Abortion

SP03-01

Abortion is the killing of unborn children and it is morally defended on the ground that the unborn are not full persons. It is very important that you should understand that right up front. The killing is justified on the basis that the unborn are not full persons. The developing child therefore is described as a mere mass of protoplasm in a pre-human state. This ignores the fact that the developing child quickly assumes human form and that it can never become anything but a human being made in the image of God.

Medical Observations

Here are some medical observations that demonstrate that point: At conception the sperm and the egg unite into a zygote. God completes the twenty three pairs of chromosomes from each parent and establishes all the genes, the DNA and the RNA, or the genetic features at that at this time. Thus from conception He determines the sex, the size, the shape, the color of skin, hair, and eyes, and intelligence and temperament of the child. Secondly, at the end of the first week after conception the zygote implants in the uterus. No more twining takes place. Third during the second week the first blood veins develop. The unborn child has its own blood system not mingled with his mother's.

Four: By the third week the unborn’s heart is beating. Five: In the fourth week the unborn’s heart can be detected on an electrocardiogram. Six: In the eight week his brainwaves can be detected on an electroencephalogram. Seven: Also in the eighth week all his organs are present. Eight: By the end of the eighth week the unborn’s hair and eyebrows are present. Nine: In the ninth week his eyes have developed but they remain close. Ten: From there on it is just a matter of growth. At no point does the unborn child change into a person. He experiences uninterrupted growth from the beginning. Eleven: The unborn child can react to pain, show personality traits, exhibit individual variations, and try to make sounds as early as the third month.

Science

So, it has been the custom to appeal the science of support one’s position on abortion. One writer says, “Surely we can invoke the holy name of science to arrive at a reasonable public policy on abortion. And as it happens, science these days probably smiles on the anti-abortionists as Bernard Nathanson the abortion doctor turned pro-life gallantly argues whenever he can find an audience. The quaint notion that a fetus constitutes some sort of non-human matter or the 1973 Supreme Court announcement that a woman can be a little bit pregnant, these clearly amount to bogus science on the order of spontaneous generation and alchemy.”

Humanity vs. Personhood

So, it's very clear that early on what has been the product of conception is on its way to being human and quickly demonstrates that that is exactly what it is. The evil Supreme Court, and it was an evil Supreme Court—one man jumped on me one time when I said that and he said, “Oh they weren't evil.” I say, “Yes they were.” The evil Supreme Court which legislated abortion on demand did so for sociological reasons. They did not do so on the basis of biblical reasons or on theological reasons. That was not consulted. They did not deny that the developing fetus was a human being. Please remember that. They didn't say it wasn't human, so any arguments along that line did not faze them at all. There are certain feminist type women, whom a certain popular radio host whom I’ll not name calls “FemiNazis” because their desire, their main thrust, and that's not all feminists—just this group that is bound and determined to promote abortions with a vengeance. They are indeed appropriately called “FemiNazis.” These women wanted legal authority to kill their unwanted unborn children.

So, this liberal Supreme Court took the position that the unborn is not yet a person. They didn't deny that he was human but he was not a person. Therefore, he had no Fourteenth Amendment Constitutional protections of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and consequently they found that that gave a woman privacy to do what she wanted with that unborn child. It did not deny its humanness—only its person.

President Clinton says that he has read all the scriptures that are presented to prove that abortion is against the moral law of God but he does not agree that they do so teach. Now that's a very important observation. Here's the moral leader of the nation, supposedly, and he says that the Bible does not condemn abortion on demand. The reason for it, he says, is that the word abortion is not found in the Bible. Now the Bible does not use the word “trinity” either to describe the Godhead, but it definitely teaches the doctrine of the Trinity, so that's nonsense. President Clinton as a liberal supports the slaughter of the unborn as a woman's right to her body.

