Forty Seven years ago today on January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States found a previously unheard of right to privacy in the Constitution that allowed women to choose to have an abortion without restriction in the first trimester of her pregnancy, and during the second trimester state governments could require reasonable health regulations (that sounds nebulous doesn’t it?) and during the third trimester of pregnancy abortions were to be illegal except in the cases of the health (defined broadly as physical, emotional, and mental health) of the mother.1 Using the broader definitions of ‘health’ to allow for abortions anytime up until birth, to date there have been over 60,000,000 abortions performed in the United States, 926,000 each year, 2500 each day and 105 each hour. 2 Worldwide there have been 1.7 billion abortions. 3 Do you know what the word “Selah” means in the Book of Psalms? It means stop, pause, think and meditate about what you just read. Will you do that right now? If we eradicated that same number of living souls today all at one time, there would be no one left living in all of Canada, all of the U.S. all of Central America and all of South America. In other words there would be no living creature in the entire western hemisphere of this planet.
Roe vs. Wade got modified.
You may not be aware that the Roe v Wade decision was modified in 1995 in the case of Planned Parenthood vs Casey. In that case, the previous trimester restrictions were thrown out and a new standard was used to decide when an abortion could be performed. Now the deciding factor was to be limited to when the child was “viable”. 4 Viability as is used by our courts today means “the potential of the fetus to survive outside the uterus after birth, natural or induced, when supported by up-to-date medicine.” According to a study and reported by the New England Journal of Medicine, fetuses that are now only 22 weeks into gestation are able to survive outside the womb depending of course on the type of intensive care they receive. 5 This begs the question, why are abortions still happening after 22 weeks?
These Supreme Court decisions are skirting the real issue. Not once do they attempt to answer the question of when does life begin. Even the “Heartbeat” laws many states are enacting fail to answer the question of when life begins although they are getting much closer to the point of when life actually does occur. I have to hand it to William Smith of the Baltimore Sun who tackled this knotty dilemma by solving this mystery once for all. He said this in an opinion piece on August 7, 2018.
“Clearly, life begins when you draw your first breath. That is when God places your soul in your body. Your soul enters your body with your first breath and it leaves with your last. The body is just a vessel — your being, your humanity, is your immortal soul. That’s what the Bible says, and for the life of me I cannot understand why so many people, especially supposedly religious people, get this wrong. There is no question, no moral ambiguity. Abortion destroys an empty vessel, it does not kill a human being.” 6
Well there you go, that clears it up for you doesn’t it? Or does it? He (and others) take that assumption from Genesis 2:7 which says, “then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Some go as far as saying Ezekiel proves the same point when the army of dry bones did not come to life until Ezekiel prophesied to the four winds and the dry bones came to life, Ezekiel 37:9-10. REALLY? (I was told texting with caps means you are yelling. Well I’m writing with caps and yes I am yelling. Why? Because this argument is total nonsense.) God breathed into one man Adam the breath of life. God does not breathe individually the breath of life into every human born into this world. As one commentator said, if that were so, then every woman today should be created by taking a rib from some man willing to donate it. He’s right. There is nothing universal about this.
My point is this – our nation has totally lost its way if we are trying to decide when a fetus (a developing child in the womb) is able to be killed in the womb by any other measure but one – and that is this, we need to decide when does life begin. In last Sunday’s sermon (http://cornerstoneofalexandria.com/audio-sermons/hot-topics/mediaposts/hot-topic-4-what-the-bible-says-about-the-sanctity-of-life-and-when-life-begins) I quoted nine (9) biblical verses that prove life begins at conception. But it is more than mourning over a nation that has lost its way. After 60 million abortions and more to come, we have lost our soul and have ripped a hole in our spiritual covering as a nation. God cannot bless or protect a nation that slaughters its young on the modern day version of Molech’s altar (see Jeremiah 7:30-34). If he judged Israel for the same sins, why should we expect an exemption?
There is no argument for abortion that stands morally inside of God’s will. Not viability, not quality of life for the baby or mother, not birth defects, not pregnancies caused by rape or incest. (These issues were also covered in Sunday’s sermon). In other words abortions are the same thing as murdering a 2 year old or 10 year old. The only difference is time and physical development.
Am I being harsh in saying these things? Should I have more compassion for those who have had abortions? Aren’t posts and articles like this offensive to those who have had abortions? The answer to that accusation is simple, that’s not what this article is about. Yes, God has grace. Yes, God forgives. Yes Paul was forgiven for murdering Stephen (and many other sins). But only after he repented of his sin. Without repentance there is no forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38 and 2 Corinthians 7:10). So by all means we are compassionate to those who are facing this decision or who have chosen to abort their baby. Yes we want to encourage alternatives to abortion like adoption. But, as I said, that is not what this article is about. It is about stirring our moral conscience enough to make us do something about it.
On November 3, 2020 we will be going to the polls to once again choose our leaders. Those choices have consequences. No matter how much you may like a politician’s personality or economic policies, as a true believer and follower of Jesus Christ, you cannot vote for a candidate who is pro-abortion. That is not debatable. If you do, you are contributing to the culture of death now hanging over our nation like a curse.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
2 https://checkyourfact.com/2018/07/03/fact-check-60-million-abortions/
3 https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/1.72-billion-abortions-worldwide-in-the-last-40-years
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_viability
5 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1410689
Grace and Truth Unfiltered 