(I gave this
presentation at a Students For Life meeting, mostly medical students, at
Nova Southeastern University in Davie Florida on March 18, 2015. You may view
the PowerPoint slides on Microsoft OneDrive Here including a slides of embryo and fetal development.)
On January
22, 1973, two U. S. Supreme Court decisions, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, legalized the deliberate, premeditated
killing of preborn children at anytime during all nine months of pregnancy right
up to the very moment of natural child birth for virtually any reason.
The Court
ruled that the preborn are not persons and therefore lie outside the protection
of the U.S. Constitution. In other words, the words of the Declaration of Independence,
“...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
These words of
our Constitution do not apply to preborn children, therefore the preborn are
the property of the mother, the Court having given her the legal “right” to
keep or kill her unborn child.
This ruling
parallels the 1857 Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court that ruled Dred Scott,
a freed African American slave, was not a person for one reason, his skin color
was black. This gave the slave owner the right to keep, sell or in some
instances kill the slave. The
slave was the property of his owner without the right to “life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.”
Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of the prevailing opinion
of Roe v. Wade recognized the significance of the personhood of the preborn in
the courts decision, writing, “The appellee…argue that the fetus is a ‘person’
within the language and meaning of the fourteenth Amendment…If this suggestion
of personhood is established, the [abortion rights] case, of course, collapses,
for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.”
You see, If
the Court were to acknowledge the personhood of the unborn they would have
reason to overturn Roe v. Wade. In other words, forty-two years after Roe v.
Wade "Is the unborn a human being?" remains the critical question in
the abortion debate.
As Prolife
apologist Scott Klusendorf writes in his book the Case for Life,
"Is the
unborn a member of the human family?...If so, killing him or her to benefit
others is a serious moral wrong. It treats the distinct human being, with his or
her own inherent moral worth, as nothing more than a disposable instrument. Conversely,
if the unborn are not human, elective abortion requires no more justification than
having a tooth pulled." (Case for
Life, page 27)
In other
words, from both a legal and moral perspective, if the unborn are human beings the
central issue in the abortion debate is not a matter of "women’s rights,”a woman's "right to choose," but the human rights, the civil
rights of the unborn.
If the
unborn are human beings, you cannot extend to a mother the right to kill her unborn
child, without denying her child the most basic civil right, the right to life.
Therefore
we consider the preborn - the scientific, philosophical and metaphysical case for
life. We begin with the scientific case for life.
Scientific
evidence indicates that human life begins at conception. Keith L. Moore and
T.V.N. Persaud, write the following in their book The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology,
"A
zygote is the beginning of a new human being. Human development begins at fertilization,
the process during which a male gamete or sperm...unites with a female gamete
or oocyte...to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent
cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual." (1998, page
2)
Professor
Micheline Matthews-Roth, M.D. Harvard University Medical School writes, “…It
is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception…"
Jerome
LeJeune, M.D. Professor of genetics University of Descartes writes, “…after
fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being.” Clearly, "human life begins at conception: a fact,
not a theory."
Douglas
Erlandson has written, “When the fertilized egg (or zygote) is first formed, it
already possesses its full complement of DNA or genetic information.” He
continues,
"That
information never changes. A person’s sex, blood type, hair and skin color, and
future height are all determined in that first cell. From that moment on, unless its life is
terminated, it will develop until it becomes an adult human being.” He adds, “It
will never become a cat, dog, gorilla, or anything other than a member of the
species homo sapiens. From the moment of conception, it is every bit as much a
human being as you or I. Nothing radically changes at birth. Birth is simply a
change of address one stage on a continuum of life stages.” David McDonald, further
explains the science,
"Every
human cell has 46 chromosomes (Chr) except the sperm and the egg which have 23
each. At conception they become a unique human with 46 Chr."
