I Thessalonians 5:3 “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.”
When we use Biblical language, we are able to clearly see that when conception occurs, “a woman” is “with child”, she is not “with” some medical or abstract nomenclature, she is “with child”. The phrase “with child” is used twenty-five times in the Bible, making God’s view of an unborn “child” very clear. If a man hurts a woman that is “with child” and she consequently loses that “child”, that man “shall be surely punished” (Exodus 21:22)! The word of God makes it clear that a “child” is a human being at conception, not just when it is born; and, it is to be loved and cared for as a human being. Many years ago, in preaching I mentioned that Moses instructs us to speak to our children concerning the Word of God when we rise in the morning, when we sit in the house with them, when we are in the way with them and when we lay down to sleep (Deuteronomy 6). Afterward a dear sister came to me and told me that she started reading the Word of God to her children even before they were born. I thought that was a nice thing to do, but didn’t think much else of it until a few years later I learned that as soon as an unborn child’s inner ears are developed, they can clearly hear their mother’s voice as the sound waves radiate through her body to her womb. A “child” is a “child” at the instant of conception!