A final group for whom a pro-abortion position is important are certain medical researchers.
We should be thankful for the wonderful work done by scientists in many fields. But some bio-researchers are hopeful that they will be able to harvest aborted foetal cells in all kinds of studies and operations.
Of course, not everyone in the scientific community is in favour. Some scientists openly question where this might take us next - perhaps experimentation on the comatose, or the dying.
One point cries out to be made here: even if research were a good reason for abortion, there are far more abortions carried out right now than could ever be justified on that basis.
The big question for us is this: is an embryo or foetus a human being? There are basically five views on this -- and each of us must make our choice from these options.
You may choose to believe that the embryo or foetus is nothing more than a growth inside the mother's womb, a collection of cells. Alternatively, you may believe that the embryo or foetus becomes human somewhere between conception and birth. This one is tricky: where do we draw the line, and for what reasons?
A third option is the idea that the embryo becomes a person only after it reaches viability, the time when the foetus can survive on its own.
A number of studies have shown, however, that unborn children exhibit many truly human traits long before they're ready to live unaided.
Some people choose to believe that birth itself is the crucial moment when personhood begins. But how can we justify giving a baby a completely different right-to-life status five minutes before it is born, or even one minute before?
Our final option is that the embryo has been human all along, right from the time it was first conceived. If that's the case, the embryo has had inviolable rights from conception.
This latter option is the one supported by most conservative scholars in the reading of the Bible and other major religious texts.
In biblical terms, the embryo is like the seed of a tree -- it isn't yet all that it will become, but it contains everything needed to get there. It is not just a 'potential' human being -- it is human.
But there's more to it even than that. The scriptures teach that we should treat the embryo as a person because it is known and loved by God -- it is a human being for which he has very special plans. There are several examples in the Bible narrative of people whose future was announced before they were even conceived - Samson, John the Baptist and Jesus Christ among them.
If a baby is valuable to God before it is even conceived -- because he knows what it will grow to become -- how can it be of lesser value afterwards?
When is an embryo human? The Bible's answer is: right from the start!
Is it possible that one day, a few hundred years hence, people will look back and thank God that humanity gave up on abortion, just as it did on slavery? And that Christians were at the forefront of that change? We should all hope so.
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Mal Fletcher is the Founder and Director of Next Wave International. Next Wave International™ is a Christian mission to contemporary cultures with a special focus on Europe.
For many other resources by Mal, including streaming audio & video, e-Books and more, go to www.nextwaveonline.com
