The Supreme Court is made up of some of the finest minds in America. These brilliant jurists are supported by brilliant research staff, and they are guided by more than two centuries of American legal precedents, centuries of western legal precedents, and three millennia of Judeo-Christian ethics. Even so, the Court produced a known as Roe v. Wade that answered to the shrill voices of a divided nation, rather than the voices of reason, science, and the U.S. Constitution.
In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision, ruling that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion. It also ruled that this right must be balanced against the government’s interests in protecting women’s health, as well as protecting prenatal life. The Court defined “balance” by tying state regulation of abortion to the three trimesters of pregnancy: during the first trimester, governments could not prohibit abortions; during the second trimester, governments could write health regulations that could place greater or lesser emphasis on the concerns of mothers vs. the rights of the unborn; while during the third trimester, abortion could be prohibited, with the exception of when it was necessary to save the life or health of the mother.
The ruling avoided making a ruling about the beginning of human life. However, in effect it assumed that for the first three months of development the developing child was not human (because to abort a human would be murder); the next three months were punted to the states to make their own decisions on the question; while in the last three months, the child was to be considered human, but expendable, as long as a doctor would certify hazard to the mother.
In 1992, the Supreme Court revisited and modified its legal rulings in Roe v. Wade through the case ofPlanned Parenthood v. Casey. In this ruling the Court reaffirmed the determination from Roe that a woman’s right to have an abortion is constitutionally protected, but abandoned Roe’s trimester framework in favor of a standard based on fetal viability.
What is a rational approach for determining the beginning of human life? The answer is different depending on who you ask, of course, and is profoundly influenced by political bias. Liberals are idealistically interested in legislation as it affects the independence and power of women. Cynically, this interest happens to serve the liberal party well, in that women vote while the unborn do not. Conservatives have tended to take the position that the unborn are human and are therefore entitled to the protections afforded them by law.
Biblical Christians also tend to believe that the unborn are human. This perspective is not intended in any way to be anti-women, nor are Christians generally interested in the suppression of women’s rights. Nearly half of the unborn are female, after all. The belief simply holds that the unborn are entitled to the same rights as women because they are as human as women (and men).
How did Christians come to this conclusion? Ironically, not primarily from something emphasized by the Christian faith but through the revelations of science. There are biblical passages that support the idea of humanity preceding birth. Psalm 139.13 says: You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. Luke 1.44: For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Luke 1.15: For he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. These verses imply the humanity of the unborn but there is no specific biblical teaching on when a child becomes a child.
I suspect the main reason for little discussion about the preservation of rights of the unborn is that most of the Bible was written for the ancient Jewish people. For this people, having an abortion would have been strange and unthinkable. Abraham is considered the father of Israel, but as an old man he still had no offspring, which filled him with deep anxiety. God answered Abraham’s concern: He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” – Genesis 15.5. From the beginning of the nation of Israel, offspring were considered a blessing. Many years later, King David wrote: Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the childrenof one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! – Psalm 127.3-5.
The Egyptians were unhappy their Jewish slaves were so fruitful. At one point the Pharaoh commanded the Hebrew midwives to murder the male children at the times of their birth. This edict set in motion the eventual deliverance of Israel out of Egyptian bondage. Significantly, the murder of children was a common practice in the land of Canaan, the destiny of this people of ex-slaves. The god or gods called Baal normally required the sacrifice of children, often the first-born male child. Another favorite god of the region, Molech, called for worshippers to sacrifice their children to him by throwing them into fire. The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah described the rites, quoting God: “They built high places to Baal in the Valley of Beth-hinnom and immolated their sons and daughters to Molech bringing sin upon Judah; this I never commanded them, nor did it enter my mind that they should practice such abominations. (Jeremiah 32:35).
Beth-hinnom, or the valley of Hinnom, eventually came to be called Gehenna. In later times the valley was used for burning refuse, and the bodies of criminals. From about the 2nd cent. b.c., the Valley of Hinnom came to be thought of as the place of final punishment for the enemies of God.
Jesus often warned against wickedness and on numerous occasions threatened evil behavior with the punishment of Gehenna, as in this example: Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Gehenna). – Matthew 10.28
It is no accident that the place most associated in biblical history with the murder of children eventually came to be seen as the place for the condemned. And why not? The contrast is extreme between recognizing children as a blessing verses seeing them as inconveniences, as valueless, or as something to be cast aside. Callous behavior towards children reveals profound misunderstand of the nature and character of God himself, with the consequence of an equal misunderstanding of what it means to live as a being made in his image.
Is aborting an unborn child the same as murdering a child who has been born? In some senses, the answer is, no. Our laws are pretty clear, for example, that it is a crime to kill one’s children. A recent article in an East Coast newspaper described a California woman who was charged with killing her three young children. If she had killed the three of them one at a time via abortion, there would have been nothing “newsworthy” about her actions. In fact, no one would have known or cared, other than the mother and her attending medical staff, all who would have assumed that what they were doing was fine.
I don’t doubt there is a significant difference on an emotional level, as well. The bonding that happens between children and their mothers, and their fathers following birth is very powerful. While there normally is guilt involved in the abortion process, it surely would be a more greater sense of guilt once the mother and father had come to know the child personally.
