In this book, Dr. R.C. Sproul employs his unique perspective as a highly experienced pastor-theologian and a trained philosopher to provide well-considered and compassionate answers to the difficult questions that attend termination of pregnancy. Dr. Sproul strives for a factual, well-reasoned approach informed by careful biblical scholarship. He considers both sides of this issue in terms of biblical teaching, civil law, and natural law. This edition includes a new foreword by Dr. George Grant and has been updated to reflect developments in the issue. Appendixes provide further background on the issue of when life begins and list sources for pro-life resources. Endorsements “R. C. Sproul covers the issues candidly and objectively—without the emotion and demagoguery that so often pervade the abortion debate. You are the jury; you decide the verdict.” —Dr. John MacArthur “Staying silent on the issue of abortion is no longer an option. It is time for those who are respected and capable to speak out and say it straight. I know of no one who qualifies better than R. C. Sproul.” —Dr. Chuck Swindoll

Are you pro-life or pro-choice? Few questions have divided America as deeply or as emotionally as this one. Abortion is such a deeply divisive issue because fundamental moral issues are at stake. In this series, Dr. Sproul moves beyond the shouting matches in order to examine the issue calmly and rationally. With clarity and compassion, he explains why abortion is a violation of God’s purposes for His creation.

"Like no other contemporary issue, abortion raises fundamental questions of law, philosophy, religion, and justice. R.C. Sproul's series navigates this complicated terrain with style and a deep commitment to examine objectively the case for and against abortion. Highly recommended."   —J.C. Willke, Former President of the National Right to Life Committee

If you would like to be able to present an intelligent, well-reasoned defense of the unborn without engaging in a shouting match, this series with R.C. Sproul may be able to help. Abortion can give you the confidence you need to influence our culture with the truth about the value of life.

"Like no other contemporary issue, abortion raises fundamental questions of law, philosophy, religion, and justice. R.C. Sproul's series navigates this complicated terrain with style and a deep commitment to examine objectively the case for and against abortion. Highly recommended." — J.C. Willke, Former President of the National Right to Life Committee If you would like to be able to present an intelligent, well-reasoned defense of the unborn without engaging in a shouting match, this series can help. Abortion: A Rational Look At an Emotional Issue can give you the confidence you need to influence our culture with the truth about the value of life.

are made clean. That is a cause for great celebration.

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” (Isa. 1:18)

Thousands of people struggle with guilt connected with abortion. It haunts women who have had them, men who have encouraged them, and doctors who have performed them. One doctor reported in The New York Times that she had to prepare herself emotionally and often endured sleepless nights before performing abortions: “It’s a very tough thing for a gynecologist to do,” she said. “The emotions it arouses are so strong . . . that doctors don’t talk to each other about it.” On one occasion, this doctor collapsed on the floor, overcome by emotion, after performing an abortion.

Guilt is a powerful emotion, one that has the capacity to inflict severe psychological paralysis on people. I once was approached by a practicing psychiatrist with an offer to join his staff. He explained that a large number of his patients were suffering from problems related to severe guilt. “These people don’t need a doctor, they need a priest,” he said. “They need someone to tell them they are forgiven.”

This psychiatrist had no loyalty to Christianity; he was simply concerned about the mental health of his patients. He understood the devastating power of unresolved guilt, and he recognized that denial and rationalization were not effective means of dealing with real guilt. The only effective cure for real guilt is real forgiveness. To try to cover the stain on our hands is a poor substitute for having the stain removed.

Experiencing God’s forgiveness

To experience the profound liberation of forgiveness, one must simply go to God and confess the sin with a humble heart and a contrite spirit. Contrition involves a genuine and godly sorrow for having disobeyed God. It differs from the repentance of attrition, which is a false form of repentance motivated by a fear of punishment. Attrition is seen in a child who, when he sees a paddle in his mother’s hand, is sorry that he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. True repentance acknowledges the reality of the guilt and does not try to justify it. Anyone who approaches God with true humility, contrition, and an earnest resolution not to commit the sin again will surely receive the forgiveness of God…

Though what I have done cannot be undone, I can be forgiven. Forgiveness is one of the marvels of God’s grace. Its healing power is magnificent. If a woman has been involved in abortion, God does not require that she spend the rest of her life walking around with a red “A” on her chest. He does require that she repent of her sin and come to Him for the cleansing of forgiveness. When God forgives us, we are forgiven. When God cleanses us, we are made clean. That is a cause for great celebration.