The Medical Procedure

The medical procedure for an abortion is an act of brutal mutilation, pain, and death. Pictures of an aborted child are revolting to observe—an act of butchery. I have pictures, poster sized, that one time I did put in the foyer under the glass case. A couple ladies saw them and they were so horrified. They said, “Oh please don't leave them up for Sunday.” So, I accommodated and pulled him down. But like the Chinese say that one picture is worth a thousand words, boy were those pictures worth a thousand words. You get a different true focus on what abortion is all about because you now look at the product the end result. It is an act of brutal humiliation, pain, and death. The child may be vacuumed out of the womb. At a later time it is simply poison with a saline solution in the womb and then removed. Or if it's a larger baby at a later stage of development, then the doctor must resort to instruments which crush the baby's skull, break its legs, break its arms, tears it apart, and then it is extracted piece-by-piece from the mother's womb, with a nurse standing by very carefully counting the parts, putting them together to be sure that everything has been extracted. This is not a dignified procedure. There is nothing pleasant about it. It is an ugly thing and it is something that only pagan societies do today. It was not done, however, in the worst of the pagan societies in the ancient world.

Now some twenty years later since the Supreme Court legalized abortion, thirty million innocent infant Americans have been slaughtered, with a loss to us of their population, their skills, their abilities, their great things that they would have contributed to our societies. They have been slaughtered by their mothers, and that with society's blessings. The horror and the evil of abortion aided and protected by the government has indeed driven some to strike back with extreme measures which themselves indeed are wrong and they're illegal. So, abortionists have been killed and that is not justified, and the abortion movement never justifies that.

Humanity and Human Rights

Let me read an article to you that perhaps can help put this in perspective. It is by Linda Bowles, a syndicated writer, and it's entitled “Liberals Fail to See That Abortion is a Problem.” January 11^th: “Many liberals have a peculiar way of looking at things, mostly with a view to the exoneration of themselves from the consequences of their own behavior. The latest example of this projection of blame to others is people's reaction to the murder of two Massachusetts abortion clinic workers. A hundred different media voices tell us that John Salvi was incited to murder by the inflammatory rhetoric and violent activities of the pro-life game. Apparently it never occurs to the pro-abortion crowd or their media allies that abortion itself is the problem and not the revulsion of compassionate and caring people to it.

“The underlining and arrogant assumption of such liberal thinking is that there is no objective moral reality. Evil has no existence except in the eye of the beholder. The laws of God and nature are subject to repeal by popular opinion, judicial edict, or even wishful thinking. To the extent that John Salvi’s behavior was caused by forces external to himself, a case may be made that the mental image of healthy living babies being poisoned and shredded in the womb was more than enough to shatter his rationality. A case can be made that it is not the rhetoric of those outside these clinics, but the activities of those inside them that must bear the burden of guilt for the creation of the unhinged John Salvis of the world. This is not to justify what he is accused of doing. This is to offer a more reasoned explanation of why he did it, as a counter to the foolish and self-serving explanations that fill the airways and the printed pages across America.

“Over one million abortions each year by any standard of a civilized people is a national crisis. And the crisis is not defined by problems of access to abortion clinics but by the fact of wholesale abortions and the pagan celebration of them by large segments of our society. Rather than focus on the elimination of what is going on outside abortion clinics as a means of reducing violence, perhaps we should develop a national strategy for dealing with a licensed horror going on inside those clinics.

“There are two essential questions in the abortion debate. When does human life begin, and once that is established, what rights does a human life? I would like to offer the thinking of two extraordinary men on this subject. They stand separated by more than twenty four centuries of time, but they stand together on the timeless platform of conscience.

Hippocrates

“The first man was Hippocrates who was acknowledged and honored as the father of medicine. The Hippocratic Oath was named for him. The oath sets forth the physicians commitment to mankind and details the relationships between the doctor and his or her patients. One paragraph of the original oath applies directly to this discourse” ‘I will follow that method of treatment which according to my ability and judgment I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked nor suggest any such counsel. Furthermore I will not give to a woman an instrument to produce abortion.’ That is what doctors take as the Hippocratic Oath when they enter the practice of medicine.

