Theologian addresses 'The Being and Nature of the Unborn Child' The Layman Online Sunday, June 25, 2000 "Every child in the womb has been brothered by the Lord Jesus. In becoming a human being for us, he also became an embryo for the sake of all embryos, and for our Christian understanding of the being, nature and status in God's eyes of the unborn child. So, to take no thought, or no proper thought, for the unborn child is to have no proper thought of Jesus himself as our Lord and Savior or to appreciate his relation as the incarnate Creator to every human being." The words are those of the Rev. Dr. Thomas Torrance, of Edinburgh, Scotland, who was scheduled to speak at Presbyterians Pro-Life's annual General Assembly event. However, illness prevented Torrance from making the trip, so his remarks were delivered by the Rev. Gerrit Scott Dawson, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lenoir, N.C., and co-editor of A Passion for Christ (Lenoir: PLC Publications, 1999), a collection of essays written by Torrance and his brothers James and David. 'The unborn child is a personal being' The types of interactions "discerned between the preborn child and his or her mother indicates the development already of what must be called personal relations," says Torrance, emeritus professor of theology at Edinburgh University and one of the world's most respected theologians. "The unborn child is a personal being. The concept of person was not known in ancient culture, in the East or in the West, but comes from Christian theology. It derives from the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one Being, three Persons. … While that notion of 'person' applied originally and strictly to the Triune nature of God, it came to be applied to creaturely human beings." Overture asks for study Torrance's words were delivered just days before commissioners begin debating Overture 00-37, from the Presbytery of Santa Barbara, which calls for establishing a task force on the "study of abortion focused solely on explicating the Biblical witness in a manner faithful to the Scriptures and consistent with the confessional standards." The overture says the study should not look at social policy witness or secular precedent, but "focus solely on explicating the Biblical witness in a manner faithful to the Scriptures and consistent with the confessional standards expressed in the constitution (The Book of Confessions) for the purpose of articulating the ethical application of this for use in the pastoral care ministries of preaching, teaching, and service in local congregations." The overture asks that the task force recommend a moral and ethical stand on the issue of abortion and "make the moral position approved by the General Assembly, in response to this committee's work, be the current and only operating moral position of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), guiding the programs, publications, and mission of the General Assembly and its entities, and replacing any other moral positions previously represented in its programs, publications and mission." 'The unity of body and soul' "It is surely now evident," says Torrance, "that it is through loving personalizing relation with the mother that the tiny personal being of the fetus is nourished, as seen in the embryonic response to the mother, especially in recognition of her voice. Is that not after all what we read in the Gospel account of how the embryonic being of John the Baptist leaped in the womb of his mother Elizabeth when she was greeted by the Virgin Mary? "Thus theology with the medical sciences urges us toward fuller understanding of the unborn child in the unity of body and soul, and in the personal relatedness of the child to the mother particularly. So Christians can deepen and advance what we learn from medical research in our understanding of the personal life and behavior of the unborn child. In the light of such scientific and theological evidence as we have discussed, is not abortion act of murder, and a grave sin against the Lord Jesus?"

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