Again, Scott
Klusendorf, "...the embryo...is different in kind from any cell of its parents....From
the start this new entity not only directs its own internal development, it has
something completely different from both parents--its own unique chromosomal
structure. Later it will bear other distinctions such as a different blood type
and different internal organs." (the
Case for Life page 37)
In other
words there are at least two bodies in every pregnancy: two heads, two set of
hands, two set of legs, two beating hearts, two distinctly different DNA, and
half the time the presence of male genitalia.
In fetal
development we see both the humanity of life in the womb and the biological evidence
that the embryo is an entity distinct and separate from its mother. Listen to a
description I have compiled, of the development of the unborn in the womb.
At 17
days, the new life has developed its own blood cells; the placenta is a part of
the new life and not of the mother. At eighteen days, there is the occasional pulsation
of a muscle. This will be he heart. At nineteen days, the eyes start to develop.
At twenty days, or almost three weeks the foundation of the entire nervous
system has been laid down.
In
Lennart Nilsson’s famous Life magazine photo essay, "Drama of Life Before
Birth,” April 30, 1965, he writes of the unborn at three and a half weeks,
“This
embryo is so tiny - about a tenth of an inch long that the mother may not even know
she is pregnant. Yet there is already impressive internal development, though
not visible here. This embryo has the beginnings of eyes, spinal cord, nervous
system, thyroid gland, lungs, stomach, kidney and intestines. Its primitive
heart, which began beating haltingly on the 18th day, is now pumping more
confidently. On the bulge of the
chest,
the tiny buds of arms-not yet visible are forming.” At twenty eight days forty
pairs of muscles are developing along the trunk of the new life; arms and legs
forming. At thirty days, regular blood flows within the vascular system; the
ears and nasal development
have begun.
By the
forty to forty third day the brain registers waves on an electro encephalogram
and the heart energy output is reported to be almost 20% of an adult. By the
forty second day the skeleton is complete and reflexes are present and movement
of the baby in the womb may begin. By the eighth week or fifty sixth day you
have a perfectly formed baby with hands, fingers, including distinctive
fingerprints feet and toes. All vital organs are present and functioning. The
baby responds to touch.
By the
ninth week the baby is the size of your thumb and will respond to pain, can
grasp an object and make a fist. In the eleventh week (about 3 1/2 months) all
bodily systems work. The baby swallows, tastes, sleeps, wakes, responds to
light and darkness, warmth and cold.
In the
eleventh and twelfth weeks, the arms and legs move, the baby sucks its thumb,
inhales and exhales amniotic fluid and nails begin to appear. By four months,
or sixteen weeks, the fetus is five and a half inches long. The genital organs
are clearly differentiated. The baby swims, kicks and turns somersaults. The
baby cries, hears voices, has rapid eye movement, eyebrows and eyelashes.
This is Baby
Walter Joshua Fretz, born premature at nineteen weeks surviving for only
moments. At five months the baby can learn and remember, is well coordinated
and kicks are being felt by the mother. A photo of a six month old preborn
child. This slide helps us visualize the
implications of science and embryology,
"It
is wrong to kill this person, [the preborn] for the same reason it is wrong to
kill this person." [the newborn] (see PP slide)
Secondly,
note the philosophical case for life. On The Case for Life.com, this question
is posed: "Do all human beings have an equal
right to life or do humans come to be at one point, but only become valuable
later in virtue of some acquired characteristic?"
This is the philosophical and
moral dilemma faced by those who, despite the evidence for the personhood of the
unborn insist that they are disposable .Scott Klusendorf, in his book, Stand for Life, co-authored with John Ensor
writes,
"As
philosophy professor Stephen Schwartz points out, there is no morally
significant difference between the embryo you once were and the adult that you
are today that would justify killing you at the early stage of
development." He continues,
"Differences
of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not
relevant such that we can say that you had no rights as an embryo but you do
have rights today."(Stand For Life,
page 9)
Philosopher
Stephen Schwartz uses the acronym SLED to help us remember these nonessential
differences. Please note the four nonessential differences between the preborn
and human life outside the womb.
