1. The Bible prohibits taking innocent human life.
2. The unborn is an innocent human being.
3. Therefore, the Bible is against abortion, which is the taking the life of an innocent human being.
To see the support for the premises, see here.
This argument was meant to demonstrate that the Bible is indeed pro-life, but as McDowell argues further in his book,1 P2 is also supported by science. He offers 3 reasons that science shows the unborn is an innocent human being. He writes:
"First, the unborn is alive. People sometimes claim that we don't know when life begins, but scientifically speaking, there's no doubt. The mom is alive. The dad is alive. The sperm is alive. the egg is alive. There is no stage in the process of development when the unborn is not living...
Second, the unborn is separate from the mother. The unborn may be dependent on the mother, but it is a distinct organism from the mother. We know this because the fetus has a unique DNA fingerprint, can have a different blood type from the mother, and if the parents are of different races, it can develop a different skin color from the mother.
And finally, the unborn is human. There is a simple way to know the unborn is human: consider the parents! Since beings reproduce after their kind, if we want to know what type of being an offspring is, ask a simple question: what type of parents did it have? If the parents are human, the offspring is human.
The science is clear: at fertilization, the unborn is a living, individual human being, separate from the mother."2
Courage and Godspeed,
Chad
Footnotes:
1. It should be noted that the work this comes from, A Rebel's Manifesto, is written for a popular level. For a more exhaustive treatment of the science that supports the fact that the unborn is an innocent human being, go here or here.
2. Sean McDowell, A Rebel's Manifesto: Choosing Truth, Real Justice, and Love Amid the Noise of Today's World, 168-169.
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A Brief Defense of the Pro-Life Position
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