Aborion: Faith, Belief, Value?

Why are Christians (including Catholics) opposed to abortion? Without citing any sources, I would venture to say that most Christians that oppose abortion would claim the following:

1) God cares about human life and has stated that it is against His Will to willfully take the life of another except in self-defense.
2) Scripture states and science confirms that human embryos are both human and alive
Therefore...
3) Abortion is the willful taking of a human life and contrary to God's Will.

There is no passage in scripture that states, "Thou shalt not kill the fruit of they womb". Christians come to the conclusion that abortion is wrong by way of determining that murdering human life is wrong, and unborn babies are both human and alive.

The passage that most closely approximates a prohibition on abortion is the following:

Exodus 21:22 - 25
22 "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Essentially, this passage implies that abortion (in this case accidental) carries the same gravity as murder, and should be punished in the same way. If the punishment for causing miscarriage or stillbirth were a fine, we could conclude that while abortion is wrong, it's not AS wrong as murder.

However, there is no passage that is totally airtight. One could argue that the preceeding passage doesn't cover instances where the mother intentionally aborted the child, which is a different scenario than another accidentally aborting the child. An abortion supporter could make the argument that it was wrong because the mother WANTED the child, and not because the child was of some inherent value (ie, a human life).

What's the point of all this? In my opinion, politicians that say "I am personally opposed to abortion on religious grounds, but I am not willing to impose my religious beliefs on others through the law," are either ignorant as to why they oppose abortion, they do not really oppose abortion (ie they are disingenuous), or they are afraid to stand up for what they believe to be right because it would not be politically expedient (ie they are cowards).

Ignorant: Opposition to abortion is not simply a religious belief. Since there is no clear instruction against abortion in the Bible, the only way of intelligently coming to the conclusion that abortion is wrong is by following the procedure outlined above. One cannot rightly say, "Well, the Bible says abortion is wrong, but it also says eating pork is wrong, and we don't legislate against that." The Bible does not say that abortion is "wrong" or that abortion is "sin", the Bible implies that abortion is murder. Certainly, one can think abortion is wrong because they were taught it was wrong by their parents or their church, but that is not an intelligent way of determining one's personal value system. There are plenty of people that do this, but these people are ignorant as to why they believe what they do. For these people that do not think through what they believe, it is easy to say, "This is my personal belief, but I won't impose it on anyone else", because it's not true. It's not their personal belief, it's someone else's personal belief that they have adopted but they have no idea why. When politicians, like Barak Obama, for instance, say that they are personally opposed to abortion, I would be very curious to find out why that is. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any time where a politician who is pro-choice, but personally opposed to abortion, has been asked, "Why are you opposed to abortion?"

Disingenuous: If one fully appreciates what it means to be opposed to abortion, and understands that the only way to truly oppose abortion is to consider it murder, and this person persists in stating, "While I am personally opposed to abortion..." then I would conclude that this person does not really believe that embryos are human life, and does not really believe that abortion is murder. If one believes that abortion is murder, and the state has no authority to legislate abortion, then one must also conclude that the state has no authority to legislate murder.

Coward: If one has intelligently and genuinely come to the conclusion that abortion is wrong because abortion is murder, and one believes that the state has the authority to legislate murder, and one still persists in stating, "While I am personally opposed to abortion..." then I would conclude that this person is simply afraid to stand up for what is right.

Of those who are firmly pro-choice, who do not believe there is any difference between removing a tumor and removing a fetus, I can say that their stance is thoughtful, genuine, and, to a certain extent, courageous. I cannot say the same for those that claim they are personally opposed to abortion but do not support the state's right to protect the unborn. They might as well say they oppose slavery, but don't believe the state has the right to abolish slavery.