Size: While it is true that an embryo or
fetus is smaller than an adult size does not determine their value. They are
not of lesser value because they are smaller in size. Most men are larger than
women. Are they more human because they are bigger in size? Larger men do not
have more rights than smaller women. Size does not determine one's value.
Level of development: There is no question that a fetus is
less developed than a twenty one year old, just as a toddler is less developed than
a teenager. But the value we place on a human being is not determined by their
level of development.
Environment: Does where you are, determine who
you are? Does your value change when you get out of bed or walk outdoors? Does
the value of the preborn change because it moves six inches down the birth
canal? Can we kill the preborn but not the newborn simply because of a six inch
change in their location?
Degree of dependency: Viability does not determine
value. Diabetics depend on insulin and those
with kidney failure on dialysis. Are they therefore less valuable? A two year
old is more dependent on parental care than an eighteen year old. Does that
determine their value? Can we kill the unborn because of their heightened degree
of dependency while in
the womb of their mother?
Again, "...there
is no morally significant difference between the embryo you once were and the
adult that you are today that would justify killing you at the early stage of development."
(Scott Klusendorf)
This brings us to, the metaphysical and the case for life. The following words were posted on
the progressive online magazine solon.com by Mary Elizabeth Williams in January
2013. The title of the article was, "So What if abortion Ends a Life"
The subtitle: "I believe that life starts at conception. And
it's never stopped me from being pro-choice." She writes,
"While opponents of abortion eagerly describe
themselves as 'pro-life,' the rest of us have had to scramble around with not
nearly as big-ticket words like 'choice' and reproductive freedom.' The 'life'
conversation is often too thorny to even broach. Yet I know that throughout my
own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying
a human life inside of me. I believe that’s what a fetus is: a human life. And
that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice." She goes on to explain,
"Here’s the complicated reality in which we
live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to
talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm
troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the
woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for
her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the
non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always."
An astounding admission. She continues, "I can
say anecdotally that I’m a mom who loved the lives she incubated...If by some
random fluke I learned today I was pregnant, you bet your [expletive] I’d have an abortion. I’d
have the World’s Greatest Abortion."
Ms. Williams acknowledged that "a fetus is: a human
life" but goes on to declare, "Yet a fetus can be a human life without
having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides." Because the
mother is "the boss. "While she acknowledges the scientific case
for life of the preborn, acknowledging they are human beings, she denies their
right to live for a metaphysical reason.
Metaphysics literally means "beyond the physical" In other words, it
explores the nature of reality. Merriam Webster, "the part of philosophy that
is concerned with basic causes and nature of things."
Scott Klusendorf writes, "...although the pro-life view is
implicitly religious, it is no more religious than alternative explanations about
human value and human rights. Everyone is asking the same exact question: what
makes humans valuable in the first place?" He continues, "Science
can't answer that question because science deals only with things we can
measure empirically through the senses. If you want an answer, you'll have to
do metaphysics." (The Case for Life,
page 57)
Ms. Williams has answered that question. She defends the right
of a mother to take the life of another human being, her own child, for a
metaphysical reason, because all human beings in the world in which she lives, do
not have the same rights. In the case of a mother, she's the boss, with the
power and ability to end the life of the baby for her own personal reasons. It
sounds like the survival of the fittest, doesn't it?
Let me
see if I can explain how Ms. Williams could come to that conclusion and then give
you an alternative metaphysical paradigm for determining the value to human
life.
The
Apostle Paul in Romans one points out that there are essentially only two worldviews
that govern our metaphysical decisions. Verse twenty five, "they
exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature
rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen."
