Thursday, April 19, 2007

Trying to Uphold the Sanctity of Life

Almost every major newspaper today leads with the news that the Supreme Court reversed course on abortion on Wednesday, upholding the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in a 5-to-4 decision that promises to reframe the abortion debate and define the young Roberts court.

Here is what the New York Times says:

The procedure that has been banned is known medically as “intact dilation and extraction,” involves removing the fetus in an intact condition rather than dismembering it in the uterus. Both methods are used to terminate pregnancies beginning at about 12 weeks, after the fetus has grown too big to be removed by the suction method commonly used in the first trimester, when 85 percent to 90 percent of all abortions take place.

Though the paper says, While the ruling will thus have a direct impact on only a relatively small subset of abortion practice, the decision has broader implications for abortion regulations generally, indicating a change in the court’s balancing of the various interests involved in the abortion debate.

Listen to what President Bush said:

“The Supreme Court’s decision is an affirmation of the progress we have made over the past six years in protecting human dignity and upholding the sanctity of life. We will continue to work for the day when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law.”

The article continues:

“Respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child,” he said, adding: “It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast-developing brain of her unborn child, a child assuming the human form.”

And it is disheartening to hear the statement from Miss Lederman in saying:

One law professor, Martin S. Lederman of Georgetown University commented after reading Justice Ginsburg’s response on this point that Justice Kennedy’s opinion “was an attack on her entire life’s work.”

In her opinion, Justice Ginsburg said the majority had provided only “flimsy and transparent justifications” for upholding the law, which she noted “saves not a single fetus from destruction” by banning a single method of abortion. “One wonders how long a line that saves no fetus from destruction will hold in face of the court’s ‘moral concerns,’ ” she said.

This is a great thing that has happened. We as Christians must have respect for and a determined effort to preserve human life. For after all, every human being (including those in the fetus) are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27).

Every single abortion act is a flat out murder. There is no way around it. It is ending the life of a life inside the mother's womb (Matt 5:21; Rom 1:29; 13:9; James 2:11; 4:2). It will be profitable to look at the James 4 passage a little closer:

James 4:2 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.

The essence of abortion is simply self-worship and idolatry. One aborts a human life because the mother and/or father does not want to have the "burden" of a child. Thus, the parents lust for sexual pleasure through the act of intercourse. Then that produces (hard to believe, I know) a fertilized egg. Because this was not on the "desired list" for the parents while they were enjoying one another in bed, they want to murder the child. That fertilized egg has become an "inconvenience" to them.
Have we ever stopped to consider the "cross?" It at the cross that we were justified and declared righteous before a Holy God. There is a sanctity about human life. May we as Christians uphold this truth biblically and fight against abortion with all our might!