Since 1973, nearly 63 million babies have been aborted in America. Despite the overwhelming amount of evidence that life begins at conception, millions of people continue to believe abortion is simply the exercise of a woman’s bodily autonomy. 

It is evident from a selection of landmark medical developments that the unborn are indeed human and deserving of life.

• Within 18-24 days of conception, an embryo’s heart begins to beat. 
  • The heart is considered our most essential organ–one of the first signs of life in the womb.
• Within 6 weeks, an embryo’s brain waves can be detected.
  • At any stage, brain functionality is a critical sign of life.
• Within 8 weeks, the nervous system begins to develop.
  • One can feel pain at this point.
• Within 9 weeks, they have fingernails and can bend their fingers around an object. 
  • All their essential organs have been formed. 

• Within 13 weeks, a fetus has vocal cords.

• Within 6 months, fine hair grows on the fetus’s head and eyebrows.

• Within 9 months, the baby should be born

These facts clearly demonstrate the humanity of the unborn.

Sadly, the vast majority of people ignore these signs of life at the altar of bodily autonomy. When a child is undesired by its mother, more often than not, it is relegated to a clump of cells–utterly disposable. Such societally accepted attitudes systemically encroach on the dignity of human life. “My body, my choice” reduces the unborn to property. It cloaks mass genocide as a human right. 

Many would claim this argument denies women the right to choose what to do with their own bodies. However, if the fetus is a separate entity than the woman, it holds intrinsic value not contingent on society, circumstance, or desirability.

Why should this matter to the Christian? Scripture compels us to affirm the Imago Dei:

Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you…”

Psalm 139:13-16: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

Isaiah 49:1: “The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.”

Galatians 1:15: “But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace…”

If we truly recognize the inherent value of every human life, Christians cannot idly sit by. Every living soul is masterfully crafted by God. Denying any life the chance to exist opposes the goodness of His design.