The End to Abortion

I have always held that, at least in my case, "anti-abortion" is the wrong tag. I am not opposed to abortion; I'm opposed to killing babies. Currently pregnant women can 1) do the normal thing and carry the baby to term and raise it, 2) do the normal thing and carry the baby to term and give it away for adoption, or 3) kill it. In 2012 (the latest date of statistics available from the CDC), nearly 700,000 abortions were performed. That's 700,000 babies murdered instead of Options 1 or 2. I'm not opposed to the first two options. It's that third one that disturbs me because I'm pro-life and not anti-abortion. You see, if they could come up with a way to remove the baby from the womb of the mother who wants or needs it removed and have that baby live, I'd have nothing to say.

Just last month The Atlantic reported on the early results of a new technology that could potentially allow a fetus to continue to develop outside of the womb. Scientists from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia developed an artificial womb, a bag with amniotic fluids and artificial feeding tubes, that successfully grew lamb fetuses from conception to the equivalent of a 23-week-old human fetus. The idea is that a human fetus could be removed from the womb and allowed to gestate in this artificial version to an age at which it could survive. That, at least, is the idea. It's a long way from reality. The article says, "If they ever materialize, artificial wombs may stir concerns among pro-choice advocates, since the devices could push the point of viability for human fetuses even lower. That might encourage even more states to curtail abortions after, say, 20 weeks’ gestation."

See? This could potentially be the end of abortion! Or so some of us would like to think. Here's the problem. Since "choice" and not "life" or "that baby" is the highest priority, the question would still be "choice". What will the mother choose? It is my sad but firm conviction that many, many women would choose Option 3 even with this new option. Why? Well, women have always had the option of delivering the baby and giving him or her up for adoption and, yet, untold numbers of them opt to murder the child rather than not. I don't have much hope that removing the baby sooner from the womb would change too many choices. Too many women think that childbearing is a burden -- even an unfair one. Too many will also think that a live child reared by other parents would be worse than a dead child.

The statistics speak for themselves. Women could choose to deliver and give up their babies, but millions haven't, choosing instead to kill them. It's a sad commentary on how Americans think when so many either participate or support this. The worse thing is that changing the laws won't change the hearts, and it is what proceeds from the heart that defiles a person (Matt 15:18). Laws won't fix this; Jesus can.