Abortion

Something chilling happens in elections like this one. Voting has a way of pulling back the cover from people who have compromised basic morality in their hearts to the degree that they defend the minimization of America’s abortion plague. It just isn’t as serious as other social ills around us. And, hell has served up a list of talking points to persuade Christians to defend abortion on the logic that there are many things as bad as, or worse than killing over 600K babies each year. (For perspective, in all our nation’s wars combined, fewer Americans have died as babies we kill every two years.) Those who wear the name Christian will smile and with a condescending elitism tell pro-life people that they are just wrong.  “Even if abortion is wrong,” they say, “there are things we should all be smart enough to see that are just as bad or worse in today’s culture.”  

“Racism is a more serious problem.”  

Scripture doesn’t use the word “racism”, but it condemns hatred.  And yet, because we’ve come so far to create equal opportunity for all citizens in this country (Do you know of any job that discriminates based on color?…If you do, then you also know one that’s breaking the law.), one has to strain to see that white people promote systemically (that is, as part of our imbedded and basic system of doing things) racism in the US. Of course there are pockets of racism in the country and there are some people who hate others based on the color of their skin (black and white), but most of us have to think hard to name anyone we currently know who can be accurately characterized as racist. Besides, our laws already prohibit injuring an innocent man because he is black or because he is white.  I do not know a man of any political party who believes laws should permit a man to abuse or kill another man based on skin color.  

“Climate change is a greater threat.”

Clearly one political party is more vocal for change in laws to favor the view that man-made climate change is the greatest threat we face in this country.  But, Christian, is there Scripture to suggest that man somehow influences wind or snow or rain?  The sun and rain are His (Matt. 5:45). The rain has a Father, and He is God (Job 38:28).  The sea has paths it follows, but God controls all of that (Psa. 8:8).  

I’ve just been reading an article with the word “Fact” at the top, in which the threat of man’s behavior in the 20th century is described.  It asserts that recent human behavior creates temperature extremes, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.  Here’s a quote: 

“Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.  The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95% probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia (NASA Global Climate Change, vital signs of the planet).”

Wait.  Do humans really have the ability to effect the earth’s orbit? Are we that strong?

Biblical evidence will give Christians pause while reading these “factual” conclusions in view of the young age of the earth, around 6,000 years (See article, “21 reasons to believe the earth is young.”  http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1287).  While the political left rails on about “following the science”…this “science” we are to follow is in direct opposition to the Word of God. 

Both major political parties are interested in doing things which are ecologically wise and I do not know a single Christian who is in favor of wanton destruction of our land or air.  However, I have a questioning eye on the assertion that man has the power to influence the atmosphere of the planet earth to the degree the left is promoting.  Some say they argue this way to garner power.  

Are you sure the arguments some are making about climate change present a greater wrong than defending the killing of over 600,000 babies each year?

“We cannot bear the consequences of outlawing abortion.”

This common argument is usually framed in words like these:  “If we make abortion illegal, women will resort to back-alley abortions and put themselves in great danger.  We must keep abortion legal to protect them from that horrible eventuality.”   I’ve always been troubled by the weakness of this argument.  It melts away when placed beside analogous parallels.  For example, this one: “We must keep gun-murder legal, because if we don’t, murders will be committed in the awful ways people used to commit them in history—knives and sticks and rocks.”  Isn’t that essentially the same argument? Cain didn’t kill Abel with a gun, and God didn’t see any reason to tell us what weapon was used. It did not matter. 

The sophomorish argument about the consequence of outlawing abortion should make all of us say, “Wait; the consequence of forbidding murder is not the question here.  All murder, regardless of how it is committed, is abhorrent and wrong and must be outlawed.”

Here are the facts which should drive compromise out of the hearts of every Christian who is tempted to minimize unborn life by supporting elective abortion. They are the same facts that should convict those who boast of how sacred is the right of a mother to kill her child because that child happens to be housed in her womb:

Murder and killing are not identical terms.  Not all killing is wrong (killing animals for food, [Rom. 14:1-3], capitol punishment of the guilty [Gen. 9:6,  Rom. 13:4, Gal. 5:21, etc.].)  Murder is the deliberate taking of innocent human life. Elective abortion is the deliberate taking of innocent human life and is, therefore, murder.

In the Old and New Testaments, God has condemned those who practice murder.

“Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man”  (Gen. 9:6).

 “…you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (I Jn. 3:15).

“Both parties support abortion in some way.”

This is a weak argument.  If you doubt me, ask Planned Parenthood.  They have no trouble telling you who supports their abortion services and who decisively does not.

Statistically, abortions in America are slowly declining and that’s good news.

This article may seem political, and I understand its political implications.  But it is primarily spiritual, and primarily for Christians. The world is always going to act like the world and Christians are not of this world (1 Jn. 2:15).  Do not criticize conscientious Christians if they appear to you to be “one-issue voters”. The magnitude of the bloody sin of abortion in American justifies being “one-issue voters”  (even though we are not). 

You don’t have to vote in this election, but please don’t vote to protect abortion. Instead, imagine that you had witnessed the slaughtering, by strangulation, suction and dismemberment, of 700,000 three-year-olds in our country last year.  Imagine  you watched the disposal of all those little limbs without fanfare and then imagine hearing the “good” people you know saying that we need to “not worry so much” about those three-year-olds because there are larger issues at hand. Imagine them saying we’d better, instead, worry about other harmful things like climate change and racism. Because you see, that’s the exact moral equivalent to the situation at hand. That is what we have witnessed.  If you believe the Word of God, you know that’s exactly what transpired at Planned Parenthood and other abortion provider clinics in our country during the past year. And we’re at almost 62 million children since the legal killing began in 1973. God help His people to never look the other way!

How could a Christian get his/her own heart’s consent to defend the routine killing by deflecting to conversations about climate change, racism and health care?

Please stop this complicity now.  It is wickedness.