Truth Magazine

By Frank Jamerson

The basic assumptions one begins with usually determine the destination he reaches. How do we see ourselves in relation to God? How do we view sin? What is our conception of the church? Is it a resort hotel for “saints,” or is it a hospital for the sick? Do we conceive of those in the church as sinners saved by grace, or as “good people” with whom we enjoy our association?

Before we moved to Lakeland, one of the men in the business meeting asked me: “What do you think is the greatest problem facing the church today?” Now, I am not an authority on such questions, and you may disagree with my answer, but my reply was that we are a “self-satisfied society.” Too many brethren look upon the church as a “social club” composed of good people with whom they enjoy affiliation. Basically, they conceive of it as a hotel for saints, not a hospital for the sick. If we do not consider ourselves as needing the “Great Physician,” we are not apt to be longsuffering and forgiving toward others who are sick.

Let us look at some characteristics of the “resort hotel concept.” You go to a hotel to get away from pressure and responsibilities. It is a place for leisure and relaxation; a place where you want to leave your troubles behind. It is a place to be served. You don’t have to make up the bed or clean the room; someone else is responsible for the work! You want to go home rested, relaxed and feeling good. Does this describe the attitude of many brethren toward the church?

The resort hotel is for those who “have it all together.” Who wants to spend time in a hotel listening to the problems of others, or even sharing his own problems with others? The “hotel Christian” has no sympathy for the suffering, because he is not sick. He is “living right,” like the elder brother who stayed home. He may be jealous, unforgiving and even gossipy, but he is not “living in the pig pen.” Have you ever wondered how the elder brother knew what his younger brother had been doing? Even if he did know, what good did it do for him to repeat the information after his brother had repented? We would have made the elder son a deacon, or maybe an elder, but Jesus ended the parable with the self-righteous son outside and the younger brother who had lived in the pig pen inside. On another occasion Jesus said: “Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you” (Matt. 21:31).

We should view the church as a hospital for those who are ill. You go to the hospital for the “big cure.” You know something is wrong and you need the good physician, maybe the specialist, working on you.

God said that we “have all sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom.- 3:23), therefore all of us need the Physician. If I have been healed of a disease, will I look condescendingly on someone else who has the disease? The only reason we would look down on another is if we think that his disease is “worse” than ours! Was the rebellion of the younger brother worse than the self-righteous, unforgiving attitude of the elder brother? (Read Matt. 21:31 again!) The fact is that the self-righteous do not consider themselves as being in real need. After all, God is fortunate that they have chosen to stay in his hotel!

What is our attitude toward sinners? How forgiving are we when those who have “wallowed in sin” repent? The answer to those questions depends upon our perception of the Lord’s church. Paul wrote the Corinthians: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11). Would the former thieves look down on the former sodomites? Not if they realized that their own “disease” was also terminal!

God’s call is to “all who labor and are heavy laden,” not to those who “have it all together.” It is to those who want to live, not to those who think they are living (Matt. 9:12). The elder brother’s unforgiving spirit may be considered “worse” than the “fornication” of the younger brother because it kept him from fellowship with his father. Any disease that kills us is worse than one that has been cured!

I believe that there is a desperate need for an attitude change in many. We need to look upon the church as a hospital for those who have been cured of terminal illness rather than as a hotel for “good folks” who need no physican. When I understand that the great physican extended mercy to me, and have a heart of gratitude for that cleansing, I will be more compassionate and forgiving toward others who need his healing. (A special thanks to my son Randy and to John Haley for the basic thoughts in this article.)

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 3, p. 69
February 1, 1990

By Mike Willis

The pro-abortion forces, led by the National Organization For Women, Planned Parenthood, and many mainline Protestant denominations have successfully argued abortion rights on national media. Many Americans have accepted the abortionists’ arguments. These arguments need to be examined in studying this topic. Here are some of the more popular arguments used by those in favor of aborting babies.

