— Evan Cantrell
The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
On 4 February 2026, a pregnant woman was gunned down in a home invasion. Her murder also caused the death of her unborn child, due to be delivered next month. If caught, however, her killer will be charged with only one murder. The reason for this goes back to the case of the State v David Best.
On Valentine’s Day 2006, Melissa Shelver and her boyfriend, David Best, were on their way home from her 38-week scan with the gynaecologist when, in an apparent hijacking, Best was shot in the shoulder, and Shelver was shot twice through the side of her stomach. Two teams of doctors performed emergency surgery on the mother and child, attempting to save the baby by an emergency caesarean section. Shelver survived, but the doctors were unable to save baby Jenna-May. Her spine had been shattered by the bullets fired into Shelver’s womb.
Best later confessed that he had plotted to stage the murder due to his relationship with another woman. He was arrested and charged with the murder of his unborn child. In his trial, the judge recognised that baby Jenna-May experienced her murder no differently than a child the same age outside of the womb would have.
According to the medical evidence, “her life and death inside the womb did not differ in nature from [the]life and death of a normal person living in the outside world, but only in the location where that life and death occurred.” Both Best and the hired gunman admitted that they viewed the killing as murder.
However, the court considered the following definition of murder: “the unlawful and intentional killing of another person”. Under South African law, a human being only becomes a legal person once he is born alive. The court declined to develop the law to include the murder of an unborn child by a third party, finding that neither the Constitution nor any court precedent establish any legal rights for an unborn child.
Recognising this crime as murder also raised concerns about how this would be reconciled with the statutory legalisation of abortion. Therefore, Best was convicted only of the assault and attempted murder of Shelver. The death of baby Jenna-May was not a crime, merely an aggravating feature to be addressed in sentencing.
This is the Devil’s logic, and it is diabolically consistent. The murder of an unborn child cannot be recognised by the law, lest the law be forced to recognise that every abortion is the murder of an unborn child. Under South African law, the unborn child has no protection and no legal recognition whatsoever. In fact, if a child dies before 26 weeks’ gestation, he is legally considered medical waste, and the hospital will not release his body to the parents for burial.
However, what does the Bible say? Does God view the unborn child as a full legal person, with a right to life and protection?
The law of Israel, established by God, applied to an unborn child in the same way that it applied to any other injured person. Exodus 21:22 says that if a pregnant woman is struck, and her unborn child is delivered prematurely, then the one who struck her must pay, life for life and injury for injury.
Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:13-14, and Isaiah 49:1 speak of how God Himself forms each child in the womb, and knows them intimately and personally, reflecting their full personhood before they are ever born.
Luke 1:44 recounts how the infant John the Baptist leapt for joy in his mother’s womb when he heard Mary’s greeting. Even before his birth, he was an individual human, conscious and filled with the Holy Spirit.
So Scripture is clear that God views the unborn as individual, precious lives, made in His image, and worthy of the full protection of the law. What then is our responsibility, living in a country that denies this fundamental truth?
Proverbs 31:8 says, “Open your mouth for the people who cannot speak,
For the rights of all the unfortunate.” Proverbs 24:12 says, “Rescue those who are being taken away to death, And those who are staggering to the slaughter, Oh, hold them back!
If you say, “See, we did not know this,” Does He who weighs the hearts not consider it?
And does He who watches over your soul not know it? And will He not repay a person according to his work?”
The call is clear – we must speak for the unborn, because they cannot speak for themselves. We cannot claim that we do not know what is being done. Each of us has a moral responsibility to actively seek out ways to speak for the rights of the unborn, and to seek to protect them in any way we can, whether by helping pregnant mothers or by protesting and seeking to change the unjust laws of our nation.
In December 2020, David Best was released from prison on parole. His daughter, however, never got to breathe free air. Her first and last breath was a gasp of amniotic fluid mingled with her own blood, a reflexive response to the physical pain of being shot at her own father’s command. South Africa refuses to call this murder, lest it interfere with the worship of Molech through the sacrament of abortion. This is South Africa’s diabolical consistency. What will you do about it?