The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that in 2021, with 46 states reporting, there were in the U.S. 625,000 abortions; and, in the years 2013 through 2022, there were on average 625,000 abortions reported. One will find varying statistics, and some have reported that the number of abortions annually in our land of the free is over one million. And, since the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade the number of abortions reportedly has actually risen.
For those of us who believe that life begins at conception, it is not a stretch to conclude—with Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged by the Nazis for trying to subvert the German World War II holocaust—that “destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life, and that is nothing but murder.” (quoted from Bonhoeffer’s book Ethics)
Consider that in America’s horrific Civil War there were 498,312 casualties; in World War II, there were 407,316; and in the Vietnam War, 58,098. But by the most conservative reports (CDC) there are over 600,000 casualties every year in America’s War on the Unborn, or America’s Daily Holocaust on the unborn.
A missionary, in a prayer letter written some years ago, mentioned the magnitude of the problem in Russia: “A friend told us the average Russian woman has had 10-12 abortions in her life. That was verified a few weeks later when we read an article in a local newspaper which stated that 300,000 girls between ages 15-19 have abortions each year, and that 10% of the girls under 19 in Moscow have already had an abortion. By the time a woman reaches 26 it is not uncommon for her to have had as many as 12 abortions.”
The termination of an embryo’s life does not, however, cause the “problem” to go away. A doctor at the University of Minnesota, according to the Christian Action Council, published a study on the long-term (i.e., five-to-ten year) manifestations of stress from abortion. The study, including women from diverse backgrounds, revealed that (1) 81 percent reported preoccupation with the aborted child; (2) 73 percent reported flashbacks of the abortion experience; (3) 69 percent reported feelings of “craziness” after the abortion; (4) 54 percent recalled nightmares related to abortions; (5) 35 percent had perceived visitations from the aborted child and (6) 23 percent said they experienced hallucinations related to abortions.
Interestingly, the original plaintiff in the Roe v. Wade case petitioned a federal court to take a second look at the 1973 decision to legalize abortion. She said, “My case was wrongfully decided and has caused great harm to the women and children of our nation.” (Norma “Jane Doe” McCorvey in a friend of the court brief 5/31/01, Third Circuit Court of Appeals; reprinted in The Baptist Courier, 7/5/01) Later in life, McCorvey became an anti-abortion activist, stating that she regretted her role in the Roe v. Wade case; and, when the ruling was finally overturned, the 55 year-old McCorvey was quoted as saying her involvement in Roe was “the biggest mistake of my life.” (Wikipedia)
One prolife advocate, whose name at one time had almost universal recognition, said, “America needs no words from me to see how your decisions in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts—as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience.” (Mother Theresa, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, 2/25/94)
Consider: American war casualties since 1776: 1,077,200. Americans killed by heart disease, cancer or stroke in 1994: 1,425,300. Babies aborted in 1992: 1,528,930. (Figures from Right to Life) In 1997, a Crisis Pregnancy Center noted that “on average, over 75 babies are killed each week in our city (Indianapolis)—even during the holidays.”
The annual Right to Life march will be held again this year on Saturday, January 24, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The first one was held in March of 1974 to lobby Congressional leadership to find a legislative solution to the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize abortion.
Someone has posed these questions: (1) A minister and his wife (who are very poor) have fourteen children. Now she finds she is pregnant with number 15. Considering their extreme poverty, would you recommend an abortion? (2) The father is sick; the mother has TB. They have four children. Child one is blind; the second has died, the third is deaf, and the fourth has TB. The mother finds she is pregnant again. Given the extreme situation, would you recommend an abortion? (3) A male raped a thirteen-year old girl of a different race who finds herself pregnant following the assault. If you were her parent, would you go for an abortion? (4) A teen-age girl is pregnant. She is not married. Her fiancée is not the father of the baby, and he is very upset. Would you consider recommending an abortion?
If you did recommend an abortion to the minister and his wife, you would have agreed to kill John Wesley; in the 2nd case, you would have been party to the murder of Beethoven; in the 3rd Ethel Waters, gospel soloist; and in the 4th case, Jesus of Nazareth.
“For thou hast possessed my reins (kidneys); thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.” (A Psalm of David, Ps. 139:13)
YOU and GOD 