John Fugelsang: "God Supports Abortion"

On September 30, 2025, John Fugelsang Isabel Brown appeared on an episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored. Among a number of topics was abortion, to which Mr. Fugelsang said repeatedly that there are no Scriptural prohibitions on abortion, and that in fact Scripture supports abortion and treats an unborn baby as property.

He cites Numbers 5 and Exodus 21 as his prooftexts. Isabel Brown referred to the obvious: that Scripture states “Thou Shalt Not Murder” which is a rather explicit rejection of abortion, but Mr. Fugelsang’s false teaching deserves specific clarification. The exchange in question can be found HERE, and I invite you to listen to the absolute confidence and Mr. Fugelsang's hubris while he commits multiple theological errors.

Let us see, then, if what Mr. Fugelsang repeatedly claims is actually true, or if he is a false teacher who seeks to distort and twist the Scripture to confirm his own biases. Any guesses before we begin?

The claim that Scripture authorizes abortion by appeal to Numbers 5 is both reckless and exegetically unfounded. The passage describes the ritual ordeal of a jealous husband who suspects his wife of adultery but has no proof (Numbers 5:14–16). In such a case the priest gives the woman bitter water to drink, and if she is guilty, her abdomen will swell and her thigh will waste away (Numbers 5:27).

Some translations render this effect as a miscarriage, but the Hebrew text itself speaks more generally of wasting disease. Crucially, the text does not describe an intentional act of abortion by either priest or woman—it is a divine judgment ordeal, not a medical procedure. The goal is to expose guilt or vindicate innocence (Numbers 5:28), not to authorize the deliberate termination of a child’s life.

To seize upon this rare and specific ordeal as proof of biblical approval for abortion is to confuse a unique act of divine judgment with a moral license for human beings. Mr. Fugelsang acts as if the bitter water is some kind of abortifacient, but it is some mixture of water with dust from the tabernacle floor, curses written and washed into it. It is not a pharmacological concoction, but instruments of a Jewish ritual (the “sotah”).

Further, the text itself does not refer to miscarriage. When examined in the original Hebrew, we see וּצְבָתָה בִטְנָהּ (u-tz’vatá bitnáh), meaning, “her belly/abdomen will swell.” We then have וְנָפְלָה יְרֵכָהּ (ve-náflah y’rekháh), meaning “her thigh will fall/waste.” Important context here is the use of יָרֵךְ (yarekh) meaning “thigh,” which was commonly used as a sexual/reproductive euphemism in Hebrew (cf. Genesis 24:2; 46:26). נפל (n-f-l) here idiomatic for waste / collapse / wither rather than literal “fall off.” Finally, if innocent, “she will be cleared and shall conceive children” (Numbers 5:28).

There is no mention of miscarriage. This makes even more sense when you consider that the actual state of the woman is never mentioned; this is a test of faithfulness without pregnancy as a precondition. The assumption of pregnancy is applied retroactively if one accepts the least likely translation of “miscarry” instead of “waste” or “wither.” But since we are not even told that the woman being tested is pregnant, it is illogical to interpret the text as “miscarry” which can only be applied to a pregnant woman. The NIV uses “miscarry” as a misinterpretation of an idiom, but many other versions (ESV, NASB, CSB, NJPS [Tanakh]) do not.

Naturally, Mr. Fugelsang grasps at an outlier as a prooftext, as one expects of someone looking to force Scripture to fit their own personal beliefs instead of developing their beliefs through Scripture.

The Hebrew text describes curse effects on the woman’s body; it does not instruct a human to cause an abortion. The priest makes the woman drink “bitter water” while pronouncing curses (Numbers 5:17–22). If she is guilty, her “abdomen swells and her thigh wastes away” (Numbers 5:27). Many interpreters see this as a curse of barrenness—her reproductive powers are destroyed.

This interpretation is obviously correct, as the very next verse provides the opposite of the negative effect; if she is innocent, she “shall be free and shall conceive children” (Num 5:28). If the context was a pregnant woman with miscarriage as the negative consequence, it would not say she will conceive children, as conception would have already occurred. Instead, it would have read, “she will bear her child.”

So the contrast in the text is fruitfulness vs. barrenness, not normal pregnancy vs. miscarriage. The ordeal is about future fertility, whether God will bless her with children or curse her womb, not about a currently present human baby. Thus, the precondition is not pregnancy. She may or may not be pregnant; the ritual is performed because of suspicion, not because she’s carrying a child.

The effect of guilt is that her womb is cursed, rendering her infertile.

The effect of innocence is that she remains fruitful.

This is why many Jewish and Christian interpreters through history have never taken Numbers 5 as an “abortion text”—because the woman’s current pregnancy is never mentioned. The issue is fidelity and God’s judgment on her capacity to bear children going forward, not the termination of an existing child. The ritual is a divine ordeal (Numbers 5:16–22, 27–28), in a jealousy without proof context (Numbers 5:14–15), not a human-authorized medical procedure and not a legal sanction for elective abortion.

Mr. Fugelsang attempts to project the cruelty of his own beliefs onto God the Father.

He commits much the same atrocity in his misrepresentation of Exodus 21, claiming that God views the unborn as property, a view that requires a grotesque distortion of both the text and its context. The law in question describes two men fighting who strike a pregnant woman, “so that her children come out, but there is no harm” (Exodus 21:22). The Hebrew is unmistakably personal: yeladim, “children,” the same word used throughout the Old Testament for sons and daughters. The verb yatsa’—“come out”—is also the common term for birth (Genesis 25:26; 38:28–30). This is not the language of chattel, but of human life.

