Abortion
Hot Potatoes that Make People HOT!!, Part 1
We are starting a new series today about Hot topics that make people hot. Why am I talking about this? Because every evening on the 6 o’clock news we are faced with moral and spiritual dilemmas. Just because a majority of people believe a certain way about an issue doesn’t make their belief right. The majority of passengers on the Titanic believed that they weren’t in real danger after they hit the iceberg, and the majority of them died because they believed wrong.
Some of you believe rightly on some of these issues, but if I asked you why, you couldn’t give me an answer. Some would just give me a generic answer, “Because the Bible tells me so.” That is very broad and good, but that is not sufficient. You must be able to use your Bible like a sword, wielding it as needed to address the onslaught of the enemy.
The issue of abortion, even though they have been performed for hundreds of years came to the forefront of our society on January 22, 1973. Before this day, our normal approach was against abortion. But on January 22, 1973, in the now infamous case Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 vote, determined that a woman had the right to procure an abortion at any time. Their decision was that women should have the right to abortion if they so desire.
Before that time, fetuses were viewed as life, not ‘its’. They were viewed as alive persons, now they are viewed as tissue. When we allow the court to decide decisions like abortion, what we are facing is a bigger issue than abortion. This is huge as we talk about these hot issues.
Abortion is an outgrowth of another issue. The other, larger issue in which abortion is an expression of, is the issue of humanism.
Humanism is the philosophy, a worldview that holds that all that there is, is matter. The only thing that matters is matter. Human beings are just an advanced collection of matter. Since we are the most advanced collection of matter, we are the highest court of appeals in what ought to be done in our world. In light of this, man becomes the ultimate decision-maker (humanism) regarding matter. Man becomes the focal point that determines what should happen in the world. This world view of humanism affects all kinds of decisions. As we will see in abortion, it affects ‘Who lives and who dies’.
This worldview is what Nazi Germany had in the 1930’s and 1940’s. They started on a road with abortion with the worldview that the woman’s life was not only more important than the child’s, but her convenience is more important than the child’s life. This road then naturally leads to affecting life outside the womb—killing of the handicapped, because their life drains the good of society, killing the elderly, because they are no longer productive, and killing the unwanted—the people you just don’t like. In Nazi Germany, that was the gypsies, the handicapped, and six million Jews.
In humanism, man is not viewed as the unique creation of God. He is defined in the image of what some people think man ought to be. An appointed group of people can determine life or death issues, like the Supreme Court. Abortion is the outworking of a worldview. Whenever you push God into a closet, you have man left. When you have imperfect man making the decisions, you have imperfect decisions being made, no matter how good the intentions are, as we will see in the abortion argument. There
are a lot of good intentions.
Types of Abortion
Therapeutic abortion: The pregnancy is terminated for the sake of the woman’s health
Psychiatric abortion: The pregnancy is terminated for the sake of the woman’s mental health.
Eugenic abortion: The pregnancy is terminated as a means of keeping the retarded or deformed child from
being born.
Social abortion: The pregnancy is terminated to relieve economic pressure on a family
Ethical abortion: The pregnancy is terminated in cases of rape or incest.
Abortion on demand: “I don’t want to have the baby.”
Methods of Abortion
During the first Trimester:
DNC: A curette, which is a tiny, hook-like instrument is inserted into the uterus and is used to scrape the
placenta from the uterus wall and cuts the baby’s body into pieces.
Suction: A tube is inserted into the uterus and the baby is sucked into pieces into a jar outside of the womb.
96.7% of all of the abortions that happen in the U.S. operate on the suction method.
After 15 weeks (into the second trimester), ending a pregnancy is more difficult because the fetus is larger
and there is a greater blood supply to the uterus.
Salt solution: Salt is injected into the amniotic fluid, and poison’s the baby. The salt penetrates the baby’s
skin, gastro-intestinal area, and lungs, and about an hour later the baby dies.
Partial-birth Abortion:
The mother carried the baby full-term, the doctor delivers the entire baby except for the head. The abortionist jams scissors into the baby’s skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the hole. The scissors are removed and a suction catheter is inserted. The child’s brains are sucked out, causing the skull to collapse. The dead
baby is then removed.
Facts about Abortion
4,000 occur everyday,
1,106 teenagers get abortions everyday.
In other words, 1 abortion every 22 seconds.
About 1.8 million abortions occur in the United States every year.
Over 35,000,000 abortions have occurred since Roe v. Wade.
88% of abortions took place in first trimester (12 weeks).
One in five women obtaining abortions are 19 and under.
52% of women obtaining abortions are under 25.
Two-thirds of all abortions are among never-married women.
Less than 1% of all abortions are attributed to rape or incest.
An estimated 43 percent of American women will have at least one abortion by the age of 45.
Abortion is Unbiblical and Illogical
As I talk about abortion today, let’s suppose that you don’t believe the Bible. Not only will I present the pro-choice arguments, but I will refute them from a biblical standpoint as well as a logical standpoint. It is
illogical to consider the unborn baby as less than human. Let’s look at the logical case against abortion, and
then the biblical case against abortion. Here’s the first pro-choice, pro-abortion argument:
Argument #1:
“Nobody should tell me what to do with my body! This is my body, and no law should tell
me what to do with my body!”
