Jewish mass grave near Zolochiv, west Ukraine (Nazi occupied USSR). Photo was found by Soviets at former Gestapo headquarters in Zolochiv.
In the past 40 years over 60,000,000 people have been denied the right to live. They have been snuffed before they were ever able to see the light of day. Around 6,000,000 million people were put to death in the holocaust. And almost all would agree that the holocaust was a crime against humanity. However, many people don’t feel the same about the atrocity of abortion which has claimed close to ten times as many lives as the holocaust.
Debunking the Claims for Abortion
To permit abortion, which includes those who are not for or against it, is to say one of two things: 1) unborn babies are not human, therefore it is not murder; 2) the choice of the mother is more important than the life growing within her. Both of these are ridiculous and have been used to promote abortion.
To say that an unborn child is not human and therefore does not have even the most basic human right to life, demeans life in general. Those who hold to this belief might say that unborn children are not human because they have not fully developed. So when have they fully developed? The day of their birth? What about the countless babies born premature? Are they not human? Should they be destroyed? What makes them any different from the babies killed in the womb? And if this principle applies to unborn children, what about those who have already been born? For a newborn baby is not fully developed, neither is a toddler, or a preschooler, or an unruly teenager. When are any of us ever fully developed? The beauty of life is that we are constantly growing and developing. In fact, it is not until our natural death that we are found ripe for eternity.
The other claim is that the mother should have a choice to what happens to her body. Yet, an unborn child, though growing within her is not her body. They are connected at the deepest of levels and both grow together in an incredible way, but they are two distinct persons. For one to have claim over the other is to permit murder. If the woman has the right to choice, the child does not? What if the child is a woman, should she not have the right to live? This brings up the question of rights, particularly the most fundamental of all human rights, the right to life.
To give any person the right to decide whether someone else should live or die is to allow that person to commit murder. And by what criteria is this choice made? Simply the free choice of the mother? Or is based on the health of the baby? Should unborn babies thought to have down-syndrome be put out of the misery? What about those who were diagnosed with down-syndrome and turned out not to have down-syndrome? Is that not like death row inmates who are killed then later found to be innocent? Should we just put all the sick people in our world to death so they aren’t made to suffer or to cause us any unnecessary burden in caring for them? After all, they aren’t really human anyway. Sounds like the holocaust to me.
Why Abortion Continues to Kill
Seeing that these two claims for abortion are in fact false, why does abortion continue to claim millions of lives each year? Laziness.
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” ~ Albert Einstein
We could even say that the womb is a dangerous place. How sad it is that even in the safest and most sacred of places for babies to live and grow has become a battle zone. Too many of us do nothing. After all we have busy lives to attend to, right? I’ve got to worry about my own problems, somebody else will figure it out. False. Unborn babies can’t speak out or protest or march or change legislation. They have no voice. That’s why abortion has been called the “silent holocaust“.
If you and I don’t act then millions more people will continue to be murdered each year before they ever have the chance to take their first breath. We can speak out, protest, march, and seek to change legislation. But another more powerful way to stop abortion in it’s tracks is prayer, outreach, and peaceful vigil—enter 40 Days for Life.
A Better Way to End Abortion
40 Days for Life is a call to each of us to turn to God in prayer and fasting, to speak out in our communities and inform people, and to stand in peaceful vigil in front of abortion centers. What a different approach! And oh how powerful it is!
Prayer and fasting because “our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens” (Eph 6:12). You will notice that in my comments against abortion I have not demonized those who are in favor it, rather against the crime against humanity that is abortion itself. And Jesus warned us that “this kind can only come out through prayer [and fasting]” (Mk 9:29).
It might seem to be a passive approach, for after all when has a peaceful vigil ever achieved anything? But in the end we have seen that love has the power to conquer all.
In the past eight years over 9,699 babies have been saved from abortion, 107 abortion workers have quit their jobs, and 60 abortion centers have closed their doors. And that’s due to the 650,000 volunteers in 559 cities across the world who take this approach to putting an end to abortion.
“See how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love comes once to bend them.” ~ Herman Melville, Moby Dick
I leave you with this quote from Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick and encourage you to take up the call to fight for those who cannot speak, much less defend themselves. Without you and I, they are doomed to death before life. Let us turn to God who is love, who has proved by His Son who is love incarnate, that love, true love, conquers all.