Professor Jerome Lejeune

“The second man is a world renowned geneticist Professor Jerome Lejeune of Paris. France. Dr. Lejeune’s honors and awards fully listed would fill the rest of this column. He is a professor of Fundamental Genetics in the Faculty of Medicine of Paris and was awarded the Kennedy prize for the discovery of the first disease due to a chromosomal mistake, Down syndrome. On August 10^th, 1989, Lejeune testified before a Tennessee circuit court in the case of Brown vs. Brown. The case revolved around a custody dispute over several frozen human embryos. With respect to the question as to when human life begins, Lejeune testified there was no longer any doubt that the life codes for each special unique individual are resident at conception and animate the new person very soon after fertilization occurs. What common sense has always said and what science now confirms is this: Human life begins with conception. Lejeune’s position is that you may argue about what rights this human life may have, but the argument is over about when life begins and what it is.

“He answered a question about the legal rights of an embryo as compared with an older being. He said that at any age both are members of the human species, and this status is not a function of the amount of kilograms. In their efforts to justify themselves, the pro-abortion forces in America has succeeded not only in the corruption of the Constitution of the United States but in the corruption of the Hippocratic Oath.

The most innocent and defenseless among us have been betrayed by those institutions whose primary mission is their protection—the government, the system of justice, the medical community, and alas much of the Protestant church. Those who should lead the fight against this conspiracy of death have become parties to it by their silence and their cowardice.”

So, there is a great deal of hypocrisy out in the pro-abortion forces which are misrepresenting the fact that there are some extremists driven beyond what they can control over this terrible brutal thing, and the liberal press is running around saying that we have to stop the killings outside of abortion clinics. What in the world is going on inside those clinics except that very thing? But there is one thing that you can always count on of a liberal mind: It is out of touch with reality.

The Bible on Abortion

So, the ultimate question is whether by the Word of God in Scripture abortion is an act of the murder of an innocent child. Is a developing unborn child a human being whose life is thus sacred to God? Does a woman's right to the treatment of her own body extend to her treatment of her child's body? So, first of all, where does life begin? Genesis 2:7 says, “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breaths of life and man became a living being.” Originally, this verse tells us, that God formed man's physical body from the ground like a potter shaping a vessel from clay. This produced a lifeless shell without capacity for anything. There are several names in the Bible for this shell. 2 Corinthians 5:1, 4 refer to it as a tent. 2 Corinthians 5:6 refers to this shell as a home. 1 Thessalonians 4:4 refer to the human body as a vessel. Then this first tells us that God Himself breathes into this earth body that he has formed, into this shell, and he breathed into it the breath of lives. And notice that the Hebrew is plural. It is unfortunately not always so translated. There should be an “s” at the end of “the breath of life.” It is the breath of lives that were breathed into him because there were two kinds of lives that were breathed into man. First of all there was soul life that was breathed into man which constitutes his mentality, his emotions, and his will for relating to people. There was also breathed into man a spirit life which gave him a human spirit and capacity for fellowship with God.

The earth shell then at that moment became a living being, and it had full capacity for fellowship with God. Now since the sin of Adam in Eden, all are born spiritually dead, and they must be made alive spiritually to God by the inbreathing of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation when faith is placed in Christ as Savior. So, again, for our spiritual contact with God, as for Adam’s, there had to be an inbreathing of God. For us there has to be an inbreathing of the Holy Spirit for us to come alive spiritually.

Does God create a new life then with each baby? The answer is, “Yes.” A few Scriptures: First of all, Job 33:4 says, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” Job said, “I came into life. I came into being a living being as a result of an act of God which gave me that life.” Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was and the Spirit will return to the God who gave it.” When did God give that spirit? At the point when this child was born. At the point when this child was conceived he was given that spirit. Isaiah 42:5 says, “Thus says God the Lord who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it. Zechariah 12:1 says, “The burden of the Word of the Lord concerning Israel: Thus declares the LORD who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundations of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him. One more in the New Testament, Hebrews 12:9 says, “Furthermore we had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live?”

