by Daniel H. King, Sr.
Synopsis: Abortion is a tragic (and deadly) consequence of sexual promiscuity. This barbaric act sacrifices human life on the altar of selfishness and sin.
An unplanned pregnancy can represent a most unexpected and inconvenient experience for the potential parents of a child. In the case of married parents who feel that they cannot afford the expense of a child (or another child) at a certain point in their lives, it may present the challenge of both the cost of the birth and the expense of raising it. A child born of rape or incest is a frightening experience, perhaps more so than any other: it can represent a reliving of the terror of the crime. Sadly, the child often suffers (or perhaps dies) because of something it did not do.
For most of human history, the prospect of a new child in the family was considered a blessing and an honor. The child was not just a hungry mouth to feed or a financial burden, but a welcome addition to the family circle. Unfortunately, that has changed in recent years. At this point in Western societies, the cost of living is enormously challenging for people without children, let alone those who have them, or may even have several. If a couple is not married, the challenges grow exponentially. When the little one is a shock to two people who at the time thought only of the passion and the pleasure of each other's company (but not of what might come of the liaison), any solution to the problem may seem welcome at the time, even if it is terminal for one of the parties involved. An unborn child is often considered expendable.
Abortion has become the "quick and easy" answer for many, even though there are better resolutions to the problem. Too few people consider allowing some other family to raise the child. Yet, is it really better to kill it than to let someone else love and care for it? In our day, on account of the relative ease with which a tiny human being can be expunged from our experience, it is little wonder that so many people take the "easy" way out of the situation and simply "erase" that little boy or girl from their memory. It is very sad, indeed. I have often thought that someday another generation may look back on this era of legal, cheap, and easy abortions and finally recognize the horror was happening right under all of our noses. Rather, the German people faced after World War II was over, and they were forced to clean up the death camps and bury those who had been mistreated, tortured, and executed.
In 2020 it was estimated that about one in every four women in the US had undergone an abortion. Although the argument for abortions being legal was made originally to deal with occurrences of rape and incest, only about 1.5% of cases are now said to be for this cause. Most years since Roe vs. Wade became the law of the land, approximately one million of these procedures have been performed annually. Most are simply for convenience's sake or financial reasons. Large, liberal cities have the worst statistics. In New York, for example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that in 2015 about 35% of all pregnancies ended in abortion. Sadly, the New York abortion law allows abortions all the way to full-term. The nation's largest abortion provider is Planned Parenthood, an agency that has persistently received taxpayer dollars, arranged by politicians who receive political contributions from the organization in return. Such an arrangement should be illegal. Fortunately, in recent years the number of abortions in the US has been steadily declining: in 2001, there were 1,291,000, while in 2017, they dropped to just 862,320. Attitudes toward the procedure have persistently soured lately. That is a positive sign.
Although important in the production of life, human agency is not the only aspect needing to be considered in the analysis of the situation. That is too often the case. It is thought that because two careless individuals having sexual relations produced this embryo, therefore it should be the mother's decision alone as to whether this viable being should be destroyed or not. Problems are seldom as simple as promoters of an idea would have us think. To the godless, that may be all there is to the issue. However, we shall leave them to their Judge who will decide their fate.
For the Christian, however, the teaching of the Bible must be considered. Scripture says that God has a hand in the matter: "Know that the Lord Himself is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture" (Ps. 100:3, NASV). Even though the secularists of our day dismiss this consideration, we cannot. The Word of God says life in the womb is a wonder of God's doing, and that cannot be denied: "Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the One who formed you from the womb, 'I, the Lord, am the maker of all things. . .'" (Isa. 44:24). To destroy a life that God has "formed" is a scary proposition!
Unheard in most discussions of legality and morality of the issue of abortion (whether by surgical procedure or medication) is what Holy Scripture has to say in the matter. Many modern Protestant and even a few Catholic churches (despite Papal opposition) consider abortion a morally neutral issue. On account of their leftist political leanings, however, most of their spokesmen and women are fierce proponents of "reproductive" or "abortion rights." Essentially these religious advocates of liberal social policies take their cue from their modernistic perspective on the Bible. They consider it a wholly human document written by ordinary men who were often prone to mistaken notions of morality. Therefore, they believe it to be irrelevant pertaining to modern issues of moral guidance.
For faithful Christians, the Word of God should be the principal consideration. What it says decides the issue for us. The Lord told the prophet Jeremiah: "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" (Jer. 1:5, NIV). God claimed that "I formed you in the womb" and went on to say that even before, He already had plans for him. The identical claim is made for the life of the apostle Paul in Galatians 1:15. What of the plans that He had for so many others of our time whose lives have been erased forever from the land of the living? Again, no single passage of Scripture is clearer on this question than the following:
For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works and that my soul knows well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed, and in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them (Ps. 139:13-16, NKJV).
Life, in whatever circumstances, ought to be treated as the gift it is said to be, not as an inconvenience at best or a nuisance at worst: "Behold, children are a gift of the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward" (Ps. 127:3). When prospective parents feel that they cannot afford to raise a child, for whatever reason, there should be no shame in allowing some other family to raise it. In this era of throw-away children, there are always thousands of families willing to take unwanted babies. In fact, available adoptive children have become so rare that it has become a ridiculously expensive industry for predatory lawyers. There is no excuse for this.
To take a life, without justification, is a sin (Exod. 20:1, 12). Moreover, a child was considered a living person while in its mother's womb, and one who killed it was subject to the death penalty himself (Exod. 21:22-25). That fact cannot be ignored.
For those who have had such a procedure, as bad as the sin may be, have the same prospect for forgiveness as the rest of us. Repentance and prayer are the way back into the grace and mercy of our Creator and Redeemer (Acts 8:22; Eph. 1:7).
