In other words, both John in the womb and Elizabeth out of the womb sensed that the Lord was present though still in His mother’s womb.
Other passages of Scripture that are wrongly used to argue for abortion include Exodus 21. In the middle of several laws covering violent crimes, the text reads, “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined.” If there is harm, the passage continues, then there is a harsh penalty.
Pro-abortionists argue in this passage that only harm to the woman matters and the child is not as valuable. However, the more reasonable interpretation is if,because of a fight, a woman goes into premature labor and the baby lives, then “there is no harm.” Thus, there’s a financial penalty. If the baby dies or is injured—“if there is harm”—the attacker should face punishment up to death.
Another example is Numbers 5. In a list of rules, Moses provided a test for a husband’s claim of his wife’s unfaithfulness. The accused woman was to take an oath of innocence and drink a mix of water and dirt from the tabernacle floor. If innocent, nothing would happen. If guilty, then, among other things, she would become infertile.
It is a strange passage, and theologians differ on how best to understand it. Some suggest it is a psycho-somatic test to root out a woman’s guilty conscience. Others think it a sneaky way for a defenseless woman to escape her husband’s jealousy. Pro-abortionists assert that it is an example of an abortion ordered by God’s law. For that to be the case, however, the punishment would involve the death of a baby. However, the curse reference here is not the ending of a current pregnancy but the prevention of future ones.
These etymological gymnastics attempts aside, the Bible is consistent. Human life is sacred. In the womb, babies are valued, purposed, and yes, human. Throughout the biblical text, including war and sacrifice as in Leviticus, 2 Kings, or Jeremiah, the worst crimes and horrors someone can commit are to murder children. In no way does God’s Word dismiss, much less justify, the slaughter of the innocent.
Contrary to Talarico’s claim, the message of Annunciation Day is not that life and death is left to our choice. Rather, it is in God’s hands. Even in the womb of His mother, Jesus Christ was the Messiah, fully God and fully human. Even in the womb of our mothers, we are fully human, in God’s image.