What these verses all say is one thing: that God creates human life. But it does not say when in the birth process he does that. It may be at conception. It may be at viability when the child can prematurely live outside of the mother's body. Or it may be at birth when he takes his first breath. Adam's creation of course was different and cannot apply here because his situation was a creation as a mature person, and it differs from the situation of his posterity. What happens when the baby takes his first breath is merely the manifestation of the soul and spirit life that he already possesses in the womb as a human being. As we will see, the evidences for that soul life being there have been demonstrated in a variety of ways, and we will look at some of those. But the whole point is that at whatever point God puts in that spirit and soul life, He does it with that child that has been conceived and is in the form of being developed. And when that baby takes that first breath and becomes a full operational human being outside of the mother's body, that's soul and spirit life that he possesses is simply a manifestation of what he already had inside the womb. He was never anything but a bonafide human being. Life for Adams began when God breathed into him, but life for his posterity then begins at conception in the womb before there's any physical development, before there's any birth.

Now the next question is, once we’ve established that we're dealing with a human being in the womb, a person who has not yet been born, what kind of legal rights does that unborn child have? Now we're zeroing in on the real issue here. One of the places we can get some guidance is how God treated the unborn in the theocracy of Judaism in the Old Testament system. What were the legal rights of the unborn?

Exodus 21:22

Move over to Exodus 21:22. Here is a series of guidelines for social relationships. We have here the key passage that establishes whether an unborn child is a human being, and if you take its life, it’s an act of murder. Whatever President Clinton has read about what the Bible teaches on abortion, he must not have read this passage or he was incompetently instructed in it. Exodus 21:22 says, “And if men struggle with each other…” Two men get into a fracas and they get into a fight with one another. “… and strike a woman with child…” This is probably the wife of one of the men who gets into the battle, trying to help her husband. She is pregnant, and incidentally this Hebrew word “child” is the same word which is applied to an unborn child or a born child. The Hebrew has no word such as “fetus” or any word that would distinguish between the child in the womb and the child who is outside of the womb. In the process, one of the men, probably the one that's attacking her husband, loses his temper toward her, and he reaches over and belts her. “… and he strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage…” The result is that she has a miscarriage. “… yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide.” The key word there, of course, is “miscarriage.” We have to know what that word means.

The word “miscarriage” in the Hebrew bible looks like this: It’s the word “yatsa.” This word means “to come out,” and it is the word for miscarriage that is applied only to live birth. That's the key. This word is never applied to a miscarriage where the child is stillborn. It never applies to a baby that is born dead. It is applied to a premature live birth. So, the translation here would be much better if they said “premature,” which some versions of the Bible do. It should have said that this man hits this woman and the result is that she has a premature delivery, but the child here is born alive. There is no question about it. “Yatsa” clarifies that for us.

There are other places in the Old Testament where this Hebrew is used that give us a little more insight. Genesis 25:26 in the birth of Jacob and Esau: “Now the first came forth red all over like a hairy garment and they named him Esau, and afterwards his brother came forth (“yatsa,” or to be born) with his hand holding onto Esau's feet so his name was called Jacob, and Isaac was 60 years old when she gave birth to them. Obviously this word “yatsa” here is referring to a live birth. Both of these boys were born, and they were born alive.

Genesis 38:28-30 has this word used again: “Moreover it took place while she was giving birth (“yatsa”). One put out the hand and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand saying, ‘This one came out first.’ But it came about as he drew back his hand that behold his brother came out (“yatsa,” or “came out”). Then she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself.” So, he was named Perez. And afterward his brother came out who had the scarlet thread on his hand and his name was Zerah. There you have again two children born, both of them born live, and this Hebrew word is used which can only be used for live birth.

Let’s move over to Job 3:11: “Why did I not die at birth? Come forth (“yatsa”) from the womb and expire? Job is berating his condition which is that he had died when he came out of the womb. How did he come out? Dead? No, he came out alive because this word in itself tells us that that was his condition. Then Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you, God says, in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I concentrated you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nation (speaking of Jeremiah) before you were born (‘yatsa’).” So, again we have this demonstration of these are these are live births. Now coming back with that information to Exodus 21:22, that gives us an absolute clue as to what verse 22 is saying. These men struggle with each other. One of them strikes a woman with child so that she has a “yatsa.” What she has is a premature delivery, and yet there is no further injury. That refers to both of them—no further injuries to the mother or to the child. She’s alright and the baby is viable and able to live outside of the womb.

