Words of Jesus Christ in "Red" 
"In spite of the fact that many infants are born with defects, it is the true and good God who forms all bodies, even monsters, who are called an "error of nature" - Augustine I have to start this article by acknowledging that I am a coward, "yes, a coward". It was my original intention to post photographs of aborted children on this page, but when I look at the pictures the tears blind my eyes to the point where I just can't. I can't have some child, cruelly snatched from "what should have been the safest place on earth, his mother's womb", and let you see this picture as a internet memorial to that child's life. I can't find it in myself to post pictures of pieces of children, little hands and feet torn from their little bodies, and desecrate this site with these beautiful creatures, created in the image of God, but so sorely abused by an "allegedly free society". As evolutionary thought is the child of humanism, this cheapening of human life brought on by non-Biblical thought has produced a horrible offspring - "a monstrous grandchild called abortion". This monstrous grandchild was born in the Supreme Court of the United States on January 22, 1973. In a 7-2 ruling the Justices ruled that individual States cannot forbid abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. In the second trimester States may regulate abortion, and in the third trimester States may only then forbid abortion. Since this ruling "abortion has become the most common surgical procedure in the United States", with over 2 million operations performed each year. In ancient civilizations abortion was practiced: the Pagans, Canaanites, Romans, and Greeks all used various procedures to abort children, and during food shortages abortion of children was often mandatory. Yet the Supreme Court ruling was the "first time in history" that a so called "Christian nation" legalized and therefore justified abortion as anything less than murder. The Justices of the Supreme Court have much to account for, before God and before this nation. With their ruling they gave a sweeping statement that they know life, "human life, does not begin until that life exits the womb". The fetus is "not" considered to be a person, and therefore is "not protected under the laws of the United States". When we say "liberty and justice for all", that "for all" does not apply to the child in the womb. The Justices rationalized that the child, prior to the seventh month, cannot survive outside of its mother's womb, therefore it was not alive. They also justified their decision by stating that the woman had the right to have full control over her body, and if she wanted to abort this "parasitic growth" she had every right to do so. Let's not even consider the hypocrisy of law that makes prostitution illegal in most of our United States. If the woman has the right to control her body, then why not make a Federal Law to allow prostitution? If a person has the right to control their body, why not make Federal Laws to legalize drug use? After all, it's my body, and I can do what I want with it. "Right?" The Court further recognized the distress that the expectant mother would have in coping with birthing an unwanted child. Yet again, what determines want? Are there not thousands of potential parents that would willingly pay to adopt unwanted children? And yet further, "should not people take accountability for their actions?" If you willingly lay down with a man to have intercourse with him, should you not be accountable for your actions? "Perceptions matter, they always matter". Though legalized abortion has lowered the number of deaths from back alley illegal abortions, it has brought into question the value of life, human life, at all points of its development. Is life sacred, or are people just animals, things? "Would PETA or other militant animal rights groups advocate abortions within the animal kingdom, then allow vivisection of the aborted? No, but human abortion not only allows this, but encourages vivisection of the fetus. Humans are slowly becoming lesser creatures, having less rights than a dog or a goat." The most crucial question is, when does life begin? Does the fetus become life at the fertilization state, when the sperm meets the egg? Does it become life at implantation, or when the fetus is able to live outside the womb (after 7 months)? Or is human life only life after socialization, after the child is born and has proven that it has the potential for meaningful human life?