And, yet, there is a kind of perverse faith that grants permission for the abortion act. Is it psycho-materialism? Does this faith in the physical, so reliant on empirical perception, have a way of negating that which is not seen? I can’t see the baby, I can’t touch the baby, I can’t smell the baby, I can’t hear the baby…so it’s not really a baby.
Science has conclusively proved the humanity of children at the point of conception. This is the most inconvenient truth of the twenty-first century. Once the egg of the mother is fertilized by the sperm from the father, the resulting “zygote” possesses all the information necessary to form itself into a fully developed baby, yes, even a fully developed adult. (Amazingly, unborn females, only halfway through their own gestational period, already carry all the eggs they will ever have?) The parents (referring primarily mother) need do nothing other than provide an accommodating environment for growth. They need no special training to do this. They simply take care of their own bodies by eating healthy food, resting, and exercising. In other words, doing what they always should be doing.
Christians have always recognized the importance of the command, “Thou shalt not kill.” There are varying interpretations as to what this means, of course, when the command is applied to such questions as war, murder crimes, euthanasia, self-defense and, of course, abortion. But it was science that made it abundantly clear that a person is a person at the point of conception. This awareness is far from a recent phenomenon.
An American Medical Association Committee on Criminal Abortion presented a report in 1859 that condemned abortion, listing three causes for the “general demoralization”:
- “The first of these causes is a wide-spread popular ignorance of the true character of the crime – a belief, even among mothers themselves, that the foetus is not alive till after the period of quickening.
- “The second of the agents alluded to is the fact that the profession themselves are frequently supposed careless of foetal life . . . .
- “The third reason of the frightful extent of this crime is found in the grave defects of our laws, both common and statute, as regards the independent and actual existence of the child before birth, as a living being. These errors, which are sufficient in most instances to prevent conviction, are based, and only based, upon mistaken and exploded medical dogmas. With strange inconsistency, the law fully acknowledges the foetus in utero and its inherent rights, for civil purposes; while personally and as criminally affected, it fails to recognize it, and to its life as yet denies all protection.”
Except for periodic condemnations of the criminal abortionist, no further formal AMA action took place until 1967. In that year, the Committee on Human Reproduction urged the adoption of a stated policy of opposition to induced abortion, except when there is “documented medical evidence” of a threat to the health or life of the mother, or that the child “may be born with incapacitating physical deformity or mental deficiency,” or that a pregnancy “resulting from legally established statutory or forcible rape or incest may constitute a threat to the mental or physical health of the patient,” two other physicians “chosen because of their recognized professional competence have examined the patient and have concurred in writing,” and the procedure “is performed in a hospital accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals.” This recommendation was adopted by the AMA House of Delegates.
Humanists, atheists, and scientific materialists, above all others, should be opposed to abortion. While it is not possible for humanists, atheists, or scientific materialists to explain the existence or need for morality, they believe in morality just the same. The centerpiece of their morality is that humans have the right to life and liberty. So it is painfully inexplicable that these people do not stand with Christians to protect the rights of the unborn.
In the Roe v. Wade ruling, Justice Harry Blackburn argued that women have the right to terminate their pregnancies based on the concept of personal “liberty” embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment: nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. This is a strange argument, given that the Justice elevates the woman’s right to liberty over the child’s right to life. Patrick Henry may have said, “Give me liberty or give me death,” and he may have even meant it. But most of us are a little more cool-headed than Henry, recognizing that accepting oppressive life today still leaves hope for liberty tomorrow. Bearing children has always involved labor and the reduction of certain liberties, but it is a very narrow perspective that looks only on the burdens, without taking into account the joys, the enrichments, and how children generally add to the quality of the lives of their parents. Furthermore, the right of termination ignores the fact that women do not have to get pregnant in the first place. (If women want their liberty, here is the crossroad. If women want to have their cake and eat it, too, well, liberty does not mean freedom from reality.)
Returning to the interests of the child, consider for a moment applying Justice Blackburn’s reasoning to other situations. “Officer, I shot my next door neighbor because he insisted on playing John Denver music in his back yard for hours on end. This was deeply disturbing to my state of mind. It made it impossible for me to sit in my own back yard. It severely impinged on my liberty. Since you, as the State, may not deprive me of my liberty, it was clearly within my rights to put an end to him.”
It was also argued that laws against abortion impinged on personal, marital, familial, and sexual privacy said to be protected by the Bill of Rights. I am thankful that the government is supposed to stay out of the private affairs of individuals, such as personal, marital, familial and sexual relationships. This limitation should remain in place to the extent practical and possible. But it doesn’t take much imagination to realize there are limits to these limits. We don’t permit spouses to beat and harm one another. No one objects that our police are routinely called upon to break up such violent disagreements. Similarly, rape nearly always takes place in private, but it is recognized as a violent and illegal activity. Abortion is also a violent act. In this case it is violence committed by one person, aided by medical supporters, against the most innocent and helpless of humans. Calling on the Constitution’s support for privacy makes sense if the only consideration is for the mother and her medical supporters. However, the “private” act of abortion is undertaken without consideration as to the willing participation of the aborted child. The only reasonable assumption to take is that the child does not wish to be aborted. Because this is true, the State has no more right to approve abortion than it has the right to permit rape or domestic abuse.