THOMAS: In Psalm 139, the psalmist speaks of the relationship God has with the individual from the moment of conception. Just think of when the Holy Spirit conceived the infant Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary. At what point was Jesus the incarnate Son of God? When He was a day old, a week old, a month old, or during the third trimester? The answer came from Gabriel himself that at the moment of Jesus’ conception, He was the entity who is the Son of God incarnate. Abortion is, therefore, something that would justify the killing of Jesus. So, from a biblical worldview, life begins at the moment of conception.

BINGHAM: Does the church have a mandate to speak out against abortion?

THOMAS: Yes, and it does that in different ways. There are some Christians who are in public office, and they have a responsibility and a platform to do speak against abortion.

Speaking out against abortion is a clear implication of “Thou shalt not kill.” One obvious application of any sermon or exposition on the right of life or murder would be to address abortion.

once the greatest sin, but abortion has become the number one sin of humanity.

What does God think about abortion? Today, R.C. Sproul helps us answer this question and looks at the Christian response to a common claim made in conversations about the topic of abortion.

The young king’s soothsayers were unable to interpret the message, and so the Jewish prophet Daniel was called upon to decipher it. After he reminded the court of God’s providential blessing on Nebuchadnezzar and the perils of abandoning his legacy with their profligate idolatry, he solved the riddle, saying: This is the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. (Dan. 5:25–28)

It is not an unreasonable stretch of the metaphor to assert that after forty-eight years, the handwriting is finally on the wall for the abortion industry—and for our culture, which has for far too long tolerated it. Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin.

: George Grant, Immaculate Deception: The Shifting Agenda of Planned Parenthood, 18. : Ibid.

medical waste, and there is no need for it to be treated as such by fetal homicide laws. If it is a human being, it must be consistently treated like a human being deserving of full (not selective) protection under the law.

So, is the unborn child a human being? Is it merely human tissue like the fat removed in a liposuction procedure? Or does the mere lump of tissue become a human being at some point in its development? Some would have the public believe that we really don't know. Such a claim, however, is demonstrably false. Even worse, it was known to be false in 1973 at the time of the Roe v. Wade decision. Peruse any contemporary medical school embryology textbook. They say the same thing. When the male gametocyte (sperm cell) unites with (or fertilizes) the female gametocyte (oocyte or egg cell) to form a zygote, a new, genetically distinct individual human being is formed. It is that point at which human development begins. This is not a matter of opinion. It is an objectively verifiable fact.

See also:

Abort Abortion: Ethical Schizophrenia Abort Abortion: The Bottom of the Slippery Slope

men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth (Romans 1:18). "They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless" (Rom. 1:29-31).

It is important to observe that God's wrath is revealed not only against those who do these things, but it is also upon those who support those who do these things: "Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them" (Rom. 1:32). The bad news is that abortion is murder, and unrepentant murderers will face the judgment and wrath of God. They will find themselves in hell for eternity, and eternity does not end.

Is there any good news? Absolutely. "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). Murder is sin, but the good news is that it is not the unforgivable sin. Israel's king David was confronted by the prophet Nathan for his sins of adultery and murder. Nathan said to David, "Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites (2 Sam. 12:9). David was forgiven, however, because when confronted with the evil of his sin, he believed God and he repented (Psalm 51). One of the greatest persecutors of the early church was a man named Saul who dragged Christians away to prison and was complicit in the killing of Stephen (Acts 8–9). Yet Saul, when he was confronted with his sin, repented and went on to become the Apostle Paul (Acts 9). Abortion is the cold-blooded murder of children—the killing of a defenseless human being—but murderers can be forgiven if they repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

See also:

Abort Abortion: Ethical Schizophrenia Abort Abortion: The Bottom of the Slippery Slope

is true. (ProLife Info Digest, Feb. 2, 2000)

In their book, Victims and Victors, David Reardon and associates draw on the accounts of 192 women who experienced pregnancy as the result of rape or incest. It turns out that when victims of violence speak for themselves, their opinion of abortion is nearly unanimous and the exact opposite of what most would predict: nearly all the women interviewed said they regretted aborting their babies conceived via rape or incest. Of those giving an opinion, more than 90 percent said they would discourage other victims of sexual violence from having abortions. Not one who gave birth to a child expressed regret.

