40 years after Roe v Wade, ‘statistics are mind-boggling’

SPECIAL TO BNc by Joe Slater, Justin, Tex. — What do the following kings have in common? Pharaoh, at the time of Moses’ birth, Menahem, king of Israel, and Herod the Great.

Pharaoh ordered that the male Hebrew babies be cast into the Nile River (Exodus 1:22). Menahem ripped open all the pregnant women in the city of Tiphsah because the city did not surrender to him (2 Kings 15:16). And the paranoid Herod massacred all the males two years old and under in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16).

Does this break your heart? Does it make your blood boil? It should! But we who live in the United States of America have permitted a slaughter of the innocents that makes those three kings look like rank amateurs! I refer, of course, to abortion.

On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down two decisions: Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton. Taken together, those decisions struck down every law in all fifty states protecting the lives of pre-born human babies. Since that day, courts have permitted only the slightest restrictions on abortion. For all practical purposes, the law of the land is still “abortion on demand, for any reason or no reason, through all nine months of pregnancy.” This policy is currently favored by the President and Vice President, virtually all of the Cabinet, and by roughly half of the Congress and half of the Supreme Court.

It is not favored, however, by God. Human beings are made in His image; murdering them is an affront to Him (Genesis 9:5, 6).

The Numbers

We don’t like to think about abortion. Generally, it’s “out of sight, out of mind.” Most of us probably don’t know where the nearest abortuary is. But ignorance is not bliss, nor does it curb the killing. In its last fiscal year (2011-2012), Planned Parenthood aborted 329,445 human babies in the largest chain of abortuaries in America. But their hands are not the only ones dripping with innocent blood. Untold numbers of other killing centers destroy about three times that many more babies every year. Statistics like these can be mind-boggling, but please consider some numbers from the Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood):

In 2008, the latest year for which full nation-wide statistics are available, there were 1.21 million abortions in the U.S. For the years 1973-2008, the total number of abortions was over fifty million.

Since the decline in the abortion rate has leveled out, we may reasonably conclude that in the four years since 2008 there were another 1.21 million abortions annually. This would yield a total of at least 55 million abortions over a 40-year span. That averages out to:

• 3765 abortions per day, more than the number killed in the 9/11 attacks.
• One abortion every 23 seconds, all day, every day, for 40 solid years.

The Bible

Are we certain that God opposes abortion?

Proverbs 6:17 declares that He hates the “hands that shed innocent blood.” What blood could be more innocent than that of the pre-born baby? (By the way, the blood flowing through the baby’s body is its own, not the mother’s.) We also learn from the Law of Moses that pre-born life is sacred. If a man caused a pregnant woman to deliver prematurely, and the baby died, the offender was subject to capital punishment (Exodus 21:22-25). Who can believe that innocent human life is less valuable under the New Covenant than it was under the Old?

Under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Luke the physician recorded how the pre-born John the Immerser leaped in the womb of his mother Elizabeth (Luke 1:41). John was a six-month fetus at that time, but Luke said he was a “babe” (Greek brephos). Luke used that same word to refer to the newborn Jesus (Luke 2:12). The pro-abortion establishment routinely refers to the pre-born child as a “mass of blood and tissue” or some other impersonal term. But God refers to it as a babe, just as He does after the child is born.

Most people, whether parents or not, instinctively recoil against the very idea of harming, much less killing, a helpless baby. The apostle Paul warned, however, of perilous times when people would be “without natural affection” (2 Timothy 3:3 KJV). The Greek word is astorgoi. The “a” is a negative prefix, and the rest of the word pertains to the affectionate love of family members, especially parents and children, for each other.

Abortion requires an absence of natural affection, or at least the searing of the conscience to overpower it. We may well reap a bitter harvest from our failure to love and protect innocent, vulnerable human life. A generation that will kill its own children because they are inconvenient will not long hesitate to kill its grandparents for the same reason.

God’s word charges civil government with punishing those who do evil and praising those who do well (Romans 13:3, 4). The Supreme Court in 1973 failed miserably to do its God-given duty, not to mention its constitutional duty. That same court today can and should reverse course.

Our Recourse

As Christians, we are blessed with the ability as well as the duty to pray for the governing authorities (1 Timothy 2:1-3).

In the United States, we are also blessed with a voice in selecting our governing authorities.

Since the President nominates Supreme Court justices, and since the Senate votes either to confirm or to reject them, it obviously makes a difference whom we elect as our President and Senators.

Unfortunately, most voters put moral issues on the back burner, being preoccupied with economic concerns. They have failed to “remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:18).

May God hasten the day when all innocent human life, including pre-born babies, enjoys legal protection in the United States and throughout the world!

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