Until the Supreme Court decision, American Law determined that the life of the child began at conception. The expectant child could, quite legally, inherit from an estate if so named in a will. He could be the beneficiary of a trust, was protected by criminal statute from parental neglect, could be the litigant in a court case (if the mother was involved in an auto accident, the mother could sue on behalf of the fetus) - in other words, the Laws of this country recognized that the fetus was alive, and constitutionally protected. Zimmerman v. Wisconsin (case number 96-CF-525, Wisconsin Circuit Court, filed July 3, 1996) addresses the explosive issues of legal substance abuse and maternal liability to her fetus. Deborah Zimmerman was a thirty-five-year-old life-long alcoholic with a prior conviction for vehicular homicide while intoxicated. On March 16, 1996, Zimmerman, in her ninth month of pregnancy, entered a lounge in downtown Racine, Wisconsin when it opened at 2:00 p.m. She was on her second three liquor drink when she casually told the bartender, "I have a secret. I'm pregnant." The bartender immediately gave her a soda, but it was too late. Zimmerman had apparently been drinking elsewhere before her visit to the Westside Lounge. When Zimmerman's mother came to get her, she found her daughter already intoxicated and drove her to the hospital. Doctors determined that an emergency caesarian section was necessary. At the hospital, Zimmerman argued with surgical aide, Julie Maher, as Maher tried to attach a fetal monitor to the struggling woman. Zimmerman said, "I'm just going to go home and keep drinking and drink myself to death, and I'm going to kill this thing because I don't want it anyways." Shortly before the caesarian section birth of her daughter Meagan, Zimmerman's blood alcohol level was measured at 0.30. Meagan was born with a blood alcohol level of 0.199, twice the legal limit for an adult under the state's drunk driving statutes. Meagan was also undersized and demonstrated slightly irregular features consistent with fetal alcohol syndrome. Zimmerman was later "charged with one count each of attempted first degree intentional homicide and first degree reckless injury". Wisconsin does not currently have a feticide statute, nor does it recognize the fetus as a human being under its criminal laws. Prosecutors in the Zimmerman action hope the legislature will use the case as an impetus for revising its criminal liability statutes, and more specifically, to define prohibited behavior by expectant mothers. Detractors of such legislation argue that, in addition to the troubling legal issues that such legislation presents, the effect of this legislation would be to frighten troubled mothers away from seeking help. At the hospital where Meagan was born, approximately one baby per week is born with traces of cocaine in its system. Four to six babies born there every year have fetal alcohol syndrome. This case has attracted a lot of publicity because of its implications for maternal liability to the fetus and women's privacy rights. The question of legislating such behavior is controversial. As one commentator noted: "If the father had done to that little girl what Zimmerman did, he would be assumed to be a brute, a bully and a thug. But because Zimmerman is a mother, this case of clear abuse has become an issue of rights (nothing like a little double standard)". I don't believe the government has the right to tell a pregnant woman she can't have a drink or a cigarette during her pregnancy. This case isn't about a glass of wine, however, "it's about a little girl who was poisoned." Sally Hoelzel, Zimmerman's attorney, believes her client will ultimately be acquitted. Citing the lack of statutory and common law support for the prosecution, Hoelzel noted that the only fact alleged in the complaint was Meagan's high blood alcohol level. According to Hoelzel, this fact does not support a finding of "great bodily harm" as required by statute. Assistant District Attorney Joan Korb countered that "Zimmerman's intent was to kill the child", as demonstrated by her statement at the hospital. "Circuit Judge Dennis Barry apparently agreed with Korb". On September 18th, he refused to dismiss the case against Zimmerman and supported both counts. In an eighteen page decision, Judge Barry conceded that while Wisconsin law on viable fetus injury has not always been clear, "[t]here is no question that the young victim was born alive and qualifies as a human being under Wisconsin's homicide laws." As to the specific nature of the charge against Zimmerman, Judge Barry elaborated: "The instrumentality of the attempted homicide in this case was not the shooting of a bullet or the plunging of a knife. Instead, it was the massive consumption of a potentially deadly quantity of alcohol. . . . The convergence in time of the instrumentality of murder [alcohol] with the victim being born was not instantaneous such as when a bullet is fired from a gun toward a human target. Nevertheless, the convergence occurred and the elements of the crime have been established for probable cause purposes. . . . Others who endanger life by acting under the influence of alcohol or drugs are held accountable for their behavior, including parents who jeopardize the safety of their children. Why should a woman carrying a viable fetus escape responsibility for intentional or reckless acts?" Many states, like South Carolina (Hall v. Murphy, 113 S.E.2d 790 (S.C. 1960), recognizes prenatal injury under its wrongful death statute. Under the state's interpretation of its wrongful death statutes, an injured viable fetus who dies after birth as a result of injury is a separate being from the mother and "is therefore a person for whom an