An abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus  from the womb, resulting in or caused by its death. The spontaneous expulsion of a fetus or embryo before the 20th week is commonly known as a miscarriage.  Induced abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus by medical, surgical, or other means at any point during pregnancy for therapeutic or other reasons. The approximate number of induced abortions performed worldwide in 2003 was 42 million.

Throughout recorded history, abortion has been induced by various methods, including botanical abortifacients, the use of sharpened tools, and abdominal pressure.

The moral and legal aspects of abortion are subject to intense social debate in many parts of the world. Aspects of this debate can include the public health impact of unsafe or illegal abortion as well as legal abortion's effect upon crime rates, and the ramifications of sex-selective practices. Other debates may include suggested but unproven effects of abortion including the abortion-0breat cancer hypothesis, post-abortion syndrome, and fetal pain. 

Modern Western abortion laws can be traced back to English common law, which allowed abortion before the "quickening" of the fetus. Currently, abortion law varies from country to country, with regard to religious, moral, and cultural sensibilities.

There is no reason to believe that God is concerned about abortion one way or another.  The prohibition in the Ten Commandments is not against killing, but against murder.  Murder is UNLAWFUL killing.  Since abortion is lawful in this country, it is not murder and thus is not covered anywhere is the laws of God. In the Law of Moses God induces abortion as evidence in a trial.**

    Abortion is not a new practice, endemic to the 20th century, but has been practiced as long as women have known how, which is no doubt thousands and thousands of years.

    Abortion and infanticide are common methods of population control among primates. 

    In China the population was stable from 1500 BC to 1500 AD.  In the sixteenth century Christian missionaries began persuading the Chinese to abandon their centuries'-old practice of killing girl babies.  From then on the Chinese population has surged to the point that one out of every five people on the planet is Chinese.

    The modern religious objection to abortion is a compound of our natural distaste for killing anything and the Christian obsession with the body as being as important or more important than the soul or spirit.

 ** The LORD Spoke to Moses and said, Speak to the Israelites in these Words: When a married woman goes astray, is unfaithful to her husband and has sexual intercourse with another man, and this happens without the husband’s knowledge, and the crime is undetected because though she has been defiled, there is no direct evidence against her and she was not caught in the act, but when in such a case a fit of jealousy comes over a husband which causes him to suspect his wife, when she is not in fact defiled; then in either case, the husband shall bring his wife to the priest together with the prescribed offering for her, a tenth of an ephah of barley meal. He shall not pour oil on it nor put frankincense on it, because it is a grain-offering for jealousy, a grain-offering of protestation conveying an imputation of guilt. The priest shall bring her forward and set her before the LORD. He shall take clean water in an earthenware vessel, and shall take dust from the floor of the Tabernacle and add it to the water. He shall set the woman before the LORD, uncover her head, and place the grain-offering of protestation in her hands; it is a grain-offering for jealousy. The priest shall hold in his own hand the water of contention which brings out the truth. He shall then put the woman on oath and say to her, ‘If no man has had intercourse with you, if you have not gone astray and let yourself become defiled while owing obedience to your husband, then may your innocence be established by the water of contention which brings out the truth. But if, while owing him obedience, you have gone astray and let yourself become defiled, if any man other than your husband has had intercourse with you’ (the priest shall here put the woman on oath with an adjuration, and shall continue), ‘may the LORD make an example of you among your people in adjurations and in swearing of oaths by bringing upon you miscarriage and untimely birth; and this water that brings out the truth shall enter your body, bringing upon you miscarriage and untimely birth.’ The woman shall respond, ‘Amen, Amen.’ The priest shall write these curses on a scroll and wash them off into the water of contention; he shall make the woman drink the water that brings out the truth, and the water shall enter her body. The priest shall take the grain-offering for jealousy from the woman’s hand, present it as a special gift before the LORD, and offer it at the altar. He shall tak~a handful from the grain-offering by way of token, and burn it at the altar; after this he shall make the woman drink the water. If she has let herself become defiled and has been unfaithful to her husband, then when the priest makes her drink the water that brings out the truth and the water has entered her body, she will suffer a miscarriage or untimely birth, and her name will become an example in adjuration among her kin. But if the woman has not let herself become defiled and is pure, then her innocence is established and she will bear her child. (Numbers 5:11-28 New English Bible)