The Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker recently reported:

While 90 percent of abortions are performed in the first trimester, a majority of them by pills rather than surgery, even by the 13^th and final week of the first trimester, a fetus has begun to look quite human. Although only as big as a pea pod, the fetus has fingerprints, veins and organs, which can be seen through the skin, and, if female, ovaries containing 2 million eggs.

At 27 weeks, the last week of the second trimester, the fetus’ brain is active and sleeping and waking—eyes wide open—on a regular schedule. Lungs are incomplete, but he or she could survive outside the mother’s body even earlier.

If that’s not human life, what is it? Definitely not nothing (emphasis added).

“If that’s not human life, what is it?” Parker is definitely asking the right question—the crucial question—the question no one seems able or willing to discuss, locally or nationally. Even inside most churches.

“If that’s not human life, what is it?” I think this is the one final topic we must tackle. In my opinion, it’s also the one essential question of the entire abortion debate—and it ultimately brings us back to the supremacy of Christ.

Therefore, the most important, most strategic, most consequential step the Church, and then the nation, can take regarding abortion is this:

We need to diligently pursue an honest, open-minded, thoughtful, fact-based, respectful, compassionate “national conversation” between Christians and non-Christians, liberals and conservatives, pro-life advocates and reproductive rights advocates—about the most obvious question that America’s citizenry has never seemed to get around to for decades now. And that question is this:

When does human life actually BEGIN?

How do we know for sure—how do we determine with certainty—that a specific stage of human development must be defined legally and wholly as a human life—a life securely protected by the Constitution and the rule of law just like yours and mine?

When does that which has been conceived in the womb attain full rights to be officially recognized and honored as sacred—as a bona fide human being?

At the moment of conception? At six weeks? Whenever the heart starts to beat? At the point of birth? Once the fetus becomes viable outside the womb?

Unfortunately, a variety of conclusions on this question swirl across our land—including inside the Church. However, getting at the answer is basic to every other issue about abortion. We should be eager to wrestle with it—doing so together.

What other existential question about the human experience could be more important than this one?

For Christians, it becomes even more pressing since the moment a human life begins (whenever that is), then that person is automatically alive under the redemptive reign of the Lord Jesus Christ and becomes his personal concern as the supreme Giver and Lord of life for time and eternity.

What if a healthy conversation about this question
could be initiated across our land?

Frank Bruni, the famed moderate New York Times columnist, made this general observation in an interview this fall with Christianity Today that certainly holds true to any healthy conversation about abortion:

We do not get circumstances that are always exactly to our liking. Other people’s dissenting views have as much right to exposure and discussion and oxygen as yours do.

Of course, from Christ’s perspective, Christians must enter into such open exchanges circumspectly since a fundamental principle of biblical faith requires us to stay clear-headed about fallen human nature.

For example, from Ephesians 4:18 (NIV), we read about the human race in general: “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.”

Paul’s evaluation in Romans 1 goes even further:

Yes, they knew about him all right, but they wouldn’t admit it or worship him or even thank him for all his daily care. And after a while, they began to think up silly ideas of what God was like and what he wanted them to do. The result was that their foolish minds became dark and confused. Claiming themselves to be wise without God, they became utter fools instead (TLB, emphasis added).

Of course, we must face this truth about all forms of spiritual darkness found everywhere in our daily intercourse with people, as we debate others of various persuasions regarding all kinds of issues touching every facet of our society. So why should we be any more hesitant about engaging others in a conversation about abortion?

In fact, in passages like 1 Corinthians 5, Paul makes it plain that we must associate with sinners and are not called to “leave” the world. As Jesus prayed in John 17, “I do not pray that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One.”

And again, he commanded: “Go into ALL the world and preach the gospel” and “Go and make disciples of ALL nations” (Mark 16:15 and Matthew 28:19 respectively, emphasis added). Certainly, that includes entering the arena of the debate about how to define human life.

That brings me back to my main concern: When will Americans, including Christians, become willing to hold in reserve our preconceived (even biblically based) conclusions about abortion—including our suspicions about and even rancor toward one another on the topic—long enough to attempt to seriously listen to the various voices asserting a broad spectrum of personal convictions?

What if we would commit to a willingness to at least hear ALL sides, doing so respectfully—not demonizing one another but rather assuming the best of intentions about each other, even when others’ perspectives seem to us as Christians to defy the ways of the kingdom of God?

What if we share our convictions, accepting (until proven otherwise) that each one sharing with us, though often expressing opposing viewpoints, is genuinely convinced that every human life should be treated as invaluable, sacred, and worthy of love?

When does human life actually BEGIN?

