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40 years after Roe v Wade, 'statistics are mind-boggling'
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SPECIAL TO BNc by Joe Slater, Justin, Tex. — What do the following kings have in common? Pharaoh, at the time of Moses’ birth, Menahem, king of Israel, and Herod the Great.
Pharaoh ordered that the male Hebrew babies be cast into the Nile River (Exodus 1:22). Menahem ripped open all the pregnant women in the city of Tiphsah because the city did not surrender to him (2 Kings 15:16). And the paranoid Herod massacred all the males two years old and under in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16).
Does this break your heart? Does it make your blood boil? It should! But we who live in the United States of America have permitted a slaughter of the innocents that makes those three kings look like rank amateurs! I refer, of course, to abortion.
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down two decisions: Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton. Taken together, those decisions struck down every law in all fifty states protecting the lives of pre-born human babies. Since that day, courts have permitted only the slightest restrictions on abortion. For all practical purposes, the law of the land is still “abortion on demand, for any reason or no reason, through all nine months of pregnancy.” This policy is currently favored by the President and Vice President, virtually all of the Cabinet, and by roughly half of the Congress and half of the Supreme Court.
It is not favored, however, by God. Human beings are made in His image; murdering them is an affront to Him (Genesis 9:5, 6).
The Numbers
We don’t like to think about abortion. Generally, it’s “out of sight, out of mind.” Most of us probably don’t know where the nearest abortuary is. But ignorance is not bliss, nor does it curb the killing. In its last fiscal year (2011-2012), Planned Parenthood aborted 329,445 human babies in the largest chain of abortuaries in America. But their hands are not the only ones dripping with innocent blood. Untold numbers of other killing centers destroy about three times that many more babies every year. Statistics like these can be mind-boggling, but please consider some numbers from the Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood):
In 2008, the latest year for which full nation-wide statistics are available, there were 1.21 million abortions in the U.S. For the years 1973-2008, the total number of abortions was over fifty million.
Since the decline in the abortion rate has leveled out, we may reasonably conclude that in the four years since 2008 there were another 1.21 million abortions annually. This would yield a total of at least 55 million abortions over a 40-year span. That averages out to:
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3765 abortions per day, more than the number killed in the 9/11 attacks.
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One abortion every 23 seconds, all day, every day, for 40 solid years.
The Bible
Are we certain that God opposes abortion?
Proverbs 6:17 declares that He hates the “hands that shed innocent blood.” What blood could be more innocent than that of the pre-born baby? (By the way, the blood flowing through the baby’s body is its own, not the mother’s.) We also learn from the Law of Moses that pre-born life is sacred. If a man caused a pregnant woman to deliver prematurely, and the baby died, the offender was subject to capital punishment (Exodus 21:22-25). Who can believe that innocent human life is less valuable under the New Covenant than it was under the Old?
Under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Luke the physician recorded how the pre-born John the Immerser leaped in the womb of his mother Elizabeth (Luke 1:41). John was a six-month fetus at that time, but Luke said he was a “babe” (Greek brephos). Luke used that same word to refer to the newborn Jesus (Luke 2:12). The pro-abortion establishment routinely refers to the pre-born child as a “mass of blood and tissue” or some other impersonal term. But God refers to it as a babe, just as He does after the child is born. Read more here. |
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The 3D scan of a disabled baby's smile that convinced his mother not to abort him
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A mother was unable to abort her severely disabled son despite doctors' warnings after seeing her baby's smile in a 3D scan picture.
Katyia Rowe was told her baby's brain had not formed properly and that he would never walk or talk and would need 24-hour care.
But after seeing real-time moving scans of him smiling, blowing bubbles, kicking and waving his arms she made the heartbreaking decision to go through with the birth.
Tragically Lucian, as she named him, died nine hours after he was born.
Despite the ordeal, Ms Rowe said she had no regrets going through with the birth as she was able to cuddle her baby son.
Katyia, 26, a training administrator, said: 'We were devastated to be told our son’s brain abnormalities were so severe they were life limiting we should consider a termination.
‘Further scans were arranged to asses the extent of his disabilities but when I saw him smiling and playing inside me I knew I couldn’t end his life.
'If he could smile and play and feel then despite his disabilities he deserved to enjoy whatever life he had left, no matter how short. Just because his life would be shorter or different, didn’t mean he didn’t deserve to experience it.
‘As long as he was pain free I vowed to let him enjoy his life both while inside me and outside, no matter how long that be.’
Miss Rowe, from Telford, Shropshire was thrilled to discover she was expecting a baby with partner of four years security officer Shane Johnson, 26, in March last year.
She added: ‘It was a shock but we were thrilled. Shane and I were so excited and looking forward to the birth. We had so many plans for the future and could not wait to meet our baby.
‘Our first scan at three months was wonderful. When we saw our baby on screen for the first time we fell in love straight away. As far as we were concerned everything was perfect.’
The couple decided to wed when their son was old enough to walk down the aisle with them.
Only the 20-week scan highlighted complications.
Following further tests, doctors told Miss Rowe and her partner of four years that their baby's brain had no formed properly and he would be severely disabled.
