That's right. I don't care. And if you're wondering to whom I'm speaking, that would be pregnant women who don't want their children. For years, our people have been slaughtering millions of innocent, defenseless children all in the name of women's rights. But here's the thing: I don't care about the "right" to choose any more than I care about the right of a murderer to do what he wants with his annoying neighbor.
What sparked this outburst? Initiative 26. Mississippi residents will soon be voting on this amendment to their state constitution that would define a person as any human being starting at conception. Specifically, the amendment reads:
SECTION 33. Person defined. As used in this Article III of the state constitution, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.If you know much of anything about the Bible, you should know that all human beings, from the womb forward, are sacred creatures made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27, Job 10:8-12, 31:15, Ps. 119:73, 139:13-16, Lk. 1:39-44). There is no question that God is pro-life, and that He says the value of human life starts at conception. Indeed, I highly doubt the possibility of the same person supporting abortion and being a real Christian. God established very quickly that killing an innocent person is a terrible crime. He ordered capital punishment for it before even the time of Jacob, as Genesis 9:6 says, "If anyone takes a human life, that person's life will also be taken by human hands. For God made human beings in his own image." (NLT). If we took God's view of abortion seriously, then millions of women would currently be on death row.
The problem we have now is that people refuse to equate abortion with murder. Even when they do it intellectually, they often don't still regard it the same in their general attitude towards it. Let me be clear: a woman who aborts her unborn child is no different than a woman who drowns her toddler. If unborn children are just as human as those out of the womb, as the Bible states they are, then abortion equals murder in the most real and strict sense. It is infanticide.
Of course, for many people, the Bible's words on the subject are irrelevant. They want science to to prove that unborn children are just as much "persons" as we are. Unfortunately, that is impossible, at least in the form that meets their demands. No matter what one proves about unborn children, they will always make sure personhood is defined in a way that excludes them. See, some claim that unborn children just aren't human beings. That is easily refuted, as any scientist can tell you that all it takes to be a human being is to be an independent organism with human DNA. Unborn children are quite obviously organisms, and most definitely have human DNA, leaving only independence as a challenge point. Pro-choice advocates will quickly try to say that the unborn children are merely growths in the mother. This is also invalid. For one, they have entirely distinct DNA. While this is not proof of independence (people with chimerism have two sets of cells with different DNA making up their bodies), it is an important stage of evidence. Also note that an unborn child can survive and become a grown adult independently of its mother, as is demonstrated in some kinds of surrogate mothers. Some may compare it to an organ transplant, but one cannot disregard that transplanted organisms must overcome rejection (since the body knows it doesn't belong), while an implanted child is hosted freely because the body expects a distinct organism in pregnancy. Another argument is that the heartbeat defines the beginning of human life, but that should not be taken seriously if people are willing to expend medical resources to revive a man whose heart has stopped beating.
There is one final, quite disturbing argument about personhood: it doesn't come until brain function begins. This is, to be frank, utterly barbaric. There are millions of people on earth who have impaired brain function, severely hindered cognitive abilities, and similar situations. Should one try to define life by the traits that arise from brain function, then it sets a precedent for restricting the scope of proper brain function. You soon must suspend your line of reasoning halfway to prevent euthanization of the mentally disabled.
There are two issues that lie at the core of the abortion debate: sanctity of life v. quality of life, and human rights v. civil rights. These two are actually fundamentally linked, and they arise from two primary worldviews: Christianity and humanism. This cannot be missed. In a Christian world, human life is valuable because it is human, and humanity bears the image of God. The value of life isn't defined by anything but its presence. If God made you, your life matters. Period. This is why we don't abort babies who may be born with defects or disabilities. They may have hard lives, but at least they will still get to live as God's image-bearers. They have a chance to glorify God, and should they embrace that, they won't mind the quality of their lives. Thus, if all humans are valuable because they are human, then they have basic rights as well. They have the right to life because God has given them lives, the right to liberty because God provides free will and Christ liberates our minds, and the right to property because God has given us stewardship and dominion over all creation.
Humanism is inherently opposed to this view. In a humanist worldview, nothing can be sacred because everything arose from mindless, conscience-less natural forces in evolution. Many evolutionists object to this, but none have yet demonstrated a realistic countering explanation. Thus, human life is not inherently valuable. Human life derives its value from how people value it. If a collective group hates a person, they might as well kill him because he reduces the value of their lives. If someone hates his own life, he might as well kill himself because he has no value for himself. The human rights to life, liberty, and property are irrelevant because the value of life comes from promoting one's self, which allows people to violate these rights at will to please themselves. Instead, you have an explosion of new civil rights. If the value of life comes from the quality of life, then people naturally demand that others work to give them a higher quality of life, in the end wanting all people to live lives of equal value.
The two worldviews promote drastically different approaches to life. In Christianity, an unborn child is valuable because he is human, and has the right to life independently of his mother's or his own quality of life. In humanism, an unborn child's life is only valuable if he or someone else places value on it. Since he is too young to consider value, then his parents can decide if he is worth letting live based on how it would affect their own quality of life. Our problem is that our previously Christian nation has now almost whole-heatedly embraced humanism.
How, then, do I propose we stop the evil murders that occur millions of times a day on poor children? Some advocate violence, noting that most people consider it just to use violence to protect innocent life, but that cannot fix the problem itself, only aggravate it. When we get violent, the public won't take us seriously (or they'll take us as seriously disturbed). Some advocate politics, such as with Initiative 26. While I agree that this approach should be used, I am quite certain that it cannot fix the problem by itself. Legislation can decrease the number of infanticides, but it can't seriously remove the practice so long as humanism reigns. Ultimately, Jesus Christ is the answer, just as He always is. Humanism is the ideology that powers abortion, and it is the direct result of insufficient Christian influence in our culture. We need the Holy Spirit running our hospitals, our research panels, our courts, our legislators, and above all our families in order to stamp out the horrors our culture takes so for granted. We need to get our act together as the Church, lead people to abandon their lives to Christ, and win our nation back to the God who created it. If we don't, well, abortion won't be the worst of our problems.