The Sanctity Of Human Life

The Value of One Life

Intro: 1857 U.S. Supreme Court made a decision that today looks pretty ridiculous. 7 of 9 Justices decided that a black slave named Dred Scott was nothing more than the property of his owner – thus he had no rights as a citizen and no protection under the law.

Justice Taney said, Negroes – slave or free – were not included and were not intended to be included in the category of citizen as the word was used in the Constitution.

Today, after a civil war, after civil rights, and after thousands of inappropriate actions, this atrocity has been corrected and all men – no matter what the color of their skin are viewed as equal by the Constitution.

Truth: 29 years ago, on January 22, 1973, The Supreme Court made another incredibly poor decision. The Court struck down the abortion laws in all 50 states deciding that a woman’s right to privacy gives her the right to abort her unborn child. In the Court’s opinion, they determined that the unborn child was not a person as defined by the Constitution and was therefore not entitled to or guaranteed the right to life. Instead, the baby was nothing more than the property of the mother, to choose, along with her doctor, the whether the child lives or dies.

Irony: In 1972, the Supreme Court amended the Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940 authorizing fines up to $500,000 in addition to jail time for destroying an unborn eagle in it’s egg.

Irony: Today, in all 50 states, if a pregnant women is murdered, the suspect will be charged with two counts of murder.

Stats: Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates that since 1973 approximately 41 million babies have been aborted in the United States.

That is 20 babies every 20 seconds of every day for 29 years or 12% of America’s current population.

Guttmacher reports: 1% Victims of rape or incest

1% Fetal defects

4% Mother’s life endangered

66% Financial instability

76% Interference with life

Truth: The greatest human tragedies – nothing compares to it – not even war: Counting all of America’s wars from 1775 to present we have lost only 1.1 million Americans.

Hitler’s Holocaust claimed only 6 million lives.

Point: The Abortion procedure is a modern day holocaust

Trans: Some of you may have had an abortion, and most of us have been touched by it in some way. God can and does forgive. His grace and mercy are complete and sustaining.

I 3 Biblical Reasons Why Abortion is Wrong

A God sees each unborn child as a person

1 Created in God’s image Gen 1:26-28

Verse: Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created man; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”

Idea: We are in His likeness – Body, soul, and spirit. Intentionally created for a relationship with God.

2 Fearfully and wonderfully made Ps. 139:13-16

Verse: For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Idea: Created by God – While God uses a natural process – no life comes into being without the touch of God. And God neither makes mistakes nor does He make junk. All life is miraculous. And each life is sacred.

Idea: Knit together – lit. covered me – Hidden away as a treasure until the proper time for you

Idea: Fearfully and wonderfully made

3 Formed in the womb Jer. 1:5

Verse: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

Idea: Formed – created with care – much like a sculptor creates a statue

Idea: Knew – indicates an intimate, experiential knowledge – person to person. All human life, which begins at conception, is precious to God.

B God sees each unborn child as His possession. Ps. 139:13

Idea: Created – lit. to possess one by the reins.

Word: Rein – a reference in Hebrew to the kidneys – which the Hebrews viewed as the seat on all human desire and longing; the most hidden and vital portions of a living soul.