action may be brought". In State v. Horne (319 S.E.2d 703, 704 (S.C. 1984), Terrance Horne attacked his estranged wife, who was nine months pregnant, with a knife. Mrs. Horne was stabbed in the abdomen and rushed to the hospital, where doctors determined that the "fetus was still alive". The doctors performed a caesarian section, but the child was "dead when removed from the uterus". An autopsy later confirmed that the child had died as a result of Mrs. Horne's injuries. South Carolina chose to "prosecute Mr. Horne for the murder of the fetus" despite the fact that South Carolina had never considered a fetus to be a person under its statutory definition of murder. The Horne court noted that under the state's wrongful death statute, a viable unborn fetus is considered a person. To reconcile this inconsistency, the court held that an action for homicide of a viable fetus could be maintained, provided that the state could prove viability beyond a reasonable doubt. The Horne opinion was released just one day after Commonwealth v. Cass was decided by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Thus, "South Carolina joined Massachusetts as the second court to" expressly reject the born alive rule and "extend common law criminal protection to unborn viable fetuses". Fetal personhood before viability is beginning to amass its own controversial case law. In Wiersma v. Maple Leaf Farms (543 N.W.2d 787 (S.D. 1996), Beth Wiersma was 7.3 weeks pregnant when she contracted salmonella poisoning from a frozen food product manufactured by the defendant and miscarried. The court conducted a statutory analysis and concluded that "the fetus was a person with a cause of action under South Dakota's wrongful death statutes." Maple Leaf "argued that it was legally inconsistent to allow a mother the unilateral decision to terminate the pregnancy by abortion before viability, yet to impose liability on a third party" who also terminated such a nonviable pregnancy. The "court disagreed", explaining that only the mother's decision to abort, and not that of a third party, is constitutionally protected. West Virginia also recently found a cause of action for the nonviable fetus in its wrongful death statutes in Farley v. Sartin (466 S.E.2d 522 (W. Va. 1995). Cynthia Farley was killed in an automobile accident with defendant Billy Sartin. Ms. Farley was "probably eighteen weeks and a few days" pregnant when she was killed. Her "husband brought a wrongful death action against Sartin for the death of the unborn child, "Baby Farley." The court believed that "at best, [the fetus was] of questionable viability in light of the evidence presented." The Farley court traced the purposes of its wrongful death statutes and voiced its own dissatisfaction with the viable and nonviable distinction. It also noted that its decision was not inconsistent with Roe v. Wade, holding that "Roe was addressed to nonviable fetuses strictly in an abortion context and was not applicable to nonviable fetuses in a wrongful death context". Currently, "twenty-three states have statutes making it a specific crime to kill an unborn child or fetus". (See Davis, 872 P.2d at 621; see also Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2903.09 (Anderson 1996) (holding feticide as a statutory crime since the Davis decision). Several other states hold the "viable fetus to be a person under their common law decisions". So, though Roe vs Wade legalized abortion, the Laws of these United States consider that life is in the womb, though when exactly that life starts is still debated.
In behavioral and medical science there are various views as to when life begins: from at the point of fertilization of the egg to when the child exits the womb. In 1970 the California Medical Association said that "everyone really knows that human life begins at conception", and the Geneva Declaration of the Assembly of the World Medical Association states "I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from it's beginning even under threat and I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity". This is a "modification of the original Hippocratic Oath" that governed doctors from times past. This oath stated, in part, "I will follow that method of treatment which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel: furthermore, I will not give to a woman an instrument to produce abortion." The late Dr. Paul Ramsey, a Princeton theologian and physician, was one of the strongest advocates of the sanctity-of-human-life principle. He stated "Since we should treat similar cases similarly, if x degree of defect would justify abortion, the same x degree of defect would, with equal cogency, justify infanticide." Ramsey went on to say, "Science itself now offers evidence of very early human characteristics in the fetus such as discernible brain waves at eight weeks." Dr. C. Everett Koop, the former Surgeon General of the United States during President Reagan's administration, is among sanctity-of-life view's best known advocate. He writes: "But the fully developed concept of the sanctity of human life that we have known did not come from Greek thought and culture but from the Judeo-Christian world view which dominated the West for centuries. This view did not come from nowhere. Biblical doctrine was preached, not as a truth, but as the truth. This teaching formed not only the religious base of society, but the cultural, legal, and governmental bases as well. As a total world view, it answered the major questions people have always asked. It dealt not only with the questions, Who is God? What is He like? It also gave answers to the questions of, Who are we as people? How ought we live together? What meaning does human life have? In this way, Judeo-Christianity