DISMAL DATE

From My Perspective - - -

There are many dates that are worthy of special note, such as July 4th – Independence Day; December 7th – Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (“A Day that lives in Infamy”); September 11th – Terrorism at World Trade Center; etc. In our personal lives, birthdays and anniversaries are important, as are special events in family life, such as children and grand-children’s graduations and other special events in their lives. There is another day that should live in infamy – January 22, 1973. Why? It was on this day forty years ago when the United States of America made it legal to begin a holocaust/carnage upon the unborn.

Wikipedia contains this brief summary: “The Supreme Court issued its decision on January 22, 1973, with a 7-to-2 majority vote in favor of Roe…The Court deemed abortion a fundamental right under the United States Constitution, thereby subjecting all laws attempting to restrict it to the standard of strict scrutiny…The Court asserted that the government had two competing interests – protecting the mother's health and protecting the potentiality of human life…the Court stated that during the first trimester, when the procedure is more safe than childbirth, the decision to abort must be left to the mother and her physician. The State has the right to intervene prior to fetal viability only to protect the health of the mother, and may regulate the procedure after viability so long as there is always an exception for preserving maternal health. The Court additionally added that the primary right being preserved…was that of the physician's right to practice medicine freely absent a compelling state interest – not women's rights in general. The Court explicitly rejected a fetal right to life argument…”

The dismal result forty years later is the fifty-six-million abortions that have already occurred. Equally dismal is a survey in 2013 that indicates sixty-three percent of those polled do not think the Abortion ruling of the Supreme Court should be over-turned. There is an interesting hypocrisy that unfolds in the debate and discussion as it pertains to Gun Legislation and the protection of human life. On December 14th, 2012, twenty children and six adults were senselessly murdered at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Almost immediately, there was an outcry to limit the type gun and ammunition clips that could be purchased in this country so that such instances of murdering the innocent could be averted and/or avoided. The deaths of twenty children stimulated this outcry – whereas – the slaughter of fifty-six-million infants in the womb is ignored and condoned.

The problem is exacerbated by a populace that has (a) grown weary of the issue and (b) ignored any Biblical expression regarding the right to life. Thirty years ago, George Barna concluded in one of his surveys that “…only half of the country’s Protestant pastors have a biblical worldview, which he defined as believing that absolute moral truth exists, that it is based upon the Bible, and having a biblical view on six core beliefs (the accuracy of biblical teaching, the sinless nature of Jesus, the literal existence of Satan, the omnipotence and omniscience of God, salvation by grace alone, and the personal responsibility to evangelize).” Lost in the shuffle of this ministry malaise is the moral standard of God that should govern what one believes about God and what duty God requires of mankind. It has been said: “We cannot plead ignorance as an excuse for disobedience or apathy…God holds us accountable to the standards of His Word, whether we know those standards or not. We dare not be uninformed!”

We need to remind ourselves of Proverbs 24:11-12, “Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, Surely we did not know this, does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?” We should also be mindful of the preciousness of life. In Psalm 139:13-16, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. and in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.” Consider these things with me.