Now we have this further reinforced by the fact that there are Hebrew words (and here is where the language helps us again) which mean being born dead, stillbirth, so that there is an exact word that could have been used if this woman had a miscarriage and had a dead baby. That's what it means “no further injury.” The child was born prematurely. He was not born dead. One of those Hebrew words is “shakol,” and this word used in several places. Let's look at a couple so that you will get some idea of the difference. Genesis 31:38 says, “These twenty years I've been with you, Jacob says to his father-in-law, your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried nor have I eaten the rams of your flocks.” When he says that they haven’t miscarried, what he is saying is that they have not been born dead. Exodus 23:26 says, “There shall be no miscarrying or barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days.” Here is the promise to Israel in the land. There shall be no one miscarrying, and because it uses the word “shakol” there, we know that what this is saying is that there's no one who is going to be giving birth to dead babies. There will be no stillborn condition.

This is also found in the Job 21:10. Job who is distressed over his obvious terrible trial that he is undergoing. Job 21:10 says, “His ox mates without fail. His cows calve and does not abort.” Here the animals are not born dead. Then one more in Hosea 9:14: “Give them Oh Lord. What wilt thou give them? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.” Here judgment is being called upon Israel's enemies. And what did they say? Give them a condition where the children are born dead (“shakol” children), and therefore the breasts are dry because there's no one to feed.

There's another word as well, as if that one wasn't enough. There is another one that the Holy Spirit could have used. If this woman's child would have been born dead as a result of the fight. It's the Hebrew word “nephal.” This word also carries the same condition, the same idea, of being born dead. You'll find this in Job 3:16 and in Psalm 50:8.

So, what happened to this woman in the fight here in Exodus 21:22 is that she had a premature delivery? She delivered a preemie. It was not that the child was killed in the process. Then it says if there's no other injury, the guilty man is going to have to pay an appropriate fine to the husband as determined by him and the judges. The reason for this is that the woman has suffered mental and emotional stress and therefore she is to be recompense for that by the fine.

Now let's go down to verse 23. Supposing the worst thing happened. The baby is killed as a result of the result of this deliberate striking of the woman. But if there is injury (and the words “any further” you see are in italics—that’s not in the Hebrew, forget them because it confuses the picture here. And if there is injury. What kind of injury? The next phrase gives us a clue. “Then you shall appoint (and forget “as a penalty” again—those are in italics), you shall appoint life for life.” So, the further injury is very clearly the death of the unborn child. And if it says there will be life or life, it is telling us that this man who deliberately struck this woman, caused her to have a premature delivery, and delivered a dead baby, he has been responsible for bringing about an abortion of death, and he will pay for it with his life. Does the Bible teach against abortion? You bet it does. It was a capital crime in Israel and the language here in the Hebrew makes it very clear what we're dealing with here.

The injury here is furthermore a word that refers to something physical. It can be a bruise or can be death. The injury contemplated here again applies either to the mother or to the unborn child. And here the offender is to be penalized as per the injury he caused—life for or life. That refers to capital punishment for the death of either the mother or the child by his deliberate attack.

Now what was brought about by someone as an unintentional death was not to be punished with execution. Under those conditions a person was to flee to one of the cities of refuge. Deuteronomy 19:4-13 describe that. So, if it was inadvertent unintentional taking of a life, that's manslaughter, and therefore it was not dealt with as a capital crime. But here this man deliberately did it. And verse 24 then goes on to say, “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” What is the purpose of all that? It’s telling us that the punishment must fit the crime—punishment commensurate with the crime, and the worst punishment is taking this life for murder. If he does something less, then he is dealt with accordingly in terms of what he actually did.

So, Exodus 21:24 indicates punishment for a deliberate attack. So, Scripture, guiding the Old Testament theocracy to establish the righteousness of God, gave full legal protect to the unborn child. That was the question we proposed? Does that child have legal protection? Our wise Supreme Court said, “No the child does not. He is not a person until he takes his first breath.