formed a general cultural consensus. That is, it provided the basic moral and social values by which things were judged. .... I am concerned about legislation that would take problems of life and death out of the hands of the medical profession. But I also fear the attitude of our profession in sanctioning infanticide and in moving inexorably from abortion to infanticide to the destruction of a child who is socially embarrassing. I am concerned that there is no outcry. I can understand that there are people who are led to starve children to death because they think they are doing something for society following a principle of Hagel that is utilitarian for society." Dr. Micheline Matthew-Roth, a principal research associate at Harvard Medical School's Department of Medicine, said, "It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception, when egg and sperm join to form the zygote, and this developing human always is a member of our species in all stages of its life." (The Human Life Bill , S. 158, Report Together with Additional and Minority Views to the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, made by its Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, 97th Congress, 1st Session (1981), 11; quoted in Beckwith, 43.) French geneticist Jerome L. LeJeune gave the following testimony to a United States Senate sub-committee: "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence." (The Human Life Bill, Hearings on S. 158 before the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 97th Congress, 1st Session (1981), as quoted in Norman L. Geisler, Christian Ethics: Options and Issues (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 149; cited in Beckwith, 42.) Dr. Hymie Gordon, professor of medical genetics and a physician at the prestigious Mayo Clinic, summarized the perspective of science when he said, "I think we can now also say that the question of the beginning of life - when life begins - is no longer a question for theological or philosophical dispute. It is an established scientific fact. Theologians and philosophers may go on to debate the meaning of life or purpose of life, but it is an established fact that all life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception." (The Human Life Bill, S. 158, Report, 9; quoted in Beckwith, 42) These are not just a few isolated incidents, "but there are numerous statements by scholarly scientists, some who do not know Christ, who believe that there is substantial medical proof that human life begins at conception." Anyone who has a basic knowledge of genetics can tell you what is lost when a fetus is aborted or killed. On the abortion of a child there are a unique group of genetic possibilities that will never be repeated, a combination that will never be found in another human being. "An abortion is, in effect, like watching the extinction of a singular, unique species."
When you look at uncivilized portions of history, you can see "numerous reasons why abortion is a standard no civilized society would want to tolerate." Paganism, a religion in its own right, frequently practiced abortion. The Canaanites, who were noted in history for their hedonistic tendencies, often practiced abortion as well as child sacrifice. This is a natural progression, "for when you say that the created being in the womb is a thing, then it's a small step from that point to declare that all human beings (especially those who are "non-productive") are things." The Greek and Roman Empires often enforced laws of abortion when there were times of famine in order to protect the society, and outlawed abortion during times of war when bodies were needed to replenish those killed in battle. Judaism and Christianity has always rejected Pagan ways, and as a result has always rejected abortion for any reason whatsoever. An excerpt from the Apostolic Constitution, drafted in 4 AD, stated "Thou shalt not use magic. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; for He says, 'You shall not suffer a witch to live' [Exodus 22:18]. Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten; for 'everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if it be slain, shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed." (Apostolic Constitutions 7:3; A.D. 400). Other early Church extra-Biblical documents stated: "The way of light, then, is as follows. If any one desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way, is the following. ... Thou shalt love they neighbor more than they own life. Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born." - (Letter of Barnabas 19-5; A.D. 74) Consider the historical witness of the Church - though not Scriptural, still upholding the sanctity of life. Then "weigh these quotations against the accursed and deceivers", the anti-Christs who support the murder of the unborn: Beverly Harrison (professor of Christian ethics at Union Theological Seminary) "Infanticide is not a great wrong. I do not want to be construed as condemning women who, under certain circumstances, quietly put their infants to death" - (Quoted in Policy Review, Spring 1985, 15. This, along with the following four quotes, can be found in Francis J. Beckwith, Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 174.) Which goes to show that, following the cheapening of human life that abortion promotes, it is "only a small step to move over to infanticide". After infanticide becomes acceptable, how long will it be before older people - those who no longer contribute to the "common good" of this nation - become fertilizer for some farmer's field? It's a slippery slope indeed when you make one thing legal, then acceptable, then disguise it as righteous for the common good. The fact is, "you may very well be next!"
