By Douglas S. Winnail

This article is long and although I obviously don't believe
in a future Earthly kingdom of Christ, this article is well
thought out and is well worth taking the time to read!

Please read it through with care and I hope you are
blessed by it!


Abortion: A Modern Holocaust?
By Douglas S. Winnail

Every year, millions of unborn babies are being murdered
in their mothers' wombs. What does today's widespread
acceptance of abortion tell us about ourselves, and about
our modern society? What will be the future of a world
where abortion becomes routine? You need to know!

In the last 40 years, the subject of abortion has erupted
on the world stage and provoked international controversy
polarizing people, dividing countries and setting churches
against states. Zealous supporters of abortion, calling
themselves "pro-choice," debate and demonstrate with
passion and zeal, countered by equally zealous opponents
of abortion, calling themselves "pro-life". Confrontations
between these two perspectives are often emotional and
bitter, sometimes becoming violent or even fatal! Battle
lines have been drawn. One observer noted that "few
issues have more thoroughly fragmented contemporary
society" (The Ethics of Abortion, Baird & Rosenbaum, p. 7).

To understand this emotion-charged issue, it is helpful to
know why abortion has emerged as such a controversial
topic in our time, and to recognize what is ultimately at
stake. Even more important is the question: where is
the acceptance of abortion leading our society?

Why has abortion become a controversial issue in many
countries of the world today? For centuries, abortion
was scorned or forbidden in many countries around the
globe. Yet in the last half of the 20th century, abortion
was not merely accepted, it was embraced! With the
declining influence of Judeo-Christian values, and the
resulting rejection of biblical morality, many turned to
permissive sexual behavior, and "reproductive rights"
became a rallying cry as women abandoned traditional
gender roles and sexually promiscuous men sought
pleasure without any regard for the consequences.
Simultaneously, amid fears of global overpopulation,
governments began to subsidize and sometimes even
to require, as in China, abortion as a means of "birth
control".

More than in most countries, the United States is divided
on the issue of abortion, as many still respect biblical
standards of morality. In Europe, abortion is a far less
volatile issue, as only about 10 percent of the population
attends church services regularly, compared to nearly
half in the U.S.

A Global Concern

In the U.S., pro-life activists are motivated by the
magnitude of the abortion problem, yet the problem is even
greater worldwide. Since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized
abortion with the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973,
approximately 1.5 million abortions have been done every
year for a total of more than 40 million young lives snuffed
out! More than six million babies have been killed in
Britain since abortion was legalized there in 1967. In the
former Soviet Union and East Bloc countries, the majority
of pregnancies are terminated by abortion. In China, where
abortion was legalized in 1957, more than 100 million
abortions have occurred in the last four decades. In 1979,
China adopted a "one child" policy, severely restricting
most parents' opportunity to have a second child. With the
development of ultrasound technology (through which parents
can learn the gender of a child in the womb) has come the
phenomenon of "sex-selective" abortions, in which families
restricted to one child will kill their unborn daughters so
that they can have a boy. Not surprisingly, observers note
that the current generation of young urban Chinese includes
noticeably more men than women!

In many countries, especially across Africa and Latin
America, abortions are routinely done under conditions
so unsafe that the mother is at grave risk of complications
and suffering, or even death.

Around the world, it is estimated that between 40 and 50
million abortions occur annually (see The Abortion Debate,
Kulczycki, p. 5). This means that about one in every four
pregnancies are ended by induced abortion poisoned,
dismembered or suctioned out and discarded!

In Germany, during World War II, Adolf Hitler's Nazi
movement killed an estimated six million Jews in what
has become known as the Holocaust. After the war,
those responsible for this barbaric act of cruelty were
tried and convicted of crimes against humanity, and
a morally outraged world saw them hanged for their crimes.
Today, however, tens of millions of unborn babies die every
year, many in the very same nations that sat in judgment
at Nuremburg.

It is no wonder that many today call widespread abortion
a modern holocaust. The mass murder of unborn babies,
legal and socially acceptable in our modern nations, has
exceeded by far the numbers killed in Germany under the
Nazis, in Russia under Stalin, in China under Mao Zedong
and in Cambodia under Pol Pot, yet few today are shocked
or outraged! In fact, those who speak out against abortion
are commonly labeled as backward and right-wing religious
fanatics.

