Does Numbers 5:11-31 Support Abortion? The Bible Passage Pro-Choice Advocates Get Wrong

Recently, it has been shown that just 43% of churchgoers identify as being pro-life, which is down from 63% in 2023.[1] Another recent survey showed that just 42% of Christians believe that abortion is not a sin, and 9% are unsure.[2] As is evident from these troubling statistics, many self-professing Christians refuse to identify as pro‑life or deny that abortion is a sin.

Those who identify as pro-choice “Christians” typically justify their position in one of two ways. They may claim the Bible does not explicitly condemn abortion, and so there is no biblical obligation to condemn it today. Typically, the objection is framed as: because the Bible does not specifically condemn abortion, its silence must be taken as permission. Alternatively, they may cite biblical passages as justification for abortion.

In this article, we will address the latter (and save the former for another day). Namely, are there passages that support abortion? This article will be one of three that will be published, showing that the three most cited passages said to support abortion, in reality, do not.

With almost every abortion-related clip I post on social media, I am bound to get something like this in the comments from either a nonbeliever or a pro-choice self-professing Christian: “The Bible supports abortion and even instructs on how to do one in Numbers 5:11-31!” The number of times this specific passage has come up is discouraging, especially because so many pro-life Christians have gone out of their way to show why this passage does NOT support abortion nor instruct on how to do one. Also, Google is indeed free.

Nevertheless, I would like to show why Numbers 5:11-31 does not support abortion here. This is also included in my upcoming book titled Sacred or Secular: The Pro-Life Case for Grounding Human Value in the Image of God, foreworded by J.P. Moreland, releasing on September 18th. For more information on the book and to sign up for the waitlist to get early updates and to be the first to know when it releases, click HERE.

In Numbers 5:11–31, a husband suspects his wife of adultery, though he cannot prove it. He brings her to a priest, who performs a ritual intended to determine whether she is guilty. The ritual included a grain offering. After being placed under oath and swearing her innocence, she drank a mixture of holy water and dust from the tabernacle.

If the priest finds her guilty, the passage states, “may the LORD cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries” (Num. 5:21-22 NIV). Pro-choice advocates arguing from this passage conclude that it affirms planned abortions in the Mosaic Law and that the unborn are not human beings of value. However, several problems arise from this conclusion.

First, the passage concerns the consequences of adultery rather than planned abortions. The NIV translation, however, is questionable. Many translations closer to the Hebrew text do not mention miscarriage; they emphasize disfigurement of the adulterous woman's body instead. Examples of translations that convey this view are the ESV, NASB 1995, NKJV, and KJV. According to these translations, the guilty adulterous wife who swore her innocence under oath will suffer the consequence of defective organs.

Therefore, the “curse” falls on the guilty wife, not the unborn child. This is important because, even if the passage implies that the unborn child is miscarried, that would be true only if the woman is guilty. In contrast, if the woman is not guilty, there would be no consequences. If anything, given this faulty interpretation (that the passage speaks of “miscarriage”), the punishment of “miscarriage” would be dreaded by the woman. Thus, even on this view of the text, the punishment underscores the immense value of the unborn and the consequences of adultery (despair at losing such a valuable gift—the unborn child). As Paul H. Wright observes,

The high value placed on unborn human life in the Bible is consistent with the Mosaic law regarding negligent miscarriage (Exod. 21:22–25). This law can be compared to similar statutes in the Code of Hammurabi (nos. 209–214) in which the punishment exacted for acts of negligence that resulted in a woman’s miscarriage was dependent on the legal or social status of the mother, not the personhood (or supposed lack thereof) of her unborn child. Middle Assyrian law no. 53 (12th century B.C.) made a self-induced miscarriage (an abortion) a capital offense.[3]

Second, granting for argument’s sake the term “miscarriage” applies, it would still not apply to abortions today. Here the Lord, rather than human agents, ends any possibility of future pregnancies for the adulterous woman. He can give and take life without any need for further justification. On the other hand, human beings have been commanded not to take innocent human life, as seen above. Anyone who says otherwise loses sight of who God is, especially in relation to his creation.

Moreover, even if the woman were pregnant, the cocktail she drinks seems inconsequential to the unborn child’s health. As Klusendorf said, “Even if the wife were currently pregnant from the adulterous affair, drinking water and temple dust does not in itself trigger miscarriage.”[4]

Lastly, nothing in this passage implies that an unborn child (if the woman were pregnant) is any less human than the mother. If punishment by death from God warrants dehumanization, then the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, those who died in the flood in Noah’s day, and the rebellious ancient Israelites punished for their rebellion would all be considered non-human, which is absurd.[5] Moreover, Nathan Apodaca wrote the following:

Ironically, even if talking about abortion, this passage also proves too much for the pro-choice advocate, because it’s the husband who has full say in the matter. The wife has no choice in what happens whatsoever. So, unless pro-choice advocates are okay with saying Scripture allows men to have direct control over their wives’ bodies (and conversely, women don’t get to have a say), they need to find a new argument.[6]

Therefore, this passage does not support abortion, and a pro-choice advocate who uses it as evidence is asking for more than they can deliver. Be sure to subscribe at the bottom of the website to be kept up to date on the articles we post. In the near future, I will be posting separate articles showing why other commonly raised passages by pro-choicers do not support abortion (such as Exodus 21 and Genesis 2).

Footnotes:

[1] George Barna, “U.S. Churchgoers Are Increasingly Ambivalent about Family and Abortion”, Cultural Research Center at Arizona State University, October 13, 2025. https://www.arizonachristian.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/FRC_CRC_Report-1-Churchgoers-Ambivalent-about-Family-and-Abortion_Barna.pdf

[2] 2025 State of Theology Survey by Ligonier Ministries, January 15, 2025, https://thestateoftheology.com/data-explorer/2025/26?AGE=30&MF=6&REGION=30&DENSITY=62&EDUCATION=62&INCOME=126&MARITAL=126&ETHNICITY=62&RELTRAD=62&EVB=6&ATTENDANCE=254.

[3] Paul H. Wright, “Abortion,” in Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ed. Chad Brand et al. (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 10.

[4] Klusendorf, The Case for Life, 203.

[5] Francis Beckwith, Politically Correct Death: Answering Arguments for Abortion Rights (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1993), 144.

[6] Cited in Klusendorf, The Case for Life, 203 as a private conversation between Apodaca and Klusendorf.