Abortion and the Image of God – A Biblical Defense of Unborn Human Life
Introduction
In life, there are often two sides to every major moral question, and Scripture teaches that this division is ultimately rooted in two competing kingdoms:
The kingdom of God
&
The way of the world.
Jesus taught in Matthew 12:30 that “he that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” Paul also warned in Romans 12:2 that believers should not be “conformed to this world,” but should be transformed by the renewing of their minds.
One of the clearest modern examples of this conflict is the question of the moral status of the unborn. The world often frames abortion as a matter of personal autonomy, arguing that the child within the womb belongs under the authority of the mother as the owner of the vessel, and that it is therefore the mother’s right to choose whether or not the child lives.
To further things along in many contemporary arguments, the unborn are separated from full moral personhood by appeals to development, consciousness, independence, location, dependency, or social recognition.
Yet Scripture does not begin with human autonomy as the foundation of human worth. It begins with God as Creator, and Colossians 1:16 teaches that all things were created by him and for him.
For this reason, the Christian answer to the moral status of the unborn must begin with Scripture rather than with political, legal, or medical categories.
Genesis 1 and 2 provide the foundation for Christian theological anthropology because they reveal that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, that human embodiment is part of God’s good creation, and that procreation is part of God’s pre-fall blessing and command.
Genesis 1:26–27 teaches that mankind was made in the image of God, Genesis 2:7 describes God forming man and breathing into him the breath of life, and Genesis 1:28 presents fruitfulness and multiplication as part of God’s original design before sin entered the world.
The unborn child is not merely potential life, disposable tissue, or a life whose value depends on another person’s recognition, but a human life standing within the created order of God.
Other passages confirm this biblical pattern, as Psalm 139:13–16 speaks of God forming life in the womb, Jeremiah 1:5 shows God knowing Jeremiah before birth, and Luke 1:41–44 describes John the Baptist responding to the presence of Christ while still in the womb.
This paper will not attempt to answer every modern legal question related to abortion, but will focus on whether Genesis 1 and 2 provide a theological basis for the moral worth of unborn human life.
Because Genesis 1 and 2 present human beings as made in the image of God and procreation as part of God’s good pre-fall created order, this paper will argue that the unborn possess intrinsic moral worth from the beginning of human life and therefore deserve moral protection.
The Image of God in Genesis 1:26–27: The Foundation of Human Dignity
Human Worth Begins with God's Creative Act
Genesis 1:26–27 is foundational for any Christian discussion of human dignity because it identifies mankind as uniquely created in the image and likeness of God.
Before Scripture speaks of human work, achievement, ability, or usefulness, it speaks of human identity before God.
God says in Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” and Genesis 1:27 then confirms that “God created man in his own image.”
This matters because the image of God is not described as something a human being earns over time, develops through maturity, or receives from society like many other religions do with their works based salvation.
Rather, it is presented as part of what it means to be human.
Victor Hamilton notes that Genesis 1:26 is not primarily interested in defining one narrow quality within man as the image of God, but in stating the fact that “to be human is to bear the image of God.”
This is important for the moral status of the unborn because if the image of God belongs to human beings as human beings, then human worth cannot be limited to our mere moralities like independence or consciousness.
The Image of God Is Not Dependent on Human Abilities
Hamilton’s discussion also guards against reducing the image of God to only one aspect of humanity like the soul or spiritual capacity.
Although these characteristics may be associated with human life, Genesis 1:26 does not identify any one of them as the exclusive basis of human dignity.
Hamilton warns that “any approach that focuses on one aspect of man—be that physical, spiritual, or intellectual—to the neglect of the rest of man’s constituent features seems doomed to failure.”
Instead, he concludes that “to be human is to bear the image of God” and that this interpretation “emphasizes man as a unity.”
Human worth, therefore, cannot depend upon whether a person is presently able to demonstrate rational thought, independence, communication, or some other ability.
This is significant for the abortion debate because contemporary arguments often acknowledge that the unborn are biologically human while withholding full moral personhood because they cannot yet exercise particular functions.
Genesis 1:26–27 challenges this separation between human identity and human value because If being human means bearing God’s image, then the unborn child should not be judged according to present performance but according to his or her identity as a human creature made by God.
This also goes for babies, mentally handicapped, or those with old age. If one claims that this is the standard then where does the line end?
Equal Dignity for All Humanity
Genesis 1:27 also teaches that male and female both have their equal parts in the image of God.
