Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg attracted attention recently with comments about the Bible and abortion. In a radio interview that touched on questions of faith, Buttigieg criticized the pro-life position, suggesting that it is based on a questionable interpretation of what the Bible says about when life begins. As he put it: “You know, there’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath, and so even that is something that we can interpret differently.”
Buttigieg may have been referring to Genesis 2:7, which describes the creation of Adam: “Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” It is true that in this passage, as in other places in the Old Testament, those who are alive are described as possessing the “breath of life.” However, this richly symbolic phrase – which plays on the fact that the Hebrew word “ruah” can mean both “breath” and “spirit” – cannot be reduced to the simplistic doctrine that only beings actively exchanging air through their lungs are alive. To interpret it in this way would exclude fish, for instance, from among the living. In the Bible, “breath of life” is a figure of speech, not a biological criterion.
An additional problem in using the creation of the first human being to understand human life in the womb is that Adam’s life began in a completely unique way. He was not conceived by a mother and a father, and he did not develop in the womb the way subsequent human beings do. Rather, he was directly formed by God. The account of Adam’s creation, therefore, cannot tell us anything about the humanity of the developing human embryo or fetus.
When the Bible does speak about life in the womb, it always treats the unborn human being as a person known and loved by God, the subject of His care and special protection. The Lord says to the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer 1:5). In Job 31:15, he asks rhetorically “Did (God) not make us in the womb?” Psalm 139:13 and Isaiah 44:24 agree that it is indeed God who “formed you in the womb.” And of course, in Luke’s Gospel the unborn John the Baptist greets the unborn Jesus by leaping in his mother Elizabeth’s womb at the greeting of Mary (Lk 1:44). In the Bible, the unborn child is not only human in a biological sense but is also a person known to God, who cares for him or her in an intimate and loving way.
But the Bible verse that is most relevant to abortion is the Fifth Commandment, “You shall not kill” (Ex 20:13; also see Mt 19:18), part of the Decalogue which is the heart of both Jewish and Christian morality. This principle means that it is never permissible to directly kill an innocent human being. The important question, therefore, is one of fact: is the human embryo or fetus destroyed by abortion an innocent human being? If so, then abortion is forbidden by the Fifth Commandment.
In his interview, Buttigieg suggested that we cannot definitively know when life begins. He called it a “kind of cosmic question” and suggested that each of us “draw the line” of life’s beginning according to our personal beliefs.
In fact, the answer to the question of when human life begins is far from mysterious or subjective. Modern biology and medicine teach us definitively that life begins at conception. As one medical textbook states: “Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo development) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” (Keith L. Moore and T.V.N. Persaud, “The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology,” 8th edition).
The zygote or embryo whose development begins at conception is growing by cellular reproduction and thus is alive. It has a distinct DNA from its mother and is not a part of its mother’s body. It is the offspring of human parents and it is human. There is in fact no ambiguity whatsoever about when human life begins. Drawing this “line” is not, as Buttigieg claims, a vague “cosmic question” that each of us can answer as we choose. It is a clear line – beginning at conception.
As the Catholic Church’s 1974 “Declaration on Procured Abortion” noted, abortion has been forbidden from the beginning of Christianity. The first-century catechism known as the Didache stated this clearly: “You shall not kill by abortion the fruit of the womb and you shall not murder the infant already born.” The great Fathers and Doctors of the Church agreed that abortion was impermissible. The lack of precise knowledge about the details of embryology for much of the Church’s history did not cast any doubt on the evil of abortion. As the third-century theologian Tertullian declared: “To prevent birth is anticipated murder; it makes little difference whether one destroys a life already born or does away with it in its nascent stage. The one who will be a man is already one.”
In modern times, the advancement of medical science and embryology has removed any doubt that what is present in the womb from conception is an individual member of the human species – a human being. And every human being has a fundamental right to life. Asking the law to protect this right is not an extreme position. It is not the imposition of an esoteric religious viewpoint. It is a basic requirement of justice, backed both by science and by sound religion.
In politics and in life, there are plenty of questions that are open to interpretation. The humanity of the unborn child is not one of them. There can be no social justice if some human beings are deprived of the most basic legal protection. We should demand that all of our politicians defend the rights of the unborn child.
Father Peter Ascik is parochial vicar of St. Matthew Church in Charlotte.