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Abortion, Sin, and our Nation

By Paul Smithson

In this country we have programs for saving whales, owls, wolves, eagles, etc.  Those who are caught shooting or trapping these animals will be locked up or fined. Yet, in our country it is legal to kill an innocent baby in the womb.  In fact, the U.S. Senate rejected a bill on Monday, January 28, 2018 to ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

In all of America’s wars, from the Revolutionary war to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the amount of lives that were lost are less than one and a half million. However, around one and a half million babies are slaughtered in America every year! In eight years (1939-46) Nazi Germany killed 6 million Jews. But Americans kill 12 million babies every 7 – 8 years. The atomic bomb killed 115,000 Japanese in Hiroshima. Yet, abortion kills about that many babies every month in the U.S.

Add up all of the deaths each year from cancer, heart disease, and automobile accidents and the figures do not total the number deaths claimed by abortion.

Every godly person is alarmed by the continual growth of wickedness in our nation; for, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Prov. 14:34). The slaughter of unborn babies is surely a reproach to our nation and an abomination before God.

The Scriptures make it plain that the fetus within the mother’s womb is a living person– a child, a baby. Rebekah conceived twins and the Scripture declares “the children struggled within her” (Gen. 25:21-22). When Elizabeth, pregnant with John, was visited by Mary, “the baby leaped in her womb” (Lk. 1:41). The same term “baby” is used in the next chapter to speak of the baby Jesus lying in the manger (Lk. 2:12). God used the same terms to describe the born and the unborn. We also see that the Scriptures state that Elizabeth “conceived a son” (Lk. 1:36), then at the time for her to give birth, “brought forth a son” (v.37). Again, God uses the same term to describe the born and the unborn, declaring the unborn to be a living individual.

The fact that the baby in the womb has a living human body tells us that it also has a spirit; for “the body without the spirit is dead” (Jas. 2:26). If the unborn child’s body is alive, the spirit must be present. The unborn child is a living individual with a spirit given by, and made in the image of God.

Those who defend abortion say the fetus, or prenatal child, is not really a person, but only an appendage to the mother– no different than a wart, bunion, or tumor. If this were true, there would be nothing morally wrong with abortion. However, the fetus within the mother’s womb is a living child, a distinct person from the mother. Thus, to abort a child is no less than murder; for murder is “the intentional killing of one human being by another.”

Laws of this nation may give a mother the “freedom of choice” to terminate her pregnancy, but abortion terminates a pregnancy by the extermination of a life. God warns against such sin. “Do not kill the innocent or the righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty” (Ex. 23:7). “The Lord hates…hands that shed innocent blood” (Prov. 6:16-17). “Thou shalt not kill” (Rom. 13:9). Murderers will be cast into “the lake that burns with fire and brimstone” (Rev. 21:8). Murder is sin, and abortion is murder.

Abortion may be legal by the standards of men in government, but the determination of what is right and wrong is up to God not men. “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29); for each of us will one day give an account for our deeds before God in judgment (2Cor. 5:10).

Let us stand against the evil of abortion and pray for the repentance of our nation.

About the Author
Paul Smithson is the evangelist for the Westwood church of Christ in Tullahoma, TN