Partial-birth Abortion: A Clash of Worldviews
Partial-birth Abortion: A Clash of Worldviews
God created mankind in His own image. (1) This is the beginning statement and perhaps the most significant one in the Bible on the issue of life. It states simply that Human life is special. It is different from all other forms of life because it is in the image of God. And this life ultimately belongs to God. It is not ours to do with as we please, but rather God's, to do with as He pleases in accordance with His will.
In Psalm 139, David spoke of God working to "weave me in my mother's womb." (2) In the next verse David proclaimed, "I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works." (3) Pastor/theologian James Boice, in reflecting on these statements said, "These verses plainly teach the individuality of a child while still in its mother's womb . . . no one can read these verses thoughtfully today without considering their obvious bearing on this important contemporary problem (abortion)." (4)
Thirty years ago, on January 22, 1973, a major culture shift took place in the United States. With a devastating stroke of a pen the United States Supreme Court shifted the law away from the major worldview that had occupied the thinking of our country since its birth. The decision, Roe v. Wade, made legal the termination of pregnancy by abortion across the nation. It was argued that this would only result in early first trimester abortions - history has proven otherwise. The results of that decision are still being felt today. In the latest reporting data from the Centers for Disease Control there have been approximately 42,036,175 abortions (5) in the past 30 years in the U. S. since Roe v. Wade.
The church needs to be the leading voice in the fight for life. Perhaps we tired from sounding the call, when over the past 30 years there seemed to be very little in the way of victories. Perhaps the details just became too gruesome for discussion in polite company. For whatever reasons, it appears that too many people have come to simply accept the killing of unborn babies as a fact of life that cannot be changed. This is dangerous, not only for our culture, but also for the church.
The point is: the church must be the leading voice on the urgent moral issues of our day. This will ensure that instead of the church being changed into the image of the world, it will change the world into the image of heaven by ministering God's truth.
The prophet Jeremiah spoke words of warning to the people in Jeremiah 2:11-13. He said, "Has a nation changed gods When they were not gods? But My people have changed their glory For that which does not profit. "Be appalled, O heavens, at this, And shudder, be very desolate," declares the LORD. "For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns that can hold no water."
In our day, in our nation, there seems to be a new "god" to whom the people have turned. This god is really no god at all. It is called SELF. Many men and women in our nation bow down and worship this god because they have totally forsaken the God of the Bible. This new worship is demonstrated in the drive for personal rights that carry no personal responsibility. It is out of this that the so-called "pro-choice" position on abortion has arisen. The argument is that the woman who is pregnant should have the "choice" to do with her body whatever she pleases. The problem is that the mother is responsible for the life of the baby she carries. On that very point, lawyer/theologian F. LaGard Smith has said, "Having elevated personal rights to the high altar of a national religion, it becomes surprisingly easy to offer upon that altar even one's own off-spring as a sacrifice to the great god of Self." (6)
One of the clearest voices of the 20th century was Francis Schaeffer, the Christian philosopher. He was like a voice crying in the wilderness over the issue of abortion as legalized by the Roe v. Wade decision. In the mid-1970's Schaeffer warned that the decision created a "slippery slope" - making it easy to move from early term abortion to late term, like partial-birth abortion, and even euthanasia.
History has proven that Schaeffer was a prophet in speaking to this issue. Abortion has gone from the early trimester, a wrong in itself, to what is called "partial-birth abortion." Partial-birth abortion is nothing less than infanticide, because the infant is all but completely delivered and then is killed. In most cases this baby is entirely capable of living outside of the mother's womb at the time that this procedure is performed.
There is a clash of worldviews over the issue of partial-birth abortion. The first worldview is, of course, that of the Judeo-Christian tradition. This worldview sees God as the creator of all there is, including life, and man as being under the authority of God and his Word. For over 200 years this was the predominant worldview in the United States. The second worldview is that of secularism, or humanism, that places man and woman in the position of authority. Under that philosophy, whatever man wants is supreme; God doesn't exist in any real and meaningful way. The shift to this second worldview in our courts and laws is what leads to the approval of procedures like partial-birth abortion.
With a Biblical worldview there are objective and absolute standards by which to judge right and wrong. When there are no objective standards, then there are no absolutes by which to judge society. When there are no absolutes, men and women are left to do what is "right in their own eyes." (7) Society is then shaped by one individual, or group of individuals, becoming the absolute authority. Schaeffer called this being ruled by the "elite." And that can change with the changing of leadership or shifting public opinion.
When Roe v. Wade became the law of the land most people never dreamed that it would push America's view of life to such a low. Schaeffer saw it and he warned about what was to come. But most Americans thought that they could live with unborn children, who were not visible, being "terminated," and they could not see where that view of life would ultimately lead.
Today the practice of partial-birth abortion has pushed the limits of rational procedures. The Supreme Court has yet to affirm life concerning partial-birth abortions, rejecting the constitutionality of a Nebraska ban on the procedure (Stenberg v. Carhart). This procedure is so repulsive that Justice Antonin Scalia in Stenberg v. Carhart, issued a strong dissent and stated:
The method of killing a human child - one cannot even accurately say and entirely unborn human child - proscribed by this statute is so horrible that the most clinical description of it evokes a shudder of revulsion." (8)
In the same case Justice Clarence Thomas gave a vivid description of the procedure and went on to state:
. . . the particular procedure at issue in this case, 'partial-birth abortion,' closely borders on infanticide . . ." (9)
The church today must stand as never before in its role as the moral conscience of the nation. It must speak to the vital issues that are confronting our culture. There is no time left for silence for fear of being controversial. The church must speak and speak loudly. May God use His people to, as Isaiah says, "Cry loudly, raise your voice like a trumpet, and declare to the people their transgression." (10)
The A.C.L.J. is committed to protecting human life. To that end the A.C.L.J. has begun a special project, the Pro-Life Task Force (http://www.acljlife.org/) to protect the inalienable right to life of human beings from conception until natural death. Please join us in the fight by signing our petition to the members of Congress (http://www.aclj.org/petitions/pba/petition.asp), calling on them to pass a national ban on partial-birth abortion.
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Bill Haynes
Senior Policy Analyst for Cultural & Worldview Studies
American Center for Law & Justice
1. Genesis 1:26 - "Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
2. Psalm 139:13
3. Psalm 139:14
4. James Montgomery Boice, Psalms: Volume 3, Baker Books, p. 1209
5. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), Planned Parenthood's special research affiliate monitoring trends in the abortion industry.
6. F. LaGard Smith, When Choice Becomes God, Harvest House, p. 174
7. Judges 21:25 - ". . . everyone did what was right in his own eye."
8. http://www.aclj.org/ussc/SupremeCourtCases/STENBERG%20v_%20CARHART-Scalia.pdf
9. http://www.aclj.org/ussc/SupremeCourtCases/STENBERG%20v_%20CARHART-thomas.pdf
10. Isaiah 58:1