So, a premeditated abortion under the theocracy of God was clearly murder of a human being. The penalty for premeditated abortion is a death of the responsible parties. Today it would be the mother and the doctors and the (abortion clinics). There is no permission given for abortion in the Bible whatsoever, and there is clearly a condemnation of it. The U.S. Supreme Court, with its decision in favor of abortion, has drenched our land with the blood of millions of innocent children who have been murdered by abortion (and that's the word), and judgment is coming upon this nation for that.

Regarding the Old Testament law, some might argue and do: So why didn't the Old Testament give a specific prohibition against abortion? It gives many prohibitions. Why didn’t it, when it said, “Thou shalt not murder, include some explanation some caution concerning that. Well there are several good reasons. First of all, childlessness was viewed as a curse among the Jews. So, it would be unthinkable to bring a curse upon yourself by killing your own child. You'll find that in Deuteronomy 25:6, Ruth 4:5, and Jeremiah 1:19. It was a curse to be childless, so people wouldn't bring that upon themselves.

Secondly, children were viewed as a gift from God, which one would be spurning a gift from God by abortion (Genesis 33:5, Psalm 113:9, 127:3). Furthermore, the Bible teaches that God grants conception, and the one who fears God does not terminate a work of God such as a pregnancy, and all pregnancies are the work of God (Genesis 29:33, 30:22, 1 Samuel 1:19-20). Also abortion was not practiced in Old Testament times. So, there really wasn't any need for a prohibition against it. Even the ancient pagan civilizations recoiled from the concept of abortion. They didn't recoil from burning their born children alive in offerings to Baal, but they recoiled from the idea of aborting an unborn child. The Old Testament is silent on abortion per se, but that does not justify the practice we’ve seen from the sex in this passage.

Psalm 139

We have, furthermore, is one more point, and that's in Psalm 139. Psalm 139 stresses the work of God in the womb. Psalm 139:1-16 deal with the life of King David and the stages of his life. The first stage is in verse 1, and I want you to notice the personal pronoun “me.” “The Lord oh Lord has searched me and known me.” The second stage of his life is verses 2-6 where he repeatedly uses the word “I” as he reviews his present condition with God. His past stage of life is in verses 7-12 where again he repeatedly uses the word “I” in reference to himself in dealing with God. Then when we come to verses 13-16, he goes back into the fetal stage of his life. He goes back into his life in the womb. We're going to zero in on that. Verse 13 says, “For thou didst form my inward parts.” David is reviewing his condition from the womb to adulthood, and he uses these personal pronouns to show that he is the same person inside the womb as outside, and there was a continuity. Verse 13 says, “For thou didst form my inward parts. Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb.” These words “form” and “weave” describe the work of God in this pregnancy. The formation of a living person in the womb is a creative work of God.

Job 10:8 speaks about being fashioned by God hand. Ecclesiastes 11:5 refers to the creative work of God in developing a child in the womb. So, there is a clear declaration here that what is formed in the world as the result of conception is not a mere chemical biological activity, but it is the creative work of God. It is not some automatic system that has no mind and direction behind it. Then in verse 14 he says, “I will give thanks to thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are thy works, and all my soul knows it very well.” “Wonderfully made” is a praise to God for His infinite ability. Psalm 8:3-5 indicate that man is the crown jewel of all the creative work of God. And David thanks God for the fact that he has been wonderfully made. Anybody who knows anything about the functioning of the human body, the fact the capacity the human body has for taking care of itself, when its immune system is functioning, and to repair itself, is amazing. Only such nonsense of evolution would suggest that that could have come without a thoughtful guidance by the power of God.

Then notice verse 15, “My frame was not hidden from thee…” The frame refers to the skeletal structure of the little body in the world. “… when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.” “Skillfully wrought” indicates that the work that God is doing is a work of embroidery. The child is God's handcraft, and “the depths of the earth” is a poetic reference to the fact that he was hidden in his mother's womb. This is a Hebrew expression for “deepest concealment.” What God does in the womb was not known until modern times with the onset and the availability of radiology to be able to look inside the womb and see what was going on. But David knew and he said that God was skillfully putting together all the pieces, embroidering, as it were. God knows always because he fashions one child at a time. Abortions then is also the gross of interrupting a creative work of God which is in progress by sinful human beings for social convenience.

