Sanctity of Life Sunday 2021

This is the Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. It's the day that many rise up to recognize that human life is special, is set apart, and in that sense, is sanctified. The primary focus on this, the third Sunday in January, isn't solely, but it is largely abortion. In the majority of places in the world, it is perfectly legal to murder unborn children at will. It is only in roughly a dozen country that children have legal protection from being murdered in the womb.

Why is this so? Why is this such an issue? Why are women campaigning in the streets to be allowed to freely kill their babies? Why does our current society ask first, "Are you going to keep it?" Why do "pro-choice" folks seem to leave women with only one choice -- abort or expect a miserable life? How can we make sense of this?

Studies indicate that more than 99% of all abortions are performed for social or economic reasons. In the less than 1% category are things like saving the life or health of the mother, rape or incest, fetal birth defects, or a combination thereof. Almost without exception, then, the reason women need the right to murder their babies in the womb are things like, "I can't afford it right now," "I'm not ready to be a mother," "I don't want another child," "A baby would interfere with my career/education," and "Someone (parents, husband, boyfriend) told me to." That is, they refer to it as "reproductive freedom" because it is their last line of "contraception" and not "to save lives."

"Well," they tell us, "what do you expect? Those 'abstinence-only' programs aren't working." They're right; those programs statistically don't work. Whether it is due to pressure or due to desire, women are still having sex even when they "can't afford" it or "don't want a child" or "it would interfere with my life." Bottom line, then, the reason women need the right to kill babies on demand is to allow them to have unrestricted sex on demand without being ... inconvenienced.

So, in the U.S. in 2020 while COVID killed a reported 350,000 people, more than 800,000 babies died in the U.S. (42 million worldwide) so women could have sex on demand. Around the world, the numbers just skyrocket. While a reported 1.8 million people have died of COVID in 2020, an estimated 42.5 million babies died for mom's sexual freedom. Mind you, that's the estimated number; no one knows how many "morning after" babies or fertilized embryos were dislodged by "contraceptives." (I put that in quotes because many modern "contraceptives" don't counter conception; they counter gestation.) You can imagine that the numbers are staggering. According to WHO, approximately 125,000 babies are killed every day around the world by abortion. Mostly for the freedom to sleep with whomever whenever.

If this was about race or gender, the world would be up in arms. There would be rioting in the streets. If the world was legally murdering millions every year because they're a minority or a particular gender, there might be armed revolt. But they're unborn babies. (I'm using that term, but it's their term as well, except for when it doesn't suit their narrative.) But, as it turns out, it is much more about minorities and gender than most realize. Statistically, 55% of all abortions are for black and Hispanic women. Doing the math, of those more than 800,000 babies killed this year in America, some 440,000 of those babies were minorities. (Note: Statistically, black and Hispanic women make up about 29% of the U.S. population.) Gender-based abortions are not uncommon in China and India, but it's perfectly legal in the U.S. as well. And this is disturbing because around the world where it is legal and/or practiced, the preference is for males over females. When gender-based abortions occur, the vast majority are girls being executed in the womb. Wait ... is that crickets I hear? Yes, no one cares because the right to have unrestricted sex is god in our world, even if it means killing minorities and girls at disproportionate rates.

People try to paint Christians as "right-wing" by which they mean "whackos." We're "radical." Bible-believing Christians who see human life as intrinsically valuable simply because humans are made in the image of God are "outlandish" and "narrow-minded." So because I oppose killing babies I'm the fanatic. An estimated 1.6 billion babies have been killed since 1980 and I'm the crazy one. An estimated 18 million black babies have been killed in the U.S. since 1973 and I'm the bigot. Well, okay, I'll wear that tag if I must. I'm crazy about human life and bigoted against killing babies, minority or female or otherwise. I expect it won't be too hard to see that when "Because I want to have sex" is the rule over the value of human life, it's not difficult to anticipate that "Killing people so I can have the sex I want" wouldn't be far away. In the meantime, it's only the "fanatics" that stand for the most vulnerable humans against the "liberal" folks who don't much care if you kill those but complain if you don't do what they want for their favorite "marginalized" people. ("No, not those billions of kids. Get real.") In the meantime, it is this particularly small faction of fanatics that know Christ that actually have the answer to "because I want to have sex." Perhaps we ought to be sharing that good news with more people around us? Political action is fine; changed hearts is better.