Editorial August 4, 1973 Issue

The Abortion Question

Carl J. Welz

The Bible gives us the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill."^{Ex. 20:13;} On the surface that would seem to end discussion on this question. But as with every human situation, there is much more to be considered than what appears on the surface.

From the standpoint of Christian Science, right reasoning on the abortion question begins with the facts of life and identity. Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "The divine Mind maintains all identities, from a blade of grass to a star, as distinct and eternal. The questions are: What are God's identities? What is Soul? Does life or soul exist in the thing formed?" And farther on, she says, "The identity, or idea, of all reality continues forever; but Spirit, or the divine Principle of all, is not in Spirit's formations."^{Science and Health, pp. 70, 71;}

When a miscarriage occurs, certain facts can be of great comfort to all concerned: the fact that life is not in the thing formed but is eternal, and the fact that the identity of the individual is always known to God, Spirit. The miscarriage is not really the death of an individual, because the identity of the individual whom God knows never dies, even though to human sight something which did appear to be living appears to have died.

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