As you can see, I trust that most normal women and men, if they conclude that at any point the fetus should be and must be no longer considered an appendage of the mother but rather reckoned as fully human and, therefore, of equal worth and protection before the law and before all other human beings—would never say, “Even so, I am willing to kill this genuine human person in the womb just like killing any fellow human walking around in the world outside the womb.” Most people would rightly conclude that to do so in either case would then be considered murder, plain and simple.

Quite honestly, over decades of abortion debates, I have NEVER met, heard, or read any sensible person who has been willing to take such a barbaric stance (whether speaking of life inside or outside the womb), once a life has been clearly defined as rightly claiming inherent personhood. (I grant there must be exceptions.)

This is why I’m open to the kind of exploratory conversation I’m proposing, despite what I shared with you in Part 1 about my own “#1 Personal Conviction.” There I wrote:

I believe that until we are absolutely sure the fetus is NOT a genuine human being from the moment of conception—and as yet there is no indisputable proof otherwise—we should be willing to approach any proposed abortion as a last resort. It just makes sense to err in the direction of protecting what everything indicates is “a person with potential” (rather than a “potential human being”).

What if we do this with a commitment to show kindness and respect toward one another, as we seek answers together, as our ideas and even deeply held convictions flow back and forth?

None of this should feel threatening to any of us. Criticism of my belief about when life begins may feel uncomfortable to me. But for a few moments, I’m willing to join others to put all perspectives and beliefs on the table to be brought into the light and examined carefully.

Proverbs 27:17 reminds us, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” There is so much to be gained by my getting to understand others’ viewpoints and letting them inform my own.

Historically, this is how every true “democracy” is meant to function. We should be grateful to God that we don’t live under a dictatorship where whoever is in charge claims the exclusive right to decide who is human and who is not—even exterminating six million of us if he chooses, simply because he decides we are “contaminating the blood of our people” and regards us as  merely “vermin” (not human) to be exterminated.

Above all, look at the opportunity such conversations offer us as Christians, however they take place!

As we engage others on the definition and value of human life, we do so as “ambassadors of Christ,” ready at any moment to make “our appeal on Christ’s behalf” (2 Corinthians 5). The opportunity given us by an open discussion about the sanctity of human life can take us to a much higher level, where the work and person of Christ on behalf of the world defines the infinite worth of all human beings like nothing else can.

Why not get this conversation going
among Jesus followers?

Even more strategically speaking: What if such conversations were to unfold first inside churches across America, pursued among a host of Jesus followers?

In other words, what if God’s people led the way in what would ultimately become a national conversation?

What if believers stopped shouting at one another—realizing that Christians who love Jesus and believe the Bible may hold what they feel are valid reasons for coming out at a different point in the abortion debate than you do?

What if we convened our sharing time, confessing to each other that we do so at the Throne of Grace—rallying around God’s Son and God’s Word, determined to listen to how the Holy Spirit may be speaking to us through one another?

What if when we gather, we first spend time praying concertedly, asking the Father to help us discover the best way to move forward together on this issue as those who have surrendered to the supremacy of Christ?

Could the testimony of such earnest efforts by Christians across America become the template that motivates fellow citizens to join us in the conversation?

I firmly believe it could.

Consider this as well: If such a discussion doesn’t begin with us Jesus followers, how and with whom will such a desperately needed conversation ever begin?

And if such a conversation never unfolds somewhere, sometime in the life of our nation as a whole—so that confusion on what defines a “human life” continues to roil our society—what will be the long-term impact of that on America’s moral, spiritual, and communal health?

However, if it does begin with God’s family in our land, what then? Eventually and necessarily, the debate can begin to move more and more toward Christ because the conversation would allow times for believers to share the truth that is in Jesus—to provide a fresh perspective from the one sitting on the Throne of Grace who is “the life that brings light to bear on the true definition of humankind” (John 1:4; my paraphrase).

Hunter Baker of the Center for Faith and Culture, in an article this fall titled “Life and Religious Liberty,” even though forcefully arguing for the position that human life starts at conception, concludes with this appeal to fellow Christians who are ready to enter into this one conversation that is so crucial:

We need to participate in our nation’s civic process. We should vote, organize, speak, write, and all the rest. But the greater need is for us to be faithful over the long term and to bring as many people along with us in the process . . .

Christ is King. We should live our entire lives, including our political lives, as though we know it (emphasis his).

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This concludes our four-part series. I hope my reflections on these four dimensions of the abortion debate have proven helpful to you.

You might like to take another eight minutes to watch my recent vlog titled: “Abortion—Roe, Autonomy, Privacy, IVF—and the Redeeming Reign of Jesus” HERE.