I’ve been pro-life my whole life. I believe that human life and value begin at conception. Only in the past few years have I learned that many leaders within the pro-life movement do not believe the same.
That’s why I’m part of the abolitionist movement. Abolitionists believe that babies are ensouled from conception and are as valuable as any other image-bearer, even though they are very young and in their mothers’ wombs. Because babies are as valuable as you or me according to God, we believe they deserve the same legal protections we do:
• Jesus was truly human, body and soul, from conception (Luke 1:26–41).
• David called his embryo “I” and “me,” saying God knit him together in his mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13–16).
• David said he was a sinner from conception, and only persons sin, not clumps of cells (Psalm 51:3–6).
• Israel killed those who caused the death of an unborn baby: a life for a life (Exodus 21:22–25).
• Only God the Holy Spirit gives the breath of life in the womb, and only He has the right to take it away (Genesis 9:5–6; Job 1:21; Psalm 104:24–30).
• Our loved ones in heaven are persons even without bodies; therefore, embryos at conception, though they have small bodies, are persons as well (Luke 16:19–31; 2 Corinthians 5:8).
• Since human death is the separation of the soul from the body, human life begins when the body is ensouled at conception, for embryos are alive (2 Corinthians 5:8; James 2:26).
The Bible is clear: human embryos are truly human from conception.
Cutting through the category errors
If I said murder should be illegal but only the hitman—not the person who hired him—should face punishment, you’d rightly say I’m not truly against murder.
If I told you that I’m against Nazis murdering Jews, but that Nazi soldiers were pressured by their commanding officers with threats of death and therefore should not be charged, you would accuse me of hating Jews.
If I said murdering the elderly should be illegal, but that adult children should be able to kill their sick parents without penalty — out of worry, financial burden, or fear of the future — you’d say I’m not truly against murdering the elderly.
Jared Moore
But if I tell you that a mother should not be held accountable for voluntarily murdering her baby with abortion pills, would you still say that I’m truly against abortion?
If the unborn are truly human from fertilization, as the Bible teaches, then intentionally killing them is murder for anyone involved; and the Fourteenth Amendment reflects this truth as well.
Currently, pregnant mothers are the most powerful citizens in Tennessee, for only they can murder with no legal consequences. And unborn babies are the most discriminated-against citizens in the United States, for only they can be murdered with impunity because of their age and location.
The Failure of the Pro-Life Movement
We’ve had over 50 years of incremental laws limiting abortion. Yet even today in America, over 1,000,000 babies are murdered every year.
Incrementalism and exceptions have not ended abortion.
Why? Because none of the heartbeat bills treat babies as truly human from conception. Babies make hearts beat; beating hearts don’t make babies.
The Tennessee abolitionist bill, which failed but will be back, is about ending abortion, not about harming mothers.
Those who opposed the bill talked about everything except the baby. Babies are being murdered by the millions, yet everyone wants to focus on what “might happen” to the mother who voluntarily murders her baby.
The Tennessee bill was not retroactive. If it became law on Jan. 1, 2027, only mothers who voluntarily murdered their unborn babies after the law took effect would be charged. That means potentially no mother would ever be charged.
But since the bill failed, every mother in Tennessee can murder her unborn baby with abortion pills and face no legal consequences, meaning abortion remains legal in Tennessee.
Loving babies means abolishing abortion
You will never end abortion or protect babies if you treat them as less valuable than their mothers. Each day you make exceptions for mothers to murder their babies is another day that babies will be murdered in Tennessee and across America.
The blood of the most innocent among us cries out. Can you hear them crying? No, you can’t. Because they’re dead. They were murdered by their mothers because we legally gave them permission.
Abolish abortion in Tennessee. Loving babies means valuing them as much as we value mothers, and everyone else. B&R — Jared Moore is pastor of Homesteads Baptist, Crossville.
