Abortion. It is one of the of most, if not the most divisive issue today and for good reason. The history of abortion doesn't start in 1973 with Roe vs Wade and as a side not Roe AKA Norma McCorvey has accepted Christ as her savior and now his staunchly against abortion. Abortion in fact, goes back not hundreds but thousands of years ago.
Hippocrates (460 b.c.-377 b.c.) the Father of Medicine and who created the Hippocratic Oath, which medical students are required to recite during graduation, believed abortion was wrong and included it in the Oath.
Aristotle (384 b.c.-322 b.c.)
Aristotle along with most pagans in Greece and Rome believed in "delayed ensoulment". Aristotle taught that a fetus (which is latin for "offspring" "young one" or "little child"), originally has a vegetable soul, which evolves into an animal soul later and then finally becomes "animated" with a human soul. This last event was believed to occur at 40 days after conception for male fetuses, and 90 days after conception for female fetuses.
During the second to forth century A.D., with the exception of Judaism, Christians were among the only groups which didn't have abortions and also didn't allow parents to kill new-born babies by strangulation and child abandonment. Christians would find babies that Pagans during that time had abandoned because they believed in a sort of survival of the fittest worldview and would let them starve to death after abandonment. Yet Christians would find these outcasts and raise them as their own. After Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire, by 384 A.D., Child abandonment, infanticide and abortion had become outlawed. Tertullian, One of the earliest church fathers who was friend's with the Apostle John described abortion as "...murder--has been prohibited to us once and for all, even to destroy...the fetus in the womb. It makes no difference whether one destroys a life that has already been born or one that is in the process of birth."
Our Founding Fathers weren't perfect but they did have a exceptionally unique perspective on liberty, primarily because of their deep understanding and faith within God's Holy Scriptures. The Great Awakening that occurred in America, prior to the American Revolution was a religious revival which emphasized faith not in man's opinions or worldview but God's truth and worldview and when it came to the fundamental rights of man, virtually all of our founders believed in these essential rights which our derived from God. John Witherspoon, as one of our Founding Fathers, echoing from the Holy Scriptures and numerous Christians before him--described that in the civil society, a perfect set of rights which our granted by God and supposed to be protected through government are guaranteed and cannot be taken away by Man.
1) a right to life;
2) a right to employ his faculties and industry for his own use;
3) a right to things common and necessary, as air, water, earth;
4) a right to personal liberty;
5) a power over his own life;
6) a right to private judgment in matters of opinion;
7) a right to associate with any person or persons;
8) a right to character.
2) a right to employ his faculties and industry for his own use;
3) a right to things common and necessary, as air, water, earth;
4) a right to personal liberty;
5) a power over his own life;
6) a right to private judgment in matters of opinion;
7) a right to associate with any person or persons;
8) a right to character.
Perhaps a more thorough look would bring more clarity--these rights if described in today's language, would look more like:
- the right to existence and life;
- the right to personal freedom or to conduct one's own life as master of oneself and of one's acts, responsible before God and the law of the community;
- the right to the pursuit of the perfection of moral and rational human life;
- the right to the pursuit of eternal good;
- the right to keep one's body whole;
- the right to marry and to raise a family which will be assured of the liberties due it;
- the right of association;
- the respect for human dignity in each individual, whether or not he represents an economic value for society.
- the right to personal freedom or to conduct one's own life as master of oneself and of one's acts, responsible before God and the law of the community;
- the right to the pursuit of the perfection of moral and rational human life;
- the right to the pursuit of eternal good;
- the right to keep one's body whole;
- the right to marry and to raise a family which will be assured of the liberties due it;
- the right of association;
- the respect for human dignity in each individual, whether or not he represents an economic value for society.
Notice how the right to life is the very first right. Our founders and prior generations used to include the constitution and even the Declaration of Independence when interpreting law as the Supreme court did or whenever law is handled. Both of these and each fundamental idea establishing the United States was based off of other Christian philosophers but primarily it all derives from the Bible. Such as:
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them. - Psalm 139:13-16
So we now see, Life, is the most important Right granted by God. Because we our all made in his image and have been granted existence or life, because of him we are eternal beings--whether we want to live forever or not--we will.. And abortion is just another form of man trying to rule over God in determining when We will choose who lives and who dies. The Bible clearly states that we were created from conception by Jesus Christ. However with the birth of the Enlightenment and its atheistic followers, such as those in the French Revolution and later--came Charles Darwin's Survival of the Fittest, within a purely evolutionary framework.