1. “The mother has the right to control her own body. ” The woman not only has the right to control her own body, but also the obligation. If the woman had controlled her own body, she would not be pregnant and wanting to kill her unborn child to avoid the consequences of her immorality. If she had kept her passions under control and not been guilty of fornication, she would not desire an abortion. Remember, 81 percent of abortions are performed on unmarried women (Parade Magazine [I October 1989], p. 28).

Though the mother has the right and obligation to control her own body, she must remember that the baby is another body – not her own body. She has no right to decide that this other human being has no right to live, whether that other human being be inside or outside her womb. Civil law is beginning to express concern for the mother’s obligation toward the unborn in recent decisions regarding the birth of babies who are drug addicts. Some mothers have been charged with crime became they have taken drugs which caused their babies to be born addicted to drugs. If we can hold the mother responsible for her treatment of her unborn child when she takes drugs, how much more should the mother be held responsible for making a premeditated decision to kill that child!

Furthermore, for the sake of argument, let us concede that the unborn child is the mother’s body. What would we do with a woman who willfully mutilated her own body? If we saw a woman make a conscious decision to cut off her arm, what would we do? We would put her in some kind of protective custody while we treated her for insanity – insanity which was demonstrated by destroying her own body. But women who claim that the unborn baby is their own body willfully destroy a part of their own body, all the while claiming to be sane. That does not make good sense.

2. “The unborn is not really human until it is born.” If it is not human, what is it? Is it mineral, vegetable, or animal? If it is animal life, is it horse, cow, pig, cat, or just what? To ask the question shows the foolishness of the argument! If a scientist could produce a fetus from non-living matter, he would assert in every scientific journal which would publish his material that he had “created” human life! But our abortion advocates deny that the unborn baby is human life!

The only difference in an unborn and born baby is location and developmental size. Developmental size changes after birth just as certainly as it changes before birth. Hence, one could not rationally argue that the unborn is not human because of changes in developmental size.

We protect the unborn of other species, why not protect unborn babies? Stealing an eagle’s egg or disturbing its nest is punishable by a fine of up to $5,000. Is this because an eagle’s egg is eagle life, a potential eagle? Perhaps, we need to declare babies an endangered species, so our laws could protect them. Inasmuch as 20 million unborn babies have been destroyed since 1973 in America abortuaries, being an unborn baby is probably the most risky time in a person’s life – more risky than exposure to other health risks such as cigarette smoke, cancer producing agents, etc.

3. “It’s better to abort a child than to abuse one. ” What more severe form of child abuse can be committed than to kill a child? Abortion is the worst form of child abuse! If killing the unborn to prevent possible child abuse is justifiable, why not go to those homes where there is actual child abuse and kill those children to prevent child abuse?

. This argument presupposes that aborting unwanted children will cut down child abuse. With 20 million unwanted babies having been killed by abortion in America since 1973, child abuse should be totally eradicated in our society by now! However, that is not the case. There are more cases of child abuse today than ever before. Norman E. Geisler su2eested the reason for this: “Apparently the disregard for human life reflected in the acceptance of abortion is extended from pre-birth to post-birth attitude toward offspring” (“The Bible, Abortion, and Common Sense,” Fundamentalist Journal [May 1985], p. 26).

4. “We cannot legislate morality. ” Abortionists have made every effort to legislate morality since 1973. They not only have wanted to legislate that “abortion is acceptable” but also to use our tax dollars to pay for their abortions! Inasmuch as the Supreme Court has decided that states have the right to restrict abortions, we will see whether or not abortionists think that morals can be legislated! Already they have stepped up activity to legislate their moral standards, throwing aside all of their objections pertaining to legislating morality.

We legislate morals every day. If morality cannot be legislated, we need to remove from our law codes these moral laws which have been incorporated into criminal law: murder, rape, incest, stealing, anti-slavery laws, civil rights legislation. The issue is not whether or not morality can be legislated but whose morality will be legislated! Shall the moral standards of humanism, atheism, and other non-Christian perspectives become the morals of our country, or will Christian ethics be legislated? Shall the majority (those from a Judeo-Christian heritage) be controlled by the minority (those from non-Christian background) or vice versa?

