By Paul Smithson

Yesterday (1/24/18), lawmakers in New York clapped and cheered as they celebrated the passage of the “Reproductive Health Act.” This bill, signed by governor Andrew Cuomo, legalizes aborting up until birth. The New York governor directed the One World Trade Center and other landmarks to be lit in pink to celebrate passage of this bill. Cuomo called it “a historic victory for New Yorkers and for our progressive values.”

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. God warns against such sin declaring, “Do not kill the innocent or the righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty” (Ex. 23:7).

New York’s passage of this horrific bill, and the celebration of it, sadly shows the continued disintegration our nation and its morals. Such blatant exaltation and praise for the promotion of such an abomination does not  show our nations values to be “progressive,” but rather regressive.  “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isa. 5:20).  

The passage of this bill is just a furtherance of the existing laws that enable and promote the murder of innocent children.  It is touted that the number of abortions is down from around 1.5 million per year in the 1990’s to near 700,000 in recent years.  However, this only includes reported surgical abortions and not non-surgical abortions that now take place via as the result of abortion pills such as RU-486.  Such pills prescribed as a non-surgical abortion method up to 49 days after the beginning of the latest menstruation, are used by many thousands, and are now available by mail.  Thus, it is likely that the total number of abortions, including both surgical and non- surgical, has risen and continues to rise.

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 uses 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.”

The Scriptures warn, “The Lord hates…hands that shed innocent blood” (Prov. 6:16-17). “Thou shalt not murder” (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.

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.  This is true whether performed by the hands of a doctor or by means of an abortion pill, regardless of the age of the child whose life begins at conception. 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 pray for all the innocent children slaughtered by the sin of abortion and for the turning of the hearts of those who promote and celebrate it.