The nature of this current deception involves the serpent seducing women to take God’s prerogative and decide the life or death of their child in vivo by abortion. This is accomplished by convincing her that the nature of her pregnancy is not two persons but just about her body alone.  The living entity she carries, a real human being, is defined and reduced to a clump of cells much like a cyst or tumor. This deception allows her to choose to end the life of the newly created human being she carries at any time during her pregnancy.

In the beginning, according to both the Jewish Torah and the Christian Old Testament, Satan, appeared as a serpent to Eve and deceived her.  This deception resulted in Eve and Adam’s rebellion of against God, eviction from the Garden of Eden, death, humankind’s fall into depravity, and responsibility for its choices between good and evil.  Judaism and historic Christianity are fundamentally in agreement about this event and its consequences.  Thus, a woman—the first woman—based on her being deceived played a role in ushering in life as we know it from the beginning, that involves a great struggle between good and evil.

Fast forward years and millennia to today, and many of Eve’s daughter-descendants are once again taken in as she was, deceived by that same ancient serpent.  However, they are not alone, since men are also taken in by his deception. It’s both interesting and provocative that the serpent would focus on deceiving womankind. That deception involves tricking her to believe that her pregnancy, what she carries in her womb, is only all about her body and only all her choice as to how to handle it.

The first deception in the Garden of Eden involved the serpent rebutting God’s command, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Genesis 2: 16-17). “You will not certainly die, the serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3: 4-5).

The nature of this current deception involves the serpent seducing women to take God’s prerogative and decide the life or death of their child in vivo by abortion. This is accomplished by convincing her that the nature of her pregnancy is not two persons but just about her body alone.  The living entity she carries, a real human being, is defined and reduced to a clump of cells much like a cyst or tumor. This deception allows her to choose to end the life of the newly created human being she carries at any time during her pregnancy. And this act involves the most brutal and cruel methods. She does so simply by believing and repeating the lie, “My body, my choice.”

Is this what the Torah and the Christian Scriptures teach?   Exodus 21: 22-23 refers to a scenario where men are quarreling and a pregnant woman is hit: “And should men quarrel and hit a pregnant woman, and she miscarries but there is no fatality, he shall surely be punished, when the woman’s husband makes demands of him, and he shall give [restitution] according to the judges’ [orders]. But if there is a fatality, you shall give a life for a life . . .”  (Torah). Consequently, if the baby in the womb dies, the one who caused the death is also to die, since a murder or manslaughter has taken place.

Furthermore, many Old Testament Scriptures teach that God knows all who are in the womb and even appoints them with a purpose while still in the womb:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart” (Jeremiah 1:5).

“Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name” (Isaiah 49:1).

In the New Testament, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is pregnant and visits her cousin Elizabeth who is pregnant with John the Baptist, and this occurs: “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:41).

Besides modern technology via ultrasound and sonogram expose the developing child in the womb as definitely and visibly a human being. Both Judaism and Christianity considered the one in the womb as separate from the woman’s body. So, it’s really not “My Body, My Choice.” It’s factually and truthfully “His/Her Body, God’s Choice.”

For those of us who are women, it’s time to stop being deceived by that ancient serpent.  It’s also time to prove to the world we are not naïve and so easily deluded. Our ancient mother, Eve, would be pleased.   And, men, you, too, are not to be taken in by the serpent’s lies.  The clarity of biblical truth, as well as basic scientific facts, upholds the real life in womb and urges us to pray against the serpent’s deceit and to work for the cessation of the mass murder of the unborn in our day?

Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.