5. “People are going to have abortions anyway, so we may as well legalize it. ” If this argument is valid. it should be equally valid with other criminal acts. Since people are going to commit murder, rape, incest, child abuse, and wife abuse, we may as well legalize them. Stating the argument make it absurdly obvious.

Laws do affect behavior and change attitudes. That has been clearly recognized in the civil rights legislation. Making racial discrimination a crime has made equal housing and equal job opportunities more readily available for minorities. Making abortion illegal will change attitudes and conduct of those who are law abiding citizens. Those who are not law abiding citizens will have to be incarcerated, whether their crime be rape, incest, stealing, racial discrimination, or murder (whether of the born or unborn).

6. “Making abortion illegal will result in mothers dying in back alley abortions. ” Legalized abortion has not saved lives, it has cost lives – 20 million lives since 1973 when the Roe vs. Wade case was decided. If abortion was made illegal, some would violate the law, turning to those who would perform illegal abortions in back alleys. Some would die in back alley abortions. But, how can a few hundred mothers who would make a willful decision to violate the law and die in a back alley abortion chamber compare to the 1.5 million babies which are slaughtered each year in American abortuaries? If we grant that 500 women would die each year in back alley abortions chambers, we still would have reduced the death rate by more than 99 percent.

The arguments of abortion proponents are unconvincing. They should be rejected as unsound.

How Abortions Are Performed

If most of us could witness an abortion, we would walk away in disgust at what we witnessed. If we could see the remains of babies which have been aborted, we would turn away in horror. Here are the graphic descriptions of the “Four Ways To Kill n Unborn Child.”

1. To abort an early pregnancy the doctor inserts a tube through the opening of the womb and connects it to a suction apparatus. The vacuum is so powerful that the baby is instantly broken up into a fluid mass of blood, tissue, and cartilage. It quickly passes through this tube and is collected in a bottle.

2. In the curettage technique the doctor stretches or dilates the mouth of the womb to admit a forceps or currette. He then reaches in and drags or scrapes out the baby and after birth. The surgeon must work by touch alone, often cutting the baby into several pieces in order to get it out. The head may be crushed with the forceps to reduce its size for withdrawal. Bleeding is profuse until the womb is scraped completely empty. The bits and pieces of the baby are then disposed of.

3. Larger babies to be aborted may require an abdominal operation similar to a Caesarean section. The womb is cut open and the baby is lifted out. It usually squirms and moves its arms and legs. It tries to breathe and may manage a fee ble cry. If the lungs are too immature to function normally it will soon stop moving, but frequently the heart continues to beat for several hours before it dies.

4. The doctor can stick a large needle through the mother’s belly wall and into the womb. After withdrawing some fluid, a strong, sterile, saltwater solution is injected – in effect pickling the baby alive. The baby may thrash about for a few moments, but soon it becomes perfectly still and dies. In about 24 hours labor will start and the already dead baby is delivered. This technique can be used right up to the very end of pregnancy (“Four Ways to Kill an Unborn Child”).

The aborted babies are then disposed of, either being treated like trash, sold for collagen, used for experimentation Oust like laboratory rats), or otherwise discarded.

“Diary of An Unborn Child”

One of the – most touching pieces of material published against abortion, has been the “Diary of An Unborn Child,” a hypothetical record of a baby inside its mother’s womb. The material below is physically accurate in detailing the maturation of the unborn baby. I think it will touch your emotions, just as it did mine.

Dairy of An Unborn Child

October 5 – Today my life began. My parents do not know it yet, I am as small as a seed of an apple, but it is I already. And I am to be a girl. I shall have blond hair and blue eyes. Just about everything is settled though, even the fact that I shall love flowers.

October 19 – Some say that I am not a real person yet, that only my mother exists. But I am a real person, just as a small crumb of bread is yet truly bread. My mother is. And I am.

October 23 – My mouth is just beginning to open now. Just think, in a year or so I shall be laughing and later talking. I know what my first word will be: MAMA.

