Virginia abortion amendment: Pastors can't sit this one out

There are moments in the history of the Church when silence is not neutrality.

In the fourth century, the Church found itself embroiled in controversy over the very nature of God and the doctrine of the Trinity. Arius taught that the Son was not eternally God in the same sense as the Father. At the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, the Church confessed that Jesus Christ is homoousios, of the same substance, with the Father.

In the fourth century, the Church was compelled to defend the truth about the nature of God. Today, we are confronting a fundamental question about the value of human life.

Is every human life sacred because we are created in the image of God, or is its value ours to determine?

This November, Virginia voters will decide whether abortion should be enshrined in the Virginia Constitution as part of what the amendment calls a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom.” The amendment groups abortion together with prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, miscarriage management, fertility care, under the single language of “reproductive freedom.”

But for Christians who understand the unborn child as a human being created in the image of God, abortion cannot be understood solely as an exercise of one person’s “reproductive freedom.” Another human life is at stake. 

Nor should this amendment be confused with providing physicians the ability to save a mother’s life. Virginia law already provides for that. Existing law requires, for an abortion after the second trimester, the treating physician and two consulting physicians to certify that continuing the pregnancy is likely to result in death or “substantially and irremediably impair” the woman’s mental or physical health.

The proposed amendment goes further. In the third trimester, a single physician could authorize an abortion based on the woman’s physical or mental health. Unlike current Virginia law, the amendment does not require that the threat to her health be “substantial and irremediable,” nor does it require the agreement of two additional physicians.

Words matter. “Reproductive freedom” may sound reassuring, particularly when placed alongside prenatal care, childbirth, and fertility care.

The implications reach beyond abortion. At the heart of these debates is a question of authority: Is human life and the human body ours to define, or God's to define? Christianity begins with the Creator. Human life has value because He gives it, and the human body has meaning because He designed it.

Pastors have a responsibility to help their congregations understand precisely what the amendment would place in Virginia’s Constitution and how its provisions differ from existing law. 

This is not a contest between two candidates or a question of political party or personality.

For the first time in Virginia’s history, abortion itself is before the people as a matter of constitutional law. 

The Virginia Constitution should protect the God-given rights of the unborn. 

The Church must teach clearly and fight for the truth when a question before the public directly implicates something about which Scripture speaks.

And Scripture speaks about human life.

The Bible begins our understanding of human dignity not with autonomy but with creation: “God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). Human life possesses dignity because of whose image we bear.

Psalm 139 speaks with breathtaking intimacy about God’s involvement in life within the womb: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”

And the Sixth Commandment is unambiguous: “You shall not murder.”

My own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, has already spoken clearly about the implications of these biblical truths. In 1978, the PCA’s Ad Interim Committee on Abortion grounded the protection of human life in the image of God and the Sixth Commandment. First, it defined abortion as “the intentional killing of an unborn child between conception and birth.” The General Assembly then encouraged PCA members to seek legislation so that “the human life of an unborn child” would be “recognized and protected.”

Nearly half a century later, the fact that this battle has returned does not make the biblical truth less clear.

Here we might learn something from Athanasius. The controversies of his age repeatedly returned, but he did not consider truth to be subject to continual renegotiation. It was not a matter of conscience, but of the truth.

Recurring controversy does not require recurring compromise.

Pastors must have the courage to remain resolute when the surrounding culture continually reopens questions the Church has answered from the Word of God.

The PCA’s 1978 report speaks powerfully to such a moment:

“When laws are proposed or enacted which are contrary to the law of God, it is the duty of the church to oppose them and expose their iniquity.” 

This is why pastors cannot remain neutral. This cultural moment calls for unequivocal and intentional clarity.

It means doing what pastors have always been charged to do: preach the Word faithfully, teach the whole counsel of God, equip Christians to think in accordance with Scripture, and help God’s people understand what obedience looks like when biblical truth intersects with public life.

How a society understands life at its beginning cannot be separated from how it understands human dignity elsewhere. Abortion, euthanasia, sex and the human body, disability, crime and punishment raise different questions, but beneath them lies a common one: Does every human life possess inherent dignity because it is created by God, or does its value depend upon human choice?

Scripture is clear. Human life is created by God, bears His image, and possesses dignity that is not ours to give or take away. Human worth is not determined by strength, independence, health, wantedness, usefulness, age, or another person’s willingness to recognize it.

Life is a gift.

The unborn child, the disabled, the sick, the elderly, the victim of violence, and those whose lives require sacrifice from others all bear the image of God. Their dignity does not depend upon health, independence, usefulness, or whether they are wanted. And this November, Virginia voters will decide whether our Constitution will protect that principle at the very beginning of human life.

If ratified, this amendment will become part of Virginia’s fundamental law.

In the fourth century, the question concerned the nature of God and the Trinity. Our present controversy asks a different but fundamental question: What is the nature of human life, and who possesses the authority to determine its value?

For Christians, the answer begins where it always has.

Human beings are created in the image of God.

Life belongs to God.

And when the protection of that life is placed directly before the people, pastors should not leave their congregations without the biblical teaching necessary to understand what is at stake. 

Pastors cannot sit this one out.