Hamilton states directly that God created “a male ʾādām and a female ʾādām” and that “both share the image of God.”
The image of God is therefore not restricted to one sex, class, position, or degree of social power.
Hamilton also explains that, although Egyptian and Mesopotamian societies could reserve image-of-God language for kings or high-ranking officials, Genesis extends this dignity to humanity as a whole.
He writes, “In God’s eyes all of mankind is royal,” adding that “all of humanity is related to God, not just the king.”
This biblical expansion of royal dignity has direct importance for the unborn, who possess no political influence or ability to defend themselves.
If Genesis grants God-given dignity to humanity as humanity, then unborn children cannot be excluded merely because they are voiceless and socially powerless.
The biblical worldview begins not with human strength or recognition, but with God’s declaration concerning what humanity is and because mankind bears God’s image, dignity also belongs to those who cannot yet speak for themselves.
The Imago Dei as Human Identity Rather Than Human Performance
Ryan Peterson strengthens this argument by proposing that the imago Dei should be understood as human identity rather than merely as a human capacity or a function.
In his discussion of Genesis 1:26–30, Peterson warns that debates concerning the plural pronouns, Hebrew prepositions, and the meanings of “image” and “likeness” can distract readers from the passage’s central theological claim.
He explains that “the debates surrounding these issues tend to eclipse the larger theological statement that is made in Genesis 1 concerning creation and humanity’s place within it.”
The central question, therefore, is not merely which human ability qualifies a person as God’s image, but who humanity is before God.
Peterson explains that “God was not faced with a pre-existent humanity that was then determined to be God’s image. Nor did God make humankind and subsequently add his image to it.”
Instead, God intentionally created humanity as his image.
The imago Dei is therefore not an achievement acquired through any means that man can do on his own but it belongs to humanity because God created the human creature with that identity and that applies to the unborn with the primary question not being whether the child can presently exercise every human ability, but whether the unborn child belongs to the humanity God created as his image.
Dominion, Personhood, and the Identity of the Human Creature
Peterson also clarifies the relationship between the image of God and humanity’s dominion over creation.
Genesis 1:26 connects humanity’s creation in God’s image with the command to rule, but Peterson argues that ruling does not define the image.
Instead, it is an activity that proceeds from humanity’s God-given identity.
Peterson states that, “The connection between image and ruling is not one of definition.”
He later summarizes this distinction by explaining, “The imago Dei is human identity. Rule is an activity, a consequence of the image.”
This distinction matters because defining the image solely through human action could exclude those who cannot yet rule, reason, speak, work, or live independently.
With this standard in place, all children under the age of 5, all those with mental disabilities, all those with diseases that affect the mind would also be excluded.
Genesis does not say that human beings become God’s image when they begin performing particular functions because humanity was first created in God’s image and then entrusted with dominion.
Peterson therefore answers the question “who is the image of God?” with “the human creature.”
This protects the dignity of unborn children, infants, people with severe disabilities, and others who cannot presently perform the functions commonly associated with mature human life.
This distinction is especially important because many contemporary arguments define moral personhood according to present capacities.
An unborn child may not yet be able to reason, speak, survive independently, or participate visibly in society, and these limitations are sometimes used to deny the child full moral standing.
Peterson directly challenges this approach when he writes, “Human personhood should not be equated with the image of God.”
Personhood and other human abilities are conditions through which the image may be expressed, but they do not create the identity itself.
Peterson makes the ethical importance of this distinction explicit: “One may have the identity ‘image of God’ even when the conditions of possibility required for realization of that identity in the world are not present.”
A human being may therefore lack the present ability to express his or her identity fully while still possessing that identity.
The unborn child cannot yet manifest the complete range of developed human capacities, but this does not remove the child’s identity as a human creature before God.
If the imago Dei is grounded in human identity rather than human performance, then unborn human beings possess moral worth not because of what they can already do, but because of what they already are before their Creator.
Procreation and the Goodness of Human Life Before the Fall
Be Fruitful and Multiply: God's Original Blessing
Genesis 1:28 moves from the creation of humanity in the image of God to the blessing and command of human fruitfulness.
After God creates mankind male and female in Genesis 1:27, Genesis 1:28 states, “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.”
This command is significant because it appears before the fall recorded in Genesis 3.
Procreation is therefore not introduced as a consequence of sin but it belongs to God’s good created order.