The passage then distinguishes between two outcomes. If the children come out prematurely and yet “there is no harm” (ason), the one who struck the woman must pay a fine determined by the husband and the judges. But if harm occurs, “then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Exodus 21:23–25). The hinge term ason is a rare and weighty word in the Old Testament, appearing otherwise only in Genesis to describe the potential disaster of losing Jacob’s sons (Genesis 42:4, 38; 44:29, 31). Its use here signals that the concern is not about property damage but about human life.

Why then a fine when no harm occurs? The answer is that premature birth itself introduces danger and disruption, even when mother and child survive. The offender must therefore compensate the family for the ordeal and risk imposed. But if either mother or child suffers serious injury or death, the penalty is not a fine—it is talionic justice, “life for life.” That penalty is never applied to property in biblical law; it applies only in cases of personal injury and homicide.

The contrast with Israel’s neighbors makes this point sharper still. The Code of Hammurabi, for instance, legislates fines for causing a miscarriage, scaled according to the social class of the woman. The unborn are treated as economic assets, their worth determined by hierarchy. Exodus, by contrast, introduces the lex talionis in the case of harm: a law of strict equivalence that recognizes the unborn as belonging to the realm of persons, not possessions. Where Hammurabi calculates compensation, Moses invokes life-for-life.

Thus, Exodus 21 does not demote unborn children to property. It elevates them to the category of human beings whose injury or death is treated as seriously as any other person’s. The very structure of the law insists on this. The child who comes forth alive but unharmed prompts financial redress; the child who is harmed invokes the highest possible penalty. This is not a system focused on property, but falls under the purview of personal injury law. To twist this text into evidence of divine indifference is to turn its meaning on its head.

Far from licensing abortion or downgrading fetal life, Exodus 21 stands as a remarkable testimony to the value of unborn life in the ancient world, unique in placing them under the same canopy of justice as their mothers.

Moloch on Display at the Roman Colosseum, approved by Pope Francis in 2019.

More broadly, Scripture bears consistent testimony to the dignity of life in the womb. The Lord declares to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you” (Jeremiah 1:5). The psalmist confesses, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb … Your eyes saw my unformed substance” (Psalms 139:13–16), and laments that he was already a moral agent from conception, saying, “In sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalms 51:5).

The New Testament continues the Old Testament pattern, characterizing unborn children as alive and fully human. John the Baptist leaps in Elizabeth’s womb at the greeting of Mary, who is already called the “mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:41–44). The same Greek term (brephos) is used for John in the womb (Luke 1:41,44) and for the infant Jesus in the manger (Luke 2:12,16), affirming a continuity of personhood before and after birth. God Himself is described as the one who opens and closes the womb (Genesis 29:31; 30:22), underscoring His sovereign prerogative over life at its earliest stage.

Mr. Fugelsang repeatedly states “The Bible disagrees” or some such thing in the context of killing unborn children, but this is a grave error born of malice or extreme ignorance. The Bible explicitly condemns the shedding of innocent blood. The commandment “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13) is reinforced by the broader prohibition: “Do not put an innocent or righteous person to death” (Exodus 23:7). Proverbs declares that “hands that shed innocent blood” are among the things the Lord hates (Proverbs 6:16–17).

In one of the most chilling sections of the Old Testament, God condemns child sacrifice, anyone who follows it, and even those who permit it. In Leviticus 20:1-5 shows us God's abhorrence for the murder of children:

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech.'

Israel’s descent into child sacrifice to Molech is condemned as an abomination (Leviticus 18:21; Jeremiah 7:31), and Psalm 106 indicts them for shedding “the blood of their sons and daughters” (Psalms 106:37–38). Conversely, those who resist infanticide are blessed: the Hebrew midwives refused Pharaoh’s order to kill newborn boys, and “God dealt well with the midwives” (Exodus 1:15–21). This is the Bible’s first pro-life civil disobedience story, and its moral is unmistakable. The horrific parallels between contemporary views of abortion and the cultus of Moloch aside, God clearly does not approve of murdering children. In light of Scripture, we know that God views the unborn as equally children, meaning that His condemnation of infanticide applies directly to abortion.

Jesus Himself reinforced the preciousness of the smallest lives. He welcomed little children, declaring, “Let the little children come to me…for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). He warned that whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble will face terrible judgment (Matthew 18:6).

The Incarnation itself is a sanctification of human life at every stage: the Son of God took flesh from conception, dignifying the full arc of human development (Luke 1:35–42). Would Mr. Fugelsang argue that Christ Jesus, freshly conceived in the Virgin Mary, was not alive?

The pattern of Scripture is therefore clear: unborn life is known, formed, and called by God; innocent blood is forbidden to be shed; children are gifts, not commodities. To twist Numbers 5 into an abortion manual or to treat Exodus 21 as downgrading fetal life is not faithful exegesis but special pleading.

Where Scripture speaks, it affirms life in the womb; where Scripture forbids, it forbids the destruction of the innocent. Abortion, therefore, stands not as a biblically authorized choice, but as the very shedding of innocent blood that God abhors.

Mr. Fugelsang falls into the same trap that has spawned so many abusive doctrines divorced from Scripture. As Paul warned, “they twist the Scriptures to their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16). Mr. Fugelsang does exactly this, trying to tie contemporary forbearance with infanticide with Scriptural support. This is a horrific sin against God and His Word, and I encourage Mr. Fugelsang to cease peddling his explicit lies.

He may choose to champion abortion, but he cannot do so with the approval of God, for Scripture is unmistakably clear:

The Christian God HATES the murder of children.