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If the last 18 months have shown us anything in regards to the so-called pro-life movement, it is that it was only mostly pro-life. The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe has flayed and fractured the Pro-Life Army. We now pitch our tents in various camps:

• Camp Heartbeat – We should outlaw abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected.
• Camp Gestation – We should outlaw abortion after certain gestational phases, such as 12-13 weeks.
• Camp Exception – We should outlaw abortion except in cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother.
• Camp Compromise – We should find a middle ground to unite and/or appease both political parties so we can stop bickering about abortion. 
• Camp Personhood – We should legally declare the unborn a person, thus granting him or her all the legal protections afforded under our Constitution, including the right to life. 
• Camp Abolition – We should abolish abortion and prosecute any and all found guilty in a court of law of being intentionally involved in an abortion. 

I have written extensively on this subject in previous blogs. This scourge of infanticide has probably been the topic I have written most about over the last several years. I do not intend to rehash arguments I have made in other blogs. The reader can easily click and find them. Suffice it to say I am squarely and unapologetically in the last two camps, and find them to be the most biblically faithful viewpoints. 

And, I do not think for a second we will ever rid our Nation of this plague of self-centered humanistic idolatry called abortion apart from legally adopting the Personhood and Abolition positions. This morning, I read the latest statistic on abortion published by the CDC, and the argument of the Abolitionists has never been more strongly reinforced. You can read the stats here: https://www.kentuckytoday.com/news/cdc-report-more-than-625k-in-u-s-lost-lives-to-abortion-in-2021/article_1b3f3f96-938d-11ee-8b8b-430f46705c60.html?utm_source=kentuckytoday.com&utm_campaign=/newsletter/optimize/daily-headlines/?-dc=1701853218&utm_medium=email&utm_content=read more

Over 265k “legal” (by human law, not God’s law) abortions were reported in 2021. I am not sure why these stats lag several years behind? But anyway, four states don’t report, one of which is California. So, there’s really no telling how many millions of babies in America were poisoned, cut up, smashed, sliced and diced in their mother’s wombs in the year 2021. It will be interesting to see the stats for 2022 and 2023, to assess any impact of the overturning of Roe. But what I found insightful in the 2021 stats as it pertains to the position of Abolitionists like myself was:

• Among the areas reporting gestational ages, 80% of abortions were performed at or before 9 weeks, and a whopping 93% were performed at or before 13 weeks. 
• 53% of abortions were performed by medication before 9 weeks gestation, while surgical accounted for only 37% of unborn baby murders up to 13 weeks gestation. 
• 57% of all reported abortions happen among women in their 20s, with black-skinned women having the highest abortion rates and ratios. 

These statistics are demonstrating a few truths / realities:

1. Fallen sinful people are “inventors of evil” (Romans 1:30). Banish or curtail one method of infanticide (surgery), and they will invent another (kill pills). 
2. The various “camps” perpetually satisfied with the compromise or incremental approach, or laws that rely upon outlawing abortions only after certain gestational stages (usually 9-12 weeks), are not only morally vacuous and unbiblical, they are almost entirely ineffective at stopping the vast majority of abortions! 
3. Claiming that most women who get abortions are “victims” is simply not true. I mean, do we seriously think that each year many hundreds of thousands of women in their 20s are owned by pimps or being run over roughshod by domineering boyfriends or Dads or Moms? Abortion has always been, is now, and ever shall be treated mostly as a form of “birth control.” It is the height of self-idolatry, exchanging “the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25).  
4. The abortion industry run by Planned Parenthood and funded by our wicked government is racist. Truly, genuinely racist. With all the “woke” concern for oppression, where are the liberal voices crying out against the true racist oppression called abortion? And where are the black Christians rising up in righteous indignation against this Satanic attack upon their people? Rise up, my dear brothers and sisters! Rise up in Jesus’ name! 

Law cannot change hearts. Only Jesus as given to us in the gospel and applied to our hearts by the Spirit and received by faith can. But laws reflect what we as a society say is right or wrong. Laws reveal our hearts by showing what or whom we value enough to protect. Abortion exists because fallen sinners hate God and His image reflected in every baby (Genesis 1:26-27; 9:6). The only lasting cure for hatred of God is to have God set His love upon you in Christ (John 3:16).  And by God’s design, Law leads to Gospel (Galatians 3:21-29), and governments serve God rightly only when they enact laws that reflect His glory and truth and goodness (Romans 13:1-7). And it has become crystal clear that even the Pro-Life Movement needs a genuine gospel awakening. Many in the pro-life movement need to be saved by grace through faith in Jesus; for it is only the born-again heart that ever truly hungers and thirsts for righteousness as God Almighty defines it (Matthew 5:6). 

O God, awaken us! For the sake of Jesus and His Gospel in our Nation, and unto the world. Revive us as the Church, “the pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). 

 

by Keith McWhorter