Is Abortion Murder or “Choice”?

Praise God abortion was illegal when my parents were conceived!  My mother was born to a young teenager who had an affair with a older married man.  Instead of aborting my mother in some “back alley”, my grandmother went away to visit relatives, had the baby, and then gave her up for adoption.  My father was also a whoopsie that was conceived out of wedlock in the days that sex outside marriage was still considered by our culture to be sinful.  So for obvious reasons I am glad abortion was not much of an option back then.

     My birth is even a bit of a miracle.  My mother has a autoimmune disease called Lupus.  The doctors told her that she could die if she chose to have me.  She chose life!  Thank you mom.

     Today abortion is considered by many to be just another means of birth control.  In fact, unknown to most women, most birth control pills have an abortive measure that goes into effect if the primary measure (prevention of conception) doesn’t work.  But for the purposes of this article I will consider weather or not elective abortion is an acceptable practice.

  Should abortion be legal?  Despite all the fog thrown up by the pro abortion folks, there is really only one question that needs to be answered—–What is the unborn?  If an unborn child is a human from the point of conception then abortion is an act of murder.  If the unborn are not a human, then have as many abortions as you would like. If abortion is like killing a tomato then there is no need to make abortion “safe and rare” like President Obama says.  From here I would like to make a short case that abortion is never safe because it always kills someone–the baby (not to mention the greatly increased risks of cancer for women who have an abortion).

     I have learned an extremely effective way to prove the human hood of an unborn child from a man named Scott Klusendorf (www.prolifetraining.com) by using an acronym called SLED.  Here is how Scott presents the philosophical argument that the unborn are really human.  He notes that there are really only four differences between the born and the unborn :

Size: True, embryos are smaller than newborns and adults, but why is that relevant?  Do we really want to say that large people are more human than small ones?  Men are generally larger than women, but that doesn’t mean that they deserve more rights.  Size doesn’t equal value. 

Level of development: True, embryos and fetuses are less developed than you and I.  But again, why is this relevant?  Four year-old girls are less developed than 14 year-old ones.  Should older children have more rights than their younger siblings?  Some people say that self-awareness makes one human.  But if that is true, newborns do not qualify as valuable human beings.  Six-week old infants lack the immediate capacity for performing human mental functions, as do the reversibly comatose, the sleeping, and those with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Environment: Where you are has no bearing on who you are.  Does your value change when you cross the street or roll over in bed?  If not, how can a journey of eight inches down the birth-canal suddenly change the essential nature of the unborn from non-human to human?  If the unborn are not already human, merely changing their location can’t make them valuable.  

Degree of Dependency: If viability makes us human, then all those who depend on insulin or kidney medication are not valuable and we may kill them.  Conjoined twins who share blood type and bodily systems also have no right to life.

     We know that humans only reproduce humans and we know that from the point of conception that the human embryo is alive and growing.  What else could the unborn be besides a human?  If the unborn are really human then we don’t just have a few isolated murders on our hands, this is GENOCIDE—–the systematic destruction of a defenseless people group.

 

    Another way to persuade the public that the unborn are human is to show them that they are human by presenting images.  Images of fetal development are persuasive and amazing, http://prolifetraining.com/Prenatal-Pictures.htm http://www.abortionfacts.com/literature/literature_9438MS.asp  but  images of aborted babies really get the point across.  In my opinion only cold, cruel and heartless people can people can look at these images and not be disgusted with the inhumane act of abortion.  Pictures really do say a thousand words.  These images can make arguments that no words ever could.  I encourage you to click on this link and make your heart weep because of the murder of our unborn children ( http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/pictures.html )

     Most importantly there is a biblical case to be made against abortion.  In the Bible God commands us not to kill innocent humanbeings and the bible clearly portrays unborn and born children human beings.  For example, in Luke 1:41, when Mary, the mother of Jesus came to visit her pregnant relative Elizabeth, we are told that the baby leaped in her mothers womb.  The same Greek word used here for baby (brephos) is used in Luke 2:12 and Luke 2:16 to describe the baby Jesus after he was born (also see Lk 18:15, Acts 7:19, 2 Tim 3:15, 1 Pet 2:2).  The following verses also help solidify the biblical pro life case: 

Psa 71:6

By You I have been sustained from {my} birth; You are He who took me from my mother’s womb; My praise is continually of You.

Isa 49:1

Listen to Me, O islands, And pay attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He named Me.

Gal 1:15

But when God, who had set me apart {even} from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased

Jer 1:5

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

     God has made humans in his image and He reserves the right to determine the life and death of the humans He has created.  Abortion is a tragic result of sinful humans trying to play god.  For a fuller look at the biblical case against abortion see John MacArthur’s sermon on the topic by clicking on this link – http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/80-14 .