They were then told the tragic news by experts at Birmingham Children's Hospital that their child would never walk or talk and would need 24-hour care.
The couple were offered the chance to terminate the baby at 24-weeks.
But despite his poor prognosis, being able to watch her son in real time 3D scans during the screening tests, Miss Rowe said she was astonished to see him smiling, blowing bubbles, kicking and waving his arms.
She said: ‘Despite all the awful things I was being told, while he was inside me his quality of life looked to be wonderful and no different to any other baby’s, he was a joy to watch.
‘I was told he would never walk or talk yet the scans showed him constantly wriggling and moving.
‘As I watched I knew that while I was carrying him he still had a quality of life and it was my duty as a mother to protect that no matter how long he had left, he deserved to live.’ Read more here {view adjacent articles at your own risk} |
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Grace and Faith
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Roe v. Wade | When Christian parents refuse to abort a child with a fatal condition, the result is a powerful witness
 SIMI VALLEY, Calif.—Daniel and Crystal Artran married in 2010 and rejoiced when they found themselves pregnant several months later. But behind the rejoicing was concern: As dwarfs of the same type, their children have a 25 percent chance of inheriting the abnormal gene from each of them, a condition called “double dominance” and incompatible with life. Still, the Simi Valley, Calif., couple knew that three out of four times they would have a healthy child. Daniel, 38, already had two preteen children from a previous marriage.
When Crystal, 27, reached her second trimester, they met with a geneticist who specializes in dwarfism. During the ultrasound, they learned they were having a girl and marveled at her distinct profile. But their countenance changed as they saw concern on the geneticist’s face. Her voice turned cold and clinical. A week later, the couple’s doctor called. Crystal’s amniocentesis test confirmed their worst fears: Their daughter was double-dominant. The doctor recommended an abortion. Or, if they acted soon, he offered to trigger labor naturally. Crystal’s birth canal is so small that the baby would die during labor.
The Artrans found themselves in the strange world of fetal testing and abortion pressure. At conferences for “little people,” they had met couples who aborted their double-dominant babies. Mothers terminate nine out of 10 Down syndrome pregnancies. In Europe, the numbers are higher: A 2011 report from Denmark even predicted the country would be Down syndrome-free within two decades. Some in the field of reproductive ethics say parents have a duty to use advanced forms of pregnancy screening and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to ensure medically “flawless” children.
But the Artrans opted to keep their unborn daughter even though she was expected to die at birth.
Daniel and Crystal asked their local church congregation to pray for them. They confessed that when they were dating four years earlier, they had aborted their first baby out of convenience and fear—a decision they kept secret and painfully regretted. “We couldn’t go through that sadness again. We felt like with this pregnancy we were given another chance,” Daniel said. Telling others about their abortion and the healing that followed led them to name their daughter Grace. Read more here. |
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"The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother's body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law —the same right we have." -Ronald Reagan, in the only book to ever be published by a sitting U.S President, "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation"
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State abortion stats by rate, rank, total, age, gestation, and procedure type.
[It should be noted that these statisitics are a bit old, but very instructive.]
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Roe, legalizing abortion in 1973, caused Baptists to embrace life
EDITOR'S NOTE: Sunday, Jan. 20, is Sanctity of Life Sunday in the Southern Baptist Convention.
WASHINGTON (BP) -- The U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision not only awakened Southern Baptists eventually to the gruesome reality of abortion but helped power what came to be known as their convention's Conservative Resurgence, two longtime observers say.
America will reach the 40th anniversary of legalized abortion Jan. 22. On that date, pro-life advocates will grieve and abortion rights defenders will celebrate Roe, the opinion that –- coupled with a companion ruling, Doe v. Bolton -– had the effect of striking down all abortion restrictions and legalizing the procedure nationwide for virtually any reason at any stage of pregnancy.
When the high court issued those decisions jointly in 1973, Southern Baptists were either uninformed or misguided -– and consequently unengaged -- at the grass roots but supportive of abortion rights at the institutional level and through the resolution process, Richard Land and Jerry Sutton told Baptist Press. Now, Southern Baptists are overwhelmingly pro-life.
That contrast four decades ago between the grass roots and some denominational leaders produced discord as the massive death toll of unborn babies mounted in the 1970s.
Meanwhile, the effort to restore the Southern Baptist Convention's institutions to a belief in biblical inerrancy began in 1979 with the election of the SBC’s first president committed to the Conservative Resurgence. By then, the abortion issue had become a driving force in the movement, Land and Sutton said.
The abortion issue "was part of the Conservative Resurgence, and I think that it played a role that the moderates never understood," Land said of those Southern Baptists who disagreed with the effort to reform the convention’s institutions. "I think the moderates, being mostly pro-choice themselves, never really comprehended the moral indignation and outrage of the conservatives that their denomination was being portrayed as pro-choice. Being pro-choice themselves, they just didn't get it. And I think that emotion was one of the factors that fueled people to come to the convention and to vote for pro-life, inerrantist candidates. Read more here.
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