People often point out that abortion, or the practice of abortion, is never specifically forbidden in Scripture. Never mind that the fact remains Judaism and Christianity refused to practice it - "since it wasn't specifically forbidden, can't we righteously engage in it?" "No you can't!" You see, Scripture never attacked abortion as the problem, instead it attacked the one thing that led to abortion, and that was "promiscuity". God puts the ax to the root of the problem by "condemning fornication and adultery", two types of sexual sin. Fornication was a general term that referred to illicit sexual acts between two people who were not married, and adultery referred to married people having sex outside of their marital relationship. God forbade both:
Adulterers and fornicators were often put to death. I don't, of course, advocate this Old Testament idea for today but problems still strongly arise due to these two sins. First, if a man and woman have sex with one another merely out of some sort of phallic pleasure, they are using one another, making one another out to be objects. This is degrading, especially since man was created in the image of God. People are not objects that you join with to have a few minutes of pleasure, but they are precious commodities. Fornicators and adulterers were considered "twisted souls", souls that had forgotten how sacred life truly is. What do you say to someone when you have a "one night stand" with them? You may kiss, and fondle, but when you leave the next day your actions say that "that person was an object, an animal, a doll, not someone created in the image of God." God abhors this type of behavior, for denigration of another human being in one way leads to denigration in other ways. Second, if two people have sex just for phallic pleasure they can accidentally create life. These two people have already shown a high disregard for human sanctity by fornicating, so how will these people relate to the new life they create? "By making fornication and adultery a capital offense during Old Testament times the chance that a baby would be aborted was reduced drastically." Finally, if two people indiscriminately have sex for phallic pleasure they can accidentally introduce disease into the human race. "AIDs, herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, and all other forms of sexually transmitted disease are transmitted because people are putting their bodies in places they ought not to be." The sad thing is, "the innocent usually suffer because the guilty go unpunished". Babies contract AIDs because the mother was a prostitute. Innocent hospitalized victims get disease when the blood supply of the country is infected by selfish, selfish people. "The ramifications are terrible - especially if they happen to you!" So, though the Scripture does not specifically forbid abortion as a practice, it does forbid the things that lead to an abortion in the first place: "adultery, fornication, and rape." And it mandated death on any who practiced these things and was caught. But just because abortion is never forbidden, this is not to say that the Scripture doesn't fully teach that life begins in the womb.
The prenatal life is shown in this passage. Israel was destined, for his mother's womb, to lead a nation. He was "called" from the womb, had a purpose and a plan assigned to his life by God before he ever saw the light of day. How many Israels have been murdered since Roe vs Wade? How great could our nation be, today, if the Justices had not made such a stupid and godless decision?
God planned Jeremiah, planned out his life as a great prophet "before" he was formed in his mother's belly. This clearly implies that Jeremiah was alive at the moment of conception, the moment when his father's sperm united with his mother's egg, and was considered of great value to God even then.
When Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mother, first became impregnated God prophesied that he would be great, a miracle man proclaiming the coming of our Lord Jesus. What if John had never come? Would we have known who Jesus was when He came on the scene? What if Elizabeth had aborted that child because she was "too old to have a baby, or because having this child was inconvenient?" It just doesn't bear thinking about!
And though King David recognized that he was sinful even in his mother's womb, he recognized that he was a person. For only people can be under the influence of the Old Sin Nature.
God looked on David and fashioned him while he was yet in the "Golem or embryo stage." David was a being with life, insofar as God was concerned, though he had yet to even form hands and feet on the child.
And was under God's protection, even from the start. How many women have earned judgment for themselves by killing a David, or a Jeremiah, or an Isaiah that God set aside to do great things for humanity? In ancient Hebraic Law if two men struggled and fought, and in turn struck a woman with child so as to cause a miscarriage, if the baby died as a result God demanded life for life:
God required the same penalty, capital death, in the death of an accidentally miscarried child as He did with murder. God considers all life, whether in the womb or out of it, equally sacred. We started this study with a text that shows God creates the handicapped child just as He creates the healthy one. All have value, all are in His image. Not just the pretty babies, but the ones that are not pretty to us. All are precious in His sight, all are clothed in flesh by His mighty hand, and "to abort the child - even one - for any reason - is an abomination that you will have to answer for one day."
Conclusion You may be thinking, "Wait a minute Russ, you shouldn't be judging people like this! Abortion is a personal, private issue between a woman and her conscience". My reply: "Hogwash! Abortion is legalized murder, pure and simple." The child you abort hurts our society by his absence, and one day each and every person who engaged in this evil act - from the deluded mother, to the doctor with the blood of innocents on his hands, to the slick lawyer that promoted this vampiristic abomination - "all will be judged". Do you want to escape this judgment?
Then accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. Call on Him, and ask Him to save you. Tell Him that you want to be reborn, made new, and your sins purged from God's reckoning. When you know Him, really know Him, you won't want to live as you once lived, but will walk in newness of life. The abortion you did, though it remain in your life as a scar, will be forgiven by the same Savior who forgave me and made me whole. Then go .... and sin no more. 
If you have not already done so, please consider trusting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. For more information on Salvation Click Here to view "How can I get to Heaven?"
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