SE102404
STOP THE WORLD
4. Abortion
As we’ve seen today, Abortion is not new. It may be one of the hottest political topics in this nation for the last 30 years, but it’s not new. For instance, the Roman Empire had elaborate abortion laws, way more liberal than any country in 2004. When we place our current dilemma in historical perspective, we realize abortion spans every century and every culture with techniques ranging from herbally-induced abortions to ancient mechanical devices.
In fact, if you want to expand the issue to simply include unwanted pregnancies, then the scope is even wider historically because all societies have had a desire to be rid of pregnancies at difficult times:
- In ancient Canaan, the practice of child sacrifice was a crude form of abortion, dressing it up in religious ceremony.
- It was also common in ancient societies to simply abandon newborns because people lacked the money or skill to abort the child in-uteri.
- Parents abandoned almost all deformed babies. Many parents abandoned babies if they were poor.
- And most common of all, children were abandoned in the woods or on garbage dumps if they were female. In fact, this practice was still popular in China as late as the 1890’s.
Now, we may not wish to draw parallels between modern abortion and infanticide, but in purpose they are identical: Be rid of unwanted pregnancies. Sometimes for economic reasons, sometimes for religious, sometimes for social reasons, sometimes against public opinion, sometimes with public blessing.
So we may ask the question,
“if abortion is so pervasive, if all societies see the need for it, then why shouldn’t we see it as one of those unpleasant yet necessary parts of being human?”
Well, before we make any judgments about abortion, we need to be honest about where it comes from.
1. CHANGING RELIGIOUS CLIMATE
As humanism becomes the dominant public orthodoxy today, we’re told there is no role for God to play in creation. Chance, random processes are entirely responsible for our creation. Therefore, first conclusion, humans are like all other animals, perhaps a bit smarter, but there is absolutely no intrinsic, special value in human beings.
2. CHANGING SEXUAL MORES
Secondly, related to this, we live in a climate where sexual rules of conduct have changed. Humanism means there is no law giving God at the center, so no ultimate standard or anchor for ethics and that means we make up the rules.
Now, people have always had sexual liaisons outside marriage. But in almost every culture we’ve known this somehow doesn’t meet an IDEAL for sexual expression. However, because of the sexual revolution of the past 30 years, we’ve been saying,
“hey, if we get to make up the rules, why beat ourselves up about sex? We’re just like other animals, we’re sexual beings and we’re going to have sex. So let’s stop feeling guilty about it, let’s take the rules off of it and just do it.”
And “do it” we have, helped immensely by the invention of cheap and easy contraception. But interestingly, pregnancies didn’t stop happening. Less rules, meant more sex and more sex meant more pregnancies and especially more pregnancies that did not take place within marriages.
The result, former surgeon general C. Everett Koop, has said, is that
“Current sexual mores, and the breakdown of the family demand abortion. At the same time, the availability of abortion contributes to a change in our sexual mores, and general family breakdown - truly a vicious cycle.”
So follow this progression: No real God, means the human animal has no special value and there are no ULTIMATE laws and no laws means sex rules are arbitrary and meant to be broken. Sex rules broken, means more babies - but not just more babies, more babies outside of the kind of unions that are best suited to care for them.
Therefore ABORTION on DEMAND.
It’s that simple. It’s like gas stations. We drive cars, so no one would think of outlawing gas stations. The existence of cars demands the need for gas stations. The existence of the current state of sexual practices in our day demands abortion. So why - with all this change demanding abortion – would Christianity continue to oppose it?
1. SERVE A CHANGELESS GOD
Well, mainly because Christians refuse to bow to humanism. The church doesn’t accept that God has no role to play in creation. A real God, means, principles revealed by God to be in keeping with his nature are not relative to a given time or context – no expiration date on them. Some local expressions of God’s principles may change from time to time, but the principles themselves are as firm and unchanging as God is.
2. PEOPLE MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE
Second, Christians believe the Bible contains record of God’s Truth. And the Bible affirms something truly counter cultural about human beings from page one on. It says that people are special creations of God, made with the stamp of His image - Genesis 1:27.
And this means quite simply that you have not locked eyes with another human being who was not infinitely valuable to God. You bear the image of God - therefore, you matter. So, quite naturally, chief among God’s rules for how we should treat each other and the intrinsic rights we should give each other was COMMANDMENT #6: Exodus 20:13 -
“you shall not murder”. No taking of innocent human life.
See, where humanism really has no real basis for saying the taking of innocent life is wrong, Christians believe the right to live is founded in people being special in Dignity and Nature. The humanist can say “don’t kill” because it’s bad for society, but that logic breaks down when society gets in the way of what a killer wants. Who’s to say society takes precedence over individual whims? WHY? On what objective basis?
Humanism has none, but the Bible does.