October 25 – My heart began to beat today all by itself. From now on it shall gently beat for the rest of my life without ever stopping to rest! And after many years it will tire. It will stop, and then I shall die.

November 2 – I am growing a bit every day. May arms and legs are beginning to take shape. But I have to wait a long time yet before those little legs will raise me to my mother’s arms, before these little arms will be able to gather flowers and embrace my father.

November 12 – Tiny fingers are beginning to form on my hands. Funny how small they are! I’ll be able to stroke my mother’s hair with them.

November 20 – It wasn’t until today that the doctor told mom that I am living here under her heart. Oh, how happy she must be! Are you happy, mom?

November 25 – My mom and dad are probably thinking about a name for me. But they don’t even know that I am a little girl. I want to be called Kathy. I am getting so big already.

December 10 – My hair is growing. It is smooth and bright and shiny. I wonder what kind of hair mom has.

December 13 – I am just about able to see. It is dark around me. When mom brings me into the world it will be full of sunshine and flowers. But what I want more than anything is to see my mom. How do you look, mom?

December 24 – I wonder if mom hears the whispering of my heart? Some children come into the world a little sick. But my heart is strong and healthy. It beats so evenly: tup-tup, tup-tup. You’ll have a healthy little daughter, mom!

December 28 – Today my mother killed me.

Conclusion

We can sit in the peace and tranquility of our homes and read an article such as this one about abortion. We enjoy the beauty of God’s creation, experience the joys of life, and have the opportunities to participate in the decisions regarding the future of our nation. We can do these things because our mothers did not choose to have an abortion! I can sit with my family around a table to eat cake and ice cream on 22 July because I had a birthday. Don’t you think every child has a right to a birthday?

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 3, pp. 66, 86-88
February 1, 1990

By Stephen P. Willis

I have been keeping track of some of the news items reported the last few months that relate to our lives morally. Some of the decisions of courts have been helpful, some have been appalling. Read on:

Teens Need Help: One out of two high school seniors in America uses marijuana; it is smoked daily by one in 16. 24 percent of fourth graders feel pressured to take drugs. 87 percent of high school seniors use alcohol; 6 percent drink daily. The average age for the first use of drugs is 11. These are problems – sins – that begin early and often continue throughout one’s life. Galatians 5 describes it as “sorcery” (NASB) and “witchcraft” (KJV): the Greek word is pharmakia which is easily seen as involving drugs (v. 20). Verse 21 condemns “drunkenness” and both sins are warned against “that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (v. 21).

Abortion: The Battle Continues: The former surgeon general, C. Everette Koop, has reported that before the Roe vs. Wade decision of 1973, 393 women died as a result of illegal abortions. Since the decisions more than 23 million babies have been destroyed. In July, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that the court upheld the constitutionality of a Missouri law that sharply restricted the availability of publicly funded abortion services and required doctors to test for the viability of a fetus at 20 weeks. Basically, this decision says the battle about abortion can be restricted by state laws.

Up to this point we were considered radical if we decided to vote for a candidate because of his/her one position on abortion. Now this is exactly what the “Pro-Choice” movement is proposing to do. Three states (at least) have started the discussion to limit abortions. Let us hope and pray and vote that they succeed, for the Bible teaches that God recognizes life in the womb. (Read Exod. 21:22-25 which requires a life for the taking of a life; Judg. 13:7 where Samson was a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death, therefore his mother had to honor the intake of grape products while he was in the womb; Jer. 1:5 – Jeremiah was known, consecrated and appointed as a prophet before he was born; Lk. 1:15 – John the Baptizer would be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother’s womb; Matt. 1:20 – Jesus came into the world by conception in his mother’s womb; when he did become life?)

One news week I saw three items where, in the same program on television or in the same magazine the death of animals for the sake of taking their skins was strongly denounced, while at the same time the fact that women might not be as free to abort their babies was also denounced.

Where are our values? It is against the law to touch a sea turtle’s egg, but legal to end a child’s life. It is against the law to touch an eagle or even its empty nest, but for the sake of convenience a pregnancy can be ended. If a woman does not want to be pregnant, say no to the situation that leads to it. This will handle most of the situations. Can we not help with adoptions instead of abortions?