Darwin helped spawn a German man's ideas into fruition. This man was born into a wealthy Jewish family and his dad was a Rabbi who converted to Lutherenism for power and economic reasons. His name is Karl Marx. He along with many other socialists, helped bring to the world, Communism, Fascism and National Socialism. The last one is perhaps most relevant because of it's emphasis in eugenics. Eugenics is:
"the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics)."
The Nazi's believed in Darwin and Marx and the the breeding of the perfect (evolution/survival of the fittest) man into existence. This idea of eugenics was a favorite of Margaret Sanger; founder of Planned Parenthood--and she was a huge supporter of killing babies in the womb. This and the shift away from Christian beliefs is why abortion has now become legal. Past generations and even some today have realized and it is actually statistically verified that those who are for life (against abortion) are usually the most politically conservative. So if your against Life, your probably going to have politically left viewpoints on every level.
So now that we have more clarity, about the history of abortion, why is it so wrong?
Is the unborn really a human being?
Pro-choice (which is really a euphemism for pro abortion) advocates once commonly stated "it's uncertain when human life begins; that's a religious question that cannot be answered by science." Most have abandoned this position, because it's contradicted by decades of scientific evidence. So the only way abortion rhetoric can thrive, is if people believe the unborn are less then human.
Dr. Alfred M Bongioanni, professor of obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania stated "I have learned from my earliest medical education, that human life begins at the time of conception... human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood." This point is echoed throughout the entire scientific community and it is known that from conception, a human being is formed with a unique DNA and is completely human from that point on. It is not only pro life people who believe this. The owner of Oregon's largest abortion clinic testified under oath "of course human life begins at conception." The award winning secular book from conception to Birth documents the child's beginning at conception and his movement toward birth. The newly fertilized egg contains a staggering amount of genetic information, sufficient to control the individuals growth and development for his entire lifetime.
Two years before abortion was legalized in America, a pro-choice advocate instructed nurses in a prominent medical journal "through public conditioning, use of language, concepts and laws, the idea of abortion can be separated from the idea of killing." Carl Sagan ridiculed abortion opponents by asking "why isn't it murder to destroy a sperm or an egg?" The answer, as every scientist should know, is that there is a fundamental difference between sperm and unfertilized eggs on the one hand, and fertilized eggs or zygotes on the other. Like cells of one's hair or heart, neither egg nor sperm has the capacity to become other than what it is. But when egg and sperm are joined, a new, dynamic, and genetically unique human life begins. This life is neither sperm nor egg, nor a simple combination of both. It's a person, with a life of its own, on a rapid pace of self-directed development. From the instant of fertilization, that first single cell contains the entire genetic blue print in all its complexity. This accounts for every detail of human development, including the child's sex, hair and eye color, height, and skin tone. Take that single cell of the just conceived zygote, put it next to a chimpanzee cell, and "a genetesist could easily identify the human. Its humanity is already that strikingly apparent. A 1 week old unborn child, 1 year old and 21 year old are no different, they are all human beings at different ages in their lives.
At conception, the unborn don't appear human to us, who are used to judging humanity by appearance. Nevertheless in the scientific sense, he is every bit as human as a older child or adult. By five to nine days, the sex can be scientifically determined. By fourteen days the child produces a hormone which suppresses the menstrual period. At eighteen days after conception the heart is forming and the eyes start to develop. By twenty-one days the heart is pumping blood throughout the body. By twenty-eight days the unborn has budding arms and legs. By thirty days she has a brain and has multiplied in size ten thousand times. By thirty five days, her mouth, ears, and nose are taking shape. At forty days the preborn child's brain waves can be recorded. By forty two days the skeleton is formed and her brain is controlling the movement of muscles and organs.
