The U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling September 1 to uphold Texas’ fetal heartbeat law is projected to save the lives of 45,000 preborn babies every year. The Texas law bans abortion of an unborn child once a heartbeat is detected, which usually occurs at about 6 weeks of gestation, effectively prohibiting 85% of abortions in the Lone Star State.
This extraordinary life-saving legislation has evoked utter contempt from pro-abortion advocates, including the Biden administration, Democrat leaders of the House of Representatives and Planned Parenthood, all of whom are launching a no-holds-barred campaign against such righteous efforts to protect the most vulnerable human beings in society.
CULTURE OF DEATH
Never mind, abortion rights proponents say, that snuffing the life out of preborn babies is the number one cause of death in the U.S., ahead of heart disease and cancer. At a rate of 2,362 abortions per day in the U.S., more than 862,000 babies are murdered in the womb each year in America. Annual deaths due to heart disease number 659,041, followed by cancer at 599,601.
IAshamedly, the U.S. is one of only 10 nations that allow abortion after 14 weeks of gestation; and is one of only four countries to allow abortion for any reason after viability, joining Canada, North Korea and China in that inhumane distinction.
So, how did America arrive at a place that couldn’t be more antithetical to her founding? Possibly the gravest deception our society has bought from Satan, the father of lies, is that our personal rights, freedoms and liberties as Americans supersede God’s Divine ownership and authority over our lives.
DECLARATION OF IN-DEPENDENCE ON GOD
Thomas Jefferson wrote in our cherished Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Jefferson could not have been more correct or intentional to have employed such precise verbiage and organized it exactly as to communicate the heart of democracy and sanctity of human life through America’s founding document.
First, Americans, and for that matter all human beings, are given their rights by their Creator. These rights aren’t awarded to the highest bidder. They cannot be earned and are not merit-based. As an endowment from our Creator, these rights are, by definition, an inheritance from Almighty God.
Second, Jefferson describes these rights as inherently undeniable by calling them “unalienable rights.” According to Dictionary.com, unalienable means “not transferable to another or not capable of being taken away or denied.”
Third, these rights are listed chronologically as “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” In Jefferson’s systematic sequence, one right is a prerequisite for the next. In other words, to realize liberty you must first have life, and to realize your pursuit of happiness, you might first enjoy liberty. Such linear thinking should lead us to the logical conclusion that all of our rights originate from one’s right to life.
So, if our country was founded on this virtue, then why on Earth does the United States of America rank seventh in abortion rates out of 193 member provinces of the United Nations? According to the United Nations’ 2020 World Abortion Policies reports, 20.8 abortions occur annually in the United States for every 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. And numberofabortions.com reports there have been more than 63 million abortion deaths since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973.
GOD-GIVEN RIGHT TO LIFE
Intellectual honesty demands we acknowledge that America’s “reproductive rights” movement is incompatible with our Declaration of Independence. As an “unalienable right,” the right to life should be protected and ensured at every stage of human existence. Yet, abortion denies human beings in the womb their right to life.
And just think, a pro-life argument founded on the Declaration of Independence alone pales in comparison to the Biblical ethic for life. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah, boldly describes the utter foolishness, pride and arrogance of human beings to think and act as though they are God who creates and sustains life. Isaiah 29:15-16:
Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?” 16You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”? Clearly, Isaiah is making the point that God is the potter and human beings are the clay—subject to His hands.
In Psalm 139, Scripture describes how God fashions us in our mother’s womb. When King David declares further in the Psalms that human beings are fearfully and wonderfully made, he is ascribing reverential awe for God’s image bearers.
Created with an eternal soul, human beings are distinguished as the masterpieces of God’s handiwork. As the potter, God is the initiator and giver of every good and perfect gift in our lives, according to James 1:17. In addition to being our Creator, He is also our Master and Judge. This is why the prophet declares in Isaiah 64:7-9:
“There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities. 8But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9Be not so terribly angry, O Lord, and remember not iniquity forever. Behold, please look, we are all your people.”
Just like Isaiah’s pleas for mercy from a righteous and Holy God, America would do well to cry out to God for grace and mercy in repentance for the sins of our nation. The blood and carnage inflicted upon America by an abortion industry intent on playing God and preying on the most vulnerable of His creation is an evil blight on society that can only be removed by the innocent, sinless blood of Jesus Christ. Thankfully, God stands ready and willing to forgive abortion providers, those who have had abortions as well as those who have remained indifferent to the sanctity of human life.
And while pro-life organizations and Republican-led states around the country ardently strive to make abortion not just illegal but unthinkable, may God’s promise in 2 Peter 3:9 come to pass: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