One other thing about this matter: in the August edition of Publishing News it was announced that “editors from 18 women’s magazines have mutually agreed to step up pro-choice coverage.” Included are Cosmopolitan, Family Circle M, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Redbook, Lear’s, Ms. and even Good Housekeeping! I’m sure there will be more involved in this attack than just the “women’s” magazines, so be careful what you read or hear; they are trying to change our minds about pro-life.

The Gay ’90s Are Upon Us: The word “gay” at one time meant an excessive lifestyle. Around 1850 it was used of prostitutes who were called “gay” women. Somewhere after the turn of the century we only associated the happiness of a lifestyle with the word “gay.” No more! The homosexuals have come out of the closet where they once tried to hide their sin. We now have several congressmen openly admitting they are homosexual. Barney Frank admits he has hired a homosexual prostitute. The “United Church of Christ” (Please – no relation to us!) has accepted a 150-member congregation of mostly homosexuals into their Eastern Minnesota association. New York city’s mayor Koch gave bereavement leave to city workers whose “domestic partners” (read: homosexual partner) die. Newsweek said, “It is part of a trend toward giving homosexual and unmarried couples perks once reserved for men and women with marriage licenses.” “The strongest such law is San Francisco’s, which lets those who ‘share one another’s lives in an intimate and committed relationship’ file a declaration making them eligible for full benefits given to married spouses.”

Sodomy was named for the city of Sodom; read about the openness of their sins in Genesis 18:20-21; 19:1-11; the children of Israel were told it is an abomination (Lev. 18:22). The church is told, “Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, . . . nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, . . . shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10). It really makes one wonder about the denominations, such as the United Church of Canada, whose governing council has voted to admit homosexual men and women into the clergy. They are not the only group doing such things! Let us be moral, support moral laws and vote for people who respect moral laws.

A Potpourri of Problems: gunman . . . paternity . diabolical plan . . . spend the night together . . . quickie divorce . . . nude photo . . . clandestine meeting . . . unruly customer . . . lie . . . mishap and . . . mystery . . . henchmen . . . pent-up passion . . . searching for . . . kidnaping . . . hit-and-run accident . . . registers under an assumed name . . . employ his masculine wiles . . . act of thievery . . . custody battle . . . found guilty of sexual assault . . . Ooops! This was not the news! This was excerpts from the TV Guide summary of one week’s Soap Opera Guide. Realizing that we all like a good story, let’s make sure we are not filling our minds too much with things like the above instead of the word of God (see Col. 3:16).

Conclusion

“Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If any one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever” (1 Jn. 2:15-17). Any sin can be forgiven if one seeks God humbly in repentance. After listing many of the same sins discussed in this short article Paul said, “And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). This is our hope in Christ.

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 2, pp. 52, 56
January 18, 1990

By Mike Willis

On 22 January 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on the Roe vs. Wade case, striking down Texas law prohibiting abortion. Since 1973, abortion has been legal in the United States. In the court ruling, “personhood” was denied to the unborn, in spite of the fact that the unborn can be heirs, have the right to sue for damages and to have a guardian appointed on their behalf, etc. In the years since the 1973 ruling, 20 million unborn babies have been slaughtered in American abortuaries. More Americans have died by abortion than in all of the wars in which our soldiers have participated.

In July 1989, the Supreme Court upheld the right of the state of Missouri to place restrictions on abortion. This has thrown the abortion issue into the hands of state legislators, making it a political “hot potato” in coming elections.

More than a political issue, abortion is a moral issue. Is it right for a Christian to have an abortion? Christianity has not given a clear-cut answer. The mainline Protestant denominations (Episcopal, United Methodist, United Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ, United Church of Christ, etc.) have taken a pro-abortion stance. The Roman Catholic Church has taken, not only a stance against abortion, but also a stance against birth control. Evangelicals have generally taken a clear-cut stance against abortion. We should not be asking, “What do the churches say?” but “What does the Bible say? Is abortion sinful?”