Answer: Even though the baby is inside the mother’s body, the baby is not part of her body.
The baby is the baby’s body, not the mothers. Granted, it is housed in your body, but that is not your body. It is another body.
If the child is a part of the mother’s body, why does the child possess a completely different genetic code and often different blood type? The baby has it’s own immune system and is male about half the time. Also, we are now seeing the unborn being treated for disease, given blood transfusions and even operated on. When a doctor operates on a fetal kidney, who is the patient?
Let’s go back to their argument. If the issue isn’t really about abortion but a woman’s right to control her own body, then why doesn’t the pro-choice agenda include drugs and prostitution? Aren’t laws against those just as restrictive to a woman’s right to choose what she will and will not do with her own body as laws against abortion are? You see, it is illogical. The Pro-choice people only care about abortion, not about
the woman’s right to her own body.
Argument #2: “The fetus is not life, it is just tissue.”
Answer:
Just as no one has the problem identifying the unborn dog as a puppy, so the unborn human can be
identified as a human.
What is in a cat? Kittens. What is in a pregnant mare? A colt. They are illogical. This applies when we talk about animals but not with humans. We come up with this specialized category of tissue, matter, or just cells. These people are illogical and they change definitions all the time. The nature of the unborn fetus does not change after birth; only its size and location.
Let’s look at Psalm 51:5. We see an indication of life prior to birth.
I was born a sinner— yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. Psalms 51:5
David is talking about his condition prior to birth. Before David was born, before he exited his mother’s womb, he came out a sinner; he came out guilty. What David is stating here is that he is viewed as guilty prior to his birth. If the fetus possesses guilt, then humanness is established since only humans and angels can be guilty. There is not such thing as guilty tissue. You must have guilty something. And since the Bible
only talks about guilt when speaking of humans and angels, then there is a being involved.
Argument #3: “The baby is not alive.”
Answer:
If we use the absence of brainwaves to determine that a person’s life has ended and is a sign of human death, then the presence of brainwaves is a sign of human life and determines that life has
begun.
This is HUGE! And is one of the most compelling arguments.
• On Day 20-21: the Heart begins to beat.
• By Day 40: Brain waves can be detected and recorded. Babies are conscious before they are born.
We can trace a baby’s brain wave. This is a reasonable and logical way to settle this issue, yet pro-choice advocates are unwilling to accept it. It is illogical, but humanism is illogical. Because Humanism gives man the right to be illogical, because it gives man the right to decide, or to play God. In our culture, humanism is playing God in every conceivable area. Humanism is now the controlling point in education, humanism is the controlling point in media, humanism is the controlling factor in science. The decision-makers—those who control our society—are people who have taken God out of the equation and the only thing left is humans—humanists. Without standards, or if there are standards, they are constantly shifting with no absolutes.
The Bible says in the book of Judges…
In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Judges 21:25
That is exactly what we have today. The baby is alive by our own medical standards because of the presence of brainwaves.. Let’s look at Psalm 139. David is talking about the greatness of God, and by talking about
God’s greatness, he speaks about God creating him inside his mother.
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—and how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. (When a couple of chromosomes came together) Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
Psalms 139:13-16
Biblically, we are dealing with crystal clear statements that God is involved in the process of the unborn; that is, the formation of the baby before it exists the womb. The fetus is more than just tissue, since it is viewed as human in light of God’s personal involvement. God views the fetus as a life. He did not form an ‘it’ in the womb, David said, “You formed me in the womb.” God is actively involved in the growth of the
fetus. He is also actively involved before they ever get into the womb.
“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb (Who did He know? You). Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesman to the world.”
Jeremiah 1:5
Or what about when Elizabeth ran into Mary in Luke chapter 1, and the two babies came in contact with one another? The Bible says, “John the Baptist leapt for joy?” It says that “He was filled with the Holy Spirit
prior to his birth.” You don’t fill tissue with the Holy Spirit; you fill people with the Holy Spirit.
Argument #4: “Aborting the retarded and deformed is merciful.”
Answer:
Taking the life of the unborn is taking the only chance this human has to live. It will never get a better chance at life. The logic that deformed human beings loose the right to a meaningful life is illogical. The choice is not between a better life or a perfect life; it is between the life they have or no life at all. Such logic naturally leads to infanticide, euthanasia since deformity outside the womb can
be verified.
We have a predicted deformed child. The issue in abortion is not whether I am going to choose between having a deformed child or being able to somehow correct the deformity and have a healthy child. It is whether the child who might be deformed will ever have a chance to exist at all. The issue is not between a perfect life or a better one, the issue is between any kind of life and none.
