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Abortion: The Call of the Good Samaritan
by
George Robertson
January 19, 1997
Luke 10:25-37
The young lawyer hoped to wriggle out of Jesus’ conviction with a technical question about how to identify his neighbor. The parable Jesus tells explains that the man is required to live sacrificially toward everyone, especially toward the weak and helpless. And he concludes that only one who does so gives himself away as one who is going to heaven.
My friends, the weakest and most helpless in our society are the unborn who are being slaughtered by the millions. If you and I want to be proven as followers of Christ, then you will respond to these neighbors.
This morning I want to explore six aspects of this grave evil.
- It is a grave evil because of the history it ignores:
In 1973, a 21-year-old woman named Norma McCorvey, then known only as Jane Roe, was assisted by lawyers Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee in taking her case to the Supreme Court. The result was the legalization of abortion in America.
It is important to realize that this is not a recent issue. Neither has its condemnation only come from a small sect of fundamentalist Christians. It has been consistently recognized as murder by the earliest recorded laws.
- Indo-Europeans
As early as 1727 BC, the Code of Hammurabi prescribed penalties for injury to a pregnant woman leading to miscarriage. In the 12th century BC, the Middle Assyrian laws of Tiglath-Pilesar I (1112-1074 BC) prescribed “life for life” for causing a miscarriage.
- Greece and Rome
The Oath of Hippocrates (460-257 BC) states: “I will not give a woman a pessary (something introduced into the womb) to cause abortion.”
Although abortion was widely practiced in Rome because the fetus was not viewed as a human being, there were men of name such as Cicero (106-43 BC) and Ovid (43 BC-AD 17) who spoke against it and even claimed it was a capital offense.
- Eastern Religions
Even pagan Eastern religions have opposed abortion. The Vedic Writings, the sourcebook for Indian religion, say that abortion is the greatest possible sin; guilt for which cannot be expiated.
Zoroastrian literature calls abortion murder in every case, and even prescribes positive alternatives.
- Church History
The Church has always opposed abortion. Explicit condemnation of abortion can be found from as early as the second century among the writings of Barnabus, The Didache, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Basil the Great.
Augustine and Acquinas called abortion a sin against the image of God.
Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin called it an “inexpiable crime.”
John Donne and Richard Baxter of 17tth Century England condemned abortion.
And modern theologians Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Helmut Thielicke agreed that life begins at conception and therefore to abort is an offense against a God-given right.
- America
In 1859, the American Medical Association drafted an anti-abortion resolution: “Physicians have now arrived at the unanimous opinion, that the foetus in utero is alive from the very moment of conception. . .The willful killing of a human being, at any stage of its existence is murder. . .Abortion is in reality a crime against the infant, its mother, the family circle, and society."
Until 1949, the international medical community affirmed the value of unborn human life, condemned abortion, and pledged support to the unborn.
However, in the 1950s a definite movement emerged to promote the legalization of abortion.
In 1959, the American law Institute proposed that abortion no longer be regarded as a form of killing and sought positively to justify abortion if the pregnancy “gravely impaired the physical and mental health” of the woman or if the child possessed a “grave physical or mental defect” or if the pregnancy was due to rape.
Soon after this proposal, the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (May 1968) adopted resolutions calling for the relaxation of abortion laws. (1)
The stage was set for Jane Roe’s case in 1973. In twenty years, America has become wiser than nearly four thousand years of consistent cross-cultural opinion.
- Its gravity is revealed by the current prevailing logic:
Where are we today? The rationale for abortion has taken a frightening turn. Non-therapeutic abortion was introduced through the Supreme Court because it was thought impossible to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that the unborn was a person. Even Justice Harry Blackmun writing the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade said, “If the suggestion of personhood [of the unborn] is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth Amendment].”
Pro-lifers have recognized that admission and have consequently pressed to prove the unborn’s personhood. Pro-abortion forces have also recognized it as a fatal flaw in the Court’s reasoning. Therefore, they have been pushing for the Court to adopt a new rationale which is based on an article written by MIT philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson in 1971. By 1986 her article had become the most widely reprinted essay in contemporary philosophy.