You can
either acknowledge God the Creator and worship Him or you can deny the Creator
and worship the creature, the latter being the premise of humanism which
inevitably leads to moral relativism. Dr. Francis Schaeffer over thirty years
ago in his book, A Christian Manifesto wrote,
"The
term humanism...means Man beginning from himself, with no knowledge except what he
himself can discover and no standard outside of himself. In this view Man is
the measure of all things, as the Enlightenment expressed it." (page 24)
When you
deny God the Creator, when you repudiate any notion of transcendent truth, there
is only one inevitable alternative, man becomes the center of his own universe.
He puts himself in charge, and is therefore accountable to no one but himself! It
is the self-deification of man. This is the premise of Darwinian evolution.
And here
is the devastating result. Again Dr. Schaeffer, "Those who hold the
material-energy, chance concept of reality...not only do not know the truth of
the final reality, God, they do not know who Man is...They have reduced Man to
even less than his natural finiteness by seeing him only as a complex
arrangement of molecules, made complex by blind chance. Instead of seeing him
as something great who is significant even in his sinning, they see Man in his
essence only as an intrinsically competitive animal, that has no other basic
operating principle than natural selection brought about by the strongest, the
fittest, ending on top. And they see Man as acting in this way both
individually and collectively as society."
(CM pages 25-26)
Therein
lies the explanation for Ms. Williams defense of abortion. But as the Apostle
Paul wrote, there is an alternative worldview: the acknowledgment and worship of
the Creator. We look to transcendent truth to answer the question "what makes humans valuable
in the first place?" We begin at the beginning.
Notice
first of all man was created By God. God said, "Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26a ESV) "...then the Lord
God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and the man became a living creature." (Genesis 2:7 ESV)
The
Biblical record indicates that man was not the product of a meaningless,
random evolutionary process over billions
of years, rising to he top of the
evolutionary chain having succeeded in the survival of the fittest.
Man was
not the result of a cosmic accident, not the product of random chance. How is
this relevant to the abortion debate? As already noted, the Founding Fathers
recognized that man was endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including
the right to life. Endowed by their Creator, not the federal government, not
the Supreme Court not the state of Florida but their Crestor! You see, the
Founding Fathers understood Genesis one. They looked to creation to answer the
metaphysical question "What
makes humans valuable?"
Secondly
notice that, man was created in God’s image and likeness. The inherent value of
human life shouts from this transcendent truth. "So God created man in his
own image, in the image of God he created them." (Genesis 1:27 ESV) Pediatrician,
Dr. John Rendle-Short in his book, Godlike
Qualities Man Shares with God, identifies some of the Godlike qualities man
shares with God.
Language
- Humans can communicate. My dog Maggie can bark, whine, and growl, but I have
never heard her utter a single word, no less speak a sentence.
Intelligence – man can think. Not only can he think
as a rational being, he can think in the abstract. He can compute complex
mathematical, chemical and engineering problems and formulas.
Creativity
– he can create sophisticated products. Think of the technology of our modern
scientific, medical, engineering and construction industries, just to name a
few. He can send a man to the moon and back, and communicate instantly around
the world from i-phones
and the internet.
Love -
relationships, fellowship, community. Man is a social creature with the ability
to love and be loved, to care for and nurture its young, and live in enduring
committed relationships like marriage and family.
Holiness – man has a moral conscience, the
ability to tell right from wrong.
Immortality
- he is eternal. Unlike the rest of the animal world, he will live forever.
Freedom
– he can make choices. This is “because he is human, made in the image of God.”
(Man: The image of God, John Rendle-Short, M.D.)
What a
huge statement this makes about man’s capacity to relate to God. You see,
the fact
that God created man in His image and likeness speaks of God’s intention and
purpose in creating a unique creature having the capacity to live in
relationship with His Creator. Here is where creation and the gospel intersect.
As Marcus Dods wrote years ago,
“Man is
dear to God because he is like Him...-Man, alone among God’s works, can enter
into and approve of God’s purpose in the world and can intelligently fulfill it....Man is incommensurable with the
rest of the universe. He is of a different kind and by his moral nature is more
akin to God than to his works.”
