Digest of Biblical Civil Law

In Exo. 21:22-25, the unborn child is considered a person, and is avenged. We are not told explicitly whether the harm is to the woman or to her child, or to both, but there can be no question that the harm could be either to the woman or to her child, since both are referred to immediately prior to the phrase.  Moreover, the Bible always considers the child in the womb to be fully alive, a person in the fullest sense, so that if the child came out dead or damaged, that would constitute “harm” to the child.  “Life for life” (Exo. 21:23) means that if either the mother or the child is killed, the assailant must also be put to death. The position of this law, after the mandatory death penalties of Exo. 21:12-20, but before the provision for compensation in Exo. 21:29-30, indicates that compensation is not permissible in this case.  The Biblical penalty for abortion is mandatory death.  The  “physician” responsible for performing the abortion is a murderer and should be put to death. Since at least two people are always involved in it, abortion is conspiracy to commit murder and the “mother,” the “physician,” the anesthetist, the nurses, and the father or boyfriend or husband who pay for it, all are involved in the conspiracy, and all should be put to death for conspiracy to commit murder. Until the anti-abortion movement in America is willing to return to God’s law and advocate the death penalty for abortion, God will not bless the movement. God does not bless those who despise His law.

- James Jordan, The Law of the Covenant 113-14 (1984), at http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/:  HTML, DjVu.