Finally verse 13 says, “Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance. This refers to David when he was an embryo, beginning his life, beginning as a new person. Before the embryo takes human shape, God is already at work on it actively putting it together and structuring it. “And in thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” “Furthermore, David said, “I have a mission.” Every conception is a human being with a divine mission. “And God has recorded my mission, and He has recorded my appropriate life span to execute that mission. Please remember that. If you are still here, it’s because you haven't completed your mission. When your particular mission is completed as per the plan of God, you will die. Nothing will prevent that. Nothing will be able to circumvent that. All of that is in the Book of God and it was decided when that sperm and egg cell came together and conception was begun. God's work and God's decisions were at that point.

So, the fetus is not a mere growth in the mother's womb which can be removed like a bad appendix or infected tonsils. The fetus is not a potential human being. It is a human being which is maturing to adulthood. At no point after conception does a fetus become a human beings. Got it? The Bible is clear that it is a human being in the image of God, and that's why the deliberate killing of that child in the fight with the woman and her husband with this man was an act of murder on the part of that man, because he killed a bonafide human being. If he would have killed a bonafide human being he would have paid with his life for it.

A Summary of Life in the Womb

So, let's summarize life in the womb. God plans the existence of the unborn from eternity past (Jeremiah 1:5). God has a mission for the unborn (Isaiah 49:5). All of these are very important verses that we can’t take the time to review right now. Sometimes, however, we must point out, it is not God's purpose for the pre-born to survive. They are born dead—stillborn (Job 3:16, Jeremiah 20:17). It is the will of God for some children not to see the light of day. God gives conception to some and he prevents conception in others (Genesis 29:31). David said, “All of my sons come from God” (1 Chronicles 28:5). Sarah’s dead womb was activated by God (Romans 4:19, Hebrews 11:11).

So, God is the author of all life. Barrenness in some is the wisdom of God. While it may be distressing or unpleasant, God has a different plan. Perhaps for such a person the plan would be the adoption of children and the care of someone in that way. But the point is that it is always an act of God. I don't care what the condition is. It is a sovereign act of God or no conception takes place. God fashions, we have seen, every child in the womb (Job 10:8-11). Is this true of the four babies. Yes. God fashions in the womb even the deformed babies (John 9:1-3, Exodus 4:11).

What about Physical Abnormalities?

It is wrong to advocate abortion because there is some imagined real or potential physiological abnormality. I've had people call me. I had one occasion where a lady called and said, “The doctor just told me that my baby, well on the way in development, does not have a head, and they are suggesting an abortion. Now that's a tough call to make it and a tough situation for me to find myself in. What should I advise this person? I cannot humanly give any advice on this. It has to be that even a deformity is an act of God, and what God done must run its course. He gives life and only He can take life. Euthanasia is wrong. You can't kill yourself. It is violating the rule and the power of God to make that decision. Regarding where this trial would go, even children who are born that we know have a genetic problem, they're going to die. It is not our place to bring about that death. In the case of this particular lady, our information was that you must go very carefully and slowly with that kind of an idea, to accept the idea of an abortion, that is a very dangerous concept and it is condemned by the Word of God. You must now ride this through wherever it leads. This is what she did. Shortly thereafter she called and said that another doctor looked at the pictures, and he was horrified by what the other doctor had said. He said, “What do you mean this baby doesn't have a head? You're looking at it wrong. Look at the position. And when that baby was born, what a bouncing boy he was. He’s a splendid kid. And here the advice was to destroy this child. Do you realize what would have happened? Do you realize what this mother would have felt like, although I don't think they would have told her that we found he had a beautiful head or anything. This is one of the things that doctors always can do—they can always cover up their mistakes, with the morticians. But this was a horrible piece of advice, and the medical profession should not have entered into that moral issue. From the Bible’s point of view she did the right thing and discovered that got hit on her.

