James Talarico says the Bible is “silent” on abortion: Not exactly…

By Easton Martin

James Talarico faced a direct challenge over his claim that the Bible is silent on abortion when a Catholic woman confronted the Texas politician about the biblical foundations of the abortion debate. Her objection raised a central question that the slogan leaves unanswered: whether Scripture’s teachings about human life and murder apply to children before birth.

The claim that the Bible says nothing about abortion overlooks both biblical passages relevant to the question and the historical teachings of early Christians. Although Scripture does not describe modern abortion procedures in explicit medical terminology, that does not establish that the Bible offers no moral guidance on the subject.

The commandment “You shall not murder” provides one example of the biblical principles involved.

The decisive question is whether an unborn child qualifies as a human being deserving the same protection against intentional killing as other innocent human beings.

Scripture contains passages that inform this question, including Psalm 139, which describes God’s knowledge of a person while still in the womb, and Jeremiah 1:5, which depicts God’s knowledge of Jeremiah before his birth. These passages do not explicitly address abortion procedures, but they contribute to a biblical understanding of prenatal life and its relationship to God’s purposes.

The distinction matters because a moral prohibition does not need to name every possible circumstance in order to apply to it. If an unborn child is a human being, the biblical prohibition against murder has direct relevance to the question of whether intentionally ending that child’s life is permissible.