Playing God with the Unborn: The Genesis 3 Root of the Abortion Debate

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

The abortion question comes down to when a human life gains moral status.

This is not a secondary detail. It is the entire dispute. Every argument about “choice,” “bodily autonomy,” “reproductive rights,” or “healthcare” collapses into one prior claim: that a human organism at some stage of development does not yet possess the moral status that forbids intentional killing.

The pro-abortion position (and much of the broader cultural and political Left that defends it) does not merely disagree about policy. It asserts the authority to decide the moral standing of human beings whom, ultimately, God has created. That assertion is the ancient sin of Genesis 3 repeated in modern form. It is corrupt, it is wrong, and it is evil, though the people who hold it are not beyond the reach of truth or grace.

The core claim

Scripture does not treat the beginning of human life as an open philosophical puzzle left for committees or courts to settle. God forms the child in the womb (Psalm 139:13–16). He knows the person before birth (Jeremiah 1:5). The unborn John the Baptist leaps at the presence of the unborn Christ (Luke 1:41–44). The consistent biblical testimony is that the one being formed is already a someone, not a something whose value waits upon viability, sentience, or parental desire. Moral status is not conferred by human judgment; it is recognized as given by the Creator.

When the pro-abortion argument insists that this status begins later (at heartbeat, at viability, at birth, or never until the mother grants it), it is not offering a neutral biological observation. It is claiming the right to draw the line that determines whether deliberate destruction is homicide or healthcare. That is the role Scripture assigns to God alone. He gives life; He takes it (Deuteronomy 32:39; Job 1:21). Human beings are not authorized to redefine the boundaries of the image of God according to convenience or ideology.

Genesis 3 again

In the garden the serpent promised, “You will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). The first humans reached for the prerogative of determining moral reality rather than receiving it. The result was death, alienation, and the corruption of every subsequent human relationship. The same impulse appears when a culture decides that some members of the human species may be treated as nonpersons if they are small enough, dependent enough, or unwanted enough.

The decision is presented as enlightened autonomy. In reality it is the old grab for divine authority: we will say what counts as a life worthy of protection.

This is not a partisan exaggeration. It is the logical structure of the position. If moral status is assigned by human consensus or individual will rather than by the fact of being a living human organism made in God’s image, then the assigners have placed themselves in the Creator’s seat. That is precisely the corruption. It is not hatred to name it; it is fidelity to the first commandment and to the doctrine of creation.

Why this is corrupt and evil

The corruption is theological before it is political. It denies the Creator-creature distinction. It treats the image of God as negotiable. It subordinates the weakest members of the human family to the stronger ones’ preferences — the exact inversion of the biblical pattern in which God defends the fatherless, the widow, and the unborn. Scripture repeatedly condemns the shedding of innocent blood (Proverbs 6:16–17; Jeremiah 7:6). A society that systematically authorizes the destruction of its unborn children is not merely mistaken about policy; it is practicing what the prophets called abomination.

The evil is compounded by the language used to disguise it. Terms such as “product of conception,” “clump of cells,” or “potential life” function as verbal anesthesia. They do not change the biological reality that a new human organism begins at fertilization with its own distinct genome, trajectory, and membership in the species Homo sapiens. They change only the moral permission structure. Calling evil by another name does not make it less evil; it makes the speakers less honest.

None of this requires hatred toward those who disagree. Many who support abortion do so from genuine fear, trauma, or the sincere belief that they are protecting women’s dignity. Compassion toward them is required. But compassion does not include affirming the underlying claim that human beings may decide which humans possess moral status. Truth and love are not opposites. The church is commanded to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), not to mute the truth so that no one feels judged.

The broader pattern

The same pattern appears elsewhere on the cultural Left: the redefinition of marriage, the denial of binary sex as created reality, the treatment of parental authority as optional. In each case the move is to place human will above the created order God has given. Abortion is simply the most lethal expression of that habit. When a society claims the right to declare some human lives outside the circle of protection, it has already accepted the premise that moral status is a human grant rather than a divine gift. That premise is the root. Everything else is fruit.

Christians who stand on the doctrine of creation, the imago Dei, and the clear testimony of Scripture about the unborn are not inventing a novel ethic. They are refusing to join the ancient rebellion. The alternative is to accept that human beings may play God with the weakest among us. That is not progress. It is the repetition of the first sin, and its wages remain the same.

C. J. Garbo is a Christian writer and commentator focused on the intersection of biblical doctrine, cultural issues, and public ethics. Drawing from Scripture and historic Christian teaching, Garbo addresses questions of human dignity, the image of God, and the moral order with clarity and conviction. He is a political strategist and lifelong pro-lifer turned recent father.

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.