James Talerico is a Texas state representative and the Democratic Party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate seat John Cornyn currently holds. Talerico is a Christian with a Master of Divinity from Austin Presbyterian Seminary. He rightly points to Jesus’ teaching to love God and neighbor as the core ethical teaching of Christianity, and he has said his Christian faith is the reason he is in politics.

He rightly notes Christianity is both spiritual and political, concerned with love for our neighbors. But Talerico has twisted Jesus’ teaching to fit a progressive political agenda. The most conspicuous way he has done this is to suggest that Luke’s gospel and the Bible more generally support the choice to abort an unborn child.

On Joe Rogan’s podcast, Talerico incorrectly stated that in the story of the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel “asks” Mary if she wants to give birth to our Savior. He went on to say, “To me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create,” and to suggest that “the idea that there is a set Christian orthodoxy on the issue of abortion is just not rooted in Scripture.”

Talerico’s claim that Christians can and should be pro-choice is misguided. Every Christian should be unabashedly pro-life.

Let’s first dispense with Rep. Talerico’s absurd misstatement and misinterpretation of Luke 1:31. While Mary laudably consents to carry and give birth to Jesus, Gabriel in fact does not ask but declares to her, “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.”

Secondly, even if Mary had in fact declined to carry and give birth to Jesus, that would have happened before she became pregnant. To argue that Mary’s submission to God’s plan can be the basis for a pro-choice stance regarding abortion, Rep. Talerico must imply that God would have been pleased if Mary had chosen to abort Jesus in the womb.

Absurdity upon absurdity.

To the larger issue: why should every Christian be unabashedly pro-life? The argument is that intentionally ending the life of another human being without cause is never licit. Such an action violates the sixth commandment: “You shall not kill.” Most people would agree with the principle; the issue turns on whether a fetus is a human being.

The argument that life begins at fertilization is not primarily scriptural or religious, but biological: when a sperm cell fertilizes an egg to form an embryo, a unique human organism at the earliest stage of development comes into being.

Conceding even that we can’t say with certainty the exact point when a fetus is ensouled, or full personhood commences—though I am not sure there is such a point because we are spiritual-psycho physical beings—we can nevertheless say a distinct human life which did not previously exist begins to exist at fertilization. If that is true, the manner of conception, whether through consensual sex, rape, incest, or in vitro fertilization, does not make a difference: the embryo in the womb is a distinct human life.

While the argument that life begins at conception is not primarily based on scripture, and I don’t want to rely on isolated proof texts, there are scriptural sources for the notion that our lives begin in the womb, such as Psalm 139:13: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

The sanctity of life has clear scriptural roots: Christians believe every human life has inherent dignity and worth because we are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-7, 9:6). As New Testament scholar and theologian Michael J. Gorman, who warns against cheap proof-texting, concludes, “the fundamental posture of Scripture is toward life rather than choice.”

Moreover, one of the earliest collections of Christian teaching after the New Testament, the Didache, explicitly prohibits abortion on the basis of the second commandment Talerico mentions, the command to love our neighbors as ourselves:

There are two ways, one of life and one of death; but a great difference between the two ways. The way of life, then, is this: First, you shall love God who made you; second, your neighbour as yourself; and all things whatsoever you would should not occur to you, do not also do to another…And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder…you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten.

An important part of the early church’s social witness was a stance against abortion and infanticide, countercultural in the context of ancient Rome.

Christians should unabashedly and joyfully carry on this witness in our teaching, lives, and communities. There is room for some debate about how best to offer this witness as it pertains to civil law. Whether the penalty for abortion should be equivalent to or lesser than that of murder; whether mothers, doctors, or both should be liable to civil or criminal charges; and how to ensure doctors can act in situations such as ectopic pregnancies that threaten mothers’ lives and require interventions which people sometimes confuse or conflate with abortion all require prudential and informed judgment.

These questions about how best to protect life and promote justice through civil law are important, but the more central task is to promote a “culture of life” in our churches and communities that respects and cherishes every human life from conception to natural death. In this respect, the progressive Christianity Rep. Talerico touts points us in the wrong direction.