God does not create humanity and then treat fruitfulness as an afterthought, instead he blesses mankind and commands them to fill the earth with human life.
Hamilton identifies “procreation and dominion” as the two assignments God gives to the man and woman and concludes that Genesis presents “reproduction \[as\] a blessing and gift from God.”
The ability to generate new human life is therefore presented in Scripture as a divine blessing rather than as a tragic inconvenience.
This point is strengthened by the repeated goodness of creation throughout Genesis 1.
After creating humanity and blessing human fruitfulness, Genesis 1:31 declares that “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”
Human fruitfulness must therefore be understood within the goodness of God’s creation.
The unborn child, as the living fruit of human procreation, does not stand outside the created order God blessed.
The child represents the continuation of the human life God commanded mankind to bring forth.
In my devotional commentary on Genesis 1:28, I explain that the command to “be fruitful and multiply” is more than physical reproduction because it calls humanity to “fill the Earth with God’s image-bearers.”
This interpretation follows the movement of Genesis 1 itself because humanity is made in God’s image, blessed by God, and commanded to multiply.
Procreation is therefore not merely the production of biological offspring but it is the continuation of human persons who bear God’s image and are called to reflect his glory within creation.
Aquinas, Divine Goodness, and the Value of Created Life
Aquinas’s doctrine of divine goodness further supports this theological conclusion.
In Summa Contra Gentiles, Aquinas reasons that humanity must recognize a first good that is “good by its own essence; and that is God.”
God does not merely possess goodness as though it were a quality added to him, goodness belongs essentially to his nature.
Aquinas develops this point further when he writes, “God is goodness, not merely good,” and therefore “evil cannot be in Him at all.”
This matters because Genesis 1:28 is not merely a human social custom or a later cultural development.
It is a divine blessing and command given before sin entered the world.
Because the God who blesses human fruitfulness is goodness itself and contains no evil, his pre-fall blessing cannot be interpreted as inherently corrupt or morally meaningless, meaning the life produced through the fruitfulness God blessed consequently possesses moral significance.
Therefore, unborn human life should not be treated as disposable because it arises through the very procreative order that the good God established and blessed.
The Unborn Child Within God's Created Order
Furthermore, procreation in Genesis 1:28 must be understood as part of God’s good pre-fall created order.
The command to “be fruitful, and multiply” is not presented as a curse but it is a divine blessing connected to the creation of human beings in God’s image.
The unborn child, as the living fruit of human procreation, participates in the same human nature that Genesis identifies as bearing the image of God.
The moral value of unborn life is consequently not created by parental desire or legal status but is rooted in God’s identity as the good Creator and in the created order he established.
Objections Concerning Autonomy, Personhood, Dependency, and Difficult Circumstances
Bodily Autonomy and the Moral Status of the Unborn
Which leads us to the arguments against the support that the unborn is a Godbearing person.
One major objection to the moral protection of unborn life is the claim of bodily autonomy.
In contemporary abortion-rights arguments, this is often summarized in the phrase “my body, my choice.”
The Lancet Regional Health–Americas frames abortion access as a matter of privacy, public health, social class, race, and the protection of women and girls.
Likewise, Enze Xing, Rieham Owda, Charisse Loder, and Kathleen Collins argue in JCI Insight that abortion should be understood as health care and that abortion bans may negatively affect pregnant patients, miscarriage management, emergency medicine, and the broader health care system.
These concerns should not be dismissed casually because there are cases in which pregnancy can involve serious medical, emotional, financial, and relational burdens, and Christians should be careful not to speak about abortion in a way that ignores the suffering of mothers.
A biblical ethic must affirm that women are made in the image of God and therefore deserve compassion, protection, medical care, and practical support.
However, the Christian worldview cannot stop with the autonomy of the mother because Genesis 1–2 presents both the mother and the unborn child as belonging first to God’s created order.
If Adam never sinned then the unborn child would be as much of a human as the mother is for the mother was once also an unborn child.
The womb is not a God-free zone, and unborn life is not morally valuable only when another human being chooses to recognize it.
If Colossians 1:16 teaches that all things were created by Christ and for Christ, then the body, the womb, sexuality, procreation, and unborn life all remain under the authority of the Creator.
Does Personhood Depend on Consciousness or Development?
A second objection is that the unborn may be biologically human but should not yet be considered a full person.