Adam
and Eve walked in fellowship with God in the Garden because they wee made in
His image and likeness. In other words, they had the capacity to know God. Sin
broke that relationship, but God in His love for man went to extraordinary
lengths to redeem sinful man through the incarnation. God became a human being in
the person of Jesus Christ so He could die a substitutionary death on the cross
paying the penalty of man's sin, thereby offering him forgiveness and eternal
life by faith in His Son Jesus Christ. That act of love is in itself one of the
greatest statements as to the intrinsic value God places on human life.
Thirdly,
the personhood of the unborn. We see
personhood in God’s relationship to the unborn. It was written of John the
Baptist: “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s
womb.” Luke 1:15 (ESV)
The
prophet Isaiah’s testimony. “Before I was born the Lord called me; from my
birth he has made mention of my name.”
Isaiah 49:1b
The
Apostle Paul, “But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who
called me by his grace.” Galatians
1:15 (ESV)
God
said of the he prophet Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew
you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to
the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV)
Listen
to this incredible incident. These words were spoken by Elizabeth who was six months
pregnant with John the Baptist when her cousin Mary, just days pregnant with
Jesus Christ, came to visit her. Luke 1:41-42,
"When
Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was
filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are
you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so
favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of
your greeting reached my ears,the baby in my womb leaped for joy.’
Do you
realize what took place here? The text says that John the Baptist six months
old, leaped for joy in his mother's womb when he came into the presence of
Jesus Christ, God incarnate who was but days old in the womb of his mother
Mary.
This
is the first recorded worship of the Messiah, and it took place in the womb. The
Psalmist wrote, "For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in
my mother's womb...“Your eyes say my unformed body. All the days ordained for
me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (139:13,16 NIV) Do you see the personhood of the
unborn in these historical narratives?
Pastor
John Piper, “Psalm 139 emphasize(s) God as the primary workman - nurturer,
fashioner, knitter, Creator --in this time of gestation. Why is this important?
It’s important because God is the only One who can create personhood. Mothers
and fathers can contribute some impersonal egg and some impersonal sperm, but
only God creates independent personhood.” (Brothers
We Are Not Professionals, p. 219-220)
What is
God’s View of human life in the womb? Douglas Erlandson has written,
“God
deals with the lives [of man] from conception to adulthood. The Bible does not
appear to recognize a special change in God’s dealings with man at birth. God
values each of the above men while he is still in the womb – knows him, chooses
him, shapes him.” (Abortion: Answering
the Arguments)
The Bible
gives an answer to the metaphysical question that everyone is asking, "What
makes human beings valuable in the first place? The unborn are created by God
and for God. They are created in His image and likeness and are recognized by
God as distinct and unique persons from the moment of conception. So valuable
to Him that He sent His Son to die on the cross so they could be reconciled to
their Creator.
What is
propelling the worldwide abortion crisis? The Biblical evidence would
indicate that abortion is a Satanic
enterprise. The stage was set thousands of years ago as recorded in Genesis
3:15 (NIV). After Satan deceived Adam
and Eve and man was plunged into sin. God said to Satan, "...I will put enmity between you and
the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush
your head, and you will strike his heel." And with
that, the epoch struggle between good and evil began. And Satan has been
involved in an unrelenting attempt to kill the offspring of Eve ever since.
Jesus,
Himself, said as much. John chapter 8 records an encounter between Jesus and the
religious leaders. In that exchange Jesus said this about the devil, "The
devil…was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is
no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar
and the father of all lies." John 8:44
(NIV) With those words Jesus identified two roles of Satan: a murderer
from the beginning and a liar and the father of lies.
The devil
is 'a murderer.' It is estimated that
between 40 and 50 million babies are killed by abortion worldwide each year.