She simply argues that it doesn’t matter if the fetus is a human person or not with a right to live. The mother is no more obligated to sustain its life with her organs than she is to donate her kidney to a next-door neighbor who will die without it.
Several law professors have suggested Ms. Thomson’s argument to the Court. Most recently in 1993, Stephen Carter of Yale Law School said: “As many theorists have recognized, the right to choose abortion, if indeed it survives, must be based on an approach that allows abortion even if the fetus is human (emphasis in original).” (2)
In 1992, in its Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, the Supreme Court reflected the influence of this reasoning when the majority wrote that abortion liberty is necessary in order “to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” (3) In other words, it is irrelevant for anyone to argue that the unborn is a person, an individual is sovereignly autonomous and may determine personhood for herself.
Let me give you then in a nutshell the present pro-abortion position. In fact, ask any pro-abortion lobbyist to tell you where you are wrong in this summary. They want: “Abortion to be a legal right up to the moment that the fetus is partially born, for any reason whatsoever, or for no reason whatsoever; for a minor girl of any age without parental consent, even without parental knowledge; and if she can’t pay for it, the taxpayer ought to.” (4)
- It is a grave sin that the Church is committing too:
Not only is the problem grave because of the new shift in logic, it is grave because it has invaded the evangelical church is committing the same sins at virtually the same rate as the rest of the world: unbiblical divorce, adultery, thievery, etc. And abortion is no exception. In the May 1, 1989 edition of Newsweek it was stated that 1 out of every 6 women who gets an abortion identifies herself as an evangelical Christian. That statistic, though offensive, has not been refuted. That means that 250,000 of the babies being killed in America every year are the covenant children of professed evangelicals. Believers have been guilty of putting their children to death before and this is what God said about it: “And you took your sons and daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them as food to the idols. Was your prostitution not enough? You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols (Ex. 16:20, 21).”
It seems that so-called Christians are falling in with the rest of the world in using abortion to end inconvenient or embarrassing pregnancies. The Center for Disease Control says that 97% of all abortions are a means of birth control. And Kate Michelman, an executive with the National Abortion Rights Action League (one of the most active pro-abortion groups in the country) is apparently describing the evangelical church when she says of the country: “The overwhelming majority of Americans are against abortion except in the case of rape, incest, or their own personal circumstances.” (5)
It seems to be confirmed in voting practices as well. For instance, in 1990 an Oregon ballot measure proposed that convenience abortions be made illegal, and that abortion be allowed only in the cases of rape, incest, and risk to the life of the mother. Even though it wasn’t fully satisfactory to pro-lifers, it would have saved 98% of the babies dying in that state. However, an exit poll discovered that 40% of those identifying themselves as “fundamentalist Protestant” voted against the measure. Additionally, 25% of “fundamentalist Protestants” voted against a measure on the same ballot that would have required parental notification (not even permission) when minors get abortions. (6)
Apparently so-called evangelical Christians have succumbed to the same logic as the Supreme Court, “I am my own sovereign self. Abortion may be wrong for the mass of the population, but it is right in my own situation.”
It seems to be confirmed anecdotally as well. Even though abortion was thought to be unthinkable among evangelicals, my Christian college was moved to put into its student handbook in the early 80s a section stating that it opposed abortion and would discipline any student who had one after it learned that the daughter of highly esteemed missionaries in a sister Christian college had an abortion by her parents’ insistence.
I heard last week of an officer in an evangelical church who said that he believed abortion was wrong, but if his daughter got pregnant he would see to it that she got an abortion.
One of our volunteers who pickets the Reproductive Health Center said that she saw an older man walk a young woman and young man into the clinic for an abortion. On his car was a bumper sticker which read, “Christians are not perfect, just forgiven.”
And just last week I heard from a woman who was in a meeting with someone who identified himself from Covenant Church and said that he thought we make entirely too much of abortion. I have no idea who he was and hope that he is not of our church. But it cannot be surprising that even some here this morning have bought the lethal logic of this world.
