Why is abortion morally wrong?
Abortion is morally wrong because it is morally wrong to murder a person made in the image and likeness of God (Gen.9:5-6; Exo.20:13; 21:12,14,22-23; 23:7; Lev.24:17; Num.35:31; Deut.5:17; 27:25).
From the moment of conception, an unborn baby is a distinct person made in the image and likeness of God. God forms a person in the womb, not a non-person. (Job 10:8-12; 31:15; 34:19; Psalm 139:12-19; Isa.49:1,5).
David was a person from the moment of his conception (Psalm 51:5). Jeremiah was a person from the moment of his conception (Jer.1:5). Job was a person from the moment of his conception (Job 3:3). John the Baptist was a person while in his mother's womb (Luke 1:13-17,39-44). The Lord Jesus Christ was a person while in Mary's womb (Mat.1:18-25). God calls some people to His future service while they are yet in the womb (Isa.49:1,5; Jer.1:5; Luke 1:13-17; Gal.1:15-16).
In the New Testament, the same Greek word, brephos, is used to describe an unborn baby inside the womb as is used to describe a person outside the womb (Luke 1:41,44; 2:12,16; 18:15; Acts 7:19; 17:28-29; II Tim.3:15; I Peter 2:2).
Abortion may be legal according to man's laws, but it is still cold-blooded murder according to God's law. God hates "hands that shed innocent blood" (Pro.6:17). So must we.
Physicians
During the months leading to the Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln repeatedly discussed the matter with his cabinet. During one difficult discussion, he asked: "Gentlemen, how many legs does a sheep have?" Each man answered correctly, "Four, Mr. President." He proceeded, "Let's call his tail a leg. Now how many legs?" Each man replied, "Five, Mr. President." Mr. Lincoln retorted, "Nope, still only four. Just because we call it a leg doesn't make it one."
Mr. Lincoln's wit and wisdom speak to our present day confusion about abortion. Let me explain.
Abortion is murder. Each abortion snuffs out an innocent human life. Perhaps the quickest and easiest way to justify murder is to establish the "non-humanity" of the intended victim. In the abortion industry, this is precisely what is done. Desperate women are glibly told by "health clinic" personnel that abortion procedures simply involve the swift removal of inconsequential body tissue (i.e. "blood clot"). What these women are not told is that the "potential life" within their womb is a miniature human being, complete with his or her own DNA code, fingerprints, facial characteristics, etc. Tragically, doctors have deceived the American public. Referring to unborn babies as "fetus," "embryo," or "zygote," may be scientifically correct, but does not change the fact: These little ones are little human beings. Though called "parasite," "blob," or "tissue," give each wee creature about 266 days after conception and see what emerges from his mother's womb. It will be a human baby, not a zebra, a trout, frog or an orangutan.
Remember Mr. Lincoln. Don't be deceived by folks (even doctors) who call a tail a leg - or humans anything but humans. When a human egg and a human sperm unite, the resulting individual is simply human. Given time, nutrition and protection, he or she will grow to maturity. Calling abortion a "termination" or "evacuating the uterus" doesn't change its reality as murder-slaughtering a human being with premeditated malice.
Some people say an unborn baby is "a parasite without feeling, thought, or experience; the fetus simply does not have the things required to feel pain..." But nerves are in place by six to eight weeks after conception. The chemicals necessary to send messages over nerve pathways to the brain are present by 12 weeks. Ask yourself - if you were stuck, pinched, grabbed, cut or crushed, how would you react? You likely would squirm, thrash, try to escape or fight. Your blood pressure would go up; your pulse would speed up.
That's how pre-born babies respond. Before being cut to pieces, sucked apart, chemically killed, or otherwise abused (to death), these little humans struggle, seeking to escape the destruction. Abortionists have forfeited the privilege to be called physicians, for they have abandoned the responsibility of acting like physicians. Physician have been trained to protect and preserve life.
What about rape? What about incest? These horrors defy descriptive condemnation. They represent the least human and most selfish acts imaginable - along with murder - and they deserve swift and severe punishment. A woman or girl abused by rape or incest should be seen promptly, evaluated with compassion and treated appropriately to prevent conception. Should pregnancy occur, the tragedy should not be compounded by another crime: Murdering the baby.
Rape and incest deserve one further note: They (thank God) represent a relatively uncommon cause of pregnancy - and figure in less than 2 percent of abortions. The other 98 percent are done for the sake of convenience (not that of the baby). Abortion represents the most common surgical procedure performed in America today. It consistently takes more lives than any disease, famine, or war we have ever faced. Every month this killer takes more American lives than were lost in the entire Vietnam War. Every six months more die from its relentless onslaught than in all our previous wars combined or in all the fatal automobile accidents of the past twenty years. Every 2-3 years it claims more victims than the Nazi Holocaust. Incredibly, this monumental devastation is carried out by medical professionals and is completely preventable.
One more tragedy - often delayed and overlooked - concerns the mother of the aborted baby. They find it difficult to live with an awakened conscience. Though duped, squelched or ignored, a conscience awakened to reality may produce guilt, grief and pain. Even with the reality of forgiveness, the scars may produce long-standing consequences.
The Abortion Clinic: Auschwitz, U.S.A.
When we the people legalize the slaughter of unborn babies we say this: people are allowed on this planet only when their presence does not inconvenience those who rule their lives. Giving the mother this power is only a threat to the lives of their unborn children. But the logic given legal standing in legalized abortion can easily be extended to rulers other than mothers. Following that logic any governmental agency can be decreed to have the right to eliminate people based on the "inconvenience" test.