Once the unborn is 45 days after conception, (before many women know they're pregnant); "through the embryo now weighs only 1/30 of an ounce, it has all the internal organs of the adult in various stages of development. It already has a little mouth with lips, an early tongue and buds for 20 milk teeth. Its sex and reproductive organs have begun to sprout." By nine weeks a child will bend fingers around an object placed in the palm. Fingernails are forming and the child is sucking his thumb. The nine-week baby has "already perfected a somersault, backflip and scissor kick." The unborn responds to stimulus and may already be capable of feeling pain. Yet abortions on children at this stage are called "early abortions". By eleven weeks he urinates, makes a wide variety of facial expressions, and even smiles. All this happens in the first trimester, the first three months of life. In the remaining six months in the womb nothing new develops or begins functioning. The fullyu intact child only grows and matures--unless the life is lost by miscarriage or taken through abortion. It's an indisputable fact that each and every surgical abortion (of which their have been over 50 million ever since Roe vs Wade) stops a beating heart and stops already measurable brain waves. What do we call it when a person no longer has a heartbeat or brain waves? Dead.
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Their are also very substantial risks to women after they have had an abortion. Fatal bleeding can occur, diseases are much more likely and depression is a lot higher. Women's heath after abortion is an encyclopedic work citing over five hundred medical journal articles, demonstrating the adverse effects of abortion on women.
What about rape or incest?
abortions on account of Rape or incest is less then 1% of all abortions in the U.S. which is almost 2 million surgically each year. Even still, the taking of a life (murder) doesn't justify rape or incest. Evil for another evil, doesn't make things right. Just because the father of consenting adults, was a better person, doesn't justify killing a human being in cases of rape. A survey was done on those who were raped or incest and had abortions, over 90 percent would not have done so afterward and would discourage other victims from having an abortion. Abortion doesn't bring healing to a victim of rape. Imposing capital punishment on the innocent child of a sex offender does nothing bad to the rapist and nothing good to the woman.
Personally opposed to abortion, but pro-choice?
How would you respond to someone that said "i'm not pro-rape, i'm just pro-choice about rape?"
You'd realize his position impies that rape doesn't really hurt anyone and that it's somtimes justifiable. You'd say "To be pro-choice about rape is to be pro rape." In exactly the same way, to be pro-choice about abortion is to be pro-abortion. To the baby involved, it makes no difference of if you don't personally believe in it but think it's okay for others, because other babies will simply be killed by other people. Being personally against abortion but not being opposed to others doing it is self-contradictory. It's like saying i'm personally against child abuse/slavery/wife beating but it's my neighbors choice if they want to kill an innocent human being.
"A radio talk show host told me she was offended that some people called her "pro-abortion" instead of "pro-choice." I asked her, on the air, "why don't you want to be called pro abortion?" Is there something wrong with abortion?" She responded "abortion is tough. It's not like anybody really wants one." I said, "I don't get it. What makes it tough? Why wouldn't someone want an abortion?" She said suddenly impassioned, "Well, you know, it's a tough thing to kill your baby! The second she said it, she caught herself but it was too late. Abortion can be done in a couple ways. You can put a chemical inside the womb and burn the baby until it's brain is completely fried oryou can take the baby out of the womb, pull all it's limbs apart or cut simply cut into its body until it is dead. About 80 percent of women who see an ultra sound decide not to have an abortion.
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What abortion doctors use to forcibly pull babies out of the womb. |
Murder is wrong whether the child is unborn or not. Jesus Christ died for everyone, including those who had committed murder, sin is upon all and through faith in Christ, people are forgiven. God forgives those who repent and have faith in his Son Jesus Christ.
Jeremiah1:4-5
"Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you."
Genesis 25:23
"two nations are in thy womb" (Jacob and Esau) "and two manner of people."
Galatians 1:15
"But when He had set me apart before I was born...and had called me through His grace."
Genesis 9:6
"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made He man."
Matthew 18:10
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven."
Proverbs 3:12
for the LORD reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
Sources -
Why Pro-Life?: Caring for the unborn and their mothers by Randy Alcorn
Politics According to the Bible by Wayne Grudem
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