There are a lot of explanations for why the Church has succumbed to this sin. But the basic reason is that the Church is following the pattern it has for thousands of years. As God said of the Church through Jeremiah, “Does a maiden forget her jewelry, a bride her wedding ornaments? Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number. How skilled you are at pursuing love! Even the worst of women can learn from your ways (Jer. 2:32, 33).” The Church has forgotten God and pursued love of the world.
Some are teaching that the Church will not be revived until it changes its participation in abortion. That thinking is simply Arminian and ignorant of Church history. It is precisely in times like these when the church’s back is against the wall and she cannot reform herself that God has sent revival in response to the pleas of his faithful few.
- It is a grave sin that must be confronted by the Church corporately and individually:
- Corporate
That is our first step. We must be uniting ourselves in sustained corporate prayer with other Christians for revival. No Sunday School, small group, seminary chapel, or worship service should meet without a corporate cry for revival.
Secondly, the shepherds of God’s flock must become more skillful. Our elders must chiefly be shepherds. We can make all the best financial decisions, but if we do not know our people and shepherd them well then we are nothing of the elders God calls us to be. Abortions within the evangelical camp would surely decrease if there were an elder who knew a member of his fold so well that he could see in that young woman’s countenance that she was in trouble and needed tender shepherding.
Thirdly, we must keep the issue before our people. I make it a point to mention abortion somewhat regularly in sermons and to preach on it in some way at least once per year. But we keep it before our people in other ways too. Picketing schedules are listed right in the bulletin, legislative information is passed along through mass mailings, I pray against it every Sunday, we participate in the Life Chain, and the Pro-Life banquet brings positive alternatives before us every year. You cannot attend here any Sunday and not know that our church stands for life.
- Individual
There is not a person who names the name of Christ in this sanctuary this morning who is relieved of the duty to do something to protect the life of the unborn, because that baby is your neighbor. You must do something. Let me suggest several actions that practically everyone should take, but these are by no means all.
The first is to picket. In the past Scott Bridges and some of our elders have rotated themselves into the picketing schedule. I did Friday and one of the three of us pastors will picket with our people once a month. Picketing is effective. It closed the West County clinic and it has forced the remaining one to bring in a doctor from Kansas City. I want you just to ask yourself why you could not picket for 45 minutes even once per year? It would encourage our faithful volunteers and it might even save a baby’s life as a young woman would see a compassionate face and turn and ask you for help rather than go inside.
The second is to push for legislation by writing or calling your congressman. Dr. Jones told me this week that opposition to slavery was kept alive in Washington DC by a group of faithful women who kept writing letters. Even if you know your congressman votes pro-life the number of letters he receives can influence other legislators too.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Morality cannot be legislated but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.”
(7)
72% of those asked in one survey said that they would definitely not have sought an abortion if it were illegal. (8)
The third is educate and change public opinion. The work of the Vitae Society, which we support, is one of the most encouraging works I have seen. This society based in Jefferson City and only six years old through positive radio and TV advertising has reached 90% of Missouri’ households for the last three years. Over the last six years, abortions in Missouri have decreased from nearly 18,000 to about 13,000. And they have decreased most sharply in the Vitae Society’s media markets which, by the way, include our major college sports networks.
The Society simply needs more money to keep going. And they are getting it. Their donor base has increased 2800% in six years.
The fourth is to volunteer your time in providing positive alternatives. There are more abortion alternative agencies in the U.S. than abortion facilities and they are staffed almost entirely by volunteers. Organizations like Bethany Adoptive Services and Crisis Pregnancy Centers provide counseling on birth control, free pre-natal care, free room and board during and after pregnancy, free clothing, help with adoption, post-natal instruction, help in continuing education, and so on.
What help will a fifteen-year-old girl receive from an abortion clinic when she comes in with no money, no one to help her, no home to go to and no intention of having an abortion?
