The Humanity of the Unborn: The Ancients Understood It For Two Reasons

“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. ¹⁵ He will eat curdsand honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. ¹⁶ But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and
choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.” – Isaiah 7:14-16

This verse shows that 2700 years ago there was no confusion that pregnancy involved a human baby in the mother’s womb who has the potential to grow and to learn.

“The angel of the LORD also said to her: “You are now with child and you will have a son.” – Gen 16:11

Here an angel has just told Hagar she would give birth to Ishmael, explicitly stating that pregnancy by its very definition involves a child, two people mother & child…not just mother (as is all we seemed to be concerned with today). This was recorded roughly 3360 years ago by Moses but the origin of the story is older than that.

How is it that for thousands of years no one was confused over a pregnant woman having a child in her womb? People who had no technology, no scientific advancement, and no doctors degrees or PhDs in biology had this one down. Fast forward to today. Now we have all sorts of technology that confirms the humanity of the child in the womb and even allows you to view that child and watch it in 3D/4D move around all while in the womb and now all of a sudden we are so confused as to what exactly a fetus is and whether or not “it” is alive or a human. Strange, don’t you think?

The ancients understood this for two reasons:
1 – Common Sense: Scripture tells us these are children but are we really that foolish to need to be told that? Common sense tells us that so clearly that the ancients didn’t need a doctor to explain the humanity of what was in the womb. The answer to that question goes back to a few posts back on the narratives that we use to make sense of the world around us. Our society has rejected God’s narrative of the sanctity of human life. It does not value God as Creator who is intimately involved in his creation…caring for it and loving it. Once you fully embrace post-modernism you remove the teleological/eschatological component from impacting and informing our understanding of human life.

For reference:
Teleology = “the fact or character attributed to nature or natural processes of being directed toward an end or shaped by a purpose”

Eschatology = “a belief concerning death, the end of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humankind; specifically : any of various Christian doctrines concerning the Second Coming, the resurrection of the dead, or the Last Judgment”

2 – Faith in God & the Narrative of Scripture:
In other words, where this world is headed and what God has to do with it and say about it no longer matters once you remove all truth and replace it with relativism. People become agnostics who don’t really land anywhere. So what does all this matter if at the end of it all there is no God and that he really isn’t coming back to judge the world? And as was said in a previous comment, how does one evaluate the value of life whether one’s own life or the life of others from the post-modern perspective? What does it matter if you destroy life if you don’t believe God created the world and that he “knits babies together” in the womb as Psalm 139 tells us. The truth is, God is intimately involved in His creation but people ignore it, reject it or haven’t been taught it. Once you lose that piece, the rest falls apart.