Why Abortion Matters
If you think the material world is all there is, and that men and women are just randomised clumps of cells that cease to exist when they die, no problem – what does it matter if you abort a baby before birth? In fact, depending on circumstances, termination might be the best outcome all round! Similarly, if you feel that there’s a spiritual dimension to life, so that we’re all interconnected and never cease to exist, perhaps going through endless reincarnations, you might also feel there’s no problem if the unborn are killed before birth. Although one has to say that not all followers of pagan and other religions take so cavalier an attitude towards the unborn.
But if you’re Christian, there’s a real problem with any decision to take life. It’s not just that all life is the gift of God and sacred, but there’s also the sixth commandment, given by God to Moses on Sinai, and containing an absolute prohibition against the taking of innocent life. Exodus 20:17 You shall not murder. It may be noted that the death penalty for just cause is not prohibited, but when it comes to taking ‘innocent’ life, the prohibition is absolute and non-negotiable. A fact ominously illustrated in the Bible’s first recorded crime, when Cain, out of jealousy, killed his brother Abel. The consequences of this act were immediate and severe. Abel’s blood cried out from the ground to God for justice and, as result, Cain was cursed. He was henceforth excluded from God’s presence, and was told that nothing he did would prosper. He was sentenced to wander as a marked fugitive for the rest of his life.
So, right from the beginning of the Bible – even before the giving of the 10 Commandments – we know that taking innocent life places the perpetrator under a curse. And this is directly relevant to abortion. From the moment of conception, though it has to develop, the human child is fully present in its mother’s womb. The genetic package that will become the child is complete – nothing will be added to it, or taken away, or modified. In fact, we know from science that this is the complete genetic blueprint for the child’s development and future life. Its sex and eye colour have been determined. Its character, talents, strengths and weaknesses are all there – as too are its predisposition to disease! All the baby has to do is grow – as all of us continue to do throughout life.
So, by any ‘reasonable’ definition, from the moment of conception the gamete is a complete human being: to spell it out, an innocent life. Abortion merely stops the process of development, killing the baby before it has chance for independent existence outside the womb. Many who are born will, at some point in their lives, again become dependent on others, but they won’t lose their ‘humanity’. The arbitrary cut off point of birth as determining that humanity is then an illusion – a construct to validate human self-determination. Abortion is, and always has been, the killing of a human being before birth and, as such, it is a both a crime and a sin, and places those involved under a curse.
This is not to say, of course, that the decision to abort a baby isn’t costly and doesn’t cause pain to the mother, or that she can’t be forgiven. On the contrary, Christ died for our sins, and He heals and sets free all who repent. But we need to realise, as a society, what it is we’re doing by killing the unborn, and the perhaps unpalatable truth is that, by our indiscriminate and casual slaughter of the innocent – at both the beginning and, now, increasingly, the end of life – the nations of the world have put themselves outside God’s protection and under a curse.
The UK has put itself outside God’s protection and under a curse.
That’s rubbish, secularists say, a baby isn’t a ‘human being’ till it’s born, and as for helping those at the end of life to die … that’s compassion!
Sounds good, but sadly, that’s not how God sees it. Psalm 139: 13-16 tells us we are fearfully and wonderfully made by God, who knitted us together, in secret, in our mother’s womb, and who knows and has a plan for our lives: ‘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.’ To spell it out, all of life, from its ‘secret’ beginnings tills its end, is the gift of God and lies in His hand. And because all of life is fearfully and wonderfully made, it’s special.
But let’s go back a bit. At creation, we learnt that God formed man from the dust, in His own image, and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, so that he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). On no point, from that moment on, did God leave the continuation of the human race to biology. Rather, Scripture shows clearly that, though sin had entered the world and needed dealing with, God remained intimately involved with every aspect of His creation, and that life remained His gift. Most especially, children were seen as a blessing; Psalm 127: 3, ‘Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.’ While as reinforcement of that, we see the devastation for those who cannot conceive – for Sarai, Rebecca, Hannah, to name but a few – and their desperate cries for a child, which only God could answer.
But the Bible goes farther than that. ‘Before you were in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I consecrated you …’ (Jeremiah 1:5). So says God in His call to the prophet, Jeremiah, and time and again we encounter the same idea of existence prior to conception, and of a destiny ordained by God. In similar vein, for example, Isaiah says, ‘The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb, He named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of His hand He hid me … He said to me, “You are my servant…”‘ (49:1-7).
Most famously, we know that the births of John and Baptist and Jesus were both foretold in Scripture, and, when their conception was imminent, an angel was sent by God to inform the gobsmacked parents (Luke 1: 8-19; Luke 1: 26-33). In similar fashion, though on a less grand scale, the apostle Paul, writing about his conversion, expressed the conviction that he had been set apart for a ministry to the Gentiles before he had been born (Galatians 1:15f).
From God’s perspective then, each child is known from before conception, and each child has a unique destiny – a special part to play in the infinitely complicated game of life, quite apart from his or her personal journey as they are prepared for eternity. To abort a child not just cuts off this, perhaps vital, contribution to the life of all, preventing him or her from fulfilling their destiny, but it throws back the gift in the face of the giver and, as such, is a direct challenge and affront to the sovereignty of God.
To return to the Bible, in the Old Testament, child sacrifice to Moloch was labelled an abomination. Leviticus 18:21 stated unequivocally, “You shall not give any of your children to devote them by fire to Moloch, and so profane the name of your God”. But Israel ignored the prohibition, and thereby polluted the land, bringing down on itself the wrath of God. In God’s eyes, this is exactly what abortion is – child sacrifice offered up on the altar of ‘Self’, and it not just feeds evil, but brings us under judgment.
According to the World Health Organisation, there are around 40 to 50 million abortions carried out each year around the world. That’s 40 to 50 million innocent lives sacrificed annually on the altar of Self. The Bible is clear. By our assertion of absolute control over who may or may not get to live, we have brought ourselves under judgment. And we’re already seeing the out-workings of that, of course, in the alarming demographic decline that follows abortion, and that’s affecting Russia, China, India and the whole of the Western world!
It’s undeniable that for some an unintended pregnancy will pose problems, but terminating the life of a child who didn’t ask to be born, and who is entirely dependent for his or her safety on its mother, is not the answer. Rather, both as individuals and as society, we need to exercise moral restraint, and not indiscriminately choose to have sex, whenever and wherever we want, when we are unprepared or unwilling to accept the consequences.
On any assessment, things aren’t looking good, and if we are to have a hope of stopping the downward spiral into chaos and war that is bedevilling the world, it is urgent we repent. The indiscriminate practice of abortion in the UK has put us under the control of a spirit of death, from which only God can now deliver us.
God stands ready to help, but while we persist in rebellion … He won’t.
For the nation’s survival, it is urgent the UK repents its rebellion against God. As we go to the polls tomorrow, VfJUK urges voters to take responsibility and cast their vote for candidates who follow Christ and who uphold and support life.