Another piece of evidence which comes from the bible, comes from psalm 139, where it reads “when my bones were being formed, carefully put together in my mother’s womb, when I was growing in secret, you know that I was there – you saw me before I was born…”. This means that god gives life and we were chosen to exist by god. Therefore he can be the only one to take life away. It also signals that even in the womb god is aware of the baby and if this is so then you are a human being and as such you have the right to life. Also, if you are classed as a human being then if your mother has an abortion, she is basically committing murder.
The final piece of evidence from the bible comes from the story of the visitation in Luke 1:39. It reads, “about the time Mary set out and went straight to a town in the uplands of Judah. She went into Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby stirred in her womb…”. This represents how in Christianity that we realise how babies even if there in the womb, are still living things. This shows that life begins at conception as the baby moved in reaction to the presence of Mary.
All in all, I think this definitely shows that Christians, Jesus and god are all against abortion. This is all proven in the points made above, which come from the bible.
There is also help to understand Christian views on abortion in the catechism of the Catholic Church. It quotes “human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognised as having the rights of a person”. This quite clearly explains itself, but just to reiterate it tells us that an unborn baby should have the same rights as a child who is already born.
The Christian view of euthanasia is strongly against it. Our views are also held up in the bible, in many places. I am going to talk about a few of them and their meanings.
The first evidence that comes from the bible is in 1st Corinthians 6:19-20, it reads “so you not know that your body is a shrine of the indwelling Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God’s gift to you? You do not belong to yourselves; you were bought at a price. Then honour God in your body”. This is saying how even if you are ill you should respect your body, God made you at a price therefore he is not going to let you go easily. Also if you kill yourself with the aid of someone else, you will also be killing a part of God because he is inside you through the presence of the Holy Spirit.
In Luke 5:17, it says and the power of the lord was with him to heal the sick”. This quote is telling us about Jesus’ healing powers. Even if you have a terminal illness dying before God’s time is wrong. With the pace of technology today, what’s to say a cure won’t be discovered before you die of your illness. This is basically saying that you shouldn’t kill yourself because you never know when a cure will be developed, it could happen tomorrow and you could live for a long time after. This is also links to the fact of how God can heal people, this is proven through Jesus. Jesus healed many people in the miracle stories. For example, the time when Jesus healed the blind man or when Jesus healed the ten lepers. This reminds us that Jesus spent the majority of his life healing people and trying to make them live life to the full. So shouldn’t we do the same? The healing miracles also only occurred when people showed true faith. We can learn from these that we should turn to God in prayer when we are ill and maybe we ourselves could be healed. Even if this does not occur we will at least be given the strength and courage to face the illness or even death. We can recognise that a life is still important to God no matter what stage of life we are at and that a gift of life should not be dismissed or destroyed.
One of the Ten Commandments is “thou shall not kill”, which appears in Exodus 20:13. I mention this because the person, who helps the sick person die, is basically committing murder because they are killing someone. Therefore come judgement day were we get judged on three things. The person who commits murder will have failed on two, love and service to God and also love for your neighbour. This again says that God is being disobeyed.
Finally, I think I can firmly say that on the basis of the bible evidence Christians do hold responsibility for those at the beginning and end of their lives, therefore, issues such as abortion and euthanasia should not be acceptable to them.