Imposing capital punishment on the innocent child of a sex offender does nothing bad to the rapist and nothing good to the woman. Creating a second victim never undoes the damage to the first. Abortion does not bring healing to a rape victim.

Christ's disciples failed to understand how valuable children were to Him, so they rebuked those who tried to bring them near Him (Luke 18:15–17). But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” He considered attention to children to be part of His kingdom business, not a distraction.

The biblical view of children is that they are a blessing and a gift from the Lord (Ps. 127:3–5). However, Western culture increasingly treats children as liabilities. We must learn to see all children as God does, and we must act toward them as He commands us to act. We must defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed; rescue the weak and needy; and deliver them from the wicked (Ps. 82:3–4).

Christ stated that whatever we do or do not do for God's weakest and most vulnerable children, we do it or do not do it to Him. At the judgment, “The King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me’“ (Matt. 25:40).

In this session, Lee Webb interviews John Barros about the importance of sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics.

Note: This Questions and Answers session is made available for historical archival purposes only. Further, answers given reflect the views of the individual speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Dr. R.C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. Here is our Statement of Faith.

On January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court came to a verdict in the case of Roe v. Wade, the case that legalized abortion. This case is still as controversial today as it was in 1973 and continues to be in the forefront of our day. In light of this anniversary, we are offering streaming video of Dr. Sproul's series, Abortion (originally recorded in 1990). If you would like to be able to present an intelligent, well-reasoned defense of the unborn without engaging in a shouting match, this series can help.

What Are the Key Issues? How Sacred Is Human Life? When Does Life Begin? What Is the Relationship of Church and State? What About Those Who Demand Their Rights? What Is Your Verdict?

ABO01_cd_3d_web.jpg_"From my perspective the number one ethical issue that this nation has ever faced is the issue of abortion. Abortion is not a matter of private choice--not for the Christian who understands anything about the sanctity of life. The first century church made it very clear in their day, explicitly stating that abortion is murder.

I've written over 70 books. The book that had the shortest shelf life of all of my books was my book on the case against abortion. I talked to pastor after pastor and sought to understand why they weren't using this material (for which we also made a video series). They told me, "Well, we agree with it but we can't do it in our church." And I said, "Why?" They responded: "It will split the congregation." And I said, "So be it!" A million and a half unborn babies are slaughtered wantonly in the United States of America every year in the name of women's rights. If I know anything about the character of God after forty years of study, I know that God hates abortion."_

- R.C. Sproul

Forty-six years ago today, the Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand in the United States. And since that day, millions of babies have been killed in the womb. Listen today on Renewing Your Mind as R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, and Chris Larson discuss this national tragedy.

We encourage you to download the free ebook edition of R.C. Sproul’s Abortion: A Rational Look at An Emotional Issue and share this offer with your family, friends, and church community. 

You can also watch or listen to R.C. Sproul’s teaching series on this important subject at Ligonier.org and YouTube.

“Because there are no expendable or disposable people, every life is worth honoring, protecting, and saving.” —R.C. Sproul

Here's an excerpt from The Real Story of Christianity and Abortion, Albert Mohler's contribution to the September issue of Tabletalk:

To the utter consternation of the abortion rights movement, the issue of abortion simply will not go away. Decades after abortion rights activists thought they had put the matter to rest with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, America’s conscience is more troubled than ever, and near-panic appears to break out regularly among abortion activists. Such a panic is now under way, and the defenders of abortion are trotting out some of their most dishonest arguments. One of the worst is the claim that Christians have only recently become concerned about the sanctity of human life and the evil of abortion.

Continue reading The Real Story of Christianity and Abortion, or begin receiving Tabletalk magazine by signing up for a free 3 month trial.

For a limited time, the new TabletalkMagazine.com allows everyone to browse and read the growing library of back issues, including this month's issue.

mandate.

Lives were saved, families restored, and the men and women who dedicated themselves to the cause of the sanctity of human life laid a remarkable foundation of liberty for future generations. America at last seemed poised to fulfill her promise—as the land of the free and the home of the brave.

May it be so yet again. And may God be pleased to use this book as a means to bring to pass this, the church’s great work of standing for truth, justice, and mercy in the midst of a poor, fallen world.

—George Grant, foreword from Abortion by R.C. Sproul Franklin, Tennessee January 2010