Where there is any semblance of life, an unborn child deserves to live

The Sixth Commandment seems straightforward in that all life is to be cherished, and that murder is to be punished either by death in some countries, or the life sentence in the United Kingdom.

However recently Northern Ireland has witnessed action in the courts concerning the abortion laws eg the ‘preservation of life verses the right of choice’.

These arguments challenge us to ask: ‘What is the definition of life, and where does it begin, inside or outside of the womb?’

The Bible teaches that life begins in the womb ‘For You formed my inward parts; you covered me in my mother’s womb’.

‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you’ (Psalm 139: 13-17) (Jeremiah 1:5).

However God is full of compassion and love, He would never ask a woman to carry a child in her womb that is dead, to do so would be cruel, but where there is any resemblance of life then surely that child deserves to live, be it if only for a matter of hours/days, as it is a living being, not a thing/in-adamant object with no personality or feelings.

Today’s secular liberalism argues for freedoms of choice, so what freedoms for the unborn child, it can’t speak for itself, but yet it lives and faces condemnation of death/murder in abortion.

More recently the UK Regulator of Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) granted permission for the dissection of fertilised eggs known as gene editing to be carried out by Dr Kathy Niakan of the Francis Crick Institute London.

This research involves manipulating/experimenting on live donated fertilised eggs that otherwise would have developed into normal children, but instead will be discarded after 7-10 days never having the chance to develop from cellular stage to fully developed babies.

This research involves gene editing of Live Human Embryos as they have developed from conception into 200-300 cells known as a blastocyst in order to possibly cure/no guarantee miscarriages, genetic diseases, sickle cell disease, Muscular Dystrophy etc.

Are we in Northern Ireland content with this Frankenstein Medical Research on the promise of possible cures, or do we consider the life of a child as more important than the destruction of life for experimentation?

God considered life so precious he sacrificed His only son (John 3:16).

Pastor Paul S Burns, Adullam Christian Fellowship Church, Sandy Row, Belfast