About one in five pregnancies end in abortion worldwide. (Alan Guttmacher Institute,
“In Brief”, October 2007)
It is estimated there have been 1.72 BILLION
abortions worldwide in the first 40 years after 1973. That is an average of
117,800 abortions per day for 40 years. (Dr. Brian Clowes, director of education and research at
Human Life International Lifenews.com 04-01-13)
In America, almost 58
million preborn children have been aborted in the last 42 years. Over 72,000
Florida in 2014
In John 10:10, Jesus
said, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. The Devil has
been very successful in carrying out his agenda.
Satan is a liar and the
father of all lies. Deception proliferates in the abortion industry. Deception characterizes the abortion
industry. Deception involves lies. The words of an abortion counselor:
"Although the test is positive, you shouldn't
consider yourself pregnant," she explained. "It's really just cells
dividing at this point. We can take care of the problem quickly and easily, and
you'll never have to think about it again.”
She made four statements. Every statement was of was
a lie. Deception involves withholding the truth. This study showed that, “Even
though the majority felt rushed and
uncertain, 67% received no counseling; 79% were not told about alternatives to
abortion.” ( VM Rue et. al., Medical
Science Monitor)
You see,
deception Leads to Moral Schizophrenia. Randy Alcorn, “In America it is illegal
to harm
your pre-born child, but it is perfectly legal to kill him.”
The Devil
is “a murderer...a liar and father of all
lies.” These two “attributes” expose him as the Architect of Abortion.
The
ancient worship of the fertility god Molech involved child sacrifice. God said,
“And you took your sons and daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them
as food to the idols… You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the
idols.”
Randy Alcorn writes, “As the devil loved the
sacrifice of children in the ancient heathen cultures, so he loves the
sacrifice of children in our modern culture. Whether children are sacrificed to
a heathen god called Molech or to the god of our own convenience, he does not
care.”
“Whether these children are born or unborn does not
matter to God’s enemies, for each of
them is equally created in the image of God, and by killing them Satan
comes as close as he can to striking out at God Himself. In killing those
created in God’s image, Satan
kills God in effigy.”
In Luke chapter ten Jesus helped a lawyer understand what it
meant to love his neighbor. He was evidently hung up on exactly what that
looked like so he asked Jesus, "Who his my neighbor?" Jesus then
tells him the story of a man on his way to Jericho from Jerusalem who was
robbed and beaten and left half dead alongside the road.
Three different individuals had the opportunity to come to his
rescue, in all likelihood to save his life. Two of the three did not respond to
the needs of the man bleeding by the side of the road. Those two were the
church leaders of that day a priest and a Levite, responsible for the spiritual
care of their nation.
And Jesus points out that not only did they fail to respond but,
they "passed by on the other side." In other words they distanced
themselves from the needs of the man dying by the side of the road.
Jesus then pointed out that the one who proved to be the
neighbor to the dying man was the one who showed mercy to the badly beaten
traveller. He then said, "Go and do likewise."
John
Ensor, in his book Innocent Blood, defines
"Samaritan compassion " this way,"Doing right in the sight of the Lord
means acting to stop the shedding of innocent blood. The only person in Jesus’
parable who is pro-life according to the demands of love is the Samaritan. Only
he was willing to make the nearly dead man’s problem his own. Only he was
willing to see the victim’s suffering as his own. Only he was willing to act according
to what he would cry out for if their positions had been reversed." (page 54)
May I suggest to you that according to Jesus' parable, our
salvation has a moral imperative built into it with regards to the needs of
those around us, our neighbors.
Last year (2014) in Broward County 12,359 unborn children lost
their lives to abortion. That's an average of 35 children every day. They were your neighbors.
Children will die unless someone intervenes on their behalf. In
other words, we have an opportunity to "go and do likewise!"
Again, John Ensor, "Loving my neighbor will occasionally
arrest me, and maybe even require me to help prevent someone from being
murdered." The writer of Proverbs said something very similar. "Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death; Don’t stand back and
let them die. Don’t try to avoid responsibility by saying you didn’t know about
it."
© James P McGarvey All Rights
Reserved