Our Crisis Pregnancy Center now has an ultrasound machine. Just recently a 22-year-old single mom who was certain she was going to get an abortion called CPC at the last minute to ask if they had an ultrasound. They didn’t at the time but made arrangements for her. As the ultrastenographer described a little leg, a tiny hand, and a beating heart, the young woman and the baby’s father realized only one choice could be made-this was a baby that needed to be born.
CPC needs more volunteers to help with all kinds of tasks in order to continue to provide truly compassionate alternatives.
I want you to write on the bottom of your outline today what you are going to do if you know. And if you don’t know what to do, I want you to write your name and phone number on the bottom and give it to me as you shake my hand or give it to one of the other pastors. We will call you and help you get plugged in in some way.
If you will get involved for no other reason, then consider it for your own personal self-interest. Disregard for unborn and partially born life has lead to rampant violence, and that violence is coming toward West County. Adoptions in this country are next to impossible for a family of average means because we are killing babies at such a high rate. The support of the elderly population is an increasing discussion because 30 million people have been eliminated from the work force.
And if you have never believed in the slippery slope before then surely you must now when the Supreme Court was asked on Wednesday, January 8, to decide whether physician-assisted suicide should be legal in America. And if you think that it will stop only with the terminally ill then look at Holland which now allows physician-assisted suicide for any mental suffering. And not only so but allows physicians to put to death about a thousand patients per year without their consent whenever he deems they have a “low quality of life.” (9)
- It is a grave sin that you may be about to commit:
I especially want to address you today if you are considering having an abortion. We read earlier in the service from Psalm 139: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.”
You should know what God has formed in you. By the 18th day, before you know you are pregnant, your baby’s heart has started beating. But abortions seldom occur before the 40th day because there are too many risks. What is true in the 40th week? Brain waves can be detected and recorded (the same measure of life for an adult), body functions like circulation, digestion, and waste elimination are occurring. Eyes with their pigment are formed. Fingers and toes are noticeable.
Most abortions occur on a baby that is viable. And what happens? Modern technology has helped us to see what God sees. A needle may be inserted into the womb to inject a saline solution that will burn the baby like a napalm victim. Or a suction device will be used to tear the baby apart limb from limb. And what do we see now that only God could see before? Babies attempting to push the needle or the suction device away, writhing in pain, and mouths opened to emit a scream. And it is still only God who can hear that, but we and you, young woman, must not ignore it.
If you are facing an unwanted pregnancy please come to me or call the Crisis Pregnancy Center. We will not condemn you, but will do everything necessary to maintain your dignity and provide a compassionate future for your baby.
- It is a grave sin that can be forgiven:
Finally, I want to preach the Gospel to those of you who are repentant of abortions in the past. There is no sin that God cannot cover with the blood of Christ. Listen to the promises:
Isaiah 1:18
Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
Psalm 103:8-13
The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.
Micah 7:18-19
Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgressions of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
I John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Romans 8:1
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
What is left? For you to repent and believe your forgiveness. . .and now to write on the bottom of your outline what you are going to do to help another young woman to find a more compassionate alternative than you were given.
Footnotes
- Quoted freely from Abortion Debaters’ Handbook (Falls Church, VA: Christian Action Council, 1984) 32-44.
- Quoted freely from Francis J. Beckwith, “The Shifting Focus in the Abortion Debate” (Christian Research Journal, Winter 1995): 17-34
- Excerpt of address by Richard John Neuhaus delivered to National Right to Life convention in Milwaukee, reprinted in World (July 17, 1993): 24, 25
- Paraphrased from Mark Crutcher “Abortion Questions They’d Rather Duck” Citizen (May 20, 1991): 4
- Tape, Gregg Cunningham, “What Clergy and Lay Leaders Need to Know about Abortion” (Center for Bio-Ethical Reform)
- Randy Alcorn, Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments (Mutlnomah, 1992): 220
- Alcorn, 121
- Alcorn, 121
- Charles Krauthammer, “Dutch Show Logic of Death,” St. Louis Post Dispatch (Sunday, January 12,v 1997): 3B
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