Clouded by Arguments

But how did we reach a point where modern, educated
people with a heritage of Christian values that regard
abortion as illegal and immoral, now accept and even
demand that abortion be recognized as a legal right?
The answer lies in the arguments used by pro-abortionists,
which cloud the real issues at the heart of the controversy.
When examined closely, these arguments, though labeled
"intellectual" and "progressive", are revealed as shallow
and one-sided, willfully ignoring basic facts of biology.

Pro-abortionists commonly argue that in the early stages
of pregnancy a developing embryo is not really a human life,
as it is only a "blob of tissue" that looks more like a
tadpole than a human being. In fact, however, this
differentiating collection of cells is developing in a way
that will never result in a tadpole, or a tree or a monkey!
By 10 to 12 weeks, this little individual will have a
recognizable human face, arms, hands and fingers, legs,
feet and toes. It appears to smile and suck its thumb,
and it even responds to sounds! It is a miniature human
being. Just because it does not appear human in the early
weeks of development does not make it a "sub-human"
creature!

Pro-abortionists like to cloud the issue of when life
begins. They have argued that life does not begin
until movement is felt, or the first breath is drawn,
or until the fetus is viable on its own, to justify that
abortion before these milestones is not really taking
a human life. However, the biological fact is that life
begins at the moment of conception. From that point,
every cell in the developing embryo contains the exact
number of chromosomes and all the genetic material
that distinguishes this new human being from its parents.
Some say that the fetus is just an organ, a part of the
mother's body like the appendix or a hangnail and that
it is up to the mother to decide if she wants it removed.
However, from conception a fetus has a different genetic
makeup from any organ in the mother's body. Terminating
this life by abortion takes the life of a genetically unique
individual. Biologically, it is impossible to draw a line
and say life begins at any other point than at conception.
The fetus moves in the womb weeks before the mother
feels any movement. While a fetus cannot survive on its
own outside the mother's body, neither can a baby survive
on its own after it is born! It must also be fed, nurtured
and cared for by others for years before it can survive
on its own.

Pro-abortionists have suggested that legal abortions,
by reducing the number of "unwanted" pregnancies,
reduce the incidence of child abuse since every child born
will be wanted and loved. However, since abortion became
legal, the incidence of child abuse has increased!

The argument that abortion must be legal in order
to provide for cases of rape, incest or detectable birth
defects ignores the fact that these reasons account
for only a small fraction of abortions occurring today
(see chart). Many abortions occur among sexually
active adolescents for purely personal (and often selfish)
reasons (Kulczycki, p. 1). Abortions on demand, "killing
for convenience", are frequently requested to avoid the
responsibilities or embarrassment of unwanted conceptions
(Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Bork, p. l80).

Noted jurist Robert Bork points out that the U.S. Supreme
Court's Roe v. Wade decision, legalizing abortion, was
viewed by feminists as a "landmark on women's march
to equality, the issue had nothing to do with the humanity
of the fetus but was entirely about women's freedom"
(Bork, p. 183). The pro-abortion argument likes to focus on
a woman's rights, unless the woman is in her mother's womb!

Historical Perspectives

Supporters of abortion rarely consider the lessons of
history. In ancient pagan Greece and Rome, unwanted
infants were exposed to the elements and left to die.
Abortion was an accepted practice, and a variety of
methods were available. Plato and Aristotle advocated
abortion to limit family size. Although Roman law was
pro-family, it was not anti-abortion. The decline of Rome
saw an increase of crime, promiscuity and abortion.
Christianity, by contrast, forbade murder and taught
that life was sacred, challenging pagan values and
bringing about what some have called the "first abortion
war" (see Christianity Today, October 6, 1989). This
clash between Christian and pagan values (visible not
only in Scripture, but in the early Church Fathers)
shaped the anti-abortion attitudes of Western civilization
for centuries.

Another "abortion war" erupted in the 1850s, when across
the U.S. abortion began to gain new popularity, spurred by
new values shaped by the Industrial Revolution. Medical
doctors, however, backed restrictive laws to curtail
abortions by unqualified practitioners, which also had the
effect of limiting competition.