But Blackburn argued, “This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent. Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it. In other cases, as in this one, the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may be involved. All these are factors the woman and her responsible physician necessarily will consider in consultation.We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision.”
This is a sympathetic presentation of the difficulties women can find themselves in, and it provides a fair summary as to why abortion has been pursued as a woman’s right. These issues are very real, very important, and must be faced. Nonetheless, we must still ask why it is that the termination of the unborn is seen as a solution for unwanted pregnancies. The option of not getting pregnant, as already stated, is very available. Another option is pressing hard to make all fathers, along with mothers, materially responsible for the care of their own children. Another option is adoption.
But more fundamentally, where is the logic that can claim that all the stress and inconvenience outweighed the value of the life of the unborn? The arguments by Blackburn to justify abortion are just as valid for the termination of life of any dependent child. In fact, the argument could easily apply to the disabled and to the elderly who’ve not been able to set aside enough money for their care and support when and if they reach the place of being dependent again. Frankly, there are a lot of people out there who are inconvenient to other people. Maybe I’m one of them. The essence of the argument is that the Inconvenient are Expendable.
Blackburn also presented this argument: “The Constitution does not define “person” in so many words. None indicates, with any assurance, that it has any possible prenatal application. All this, together with our observation, supra, that throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word ‘person,’ as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.”
While it is certainly proper for jurists to look to the Constitution and the intentions of those who wrote the Constitution, this argument by Blackburn is simply fatuous. I’m going to take a wild guess—a guess of a lay person, naive about much in the law—and argue that the writers of the Constitution meant “person” when they wrote “person”. There’s no need to toy with whether they were including the unborn in their thinking. They may not have been. But that is irrelevant. What has been made abundantly clear by scientific research is that the unborn are persons. One of the appealing aspects of the Constitution—appealing to the general populace—is that it is a covenantal document designed to represent the interests of the nation’s populace. It was written to protect the people from despots and from one another. If it becomes evident that the unborn are persons, then we are Constitutionally bound to protect the unborn. All Americans are bound by the Constitution to protect the unborn. This makes Christians twice-bound to protect the unborn.
Blackburn and the majority of the Court were not satisfied to grant the right of abortion; they wanted to grant the right and disallow it, too. Solomon famously ferreted out the truth when he suggested to two disputing mothers that a child be split in two, giving each contesting mother half. The Supreme Court just split the baby. “It is reasonable and appropriate for a State to decide that at some point in time another interest, that of health of the mother or that of potential human life, becomes significantly involved. The woman’s privacy is no longer sole and any right of privacy she possesses must be measured accordingly. The State has another important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life. These interests are separate and distinct. Each grows in substantiality as the woman approaches term and, at a point during pregnancy, each becomes ‘compelling’.”
“With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in the health of the mother, the ‘compelling’ point, in the light of present medical knowledge, is at approximately the end of the first trimester. This is so because of the now-established medical fact that until the end of the first trimester mortality in abortion may be less than mortality in normal childbirth. It follows that, from and after this point, a State may regulate the abortion procedure.”
The argument here is that abortion is okay in the first trimester because, as far as the mother is concerned, abortion is safer than her proceeding with a natural birth. No doubt, it is a comfort to women to know that early abortions can be done relatively safely. Ignored in the equation is that the operation amounts to capital punishment for the aborted child.
“With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the ‘compelling’ point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.”
Using the standard of “fetal viability” sounds reasonable. After all, if the aborted child is incapable of living outside the womb there is no compelling need to preserve its life. Wait…what?!
The most obvious problem is that “viability”, as defined by the Court, is not an assessment of the unborn child, at all. It is more a measurement of the extent to which scientific research has been able to approximate the accommodations of the womb. Research continues to reduce the required time for a child to remain in the womb and still survive. As such, this portion of the Court’s argument for allowing abortions is continuously losing weight.
It’s also important to ask the question, “On what rational basis would we define “viability” as the unborn’s likelihood to survive outside the womb. Early departure from the womb only happens when something goes wrong with the pregnancy, or an invader enters the womb and violently removes the child. A similar viability test would be to take young children, place them alone in a desolate field, and see how old they must be to survive the ordeal. Outside of their natural, nurturing environments, young children are not “viable” either. The only honest definition of viability for the unborn is to consider how well the child would do if left alone, in peace, in the place specifically designed for their maturation process.
The Supreme Court’s casuistry and rulings through Roe v. Wade were motivated by politics rather than a genuine pursuit of justice. The result has been one of the greatest evils in human history, rivaling or surpassing the malevolent machinations of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, even if only the U.S. abortions since Roe v. Wade are counted. The ruling is responsible for the “solution” of 63 million children so far. The ruling must be overturned. It must never again be considered as precedent for other legal decisions.
It is time for all Americans…all people of the world…to repent of the practice of abortion, the greatest evil in human history.
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