If we can look inside the womb and see that the baby has some birth defect, i.e., German Measles, and kill the baby, why should we not go one step further and look at the people who we’re not guessing about—people who we now are deformed and are handicapped. And trust me, that day is coming. The way our society is going, we are no better than Nazi Germany in the 1930’s. When you take God out of the picture, Man is king and humanism reigns. When humanism reigns, there is no value to life because value is measured in how productive they are to society. When someone is no longer a productive member of society, they should be terminated for the common good.
Elderly? Kill them. No longer productive. Handicapped? Weed them out of society; no longer productive. Floridian coma patient Terry Schiavo’? Kill her, she’s no longer productive member of society. She is draining us, let’s kill her. We are allowing our judicial system to make life and death decisions not based upon biblical standards, but on our shifting cultural morays. That is what our humanistic society is saying.
All right, what does the Bible have to say about the deformed? The handicapped? Does God love them? Does God have a purpose for their life? What if someone is born with some ailment, something is
wrong with them?
Jesus saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Why was this man born blind? Jesus answered. “He was born blind so the power of God could be seen in him.
John 9:1-3
What if the blind man’s mother knew that her son was going to be born blind and chose to abort him. “Rather than come into a cold, harsh world and have problems and then be blind on top of that, Let’s rid him of this misery.” If that would have happened, then the glory and power of God would have been interfered with. Why? Because John’s statement here says, “The purpose for his blindness, being born blind, was a divine purpose.” In other words, he was born blind at birth to accomplish a certain purpose of God for his life that he wouldn’t realize until John chapter 9 when he was a man. In other words, there are sovereign purposes of God that go beyond their circumstances.
You cannot argue that because the fetus has potential problems that it ought to be aborted. If God has a purpose for that fetus, then you have aborted the purpose of God.
Let’s also look at the time Moses was complaining to God about a handicap that he had. God wanted
Moses to go and speak to Pharaoh and tell him, “Let my people go!” But Moses had a speech impediment.
Moses raised another objection to God: “Master, please, I don’t talk well. I’ve never been good with words, neither before nor after you spoke to me. I stutter and stammer.” God said, “And who do you think made the human mouth? And who makes some mute, some deaf, some sighted, some blind? Isn’t it I, God?
Exodus 4:10 -11
If a child is born with a defect, there are times that the Lord takes the blame for that, for His own purposes.
Argument #5: “We should terminate the pregnancy because of an abusive home.”
Answer:
If unborn babies are destroyed to avoid potential abuse in our hostile world, then why not destroy
children who we know are being abused?
“I don’t want to bring a kid into this dirty world where he is going to be beat up, messed around, and abused.” All right, since you don’t want abused kids living in this world, why don’t we get rid of every child
abused by their parents. Then you don’t worry about abuse any more. We are dealing with a double standard.
If we protect the born who are undergoing abuse, how much more should we protect the unborn who
are even more defenseless.
Argument #6: “The baby should be aborted because of a rape.”
Answer:
Of all of the arguments, this one pulls at our heart the most. While pregnancy from rape or incest are
horrible crimes, a second crime adds to the problem, it doesn’t take away from it.
Getting an abortion doesn’t diminish the problem at all. Abortion doesn’t negate the rape. By aborting the child, the abortion doesn’t solve the rape. Justice is not served by punishing the unborn baby because someone raped his mother. In other words, “Let’s kill the baby because his mother got raped.” Punish the rapist, not the baby. When you choose an abortion, now the mother is dealing with 2 psychological issues; you’re dealing with the rape and the abortion. You have not solved her problem, you have created a new one in addition.
Again, what does the Bible have to say?
Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin.
Deuteronomy 24:16
A terrible crime has been committed. But let’s try to look at this logically. Let’s say that A father of two children decides to hold up a bank and rob it. The police catch the man, but instead of punishing him for his crimes, they decide to punish his two children. Is that justice? No, it is not. They have not done anything. Their father has perpetrated the crime—punish him.
Can children who are conceived by rape lead normal lives? I don’t know, why don’t you ask Oprah Winfrey. Her mother was raped, and Oprah was the product of that terrible event.
How many of you have ever heard the song, “His Eye is On the Sparrow?” The lady who wrote that
was a product of rape. Listen to the words:
Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.
What should be our response as Christians?
First, we must love mothers who have chosen abortion. I know that there are some of you who have chosen wrongly and aborted your baby. Many of you would do anything to be able to go back and undo your mistake. Know this, even though you have sinned, God still loves you. Abortion is not the unpardonable sin. Today, you’re healing can begin by you asking Him to wash you, to make you whiter than snow.
Second, we must provide alternatives other than abortion for young mothers. We don’t just tell
them ‘no’ on abortion, but say ‘yes’ to help them raise the child or adopt the child.
Third, we must love people who Jesus calls us to love. By the way, that is everybody!
Fourth, we must stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. We must be politically involved and vote pro-life, no matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican. How dare we cast votes for people because of economic reasons, social security, or any other reason and not stand up for the unborn!
If we do not change our nation, we will be no better than Hitler and the Nazis. Billy Graham has said, “If God does not destroy America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.” Our hearts should be broken for each and every abortion.
By the way, since the start of our service, 2860 children have been aborted. What are you going to do about it?
