Expert: Rev. Robert Woods - 10/19/2004

Question
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Followup To
Question -
I am currently finishing my last year of studies. I am doing an assignment on different views on abortion, and am finding it very difficult to find information about the Baptist view on Abortion. Could you please outline where the Baptist Church stands and if possible, lead me to some references?
Answer -
Blessings and thank you for your question.

1. As a Christian and a Baptist, I do not believe in abortion under any circumstance.  I Believe that God says NO to abortion.   Psalm 139:  "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."  Look at the "I", "me" and "my" in the verse.  He's talking about a baby in it's mother.  He says, You created me, You saw me....  God is saying that's a person inside the mother, not a blob of tissue.  He says, I've even planned every day before you were born.  Other passages of Scripture say that God even knows your personality before you are born.  God says that is a person in there. From a human viewpoint we may have unplanned pregnancies.  But there are no accidental conceptions.  Maybe we didn't plan it and maybe it even came as a result of some evil or sin, but there are no accidental conceptions.  God says, "I planned it.  I numbered the days of that child before it was even born.  I know what it was like.  I put it together with its genetic capabilities."  God has a purpose in every one of them even though we don't have a purpose for every one of them.  God says a fetus is not a tissue; it's a life I planned.  The Psalmist says, "All my days were numbered before I was even born."  If all our days were numbered before we were even born, abortion is the ultimate short-circuiting of God's will.  The facts of abortion are shocking: 26% of all pregnancies in America now end in abortion, that's one out of four; 30 million Americans have been killed through abortion, that's more than all of the wars put together.  Did you know that every year between 400-500 aborted babies live after they are aborted - they continue to live?  Ninety-seven percent of abortions are not because of rape or incest or not because the life of the mother is threatened, which would be a legitimate issue, but simply because the mother said it's inconvenient.  "I chose not to have it because it's not in my lifestyle at this time." I think it's ironic that the feminists who have been so active in promoting abortion and the right to choose abortion, are now complaining because more baby girls are being aborted than boys.  It seems that now that parents can find out the sex of the babies, more babies are being aborted if they are not boys. I saw a Bumper sticker: "Support unborn women's rights," that should be the cry of feminists. God says abortion is killing.  If you don't want to believe that then you'd better cut those verses out of the Bible because God said them.  Some make the argument, "No child should be brought into this world unwanted."  The fallacy of that statement is that maybe the parents don't want the child, but God does.  There is no unwanted child.  God wants that child born.  That's why He allowed that conception. Everyone matters to God and every conception and birth are not by accident.  God planned it.  He made them and He planned them.  He wants everyone to know Him and He wants everyone to know that He loves them.  He wants everyone in His family.  When men and women get in touch with God and get to know their heavenly Father, life takes on new meaning and new significance.


2.  For References see http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/baptist/sbcabres.html

http://www.sbts.edu/news/NewsRead.php?term=Spring2003&article=NR048

Reverend Woods, thankyou so much for that insightful answer. It opened my eyes to a completely new viewpoint that I had never even thought of. Thankyou so so so much.
However, in your answer, I found a small contradiction. You started by saying that you "do not believe in abortion under any circumstance". However, a little bit later you say that when a woman becomes pregnant of incest or rape, that it becomes a legitimate issue. Could you please clarify this for me? Also, I would like to ask if your views are the same as every other Baptist priest, or is it upto the individual?
Thankyou once again.
Dave McGinness

Answer
Blessings,

I'm sorry if it seemed that I contradicted myself.  Abortion is murder under all circumstances.  Very few abortions occur because of rape or incest.  I think that even under these circumstances, it is still murder.  Some Baptists do argue that abortion is okay if it is a result of rape or incest.  This is more of a political stand than a moral one.

Most Baptists believe that abortion is wrong.  But as Baptists, it is a decision each minister would make individually.