Abortion has been in the news recently because the Supreme Court has finally had a rational idea about the issue. This has led to a numerous amount of commentary on the topic. This has included unintelligent commentary about the Biblical notion of the topic. Some maintain that the Holy writ supports abortion. Here are some fundamental arguments:

Gen 2:7

7 Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

Often many appeal to the notion that someone isn’t a person until they have their first breath independent of another body. This is obviously about special creation. It hardly was meant to say infants are persons. it also wouldn’t follow that oxygen must be had independent of a machine. People often can have medical issues that make their breathing dependent upon technology. Should they be executed? This has been long debunked but abortionists don’t actually read their opponents:

1. What are the many (“lots”) of Bible passages that say life begins with breath? I’m only aware of two explicit passages:

Gen 2:7

Ezk 37:1-14

i) These aren’t discussing the inception of life in general. Gen 2:7 is about the creation of Adam. But that’s unique. That’s hardly the norm for human beings.

ii) The Valley of Dry Bones vision is surreal.

2. The word ruach means more than one thing: wind, breath, spirit. It’s often a designation for the Spirit of God, although it trades on metaphorical associations with the breath of life. So it can denote the creative Spirit rather than “the breath of life”.

3. The Bible is addressed to a prescientific audience in which cessation of breathing is a criterion for death. And, indeed, that’s still the case outside of the E.R.

4. That’s a roughhewn criterion for people who are born (e.g. 1 Kgs 17:17). Prenatal life is not in view.

5. If you wish to get technical about it, while babies in utero don’t breath, they require oxygen:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318993.php

6. If the absence of breathing is a justification for abortion, then by parity of argument we shouldn’t attempt to resuscitate people who stop breathing as a result of drowning, cardiac arrest, &c. Likewise, we shouldn’t put patients on ventilators who can’t breathe on their own.

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/09/abortion-and-breathe-of-life.html

Num 5:27

²⁷ “When he makes her drink the water, if she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings a curse will enter her to cause bitter suffering; her belly will swell, and her womb will shrivel. She will become a curse among her people. ²⁸ But if the woman has not defiled herself and is pure, she will be unaffected and will be able to conceive children.

As one heretic stated:

For thousands of years, abortion was not condemned by Judaism, and for almost 2,000 years the same was true with Christianity.

But it’s no longer the Bronze Age, and sometimes the world feels more complicated. Modern Christians trying to live faithful lives must deduce what a biblical perspective would be on a variety of modern issues where scripture is silent.

But abortion is not one of those issues because of Numbers 5:27.

If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse.

The water that brings a curse is an ancient method of abortion.

https://aninjusticemag.com/heres-what-the-bible-really-says-about-abortion-f39d8a2a1cde

One should notice that this isn’t a morning-after pill. It is a divine judgment on an adulterer. God has the right to take life and give it. This isn’t the idea that women have the right to choose. If this was a woman like our modern-day feminist wouldn’t she be happy with the results?

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/12/trial-by-ordeal.html

http://freedthinkerpodcast.blogspot.com/2018/04/trial-by-ordeal-in-numbers-5_8.html

Exodus 21:22–25

22 “When men get in a fight and hit a pregnant woman so that her children are born prematurely but there is no injury, the one who hit her must be fined as the woman’s husband demands from him, and he must pay according to judicial assessment. 23 If there is an injury, then you must give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for wound.

As one heretic stated:

Pro-life Christians often point to Exodus 21:22–25 as evidence that God sees a fetus as the same as a fully-formed person. The passage prescribes what must be done if a pregnant woman becomes involved in a fight between two men, is injured, and has a miscarriage.

It makes a distinction between the penalty for the loss of the fetus and injury to the woman. For the fetus, the husband and the judges determine an appropriate fine. However, if the woman is injured or dies, lex talionis is applied — an eye for an eye, life for a life.

While the scenario in this verse refers to a miscarriage, not an abortion, the application of lex talionis points to an understanding of pregnancy that tends to reinforce a pro-choice perspective instead. The man was only fined, not executed, for causing a miscarriage.

https://aninjusticemag.com/heres-what-the-bible-really-says-about-abortion-f39d8a2a1cde

I’ve addressed this passage in-depth:

https://spirited-tech.com/2020/05/20/is-abortion-biblical/

Furthermore, I recommend these for information:

Biblical Violence

Some people object to the pro-life position on the basis that God in the OT or elsewhere was violent and took human lives including children at times:

The Old Testament is actually full of examples of God’s mercy and love. Exodus 34:6, for example, speaks of God’s compassion, love, and faithfulness. Other examples include Isaiah 40:11, Leviticus 19:34, and Psalm 103. Even the famous “love your neighbor as yourself,” which is often attributed to Jesus alone, is actually from the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18).

Of course, there are places in the Old Testament where God is violent and demands that others act violently as well. In the book of Exodus, in the Plague of the Firstborn, God murders the oldest child in every Egyptian family (Exodus 12:29-30). In the conquest narratives from the book of Joshua (Joshua 2-12), God commands Israelite armies to destroy whole cities and slaughter their inhabitants without prejudice. Today we might describe such extermination as “genocide.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/old-testament-god-pro-life-texas-abortion-b1915844.html

They usually focus on the instances in which God takes the lives of children. Whether the firstborn, the families of those during the conquests, or during the flood. Children inevitably lost their lives. This is where a fundamental difference exists between a Christian and an abortionist. God has the right to choose. Women are not God and will be judged by God when they took human life without divine sanction. Humans don’t have the right to take human life unless God grants them the right. Of course, these divine judgments often occurred because of these children’s representatives. Are abortionists arguing that the bible supports a women’s right to choose or no right to life at all? If children don’t have a right to live because of divine judgment, then adults are also under the same condemnation (Eph. 2:3).

1 Samuel 2:6

The LORD brings death and gives life; he sends some down to Sheol, and he raises others up.

Deuteronomy 32:39

See now that I am He; there is no God besides Me. I bring death and I give life; I wound and I heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My hand.