Pretty close to the top of my "List of Things I Wouldn't Believe In Even If I Was an Atheist" is abortion.
It's interesting. We sing and talk to our babies in the womb, we play music for them, and observe the affect of this prenatal action on their attachments and tastes as they grow up. We feel them kicking inside of their mother's womb, we listen to their heart beats, we can even plot their brainwaves. Using ultrasound, we can easily identify on the fetus all the exterior features that all humans have: arms, legs, a head, a body, and we can even tell the gender of the child. When, tragically, a pregnant woman is assaulted and both she and her fetus die, the attacker is charged with two counts of murder, indicating that the law holds one who terminates the life a fetus to indeed be a murderer.
And yet, the act of a woman hiring someone to kill her unborn child is protected by law.
Nothing could be further from the truth. If a woman had an abortion, she was protected by the Fourth Amendment from having her personal, reproductive matters pried into without a warrant from a judge, just like any other crime. But according to the Fourth Amendment, once law enforcement officials got a warrant to search her personal effects and information, anything she had done became fair game. No special protection for sexual, reproductive, or any other ilk of matters is mentioned in the amendment.
What the Supreme Court did was to place abortion in a special protective bubble apart from all other crimes and say that the government doesn't have the right to investigate a woman for having her baby killed even with a warrant, thus rewriting the Fourth Amendment. Feminist doctrine was placed on a legal pedestal, looming high above the basic, "inalienable" human right to life so clearly defined in both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Science and medicine were not welcome in the Roe v. Wade case. Ethics and morality were held hostage by political power grabbing and ideological conquest. The Fifth Amendment right of the unborn American to not "be deprived of life" was quietly swept under the rug of blind feminist progress and apathy towards justice. In the crusade for domination and "empowerment" for women, the feminist movement has stealthily trampled underfoot the blood of 20 million baby girls who didn't survive to become "empowered."
Q: What about a woman's right to choose?
A: A woman has the right to choose whether to take a chance on becoming pregnant by having sex. Once a baby has been conceived, she does not have the choice to kill it, because it is a living human being.
Q: But isn't the baby a part of the woman's body, like an organ, and so she has the choice to have it removed?
A: A fetus is not at all like an organ. No "body part" ever takes on a life of its own, develops into a separate human being, and leaves the body. Once again, the woman does not have the right to take the life of another human, even if that human relies on her body for life. She chose to take the chance on becoming pregnant by having sex.
Q: What about family planning, overpopulation, and unwanted children?
A: Family planning and the prevention of overpopulation do not justify murdering a living human being. If the child is not wanted by the mother, she should give it up for adoption. There is an overabundance of families who would love to have it.
Q: What about cases of rape?
A: Rape is an awful injustice to its victims, but hardly ever causes pregnancy. In the extremely rare case that it does, however, once again, this does not justify killing the baby. It is innocent, and although the mother has been forced to undertake a long and painful ordeal, human life must be preserved.
Q: What about when the fetus would be born with severe abnormalities?
A: I cannot begin to imagine the difficulties of raising a child with a severe medical condition. However, once again, human life is sacred, and must be preserved. A child is much better off disabled than dead. Also, the mother's body will often have a "natural abortion" if the fetus is severely deformed, reabsorbing the baby's body. If a deformed child survives this natural failsafe mechanism, might not God have a special purpose for the life of this imperfect person?
Q: What about when giving birth would endanger the mother's life or cause her perilous injury?
A: The right thing to do in many of these cases is to induce early labor or deliver the baby through cesarean section. If aborting the child is truly the only way to save the mother, it should at least be done in a humane way, not with some of the barbaric procedures commonly used for abortion.
The Bible doesn't speak directly on abortion, because the practice as we know it today was not in wide-spread use in ancient times. But the Lord has not left us without any moral guidance for modern issues. The Bible establishes that an unborn child is a living human being.
The life of an unborn child is further supported by the events surrounding John the Baptist before he was born. The angel Gabriel delivered this message to Zacharias, John's father:
Since an unborn child is Biblically established to be alive, the Sixth Commandment must be obeyed: Thou shalt not kill (Exodus 20:13.)
The closest thing to abortion that was in wide-spread use in Biblical times was the worship of the pagan god Molech, in which people would burn their children alive as sacrifices to this fire god. One of the kings of Judah, Manasseh, actually practiced this abomination.
Yes! Many women struggle with issues of guilt, loss, bitterness, and self-loathing after having an abortion. But we must remember the ultimate spilling of blood: that of Jesus Christ! There is no sin so great that God will not forgive it by the blood of Christ. God the Father is ready and waiting for women who've had abortions to come running into his arms and find forgiveness, love, healing, and restoration. The mothers of aborted children who run to God will see their children in heaven!