The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-2, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  Copyright John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

I’d like your comment on pregnant women who go to practitioners, that perform abortions, for their prenatal care and deliveries, please.

Answer

Well, let me put it as bluntly as I can--they are murderers. They are just absolute wholesale murderers. They may have licenses and so forth and so on, but killing a child in the womb is murder and God defines it as murder. We are going to get into that, by the way in the month of January, when we get into Romans 13. It is murder. There is no question in my mind, and there is no question in the mind of Scripture writers, that it is murder, and we will point the reasons out for that.

I suppose we could make it very crass and say if you want to go to a murderer for your prenatal care, that’s your choice. I would find it very difficult to do that. I believe with all my heart that the taking of an unborn child’s life is murder. It is a prerogative we do not have. That is a creation of God. You can argue all you want about how much that person is a person, but I’ll tell you this--it is a creation of God and that is unarguable. And once there is a creation of God and you have taken that life, that’s murder. Now, people say, well, it isn’t a full person. Yeah, but if you leave it alone it will be all a person could ever be. But you are stopping that process. I believe, also, as I am going to point out in a few weeks, that God’s going to judge this nation. I think we are on the road to the end of what we’ve known as the greatness of our land and I think much of it is related to our abortion rate. You see, in the Old Testament, you have a myriad of passages where the Bible talks about how God says there must be blood for blood, and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life and what we’ve done in America is murder millions and millions of persons that God has created, with no retribution, with no punishment, with no justice, and so what we have is a bloody nation, blood on our hands. We have an absolutely escalated blood guiltiness before a God who demands a life for a life and I believe we are in such deep debt of blood guiltiness that as it says in the Old Testament, the ground cries out for thy brother’s blood….Cain and Abel. And it says later on that the land is polluted with the blood of those who have been murdered, unrequited blood that I think our nation is under the sentence of God for blood guiltiness. I think it’s a very severe thing and I don’t think there is any way around it.  Now there may be some doctors who don’t understand what the Bible teaches, there may be some people who advocate therapeutic abortion, or whatever, but plain and simply from a Scriptural definition, taking a life is murder. And I would have a very difficult time entrusting the care of any living thing to a person who would do that.