Over the years there have been various attempts to settle the exact moment when a baby is actually made alive. Roy Bowen Ward in an article entitled: “Is the Fetus a Person,” claims that the Hebrew term nephesh is equated to a physical “breath” through the nostrils and that is when life comes into a baby. In Ward’s view, a person does not become a living soul until God breathed into him the “breath of life” at moment of birth. Prior to birth, there was a type of organic life, but not personhood. Since this is how God created Adam and Eve, Ward believes it is the prototype of how the Author of life dispenses life-giving to all of us.
Scott Klusendorf of prolifetraining.com relates the following reasons why Ward is wrong:
1. God does not relate to me exactly like He did with Adam and Eve. I was not created from raw dirt. I have never literally walked with God. I have never named a single animal in regard to species. I have never had a women created from a bone in my body. The basis of this argument rests on a 1-for-1 comparison of Adam with all of mankind.
2. The word, nephesh (soul) is applied to human beings, animals (Gen.1:20, 9:10), and even God (Judges 10:16; Isa. 1:14) in the Old Testament. Since this term is related to God, it cannot strictly mean physical breath or life since God is a Spirit. J.P. Moreland in Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics says, “There are two passages where nephesh refers to the continuing of locus of personal identity even after death when breathing has long ceased” (Genesis 35:18; I Kings 17:21; Ps. 16:10, 30:3; 49:15; 86:13, 139:8).
3. The common expression of breathing happens in a different mode, through the umbilical cord rather than the nostrils. Generally a newborn does not breathe through their nostrils for several minutes after birth due to the nasal cavity being congested.
Question
What are some other points that reveal the error in this line of thought?
BTW. In the article cited above, Ward goes on to state the obvious conclusion of his belief: a baby prior to delivery is not a human being. Therefore, abortion is not wrong since no human life is being taken.
I have also heard Genesis 9:4, “But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”, to say that life starts when blood begins pumping in the body. (See also references like Lev 17:11, 14; Deut 12:23).
Note: I am not promoting this view … merely adding fuel to the fire.
I would like to note that the word nephesh has many meanings; from throat to neck to breath to living person to soul, etc. (According to one of my Hebrew professors it probably originally meant something like appetite and the rest derive from it). I would hate to base a whole system of thought on abortion based on a word fallacy.
If you are interested in the original article, you can find it here (on the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice site).
The verses which Matt pointed out to “add fuel to the fire” actually serve to refute Ward’s argument, even if they raise problems of their own. Nephesh is clearly associated with blood rather than breath in these verses; an unborn child has blood before it has physical breath.
I do agree that the Hebrews generally associated breath with life. This should not be surprising — one of the first steps we take if we suspect someone to be dead is to check their breathing! It does not follow, however, that breath was considered a prerequisite for life by the Hebrews.
Indeed, Jeremiah believed that he was alive in his mother’s womb:
“Because he did not kill me before birth, So that my mother would have been my grave, And her womb ever pregnant.” (Jer 20:17 NASB)
John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit and leaped for joy while still in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15,41,44). By attributing emotion and Spirit-filling to the baby while still in the womb, Luke apparently understood the baby to be alive before taking its first breath.
I may not have total grasp the theological background. However, since they are comparing physical aspects of a born creature with an unborn one, let’s do the same. When a creation breathes we think of inhalation and exhalation. But in actuality, it is more detailed than that. Because literally every cell in your body will have an exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide through the blood. So, the main systems required for one to breathe are the circulatory system (where gas exchange occurs) and a central nervous system to control the processes of inhalation and exhalation.
Here’s the point…an unborn being has a central nervous system and circulatory system already intact by the fourth week after conception. (Most women don’t even know they are pregnant by the time these systems are fully functioning.)
Here are statements made by MD’s at Vanderbilt University –
-At 18 days [when the mother is only four days late for her first menstrual period], and by 21 days it is pumping, through a closed circulatory system, blood whose type is different from that of the mother. J.M. Tanner, G. R. Taylor, and the Editors of Time-Life Books, Growth, New York: Life Science Library, 1965, p
-Brain waves have been recorded at 40 days on the Electroencephalogram (EEG). H. Hamlin, “Life or Death by EEG,” JAMA, Oct. 12, 1964, p. 120
-The eye, ear and respiratory systems begin to form four weeks after fertilization. K. Moore, Before We Were Born, 3rd ed., 1989, p. 278
In addition, there are numerous articles relating to “fetal breathing”.
In sum, the physical attributes of an adult child (although more developed) are just the same as an unborn child. So, is the fetus a person? My answer would be absolutely! Even by worldly standards and definitions.