So some still ask, if we’re made in the image of God, “when does this ‘Image of God’ descend on humans?”. That question is never really answered in Scripture, because the assumption of Scripture writers is always that “personhood” is intrinsic to human life in any form.
This is why, whenever the Bible discusses fetal life, it talks about it in terms no different from any other:
Exodus 21:22-23 part of the Jewish legal code says, “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely, but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life...”
Psalm 139:13 says of God, “You created me in my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
Jeremiah 1:5, God says to Jeremiah, “before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”
Personal pronouns are always applied in Scripture to in-uteri fetus’. Jacob and Esau had personality development in the womb. John the Baptist was said to be spiritually active in his mothers womb. It is never assumed that the fetus is anything but a person.
Now, let’s admit that the abortion debate almost never gets this deep. While politicians debate and people on talks shows rant on, very few people are asking the fundamental question, “are fetuses people?” Because if they ARE, then shouldn’t this debate be over? Since we have this thing about all people being created equal and endowed with rights, the first of these, the right to life.
Now this is the crux of the issue and it’s what I’m going to spend the rest of our time talking about. If we answer this question, everything else sort of pales in comparison, agreed? I mean, if THE FETUS IS HUMAN it sort of closes the argument, doesn’t it? Human beings have intrinsic worth, period. Humans matter. We don’t take innocent human life, period.
But maybe we can find a loophole. Let’s face it, when you’re life is in chaos and you’ve got the possibility of an unwanted, new baby breathing down your neck, you want options, right? You don’t want to be faced with some moral trump card. So let’s look at a few possibilities:
LOOPHOLE #1: TO BE HUMAN IT MUST BE VIABLE
In other words, if it can’t survive outside a mother’s womb, it’s not a human being. If it can, then it is human. This argument is so powerful that 85% of everyone in America today is opposed to third trimester abortions. Reason: we all know that 3rd trimester infants are viable. Ironically, thousands of such infants each year are evicted right up to the day of birth.
So, the fact that we have late term abortions, shows that we don’t really believe in viability as a standard for human life.
But even if we use viability as our standard of God’s Image, the age of viability is going down. It was once thought a 1,000 gram (2 lb) preemie could never survive, but now 50% of preemies under 1,000 grams live. So a child that is subhuman this year, could be human next year? The truth is, viability is a changing reference point and therefore, useless to determine what human is.
Years ago, I interviewed a director from a local abortion clinic and I asked her, “When can you call a fetus a human being?” She said,
“I don’t know frankly, but what I tell people is, why force your opinion of when life starts on someone else?”
Which sounds very tolerant and understanding, if we’re talking about opinions of what color is better for my living room – but we’re talking about human life! When Puritans were making rules about capital punishment which later became the foundation of our court systems, you know what they said?
Cotton Mather: “it were better than ten suspected criminals should escape, than that one innocent person should be condemned.”
Meaning, when human life is at stake, we better walk softly and carry a SMALL stick. When it’s human life at stake, we better err on the side of life, they said. Better than many live who shouldn’t live, than even ONE die that shouldn’t die.
Imagine a slave owner in 1860 says to me, hey, you may think blacks are human, I think they’re sub-human, so why don’t we just live and let live, why force your opinion on me? The reason the question must be pressed is that if it’s about human life, is ultimately about me.
One person who lived in Nazi Germany once said,
they came for the communists and I did not protest, because I wasn’t a communist. They came for the Jews and I did not protest because I was not a Jew. They came for the homosexuals and I did not protest because I was not a homosexual. And finally they came for me, but there was no one left to stop them.
So I pressed the Abortion Director a little. I said, if we could determine conclusively that a fetus was, in fact, a human being, would you stop doing abortions? And the answer I got back scared me a little: She said, and I quote,
“In the end, it doesn’t matter if it is human or not. What matters is reproductive freedom.”
Now, if it doesn’t matter whether I’m human or not, if someone can take my right to live away from me, for ANY reason, at any stage in my development from womb to nursing home, what do you think happens to all our other rights? Friend, this idea that we can usurp an innocent human being’s right to live, is simply terrifying in its implications. But then, there’s
LOOPHOLE #2 - TO BE HUMAN IT MUST LOOK HUMAN.
A friend of mine who had an abortion in 1971 was told the fetus is just an indeterminable cluster of cells. These days, no one would dare say that because of advances in prenatal technology. If you look at pictures of fetuses you know that a fetus is never an indeterminable cluster of cells.
A fetus is a separate, unique organism from the time of conception.
At 21 days, before a mother knows she’s pregnant, the first irregular heartbeat occurs.
At 45 days, when the earliest abortions are performed, brain waves can be detected.
By the 11th week or around the time the vast majority of abortions are done, the fetus can squint, swallow, move his tongue, has fingerprints, sucks his thumb, sleeps, feels, tastes and reacts... If wombs had windows.