Why Do Abortions Occur?

A person may ask, “Why do pregnant women desire abortions? ” He may think that abortions are necessary because of rape, incest, birth defects, or because a mother’s life is endangered. Statistically that simply is not true! Less than one percent of abortions are performed as a result of rape, incest, or possible birth defects. Abortions for these reasons have been used to shape public opinion, to create sympathy for the abortionists’ cause.

Most abortions are performed as a form of birth control. 81 percent of American abortions are performed on unmarried women who have conceived out of wedlock (Parade Magazine [1 October 1989], p. 28). Sometimes abortions are performed on married women who (a) do not want a child; (b) do not want another child; (c) do not want a child who may be handicapped or retarded; (d) want a child of another sex. Abortions are not primarily performed on the poor who cannot afford to rear a child. The majority of abortions are performed on white, middle-classed women (The Tennessean [17 April 1989], p. 6-A).

Why Abortion Is Wrong

The person who is desiring to be obedient to the Lord’s word, as revealed in the Bible, cannot have or perform an abortion without being guilty of sin. Here are some reasons for concluding that a person who obtains or performs an abortion is guilty of sin:

1. Abortion is murder. Murder is defined as “the unlawful and malicious or premeditated killing of one human being by another.” The Lord who created man commanded, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exod. 20:13). “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man” (Gen. 9:6). Abortion is a premeditated decision to destroy the life of an unborn child, usually for very selfish reasons. The fact that American law in the Twentieth Century has made it a legal act does not change the law of God.

2. Abortion shows a disregard for human life. The Bible describes man as created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27); this is the reason that killing a human being is wrong (Gen. 9:6). No violation of moral law has occurred when a person kills a chicken or eats its egg. But killing a human or destroying its unborn is a violation of moral law. (Ironically, some who work actively to protect the unborn of endangered species such as the bald eagle, can see that the unborn eagle is an eagle, but seemingly cannot identify the unborn baby as a baby!) Abortionists have a distinctly inferior view of human life.

In Bible revelation, children are considered a “heritage of the Lord” (Psa. 127:3) and a “blessing” (Psa. 128:3). A woman who was barren felt particularly unfortunate (see Sarah and Hannah). Many today have a different attitude toward children. When told that they are pregnant, many women, instead of joyfully anticipating a child, view the child as a “threat” to their lifestyle and happiness. The child within the womb is not granted equal status with the mother; the unborn child is considered as something lower than human life. To the abortionist, the unborn child is a mass of cell tissue, a glob, or fetal tissue, not to be granted any protection from harm.

The abortionists’ lower view of life is manifested in the treatment given aborted children. Aborted children are sold to manufacturing companies in order to produce collagen for higher grade shampoos. Dr. Olga Fairfax wrote,

There’s a triple profit to be had (from an abortion). The first is from the abortion (estimated at a half billion dollars a year by Fortune magazine). The second profit comes from the sale of aborted babies’ bodies. The third profit is from unsuspecting customers buying cosmetics.

Babies’ bodies are sold by the bag, $25 a batch or up to $5,500 a pound. The sale of later-term elective abortions at D.C. General Hospital brought $68,000 between 1966 and 1976. The money was used to buy a TV set and cookies and soft drinks for visiting professors (101 Uses for a Dead [or Alive] Baby).

Before abortuaries realized that the sale of aborted babies could be profitable, they were treated like trash, being burned in incendiaries or hauled away with the garbage. Today, some aborted babies are used for experimentation. The treatment given aborted babies confirms that abortion leads to a lower view of human life.

This disregard for human life spills over into euthanasia, child abuse, and disregard for the unproductive members of society. What a difference in attitude toward human life is reflected by comparing the view of life of abortionists with that revealed in the Bible.

