This article titled “The Real Question in the Abortion Debate” May 19, 2022, Updated December 12, 2023, by Wes Granberg-Michaelson which appeared in Christian Reformed Church The Network offers an excellent Christian based argument that supports gradualism.
It’s a logical argument from a long time Christian. He acknowledges the pro life argument that life begins at conception, but then he introduces gradualism.
Clearly, potential human life begins at conception. But does a fertilized egg (zygote) or an embryo have the status of an individual human being deserving constitutional protections and rights?
He suggests the most important question in the abortion debate is “when”:
When does a fertilized egg in its development acquire, in the view of the state, the status of a full human being deserving constitutional rights and protections, like any other person?
Then he acknowledges that the Bible doesn’t adequately address the issue of about when personhood begins.
The Bible, for the most part, simply doesn’t address the issue of when human life, or individual personhood, begins. It does grant an intrinsic value to every human life, which is rooted in the image of God. But it doesn’t address whether that should extend to developing human life prior to birth.
The Bible acknowledges (some) value of the fetus before birth, presumably beginning at the moment of conception. But it also suggests that the value of a life in the womb is less than the value of the mother.
One can point to a few references which refer to God’s foreknowledge of a person even before birth, such as in Psalm 139. But a declaration of God’s omniscience hardly settles the question. And if one wants to cherry-pick scriptures to support particular views—which generally is a poor approach to the Bible —there are passages in the Old Testament which assume that life inside the womb does not have the same value as a living person. For instance, in Exodus 21:22 the injury of a pregnant woman in battle, causing a miscarriage, is subject to a fine, but the death of that woman is punished by death.
And that children less than a month old aren’t people
When Moses is ordered to do a census in Numbers 3:15, not only are pregnant women only counted as one, but children less than one-month old are not counted at all.
Birth is the most commonly agreed point when personhood begins. Life and personhood start at conception, then gradually grows in value until it becomes a full person at birth.
If one does try to discern when a potential person becomes fully alive as a human being in stories of scripture, it seems to be when breath is imparted, as when God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and “the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7). That would suggest that life begins at breath. None of these examples may be conclusive, but they illustrate how from a biblical view, there really isn’t a convincing basis for arguing that a full human life is present beginning at conception.
The plain fact is that Christianity has held a diversity of views in trying to answer the challenging question of when potential human life, developing in utero, should be considered as equivalent to human life outside of the womb. One simple answer has been, at birth, rather than at conception.
He makes a final argument for gradualism based on public opinion that the younger a fetus is the less value it has.
That still doesn’t determine the definition of human life, but it reflects the prudential judgement that the further a fetus is in its course of development, the more cautious and restrained one should be about the possibility of ending the pregnancy. Public opinion reflects this. 68% of the public believe that abortion should be permitted in the first trimester. 80% of the public believes it should be restricted in the last trimester, and abortions in that period are relatively rare, accounting for a small fraction of the whole.
He also mentions, not related to the Bible, the expected value of a fetus. That 30-50% of fertilized eggs fail to get implanted and that 10-20% of those successful implantation’s will die before birth.
I’m not well versed in the Bible but I see no conflict between the concept of gradualism and scripture. Yes a fetus has value from the moment of conception but the question of how much value is not addressed. Some value beginning at conception and gradually gaining value until birth.
Please read the original article because there is a lot of other information I haven’t included in this summary.