From conception, human life is considered sacred and precious in God's sight. Jeremiah 1:5 and Psalms 139:13-16 affirm that God knows and values each person before they are born, forming and fashioning them in the womb. As Genesis 1:26-30 teaches, humans are created in God's image, giving inherent dignity and worth to every human being. The commandment in Exodus 20:13 to not take innocent life underscores the importance of respecting and protecting human life at all stages, including its earliest beginnings.
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The word of the LORD came to me, saying: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.” Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed. They will be yours for food. And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth—everything that has the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the bones are formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.
Why not say, as some slanderously claim that we say, “Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is deserved!
Your hands shaped me and altogether formed me. Would You now turn and destroy me? Please remember that You molded me like clay. Would You now return me to dust? Did You not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese? You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. You have granted me life and loving devotion, and Your care has preserved my spirit.