These personal pronouns that we have seen uses in reference to the unborn indicate personhood (Job 3:3-16). The same words are used in the Bible for those who are born and those who are unborn (Luke 1:44, 2:12, 16). The unborn child has the qualities of personhood. The unborn child struggles (Genesis 25:22). The unborn child has emotion, in Luke 1:41, 44 when Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, came into the presence of Mary who was bearing Jesus, and in the womb of Elizabeth John the Baptist leaped with joy. Some preacher said that was a muscular twitch. The Bible makes it very clear that Elizabeth said, “The child leaped in me with joy as he came into the presence of our Lord whom you are bearing.” This this was not of muscular twitch, so what happened? John the Baptist was showing emotion. What must a creature have to show emotion? He has to have a soul. Emotion is part of the soul. The mind, the emotions, and the will are what constitute personality. That’s what constitutes the soul.

Furthermore, Luke 1:15 speaks about this child being filled with the spirit from conception, before he was born. Lifeless cells cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit. David observes in Psalm 51:5 that he has the old sin nature. There is no old sin nature in protoplasm cells that have no meaning and no purpose.

So, will a woman be better off mentally, socially, and financially if she has an abortion and not the child? That is often the sociological reason given today. Feminists and liberals say, “Yes,” but one would have to have omniscience in order to say that that would be better. The woman would never know that her situation was going to be worse. In fact it may be much better when the child is born. I can assure you that those who have had an abortion find very serious problems subsequently—some physical, some emotional, some mental, and some spiritual There are no omniscient women to assume the right to abort a life. Freedom of choice does not mean freedom to do moral evil. Freedom of choice does not give us the right to steal, the right to adultery, the right to lying, the right to murder, or the right to idolatry. So freedom of choice and privacy does not include the right to do what God condemns as a moral evil. I hope you have seen now from the Scriptures we’ve shown you that abortion, killing of pre-born baby is murder.

There are various short and long range consequences when women abort their child, and they’re all bad. Premeditated abortion is murder on the part of all who are involved. Christians do have the privilege to help unwed mothers to care, and sometimes through adoption, for those who find themselves in that situation.

Where do the aborted children go? All children who have aborted will be in heaven, while many of their mothers and their associated doctors will be in the lake of fire. Do not be deceived by the euphemisms that liberals use to describe this brutal godless act, to make it seem benign. The Nazis, when they were determined to exterminate all the Jews under their conquered territories, used to refer to the Jewish problem, which meant we’ve got Jews and we've got to get rid of them so that they're no longer living, and then they referred to the “final solution.” And everybody in the government and in the Nazi hierarchy knew was meant when they said the “final solution.” The “final solution” meant Auschwitz and the other death camps in the crematoriums. The Nazis tried to hide what they were doing by using nice words.

So, clinical language is used to disguise the heinous and the morally reprehensible act of abortion. A baby is called a fetus, not a child. It is aborting, not murder. It is terminating a pregnancy. It is extracting the product of conception.

We have to be courageous as Christians to stand against this thing even if the president of the United States tells us that it's alright to do. I leave you with Proverbs 24:11-12: “Deliver those who are being taken away to death…” These are people who are innocently being taken to their deaths. “… and those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back. If you say, ‘See, we did not know this,’ (pretending that you did not know what was going on) “Does he not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does he not know it who keeps your soul? And will he not render to man according to his work?”

Yes, people should not take the law into their own hands, but neither should the government to tell Christians who want to stand outside of an abortion clinic and try to appeal to women to change their mind, to tell them that that's illegal, and to bring them into court, and to punish them for that kind of action which is a biblical action, and put them under the RICO Act a law, which was used to stop gangsters and criminals, and to say that these people who are protesting abortions are interfering with our income and our livelihood, and therefore they are acting as gangsters taking money which belongs to us. We Christians are clearly told we must act according to what you know, and whatever you have known and thought about abortion before, the two main passages of scripture in Exodus 21 and Psalm 139 that we have dealt here cannot leave you with any further doubt.

Father we want to thank thee for the Word of God, its clarity, and its purpose to enlighten us. Bless us we pray in our confidence and our determination to know that we Christians are indeed the extreme right—we're extremely right, because the Word of God is perfect.

Dr. John E. Danish