3. Abortion is usually performed for selfish reasons. Lord condemned the kind of living which is primarily interested in self. He revealed that a Christian must “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matt. 22:39). Christian ethics demands that a man “look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others” (Phil. 2:4). The decision to abort a baby usually is made for very selfish reasons. Here are some of them:

a. A child will interefere with a person’s chosen lifestyle. (1) Raising children costs money. The person is unwilling to change his level of living to accommodate another person in the household; instead she chooses to kill the child in order to continue living on the same economic level. (2) Raising children takes time. Raising children will take so much time that a person may not be able to pursue his educational or career goals. Consequently, a choice is made that one’s educational or career goals take a higher priority than the child. The child is killed that the goals may be pursued.

b. A child will interfere with a person’s mental health. “In states where abortion is now legal, mental indications account for as high as 97 percent of the total number performed. Doctors opposed to abortion strongly state that no one has ever established a cause and effect relationship between pregnancy and mental illness” (Dr. John L. Grady, Abortion: Yes or No?, p. 12). Under the pretense that a birth may damage a mother’s mental health, women decide to kill their babies. If giving birth to a baby contributes to mental illness, the entire human race has been and is endangered!

c. An abortion will cover upfornication. Many abortions are performed because fornicators do not want to face the natural consequences of their sin. Fornication is a sin (Gal. 5:19; 1 Cor. 6:9-20). Sexual activity outside of marriage leads to conception of illegitimate babies. Many want to commit fornication without accepting the consequences of their actions. Hence, they kill the baby to (a) hide their fornication or (b) to avoid the responsibilities of parenthood.

4. Abortion is “unnatural affection. ” The Scriptures describe the degenerate as being “without natural affection” (Rom. 1:31). Examples of being “without natural affection” may be varied, including child abuse, neglect of one’s parents, etc. However, the decision to brutally destroy one’s child would certainly be another example of an absence of “natural affection.”

5. Abortion threatens the mental stability of the mother. Already articles are appearing from mothers who are trying to live with the guilt of having murdered their unborn. In many cases a mother is placing a psychological time-bomb within herself when she decides to abort her baby. What will usually happen to these women is this: they will later decide to get married and have a family. Sometime later when she is playing with a baby she decided to let live, the mother will think about her decision to kill her previous baby. Then she will be plagued with guilt. In cases where the conscience has been seared by the teachings of anti-Christian ethics, a mother may never experience this guilt.

6. Those who make their living by killing babies – the doctors and nurses – are guilty of being “greedy offilthy lucre” (1 Tim. 3:3). The Bible commands the Christian to make his living by “working that which is good” (Eph. 4:28). Should a person become so greedy for money that he is willing to stoop to sinful and immoral practices to obtain it, he is “greedy of filthy lucre” (1 Tim. 3:3). A Christian cannot make his living selling illegal drugs, selling liquor, running a house of prostitution, or a baby killing clinic. Those doctors and nurses who are so greedy for money that they will stoop to killing babies to make their living are guilty of sin.

When Does Life Begin?

Someone may object to the charge that abortion is murder by stating that life does not begin until birth. The proabortionists insist that life does not begin until birth. They use language designed to emphasize that the pre-birth child is not a person. They refer to the child as a fetus or fetal tissue. They refer to abortion as “terminating a pregnancy. ” By these terms, abortionists try to reinforce their view that pre-birth infants are not humans.

Some anti-abortionists have argued that life begins at the moment of conception. This has been defended on the biblical grounds that the Greek word brephos is used to describe the child both before and after birth (cf. Lk. 1:41). Passages such as Jeremiah 1:5 and Psalm 139:13-15 also are cited to prove that human life begins at conception.

We may never know for sure when life begins. Norman E. Geisler emphasized how important knowing for certain when life begins is from the abortionists’ point of view. He said, “If no one knows when life begins, it might begin at conception. And if it does begin at that point then abortion is murder” (“The Bible, Abortion, and Common Sense,” Fundamentalists Journal [May 1985], p. 25). Until the abortionists know conclusively that life begins at birth, he should have enough reverence for human life not to act upon his uncertainties!

Conclusion

Abortion is a sin which separates a person from the fellowship of God. Those who receive and perform abortions are guilty of violating the Lord’s revealed will.

(Conclusion in the next issue).

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 2, pp. 48-51
January 18, 1990