50 Millions Lives Wasted

The National Right to Life calculates that 50 million abortions have been performed in America since the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. 38 years and 50 millions deaths. That is staggering to me. 50 millions human fetuses have been denied their most basic right, “the right to life.”

For those who do not know the history of this decision the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that something like the “right to privacy” meant the right of a mother to choose to kill her unborn child. But what is even more striking is that this right still allows unborn children to be killed who are viable outside the womb. How anyone with a moral conscience can support that kind of reasoning is still beyond me. I realize the debate comes down to the issue of when human life begins. At the same time how can anyone with a conscience not protest that a life that could survive outside the womb is being taken in the late second trimester (and all the third trimester) thus clearly a viable human person is being killed?

Congressman Paul Broun, a medical doctor from Georgia’s 10th District, reintroduced the Sanctity of Human Life Act, HR 212, on January 7th this year. This bill says, “human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization.” I agree with this definition based on my reading of the Holy Scriptures and my understanding of ancient Christian faith.

Congressman Broun, in a statement issued, said: “I am committed to ensuring that not one tax dollar is used to fund abortion, but that is not enough. God cannot continue to bless America while we are killing 4,000 babies every day. This atrocity must end . . .”

I have friends on both sides of this debate. I hate the debate itself but I refuse to run away from it given the consequences of our moral actions. In fact, I feel much more strongly about the government’s role in protecting life than in keeping marriage between one man and one woman. (Read that again and read it very carefully, please!) When we destroy human life as an everyday practice we cheapen every life in the process. When we become apathetic to life we grow weary of all that really matters in human flourishing.

Can we count on members of Congress to protect human life in other forms, elderly or infirm, if they will not protect the innocent and unborn? If there is no standard for human life what standard really matters?

I am personally grateful that pro-life people have shifted the nature of their protest over recent years. I think the confrontations in front of abortion clinics are extremely unhelpful on the whole. But praying and quietly asking God for mercy is appropriate and measured. This struggle is political but it is much more about moral issues that transcend politics. If enough people believed that human life was sacred, and should be legally protected, then the law would change. The numbers say the majority of Americans are, by an ever so slight majority, pro-life. But the majority is doing very little to translate this into action. I fear for us as a people if we continue to cheapen life in general and take human life in such a wide scale manner.