This argument commonly appeals to development, consciousness, rationality, independence, viability, or social recognition.
Under this view, moral worth does not belong to a human being simply because that individual is human, but depends upon reaching a particular stage of development or possessing certain abilities.
Genesis 1:26–27, however, grounds human dignity in God’s creative act rather than in present human performance.
Hamilton warns against identifying the image of God with one physical, spiritual, or intellectual characteristic and concludes that “to be human is to bear the image of God.”
Peterson similarly states that “human personhood should not be equated with the image of God.”
Human capacities may provide ways through which the image is expressed, but they do not create a person’s identity as an image-bearer.
Peterson makes this distinction especially clear when he writes that “one may have the identity ‘image of God’ even when the conditions of possibility required for realization of that identity in the world are not present.”
Therefore, the unborn child should not be excluded from moral worth merely because he or she cannot yet reason, speak, survive independently, or participate visibly in society.
The image of God is not a reward bestowed after the development of certain abilities but it is the God-given identity of the human creature.
Another response to this argument is the fact that if someone believes that the unborn child should be excluded due to the fact that they cannot yet reason, speak, survive independently, or participate visibly in society, what happens if that individual who views it this was gets a TBI and is in the same position as the unborn child.
Dependency, Vulnerability, and Human Dignity
A third objection is that dependency changes moral status.
Since the unborn child depends upon the mother’s body for life, some argue that the child does not possess the same moral claim as a born person.
However, dependency cannot by itself remove human dignity.
Infants are dependent. The elderly may become dependent. The sick may depend upon medicine, machines, or caregivers. The disabled may require constant assistance.
If dependency removes moral worth, then many vulnerable human beings become morally disposable.
Genesis 1 does not allow this conclusion because the image of God is not limited to any one individual.
Hamilton notes that Genesis applies royal dignity to humanity as a whole, unlike surrounding ancient Near Eastern cultures where “image of God” language could be limited to kings or high officials.
This means that the weakest members of the human family are not excluded from dignity just like the unborn child’s dependency does not make the child less human; it reveals the child’s vulnerability and therefore strengthens the moral responsibility to protect life rather than destroy it.
Medical Emergencies and the Protection of Mother and Child
A fourth objection concerns difficult medical circumstances.
Xing, Owda, Loder, and Collins argue that abortion bans can create uncertainty for doctors and patients in cases involving life-threatening pregnancy complications, previable preterm premature rupture of membranes, fetal anomalies, miscarriage, cancer treatment, and emergency care.
They also argue that miscarriage management can be affected because some of the medications used for miscarriage care are also used in abortion care, which may make providers hesitant because of legal concerns.
These are serious matters, and a biblical pro-life position must distinguish between directly intending the death of the unborn and providing morally necessary medical treatment in tragic circumstances where the mother’s life is truly endangered or where the child has already died.
The fact that some pregnancies involve severe medical crises does not erase the moral worth of unborn life.
Rather, it shows the need for careful moral reasoning, truthful medical language, and laws and practices that protect both mother and child as much as possible.
The Christian response should not be careless legalism, but neither should it be the rejection of unborn dignity.
Both patients in view, mother and child, must be treated as human beings before God.
Historical Lessons from Ancient Rome: When Society Determines Human Worth
Mary Beard’s account of childbirth and infant life in ancient Rome provides a historical warning about separating human value from human identity.
Beard writes that “the production of children was a dangerous obligation” and that childbirth was “the biggest killer of young adult women at Rome.”
This history confirms that pregnancy and childbirth have always involved genuine physical danger and that concern for the mother’s health must be treated seriously.
Yet Beard also records what occurred when the worth of children depended upon health, sex, wantedness, or social acceptance.
She explains that infants who “appeared weak or disabled would have been ‘exposed’” and that unwanted children could meet the same fate.
She later observes that “a newborn baby may not have been viewed as a person as such until after the decision whether or not to rear it had been taken and it had been formally accepted into the family.”
This historical comparison does not mean that every modern argument for abortion is identical to Roman infant exposure, however, it does reveal the moral danger of allowing another person’s judgment of ability to determine whether a human life possesses value.
We must avoid this danger by grounding dignity in God’s creative act rather than in parental preference or social recognition.
Both the endangered mother and the vulnerable child must therefore be approached as human beings whose worth does not depend upon whether society considers their lives convenient, healthy, or wanted.
