Murder Is a Sin
“You shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13) (Deut. 5:17)
“Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder’” (Matt. 19:18) (Matt. 5:21) (Mark. 10:19) (Luke. 18:20) (Rom. 13:9)
Every infant, whether still in the womb or already come out of it, is a human being. And the killing of a human being is a sin. An ancient monument of Christian writing (the Didache) says this directly:
“you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born” (The Didache)
An Infant Is Also a Human Being. In the Womb and Outside the Womb.
Scripture calls infants those born long before term (in the 3rd-4th month of pregnancy):
“Children a year old shall speak with their voices, and pregnant women shall give birth to premature children at three and four months, and these shall live and leap about” (2 Esd. 6:21)
The praise of the midwives who refused to kill newborn infants:
“But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. <...> Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them” (Ex. 1:17,20-21)
The prophet John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit even before his birth, right in his mother’s womb. That is, not “something” that would someday become a human being, but the prophet John himself, while still in the womb, becomes a temple of the Spirit of God.
“For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Luke. 1:15)
God formed in the mother’s womb not “something” that later became a human being, but the human being himself, who later merely came out of the womb, that is, was born. And God sanctified the person even before birth:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1:5)
The much-suffering prophet Job says the same. God creates us in the womb, not “something” that will later become a human being:
“Did not He who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same One fashion us in the womb?” (Job. 31:15)
The process of a person’s development in the mother’s womb is described as a creative act of God Himself. It is described in such a way that the person already exists, but is clothed in flesh as in a garment in order to come out into the world. Job speaks not of some material that developed and then became Job. He speaks at once of the embryo as of himself: did You not clothe me with flesh?
“Your hands have made me and fashioned me, an intricate unity <...> Remember, I pray, that You have made me like clay. And will You turn me into dust again? Did You not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews? You have granted me life and favor, and Your care has preserved my spirit” (Job. 10:8-12)
The prophet David describes the same:
“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. <...> My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them” (Ps. 139:13,15-16)