In the 1930s, Nazi Germany passed laws making it legal
to kill the old and infirm. This principle was later
extended to allow the murder of Jews, gypsies and other
"unwanted" members of society. Nazi Germany actually
restricted abortion, however, of those whose genetics
were considered socially desirable.

It was not until the middle of the 20th century that the
"abortion wars" reached their zenith. In the 1960s and
1970s, the U.S. and U.K. followed the examples set by
China and the Soviet Union, legalizing abortion.
Centuries-old value systems were now being replaced by
ancient pagan values of life in many nominally "Christian"
nations around the world.

Fifty years ago, decent people were outraged to learn that
Nazi doctors had experimented on living human beings for
"scientific" purposes, and had harvested body parts for
commercial use. Today, few are concerned that human
tissue from aborted fetuses is even used in making face
creams! How society has changed! Since abortion and
euthanasia were legalized in Holland, estimates suggest
that 8 percent of infants who die each year in the
Netherlands are killed by doctors! One observer commented
that "it took the Dutch almost 30 years for their medical
practices to fall to the point that Dutch doctors are able
to engage in the kind of euthanasia activities that got
some German doctors hanged after Nuremberg".

The Biblical Dimension

The historical dimension of the abortion controversy is
sobering. But what about the moral question? Is abortion
right or wrong? What does the Bible say?

The Apostle Paul wrote: "But if anyone does not provide
for his own [family], he has denied the faith" (1 Tim 5:8).
Would anyone argue that a Christian can provide for a
family member by killing him? Remember: one of the
Ten Commandments specifically condemns murder
(Exodus 20:13). In other words, any birth control method
that induces abortion is wrong.

Moses warned the Israelites not to practice the wicked
customs of their Canaanite neighbors, which included
infanticide, the killing of children. He instructed: "You
shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations.
There shall not be found among you anyone who makes
his son or daughter pass through the fire, for they burn
even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods"
(Deuteronomy 18:9-14; 12:31).

King David described that the Israelites angered God
because they "sacrificed their sons and daughters to
demons [false gods], and shed innocent blood, even
the blood of their sons and daughters" (Psalms 106:32-39).
The prophet Ezekiel thundered God's warning that, having
forgotten God, they had "slain My children; blood is on
their hands. They have sacrificed their sons whom they
have born to Me, passing them through the fire, to devour
them" (Ezekiel 16:21; 23:37).

In direct defiance of God's instructions, ancient Israel
had adopted barbaric pagan practices of child killing!
In response, the prophet Jeremiah warned: "Also on
your skirts is found the blood of the lives of the poor
innocents. Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on
this place, that whoever hears of it, his ears will tingle,
because they have forsaken Me; therefore behold,
the days are coming, says the Lord, that this place
shall no more be called Tophet or the Valley of the
Son of Hinnom [where children were sacrificed], but
the Valley of Slaughter [when God uses foreign nations
to punish His people for killing their own children]"
(see Jeremiah 2:34; 19:3-7). These passages reveal
how God views the slaughter of children, whether they
are infants or unborn babies!

Modern "ethicists" like Peter Singer of Princeton University
have offered arguments that an unborn fetus is less than
human. This idea is not new; it was common to many
ancient pagan philosophers as well. However, this approach
is clearly refuted in the Bible. God told Jeremiah: "Before
I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born
I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations"
(Jeremiah 1:5). An angel told Zacharias, father of John
the Baptist, that John would "also be filled with the Holy
Spirit, even from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15). The Bible
reveals that God regards unborn babies as human beings,
and that killing human infants, born or unborn, will incur
the wrath of Almighty God! Our modern secular society
has forgotten these powerful warnings!

A Sobering Future

But where is the drive to legalize abortion leading modern
nations? What is the acceptance of abortion doing to our
societies? Judge Robert Bork calls the U.S. Supreme Court's
Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion, an attempt
by liberal secular elites to impose their values on the rest
of the nation (see Bork, p. 174). He observes: "Abortion
has coarsened us" and it reflects "the brutalization of our
culture" (ibid., p. 182). He states: "The systematic
killing of unborn children in huge numbers is part of
a general disregard for human life that has been growing
for some time. Abortion deepens and legitimates
the nihilism [disregard for traditional values] that is
spreading in our culture and finds killing for convenience
acceptable" (ibid, p. 192).

