When does an embryo become a human being?
An embryo or fetus must be considered a human being at that moment when its spirit enters it, for then to destroy it is to split the spirit from the body, which is murder.
For some this means at conception, and to support this they use God's declaration that he knew us from the womb. See for instance Isaiah 48:8
'For I knew that you would deal very treacherously,
And were called a transgressor from the womb.'
And Psalm 58:3
'The wicked are estranged from the womb;
They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.'
And again Isaiah 49:1, 5
'The Lord has called Me from the womb;
From the matrix of My mother He has made mention of My name.
The Lord formed me from the womb to be His servant.'
But at what point does God first know us? What about Jeremiah 1:5?
'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you.'
Surely if before the Lord formed us he knew us then can the argument above apply?
For others birth is the point of life, but is there really any difference between the fetus one minute before birth and one minute after? Does it move at one time and not the other? We know that the CNS takes until the age of two years to myelinate properly. Perhaps we should take this time as the point at which life is given to the child!
Of course we are unable to do this. This is not just a gut feeling of repulsion at the murder of fully-formed individuals, whether they be in the womb or not, but Scripture itself supports us in this. The killing of unborn children is apparently viewed as evil. [1]
A new time for the beginning of human life
I would like to postulate a new time for this distinction - at about six weeks of gestation. To support this I would like to invoke the idea of the blood. Through the blood of Christ we are saved [2] and it was the blood of animals that the Jews had to offer up to God for their sin.
God avenges blood [3] and it is the blood that must be cleansed. [4] In death our Lord talks of the pouring of blood. [5] The life is in the blood. [6] Therefore I suggest that if the life is in the blood then we can call a fetus a human being if it has blood.
The first blood cells are formed around six weeks. Therefore I suggest that any embryo that is aborted at around this age can be said to have been murdered. As a woman is not defined as pregnant until she has missed at least one period then how can any abortion not risk murder, for how can we be sure that any pregnancy is less than four to six weeks?
However, this definition of human life does allow for the use of contraceptive devices that work at the point of implantation, such as the IUD, the 'morning after' pill, and many other contraceptives that were previously thought to be spermicidal.
Wisdom is needed
I am sure the debate will continue for a long time. We can only pray for wisdom from the Lord. I believe this is especially important with the problems of unwanted or disabled children.
Finally, one thing is for sure. God did not bring us forth to kill us, for Moses could persuade him to relent from letting his wrath burn against the Israelites by this argument, amongst others:
'Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, 'He
brought them out to harm them, to kill them in
the mountains, and to consume them from the
face of the earth?'' (Ex 32:12)