Pregnancy Resulting from Rape: Compassion, Justice, and Human Worth
A fifth objection concerns pregnancy resulting from rape.
This is one of the most emotionally difficult arguments in the abortion debate because it involves a woman who has already suffered a terrible violation.
Jonathan Noyes rightly begins by acknowledging that rape is evil, that the woman is a victim, and that carrying a child conceived through rape may involve deep pain and trauma.
The victim should not be blamed, minimized, or treated as a mere argument in an ethical debate and she deserves compassion, justice, protection, counseling, church support, and practical help, yet the evil of the rape does not change the identity of the unborn child.
Noyes argues that abortion is not true compassion because it creates another victim and treats the child as though the circumstances of conception determine human value.
This fits the logic of Genesis 1, since human beings are valuable because they are made in the image of God and not because they were conceived under ideal circumstances.
The rapist is guilty of evil, but the unborn child is not guilty of the father’s sin.
A biblical ethic must therefore protect the mother without declaring the child disposable.
Authority, Identity, and the Biblical Foundation of Human Value
These objections reveal that the abortion debate is not only about biology, law, or medicine but it is about authority, identity, and moral value.
The world often begins with autonomy and asks whether the unborn child has enough development, independence, or social recognition to deserve protection but scripture begins with God as Creator and teaches that human life receives its worth from him.
This does not remove the need for compassion toward women in crisis, nor does it make every medical circumstance simple.
It does mean, however, that we humans cannot solve suffering by denying the humanity or moral worth of the weakest person involved.
The unborn child, whether wanted or unwanted, healthy or disabled, conceived in love or conceived through violence, remains a human life within the created order of God.
Therefore, the moral protection of unborn life is not grounded in political preference, parental desire, or legal status, but in the image of God and the goodness of God’s creation.
Conclusion: Defending Human Dignity While Demonstrating Christian Compassion
The moral status of the unborn cannot finally be answered by autonomy, legal status, social recognition, development, or personal desire.
Those categories may shape the way the world discusses abortion, but they cannot bear the full weight of human dignity.
Scripture begins somewhere deeper. It begins with God as Creator, with mankind made in his image, and with human fruitfulness blessed before sin entered the world.
Genesis 1:26–27 teaches that human beings bear the image of God, and Genesis 1:28 shows that the multiplication of human life belongs to God’s good created order.
Therefore, the unborn child is not valuable because of what he or she can currently do but the unborn child is valuable because he or she is a human life before God.
If the imago Dei is rooted in human identity rather than human performance, then the unborn possess moral worth from the beginning of human life and deserve protection.
At the same time, a Christian defense of unborn life must never become cold, harsh, or careless toward mothers in crisis.
The woman facing fear, poverty, abandonment, medical danger, rape, shame, or trauma is also made in the image of God and must be met with compassion, truth, prayer, protection, and practical support.
We must hold both truths together, the mother must not be treated as disposable, and the child must not be treated as invisible.
The kingdom of the world often asks who has power, who has choice, and who is recognized, but the kingdom of God asks who belongs to the Creator.
Jesus taught in Matthew 12:30 that the one who is not with him is against him, and on the question of unborn life, Christians must stand with Christ by defending the weak while caring tenderly for the wounded.
The unborn child belongs to God, the suffering mother belongs to God, and the church must bear witness to both justice and mercy in a world that often separates them.
Bibliography
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Contra Gentiles. Translated by Anton C. Pegis, James F. Anderson, Vernon J. Bourke, and Charles J. O’Neil. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975.
Beard, Mary. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2015.
Hamilton, Victor P. The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1–17. New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Henry, Matthew. Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1991.
McGreevy, Benjamin Michael. Verse by Verse: A Daily Devotional Through the Whole Bible—Volume 1: Genesis 1–11—Where the Story Begins. Self-published, 2026.
Noyes, Jonathan. “What About Abortion in the Case of Rape?” Stand to Reason, May 3, 2024.
Peterson, Ryan S. The Imago Dei as Human Identity: A Theological Interpretation. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central.
The Lancet Regional Health–Americas. “My Body, My Choice: Why Overruling Roe vs Wade Is Not a Pro-Life Movement.” The Lancet Regional Health–Americas 10 (June 2022): 100305.
Xing, Enze, Rieham Owda, Charisse Loder, and Kathleen Collins. “Abortion Rights Are Health Care Rights.” JCI Insight 8, no. 11 (June 8, 2023): e171798.
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