.....There are several ways in which the Bible supports the anti-abortion position. Here I will deal with just one of them - the etymology of the Hebrew word for "womb." I offer this finding because it is not well known nor widely circulated. But it deserves to be. .....If you get a Strong's Concordance to the Bible you'll see that it's got a Hebrew lexicon dictionary) at the back. So what you can do is go to the concordance to locate all the verses in which the word "womb" is found. You'll find that that word shows up in Genesis 49.25. To the right of that particular reference the #7356 appears. This tells you that you can find out which Hebrew word for "womb" is used in Gen. 49.25 by turning to the back of Strong's and going to #7356. .....There you see the Hebrew letters, then the pronunciation in English letters is given. The Hebrew word in English is rakh' - am. .....Next, we read that this word derives from word #7355.So we go up to #7355 and find the same Hebrew consonant letters. The word is pronounced slightly differently because the accent shifts to the second syllable. The pronunciation is raw - kham'. .....At this point we read that word #7355 is the Hebrew word for "compassion." So we discover that in Hebrew, the word for womb actually comes from the word for compassion!! And since there is no real difference between the two words except for the placing of the accent mark, we can even assert that the Hebrew word for womb IS the Hebrew word for compassion. This shows you just how much the Bible associates compassion with the womb. .....The message implicit in this is that the womb is to be a place of compassion for the occupant therein, namely the unborn human. This completely rules out abortion. For that "procedure" conveys indifference, rejection, abandonment if not outright hatred for the developing creature.

.....I'm excluding the fetus here for it doesn't need honorary personhood. For a human fetus by definition is a person. For the word fetus is Latin for "little one." One what? One of its kind. A dog fetus is a little dog. A human fetus is a little human." One" here can mean a whole unit as opposed to a fraction. An embryo isn't considered a "little one" for it is less than whole. It doesn't have all its organs. It is still developing new ones. But by the time it becomes a fetus it has all its organs. In that sense it has become whole, a whole human - and thus a person. .....Now for the question of personhood status for the lowly embryo and even the zygote, the fertilized egg before it has split into two cells. Society doesn't restrict personhood only to actual persons. For example, corporations are "persons" under the law. Likewise our laws should grant personhood status to the zygote and embryo even if they are not persons. .....Under our present laws a person earns the right to be considered a person by working: by fully developing in the womb and going thru the rite of passage called birth. The problem with that arrangement is that it doesn't depend on grace. While grace is usually thought of as unmerited pardon for sin, it also can mean unearned favor. For example Luke 2.40,52 says Christ grew in grace. This can't mean unmerited pardon. For Christ didn't need any pardon. For He had no sin.} .....Grace means to give someone something they haven't yet earned. Society has the authority and power thru its laws to grant personhood prior to birth. To do so would be to allow the law to be instrument of grace to the unborn. For granting personhood early amounts to giving favor to those who hadn't yet (fully) earned it. .....When society's laws and business practices operate according to a semblance of grace, this advances civilization immensely. For example today you can buy a car on credit instead of saving $l3,000 ahead of time. This relatively recent development has expanded the market for cars and spurred the economy. The same goes for home ownership, etc. When I claim this is a recent development I mean that in past centuries the banking industry was much smaller and more restricted ,almost nonexistent. In many communities people bought things after having to save the entire amount needed. Naturally this served as a brake on the economy. .....When a man can get possession of a car or house just by paying a small down payment, this is somewhat like getting that car or house for nothing. So you could say that such an economic system operated according to the principle of grace, to a great extent. .....Since grace has demonstrated its usefulness in the economic realm we should try it in regard to the issue of abortion.

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