Divinely Knit

The conviction that each human life is sacred has its roots in the scriptures. There God is revealed as the living God who bestows life. In contrast to the Gentile nations who manufacture gods in their image, Yahweh fashions human beings in God's image (Genesis 1: 26, 28). Each person thus is vested with an inviolable dignity on the basis of his or her creation. From this flows the Torah's sixth commandment (Exodus 20:13) which functions not only as a prohibition of murder, but as a positive injunction to respect human life. Thus when Jesus assumes the role of Moses and expounds the law in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17-20), he reveals that the commandment in fact requires that we love our neighbors, not merely that we do them no physical harm (Matthew 5:21-26).

The premium placed on human life gives childbirth a redemptive dimension in the scriptures. It is Eve's seed which ultimately will crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15), Abraham's seed which will inherit the promise (Genesis 15:1-5), David's descendant who will occupy Jerusalem's throne forever (2 Samuel 7:12-16). That fertility is presented as a blessing (Exodus 23:26) and barrenness a curse (e.g., Genesis 21:1ff) is therefore not so much a reflection of an agrarian or a patriarchal ethic as it is of the salvific hope of the ingathering of the full number of God's elect. The Old Testament writers did not see biological reproduction as merely a natural event. Childbirth, for them, is a sign of God's favor. It is grace.

So also prenatal development is portrayed as a season of divine activity:

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body. (Psalm 139:13-16)

God's intimate involvement with the psalmist (verses 1-12) predated his birth. God is seen to be at work during the period of gestation, fashioning another unique expression of the divine image. So also Jeremiah is called to his prophetic ministry while yet in his mother's womb (Jeremiah 1:5), and John the Baptist is imbued with power by the Holy Spirit during Elizabeth's pregnancy (Luke 1:35, 39-45). The scriptural affirmation that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit is not without significance (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:35). For Jesus to become incarnate, to become truly human, entailed his participation in the full range of human experience--from conception through death.

The redemptive import of childbirth also accounts for the frequent occurrence of genealogies throughout Scripture. The seed of the promise is chronicled in faithful anticipation of the messianic age. It is fitting, therefore, that the New Testament commences with the "book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ" (Matthew 1:1).

The salvation Jesus brings--his words, his ministry, his very being--consists in life. To those who have drawn the wage of sin, whether in the form of death, disease, or privation, Jesus brings life: the life of the resurrection which at last will swallow up death in victory.

The pro-life movement, which issues from an abiding respect for human life, is thus rooted in fertile soil. Opposition to abortion has become for many a threshold issue, the point at which they have engaged in political and social concerns for the first time. It is true that many of these people at first settled in comfortably beside those who manifested little sensitivity to matters of economic justice. But opposition to abortion is not just another thread in the New Right tapestry. There is no logical connection between support for a Human Life Amendment and advocacy of nuclear arms proliferation.

Those whose ears are attuned to the voiceless cries of aborted children cannot for long remain deaf to the anguished plaints of the poor and the hungry and the oppressed. For these, an authentic commitment to the sanctity of human life will give rise to a full-orbed concern for peace and justice.

Doug Badger was legislative director of the Christian Action Council, a Protestant pro-life organization in Washington, D.C., and his wife's Lamaze coach when this article appeared. This article was finished during the early stages of labor with their second child--a girl.