I'm an evangelical Christian who believes that although abortion is sinful, it isn't murder, at least in the early trimesters before fetal viability, and that it should be permitted until the unborn child can survive on its own, as the mother is a living human being with her own rights and autonomy over her body.
I consider it to be murder post-viability in the third trimester, and would oppose it except for the life health of the mother.
Murder can best be defined as the unjustified killing of a living human being.
And contrary to what many people say, the Bible does not say that life begins at conception, but at ensoulment.
Genesis 2:7 - And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Adam didn't become a living being until he was fully formed, until God created and infused a soul in him, not when he was still a collection of dust that God placed in the garden.
Obviously, this was a special case though, every human being alive now spent nine months as a fetus in their mother's womb, but the question is when was the fetus ensouled?
St. Augustine said that "
The law does not provide that the act abortion pertains to homicide,
for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation."
Thomas Aquinas said that "the intellective soul [true person] is created by God
at the completion of man's coming into being."
Jacques Martin said that to "admit that the human fetus receives the intellectual soul from the moment of its conception,when matter is in no way ready for it, sounds to me like a philosophical absurdity. It is as absurd as to call a fertilized ovum a baby."
Indeed. Just like it is absurd to call a planted acorn a tree.
You see, while Augustine felt abortion at any stage was sinful, he did not believe that early abortion —the first three months—was murder because the fetus had not been animated by a God-given soul yet. Likewise, Thomas Aquinas, and Popes Innocent III and Gregory XIV also believed that early abortion was not murder, while later ones were, after quickening, when the fetus starts moving and kicking.
As such, terminating a fetus in the early trimesters does not kill a living human being. Therefore, it is not murder. I agree with that principle.
Imagine if a woman, in a fit of jealously, rammed her car into her cheating boyfriend, grievously injuring him and irreparably damaging one of his vital organs. As a result, if he doesn't get an organ transplant he will likely die or be dead in two yearsfrom complications.
His girlfriend happens to be a perfect match; can the state force her to donate her organ to save her? No, they can't, and neither should they be able to, for she has bodily autonomy over her person, and no state can take that away from her.
The state can and should charge her with aggravated assault and, if he dies, vehicular manslaughter. But they should not be able to forcibly strap her to a medical exam room and extract a kidney from her, relegating her from womanhood to being a simple incubator.
The same logic applies with abortion, women are allowed to get abortions before viability because she has bodily autonomy, and she can't be forced to live as a human incubator.