As a believer in Jesus Christ, I'm convinced that moral absolutes exist. Ones convictions as a Christian, and as a physician, include the sanctity of human life. If each individual human (including unborn babies) does not have worth, if we do not acknowledge our responsibility to care for the unwanted and the defenseless, we will find our collective path ending at the ovens of Auschwitz, the Gulags of Siberia, or the Abortion Chambers of America.
Adolph Hitler once stated that if you tell a lie enough times, people will eventually begin to believe it. His observations proved to be chillingly accurate, as evidenced by the fact that an entire nation of otherwise intelligent and ethical people believed his lies that certain ethnic groups were untermenschen or "subhumans." Six million lives were then destroyed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, and numerous other Nazi death camps as a result of the apathy of the German population, who chose to ignore the accusations of their own consciences and to permit what they instinctively knew to be wholesale murder.
It has been said that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Today, history is repeating itself as it so often does. Once again, Hitler's diabolical rational is gaining momentum. And once again, innocent lives are the sacrifice that it demands. Untold millions of children have been classified as "subhuman," and sentenced to die horrible deaths that surpass even the most brutal methods of destruction devised by the Nazis. Indeed, it would seem that Auschwitz and the other death camps were never really closed at all, but were merely transferred to the womb and labeled as "safe and legal abortion." In a society of supposed "civilized" people, as Americans no doubt would like to view themselves, this atrocity cannot be tolerated. If the American people allow abortion to continue, then we certainly have no right to point an accusing finger at Adolph Hitler, for tragically, he is our mentor:
At Nuremberg, Hitler and his henchmen were condemned by the American judges because they encouraged the killing of the unborn.... Hitler was wrong, even though most of the men on our Supreme Court today defend what the Nazis did. If we do not stop killing infants, we will do what Hitler did: we will kill the handicapped, particularly when those handicapped are aged. Then we will kill the truly handicapped who are retarded. We will go further than Hitler, being "better" educated than the Nazis. We will do it scientifically, of course. We will call on brilliant scientists. We will ask them to tell us which child is worthy to live and which is not. We will go Hitler one better. We will commit wholesale infanticide, like pagan Rome, where even healthy infants were often put to death if they were not masculine, like their executioners. There is no doubt scientists will cooperate, as they did for Hitler. We already have many of them clamoring for the death of the elderly and the "unfit."
A professor at the UCLA Medical School presented the following case history to his students: A woman who suffers from tuberculosis is pregnant. Her husband has syphilis. There are three children in the family. One is blind, another deaf, and the other suffers tuberculosis. Yet, another child died in infancy. Under the circumstances, most of the students recommended an abortion. They were then informed by their Professor: "Congratulations, you've just killed Beethoven !"
Physicians have to become a bit schizophrenic. In one room they encourage the patient that the slight irregularity of the fetal heart is not important-- that she is going to have a fine healthy baby. Then in the next room you assure another women, on whom you just did a saline abortion, that it's good that the heart is already irregular.... She has nothing to worry about, she is not going to have a live baby.
This is my body
Did you ever realize that the same four words that were used by the Lord Jesus to save the world are also used by some to promote abortion? "This is my body." The same simple words are spoken from opposite ends of the universe, with meanings that are directly contrary to each other.
Scripture tells us that on the night before He died to save all people, the Lord Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, "This is My Body, which is given up for you" (Luke 22:19). He was pointing to what would happen the next day, when He would give that same Body on the cross. He sacrificed Himself so that we may live.
On the other hand, abortion supporters say, "This is my body. So don't interfere with it! It's mine, so I can do what I want, even to the point of killing the life within it. All is secondary to my dominion over my body."
"This is my body." Same words, different results. Christ gives His body away so others might live; abortion supporters cling to their own bodies so others might die. In giving His Body, Christ teaches the meaning of love: I sacrifice myself for the good of the other person (John 15:13). Abortion teaches the opposite of love: I sacrifice the other person for the good of myself!
"This is my body." If, indeed, our bodies are ours, then let's ask the next question: Why? The answer is so that we can give our bodies, our lives, ourselves, away in love to one another and to God. Christ declares, "Do this in memory of me." He calls us to do what He did, and that is precisely how we reverse the dynamic of abortion. Mom and Dad must say to their child, "This is my body, my life, given for you," rather than, "This is my body, my life, so go away!"
Human happiness and fulfillment are never found by pushing other people out of the way. They are found when we push ourselves out of the way. "This is my body." It is no accident that the same words are used for such different purposes. A spiritual conflict rages here. We win, in our own lives and in the world, by living these words in self-giving, life-giving love.
Statistics
Consider some other significant statistics relating to abortion: Abortion is not the "safe procedure" its advocates claim it to be. More mothers die from the complications of legal abortions each year than died from illegal abortions in all previous years. In many areas of our country abortions actually outnumber live births. 1,500,000 - 2,000,000 babies are aborted annually. 98% of abortions are for reasons other than rape, incest, or the mother's life. 40% of abortions are performed on women who have aborted other babies previously. One third of abortions are performed on teenagers without their parent's consent or knowledge. The heart of an unborn baby begins to beat at 18 days after conception.
Final Thoughts Defining rights for the "Pro-Choice" advocates: I believe in a woman's right to choose; she can choose to have intercourse, or choose not to. Choice ends where conception begins. The proper time choice should be exercised in the bedroom, not in the operating room. Killing is not a right. It's a child, not a "choice."
"It is a tragedy that a child must die so that a woman may live as she pleases." Mother Teresa.
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