What does the Bible say about abortion? The word does not appear in Scripture — but the Bible's teaching on the sanctity of human life in the womb is extensive, specific, and consistent. Here is the complete biblical assessment.
The word "abortion" does not appear in the Bible — the practice existed in the ancient world but was not the cultural flashpoint it is today. Scripture addresses the underlying question directly, however: what is the moral status of human life before birth? The biblical answer is consistent across Old and New Testaments: human life in the womb is fully human, known by God, and protected by the same moral framework that governs all human life.
Psalm 139:13-16 — "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; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."
David attributes his formation in the womb directly to God's active work. The language is personal — God "knit me together," saw "my unformed body," and had ordained his days before birth. This is not a philosophical argument about personhood; it is a description of God's intimate relationship with a human being in the womb.
Jeremiah 1:5 — "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." God's knowledge and calling of Jeremiah predates his birth. The preborn Jeremiah is the same Jeremiah God calls — continuity of personal identity from conception is assumed.
Luke 1:41-44 — "When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit... 'As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.'" The Greek word used for John in Elizabeth's womb is brephos — the same word used for infants after birth (Luke 2:12, 16). The New Testament uses identical language for preborn and newborn children.
Exodus 21:22-25 — The Mosaic law's treatment of injury to a pregnant woman prescribed penalties proportional to the harm caused to the woman and child. While this passage is debated in its translation, the consistent weight of Old Testament law treated harm to an unborn child as harm to a person.
Genesis 1:27 establishes that human beings are uniquely made in God's image (imago Dei). Genesis 9:6 grounds the prohibition on murder in this same principle: "Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind." The moral weight against taking human life flows from the image of God — a status that the biblical evidence places on human beings from conception.
Proverbs 6:16-17 lists "hands that shed innocent blood" among the things God hates. The unborn child who has committed no act is the paradigm case of innocent human life.
The Bible does not directly address cases such as ectopic pregnancy (which is not viable and threatens the mother's life), severe fetal abnormalities, or pregnancies resulting from rape. Christians who hold a consistent pro-life position must engage these cases pastorally and carefully — the biblical framework condemning the taking of innocent human life must be applied with wisdom, compassion, and awareness of genuine medical complexity.
Most evangelical ethicists distinguish between therapeutic interventions that have the secondary effect of ending a non-viable pregnancy (such as treating an ectopic pregnancy) and elective abortion. The biblical case for the sanctity of prenatal life does not require ignoring the complexity of hard cases; it provides the framework within which those cases must be evaluated.
The condemnation of abortion has been one of the most consistent positions in Christian history. The Didache (c. 100 AD) — one of the earliest Christian documents outside the New Testament — explicitly condemns abortion: "You shall not murder a child by abortion." Tertullian (c. 200 AD), Basil of Caesarea (c. 374 AD), and virtually every major theologian of the first 1,900 years of Christianity held that abortion is the taking of human life and morally impermissible. This near-unanimous consensus across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions is itself a significant data point.
See our guide on What Is a Christian? and our guide on Is Interracial Marriage a Sin? for related discussions of life and human dignity. See our Theology Hub. The Gospel Coalition's essay on abortion is the most comprehensive evangelical treatment. GotQuestions on abortion and the Bible covers the key passages in depth. The ERLC's biblical case against abortion is thorough and well-sourced. See our What Does the Bible Say About? hub.
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