You see, a fetus never changes from some clump into a baby. And if it’s not human in there, what exactly do we think it is in there? The California Journal of Medicine said,
“....[it has become] necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everybody really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous, whether inter or extra-uterine, until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics required to rationalize abortion as anything but the taking of human life would be ludicrous if they were not put forth under socially impeccable auspices.”
Friends, it’s not a dolphin in there. The argument from “looks” really highlights how arbitrary our gauge is for determining humanity and finally morality. And the logical conclusions are equally chaotic.
Is it human because it looks like one? If so, then a deformed person should die.
Is it human because it has potential? Then why not kill a week-old retarded infant?
Is it human when it becomes independent of its mother? Then I guess there are a few 25-year olds I know who are still prime candidates for extermination.
Is it human when it becomes useful to society? Then there are some senior citizens in nursing homes that we should get rid of.
Logically, friends we have to push our thinking to it’s final conclusion. Is it abhorrent to kill a week-old baby? Why? How about a day-old? No? Then, nine months pregnant, 8, 7, 5, 2, 1? You see? At what minute does this life change from worthless to precious? Which of us has the wisdom or the right to make that call?
But something we do think we can make a call about is:
LOOPHOLE #3: TO BE HUMAN IT MUST HAVE A CERTAIN QUALITY OF LIFE
Unwanted children are often abused and tend to become dehumanized adults who perpetuate abuse and poverty. So when abortions are safe and legal what should we expect? Less child abuse because less unwanted kids, right? As it is, since the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, child abuse has risen dramatically.
Why did it go in the opposite direction than predicted? I think it’s because there is a teaching effect that abortion has on all of us. It says to the parent, your children’s basic rights depend on your choice, not on God’s choice. Therefore, if their existence is inconvenient to you, you can take whatever measures you see fit, since you have the power of life and death.
Here’s another teaching moment: we spend millions of dollars on making life fulfilling for the handicapped (stalls, parking, education, inventions, operations, etc.) while at the same time exterminating the babies who would one day use these devices. What we’re really saying to handicapped persons is,
“your life is not worth living - I’m sure you’d rather had someone snuff it out at the beginning.”
Do we really want to stand before God someday and boldly proclaim what we thought someone else’s quality of life would or could be? A professor at the U.C.L.A. Medical School asked his students this question,
“Here is the family history — the father has syphilis. The mother has T.B.. They already have four children. The first is blind. The second has diabetes. The third is deaf. The fourth has T.B.. The mother is pregnant again. The parents are willing to have an abortion if you decide they should. What do you think?”. The students say, it’s a no-brainer, counsel them have an abortion. “Congratulations”, said the professor, “You have just murdered Beethoven!”
LOOP HOLE #4: WHAT ABOUT INCEST OR RAPE
These are the hard cases that bring the weighted question, "Should a woman be forced to carry the child of a man who has so violated her?" In the infamous Roe v. Wade "Jane Roe" claimed to have been the victim of a rape, became pregnant, and appealed to the Supreme Court for the right to abort her child.
She later admitted to fabricating the story, and by the time that decision was handed down, she had already given birth and placed her child for adoption. But since that 1973 case, a 1.5 million abortions have been performed – every year. Ironically, how many of these are “hard cases” like the first was supposed to be – but wasn’t?
In one 1987 study 1/20 of 1% of women polled said they were raped. That’s less than 1000 pregnancies in the whole country. Still the question remains, “What is the compassionate response to these hurting few?” Most of us know that rape victims often struggle with feelings of guilt, self-blame, fear of men/sex. What we may not know is that post abortion trauma is nearly identical.
So putting the two together often doubles the psychological trauma. Wouldn’t it be ironic if we encouraged abortion in the “hard cases” out of compassion but were actually increasing pain? When we encourage violence against the innocent to respond to violence against the innocent, what do you think that says to mothers?
“You were powerless against your attacker, now to get over it, attack someone who’s powerless.”
It just seems backwards to me. To God, life is sacred. No human being is conceived outside His will (examples?). Even through circumstances that are sinful - adultery, or violence – God can cause something as precious as a new human being to come forth. When life comes, it’s always a gift, never a punishment (Psalm 127:3). Pregnancy, though a huge difficulty, is actually a reminder of God’s ability to form good from evil.
My goal today was not to provide emotional touch – that’s important – and that’s why Lue and her team are here to help you deal with and talk about the trauma of abortion – for you or a woman you got pregnant, or a friend you know. My job today is to just do truth therapy on this thing.
And the truth is, only, in open confession and truth can we gain what we need, God’s love, God’s support and God’s healing. Abortion is not the unforgivable sin… but it is a terrible, non-solution. Some of you already know that. Open up, let God into this place… his truth AND his love… we’re hear to be both to you today.
