My last post was about the miracle of life. Sadly, our society has lost respect, wonder and awe for that miracle. Instead, life has become cheap and expendable. I have seen our nation move farther and farther away from God in my lifetime. Sin has been around since Adam and it certainly existed during my youth, but there was a strong respect for human life back then. Today we have skidded down that proverbial slippery slope at amazing speed to very scary depths. To give you an indication of just how low we have sunk, I saw a woman holding a sign during a recent women’s rights march that read, “If Mary had an abortion, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
God completely destroyed nation after nation for embracing many of the things our society now celebrates. The most egregious example is that more than 59 million innocent babies have been killed by abortions in the United States since 1973, some just before they were able to take their first breath. Most of those babies have been sacrificed by their own mothers at the altar of convenience. In addition to the untimely death of those unborn babies, each mother will either be plagued by guilt or her heart will be hardened. How much longer will God allow this mass murder of innocents to go on?
Let’s briefly refresh our memory about the origin and progress of infanticide in America. In 1973, Roe v Wade was heard by the Supreme Court. Roe was a single woman who claimed she was the victim of rape and was also a victim of Texas’ law prohibiting her from having an abortion unless her life was at risk. It was a class action suit so even though she had a miscarriage before the case went before the Supreme Court she was still given standing to proceed with the suit. Later, the woman known as Roe admitted that she lied in her deposition about being raped. She repented and become an outspoken opponent of abortion, but the damage was done when she was used to set the precedent. She died earlier this year.
At the time the Roe v Wade decision came down we were told it would only apply in cases of rape or incest and then only during the first trimester. Within two years it had been expanded to any reason connected with the mother’s mental or physical health and could take place up to and during delivery.
In 2010, there was a brief celebration at the White House when the CDC announced there had been 50 million reported abortions since Roe v Wade. (There had actually been more than that because several states do not report abortions to the CDC.) Our hearts break when we hear about one innocent child being shot and killed on the streets of Chicago. How is it that the death of millions of young lives has gone virtually unnoticed? How could anyone celebrate the death of 50 million innocent individuals? How many gifted doctors, researchers, scientists, statesmen, musicians, artists, poets, prophets, evangelists, pastors or other Godly men and women have been killed before fulfilling their potential? Only God knows. He told Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5) “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations,” and He knows the gifts and potential of each one of those 59 million precious souls.
A few years ago, I read an article that originally appeared in an American Medical Association publication. It was written by a prominent expert on medical ethics. In it he explained that when late-term and partial birth abortions are accepted as ethical, then it would be equally ethical for a mother to kill her child up to the age of two for the same reasons used for abortion. My first reaction was, “Heaven help the two year olds.” After thoroughly reading and rereading that article, it was clear that he reached a perfectly logical conclusion based on the false premise that abortion rights of the mother are moral and ethical. Beginning with a false premise like that one will always lead to even more immoral acts being mislabeled as ethical.
One predictable result of our disregard for human life at its beginning is our attitude toward the elderly and end of life decisions. A doctor who helped create the Affordable Care Act stated his opinion that expensive medical treatment should be rationed to those 75 and older since that is “a reasonable life expectancy”. I wonder if he will still feel that way when he reaches my age.
I know mixing politics and faith is taboo in today’s America, but others have made abortion a political ideology, not me. Protecting life from conception through old age has been my ideology since I accepted Christ (19 years before Roe v Wade) and it hasn’t changed throughout my lifetime. I pray that Americans find eternal life through Jesus Christ and begin to celebrate life instead of death. That is our only hope to escape God’s judgement.