British social critic Peter Hitchens makes a similar
observation, that abortion "corrupts any society which
freely permits it. The idea that innocent life may be
lawfully ended for the convenience of others or for
the alleged good of society, once generally accepted,
devastates the rule of law itself" (The Spectator,
August 7, 2004). British columnist Bruce Anderson
comments: "Over the last 40 years, the abortion clinic
has become an indispensable part of the life-support
system of the permissive society. The unrestricted
enjoyment of sexual license requires not only
contraception but retroactive contraception [abortion]"
(The Spectator, July 17, 2004).

Even those who try to frame the debate in terms of
"reproductive rights" cannot honestly deny the negative
social trends that have accompanied the acceptance
of abortion. They can only say that in their value system,
these negative trends are a price worth paying. Ultimately,
two questions are involved; whose values will prevail and
who will control society? Dr. Andrzej Kulczycki, a United
Nations consultant, has observed that "the debate about
abortion reflects a conflict over who runs society"; social
liberals or religious and social conservatives?"; their
disagreements reflect very different understandings
of the fetus, of the woman, and indeed of how the world
should be structured" (The Abortion Debate, Kulczycki,
pp. 157, 18). These conflicting views are at the heart of
the bitter cultural wars that are polarizing people and
dividing nations today.

It is significant that abortion is now widely accepted
in many cultures that historically called themselves
"Christian". Bible prophecy warns that "in the last days"
people will be "lovers of themselves [focused on their own
rights and desires to the exclusion of concern for others],
unloving [callous and without natural affection as mothers
for their own children] brutal" (2 Timothy 3:1-5). These
prophecies accurately describe our world today, yet these
trends will grow far worse in years to come. Thankfully,
the return of Jesus Christ will soon usher in the Kingdom
of God, and bring about a return to biblical values that
will include "turning the hearts of the fathers [and
mothers] to their children". Then, finally, the tragic
modern holocaust of abortion will become a thing
of the past!

Children of Carthage

Today's nations should learn a grim lesson from the way
children were treated in ancient Carthage, and from the
fate that befell the city. In 300BC, Carthage was the
center of a rich trading empire, and was a rival of Rome.
Its citizens were wealthy, cultured and educated, yet
remarkably callous about taking human life. Unwanted
orphans and widows were killed to reduce the amount
of poverty and suffering in the city (When Nations Die,
Black, p. 164). Carthaginians burned thousands of their
own children to appease their patron goddess, Tanet.
Ancient writers report that frequent public sacrifices took
place in front of a bronze statue of the god, with arms
outstretched over a blazing fire; the child slid down over
the arms and fell into the flames (The Phoenicians and
the West, Aubet, p. 211). The necropolis at Carthage
contains more than 20,000 urns with charred remains
of infants and children. This gruesome practice finally
ended when the Romans besieged and destroyed
Carthage in 146BC.

Historian Jim Nelson Black wondered how the murder
of unborn children in modern societies is any different
from the murder of children in ancient Carthage? He
asked: Isn't the rite of abortion our culture's sacrifice
to the gods of materialism and greed? The Phoenicians
killed many thousands of children. But in the entire
history of Carthage or of Rome, they never killed 30 million
in the name of "a woman's right to control her own body"
(Black, p. 166).

The media lavished much attention on the famous Roman
Catholic nun, Mother Teresa, but only infrequently reported
her stinging rebukes of contemporary society. Mother Teresa
likened abortion to a war against the child, a direct
killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.
And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child,
how can we tell other people not to kill one another? Any
country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to
love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This
is why the greatest destroyer of peace and love is abortion
(ibid., pp. 214-215).

Carthage continued its barbaric practice of murdering
children until the day it was destroyed. Will our society
today, which permits far greater evil, do the same?

--

Pastor Dave Raymond
1st Century Church of Christ

Preaching the truth of Scripture,
from Creation to Revelation!

http://home.tampabay.rr.com/1stcentury

To do evil is like sport to a fool.
Go from the presence of a foolish man,
when you do not perceive in him the
lips of knowledge - Proverbs

This article is long and although I obviously don't believe
in a future Earthly kingdom of Christ, this article is well
thought out and is well worth taking the time to read!

Please read it through with care and I hope you are
blessed by it!

Abortion: A Modern Holocaust?
By Douglas S. Winnail