All of which, including natural miscarriage, are called abortion. If a moonshot is halted midway through countdown, it is aborted. The reason or mechanism is immaterial. You have plunged into the detail with no knowledge of the general principles. As always.
The Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights argues that the Bible does not forbid abortion. It is absolutely true that there are no explicit verses in the Bible opposing abortion. The reason is because during the biblical era, Jews believed that abortion was unthinkable. They regarded abortion as a form of murder and laws against murder were considered to be sufficient to cover abortion.
Rich Nathan is the senior pastor of Vineyard Columbus, a position that he has been serving in since 1987. Prior to becoming the church's first senior pastor, Rich taught business law at The Ohio State University for five years.
www.richnathan.org
In the early church, Christians felt that they needed to take a stand because they were in an entirely different cultural situation. In the Greco-Roman world, both abortion and infanticide were widely practiced. The church unanimously and strongly opposed abortion from its earliest days:
• The Didache (likely written in the first century) says, “Do not murder a child by abortion nor kill it at birth.”
• The second century Epistle of Barnabas says, “You shall not slay a child by abortion.”
• Athenagoras, a second century Greek apologist, wrote, “We say that women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder… [for we] regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care.”
• In the early third century the African church father Tertullian wrote, “It does not matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. In both instances, the destruction is murder.”
• In the fourth century, Basil of Caesarea, wrote, “A woman who deliberately destroys a fetus is answerable for murder.”
• In the same century, John Chrysostom, the most esteemed church father in Eastern Orthodoxy said, “Why do you abuse the gift of God… and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder?”
• Jerome called abortion, “The murder of an unborn child.”
“Because prostitution was at the center of an ancient sexual culture . . . the progressive realization of its injustice is a privileged index of Christianization.”68 Let that historical fact sink in: The most reliable index of how deeply Christianity had permeated a society was whether it outlawed sexual slavery.
Pearcey, Nancy. Love Thy Body (p. 72). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.