THE ABORTION CONTROVERSY: WHY IS ABORTION WRONG?

 

Abortion here refers to the deliberate termination of a pregnancy (induced abortion) – a medical procedure to end a pregnancy and cause the death of the fetus (developing baby). It is a situation whereby the fetus is being intentionally and forcefully removed by several methods. This excludes the minute cases of unintentional abortions, eg. still births, miscarriages etc

Abortion isn’t a recent act; it has started since the 12th century. Young women of that time agitated for freedom to terminate their babies when they could no longer carry them. The first time it started, abortion was legal as far as it is done before the baby "kicks"; that's between the 7^th and 8^th month of development. Herbal mixtures were mixed by some experienced midwives to either terminate the baby or induce abortion. Most of the women at that time died during the process, but recently, medical knowledge has increased and there are several successful abortion cases. Based on the recent statistics on abortion cases, a lot of people have died during this act, yet some others want to risk their lives doing the same.

Well, to prove that abortion isn't a worthy step, whether as an individual decision or as a legally accepted activity in a society, lets look at the following points.

First of all, abortion is the termination of life, no matter what stage of development it was done. Blood is life, and God takes it very serious. It's a very sacred entity; it's a symbol of God's covenant with man. You see, only God can create or give life and He reserves the only authority to take it. No man has that authority. God has not given any man the permission to take the life of a human being; it will always backfire.

    Do you remember the first case of murder in the Bible? – the murder of Abel by Cain, his brother. In Gen. 4:10 Abel's blood cried for vengeance, and God heard it. If God can give hear to Abel’s blood after his death, He hears the cry of the blood of the smallest fetus too; as far as blood is involved. In fact, in Gen. 9:4, God asked us not to eat flesh with blood. That shows how sacred blood is. God also punished whoever shed blood in the Old Testament. Gen. 9: 5-6 says, And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. Mind you, that statement includes animals. No animal is even allowed to kill a man or shed blood. Therefore, except in cases where God Himself approved killing some people because they were involved in sexual or immoral related acts, no one is authorized to shed innocent blood. (Lev. 20:9-13).

Most of the times, abortion is a result of premarital or extramarital relationships. That means, abortion is not a lone sin; it originates from the sin of adultery or fornication and results in the sin of murder, which on their own carries their consequences which God doesn’t overlook. Abortion is one way people use to cover sins, and the scripture says whoever covers his sin shall not prosper. (Prov. 28:13). Exo. 21:22 says, “If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life...” That implies that if a fight between some people causes a woman to miscarry her seed, the one who hurt her will be punished if she doesn't die. But if she dies, he too will be put to death. By implication, abortion by mistake is not pardonable; not to talk of intentional abortion.

Recent arguments about abortion state that since the baby wasn’t allowed to develop before terminating it, the act can be justified. But that’s not totally true, because as a matter of seriousness, the simplest form of a baby, which is the man's seed is very important to God. Gen. 38:8-10, says “And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore He slew him also. Sexual relationships will naturally bring the development of a fetus, and at that stage God doesn’t expect any manual method of hindering the natural process: not even "spilling" which Onan committed here. Little wonder the two commandments came one after the other in Exo. 20:13-14; “Thou shalt not kill; Thou shalt not commit adultery.” I therefore submit that there is no small abortion; either one minute old, a day old or even some weeks old fetus, God punishes whoever does so. God had already given us commandments that would reduce the possibility or necessity for abortion, but most people would not seem to obey. If there isn’t fornication or adultery, there won’t really be need for abortion.

Dear reader, God expects women to bear fruits, and not to kill their fruits intentionally. In fact, most cases of barrenness in the bible were either signs of God's wrath or that He was bringing a great child afterwards. That means, aborting a child is commensurate to rejecting God's gift for mankind. Abortion is like asking God for a gift and after He gives you, you thrash it.

Abortion has three major consequences; first, is the spiritual consequence. Psalms 127:3: says "Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD..." Being God's heritage, killing children, even in the smallest forms, is equal to killing God's heritage. Also, God has a spiritual covenant with babies, even in the womb. Some babies have God's mandate on them at that stage. So what happens to God's mandate for the poor fetus that is terminated untimely and not allowed to be fulfilled? In Jer. 1:5, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” What if his mother had aborted him? There is no justification for intentionally aborting a developing fetus. He or she might just have a heavenly mandate.

More so, the man and woman committing abortion are charged for blood-guiltiness; the sin that denied David the chance to build God's house.       Psalms  51:14 says “Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God...” No wonder such people never have peace of mind in the longrun. It is a lack of fear for God that makes an individual resort to abortion.

The second consequence of abortion is Medical. This could be in form of destruction of the womb, loss of life, perforation of the uterus, pelvic inflammatory disease, excessive bleeding, cervical incompetence, to mention but a few. Some women who have aborted before find it difficult to conceive, no matter how well the abortion was done at that time. Now imagine if this case of abortion happens in 1 out of 10 homes, and ladies here and there are either dying or unable to conceive, how would the world turn out to be?

Lastly, abortion has a consequence on the Society. Statistics from the World Health Organization show that between 2015 and 2019, on the average, 73.3 million induced abortions occurred worldwide. And each year, between 4.7% to 13.2% of maternal deaths were attributed to unsafe abortions. So 30 out of 100,000 abortions lead to death, and in Africa, the number rises to about 520 deaths. I think there’s a bias the statistical records. Only the women who died in the process were counted, what about the children they terminated? Why will a society like ours legalize such abominable act? Because approving abortion is equal to giving license to unfaithfulness and immoral relationships which on the longrun will lead to our society being filled with stubborn, irresponsible, hard hearted and wicked individuals. This renders our society unsafe, because whoever is bold to kill a child can kill anyone. This will affect the minds of our young ones and reduce trust and loyalty to their partners. These consequences will accumulate and the future of the nation will be thwarted.

You may ask, what about abortions because of conception by rape? How does she deal with a child gotten from that unplanned experience? Now, that’s a special case. But then, a normal lady WILL NOT want to kill HER OWN child, no matter what. Though the society has a role to play to help such cases by probably putting laws into place, providing orphanage homes for these children and at least allowing them the benefit of seeing the world, yet God judges a man for mistakenly killing a baby. Not to talk of the one that intentionally kills the child. Truth be told, God will not accept the excuse, He intentionally put the child there and has a plan for that child. Many children who came from such occurrence are making waves today.

Finally, abortion in our society will incur the wrath of God on us all. “And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.” Isa. 1:15.    Our land will be “polluted with blood…” (Ps. 106:38) and filled with cries of innocent babies. The best solution to the menace of abortion is having the right relationships with boundaries and purpose. Youths of this age should get their minds fixed that abortion is not an option. Abortion is not a way to reduce population, neither is it an escape route from sin. The rate of abortion can be reduced by ending the number of unguarded relationships (either premarital or extramarital), and receiving the life of Christ which will help us to hold on to purity, coupled with timely counseling. Therefore if you will not eat the food, DON'T SMELL IT!