Second Sunday after Epiphany, 2003
Exodus 21:22-25

Tyrants have long tried to manipulate birthrates. Statist planners cannot always agree on whether there is a need for more or fewer people. But they are agreed on the necessity for control. China is beginning to realize that its one-child policy is producing a generation of narcissistic egotists, who see the world as revolving around them, an illusion a child in a family of ten abandons at an early age. The Romanian dictator Ceaucescu resorted to the draconian measure of forcing women to register their menstrual periods. Why? Ceaucescu had outlawed birth control and he wanted to raise his nation's population. By keeping tabs on women's menstrual cycles he hoped to detect and control every pregnancy and prevent secret abortions. He managed to raise the birthrate slightly in this way.

Among the battle lines between the Early Church and the Roman Empire was the matter of abortion. Sometimes Greek and Roman laws outlawed abortion, other times they permitted it. The matter was regarded as a question of state policy: if the state wanted births, abortion was a crime; if the state didn't want children, abortion was permissible. Because the state represented ultimate order, morality was what the state decreed. To abort or not to abort was thus a question of politics.

Very early, the Christians accused the heathen of homicide, holding that abortion is a violation of God's law, "Thou shalt not murder." It was also a violation of the case law of Exodus 21:22-25. Let us reread today's Old Testament passage:

If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman's husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

Notice that even accidental abortion was a criminal offense. If a woman with child were accidentally aborted, but no harm followed to either mother or child, a fine was mandatory. However, if the fetus died, then the death penalty was obligatory.

Because the law of the Roman Empire did not regard abortion as a crime, the Early Church imposed a life sentence as a substitute: penance for life, to indicate that it was a capital offense. Later, the council of Ancyra in A.D. 314 limited the penance to ten years.

The doctrine of man as God's image means that man has a special relationship to God. Granted, God takes some interest in animals for He pitied the livestock of Ninevah (Jonah 4:11). Nevertheless, God does not relate to animals as He does to human beings. God relates in a personal way to a human being because that creature alone is God's image. And it is abundantly evident from Scripture that God relates to us and is personally concerned for us before birth. King David composed a Psalm in which he sang about God's care for him while he was yet born: "For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well."

President Bush has called on the United States to observe today as Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Some Christians are uncomfortable with the term "sanctity of human life." Theologically, the term is not totally accurate. We know that human life is not "holy" per se in the sense of possessing an innate holiness. Original sin means that we inherit death, sin and guilt from the First Adam. We are born needing redemption. Be that as it may, each and every unborn baby is a person and the image of God. They have done nothing deserving of capital punishment by the state. In that sense they are innocent and must be protected.

Moreover, "holy" has another valid sense. It is in the sense that all Christians are called "saints." To be holy means to be "separated unto the Lord," reserved for God's special purpose. It is in these senses that we can properly speak about the sanctity of human life. In the Bible, except for capital punishment and wars that are moral, the shedding of human blood, even the shedding of a preborn baby's blood, is utterly forbidden.

Over and again Scripture sets forth the personhood of preborn babies. Concerning the prophet Jeremiah, we learn that God chose him before birth and sanctified him in his mother's womb: "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).

In the New Testament, the yet unborn John the Baptist recognized the presence of the yet unborn Jesus in his mother's womb. It happened when Mary came to visit Elizabeth. Elizabeth exclaimed to Mary: "For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy" (Luke 1:44).

The psalmist David recognizes that his identity began with his conception: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5). [Christians have produced a ton of fine resources on the subject of abortion to help the Church. I am indebted to the following works and highly recommend them for further study: Death Before Birth by Harold O.J. Brown; Politically Correct Death by Francis J. Beckwith; Man in the Image of God by Norman Shepherd; Abortion Rites by Marvin Olasky; The Myth of Over Population by R.J. Rushdoony; the January/February 2003 of Touchstone called "Life in the Womb"; and Grand Illusions by George Grant.]

In short, there can be no doubt that God clearly says the unborn child is already a human being, a being who is the image of God and deserving of protection under the law. We have mentioned the opposition of the Early Church to abortion. This unanimity prevailed right up to the present era. Except for a smattering of leftist radicals, all branches of the Church have stood united against the killing of unborn babies. Most people would agree with this assertion. Even the pro-abortion people insist that they would like to make abortion safe, legal, and rare. The truth is, abortion in America is legal, deadly and frequent.

Many people are paralyzed with fear of judging the mother and doctor who abort the baby. They have accepted the phony argument about choice. They have made their peace with a culture of death. Consequently, tiny, human beings bearing the image of God are exterminated like vermin. The executioners are given more than legal protection for their butchery, they are very well paid for it. Since 1973 approximately thirty-five million innocent unborn children have been legally killed. While we hesitate to call it murder since it is legally protected, it is nonetheless homicide. January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand during the full nine months of pregnancy. This year is the thirty-year anniversary of that bitter decision.

What are we to do about abortion? What is the duty of the Church towards protecting and saving the unborn? We view the abortion industry with outrage. Abortion may be legal in the American courtroom, but in the eyes of God and the Church it is an abomination. After thirty years of fighting abortion it is easy to become burned out or indifferent. Consider the verse of the poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744):

Vice is a monster of such frightful mein
That to be hated needs but to be seen.
Yet seen too oft, familiar with its face,
We first endure, then fondle, then embrace.

If we don't remind ourselves how morally detestable abortion is we may become too comfortable with it. Bishop Grote has instructed us to set apart at least one Sunday per year to give it attention. On this 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade our message is clear: we condemn Planned Parenthood, abortion doctors and clinics, and every agency that aids and abets the death profession.

What more can we do to counter the death business? We can oppose the sexual practices that fuel abortion. The teenagers who engage in heavy petting, the college students who enjoy each other in their dorm rooms, the man on a business trip picking up a woman at the bar, the woman reading Cosmopolitan , the man who clicks on computer porn, all these people advance the abortion trade; all these practices prop up Roe v. Wade.

In place of these death-promoting practices we embrace the traditional Christian understanding of marriage and of chastity. Sex is beautiful between a man and a woman who are married. Outside of such a marriage, sex is a sin.

Furthermore, we should recover the idea that children are a blessing. Children are gifts from God. Psalm 127:3 says, " Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them." The money, time, sleeplessness, inconvenience, worry and heartache required to bring a child from conception to adulthood ­ these things cost, and they hurt. But not one dime, not one midnight walk of the floor with a sick one, is wasted. This is the thinking we need to cultivate. In order to successfully combat the abortion culture of death, we replace it with the Christian culture of life.

Once a lady becomes pregnant we search for ways to encourage her to carry her baby to term and then give it up for adoption. Adoption ought to be a major solution to this problem. Millions of families yearn to adopt a child. With such a long list of infertile couples desperate to have a child, no baby should be aborted. With such a long list of infertile couples desperate to have a child, no single woman should opt to raise her baby by herself. Children need a mother and a father. We therefore strongly urge single women to offer their babies up for adoption to a couple. It is intensely selfish of the mother to deny her child the chance to have a loving mother and father.

Let's not overlook the physical and psychological effects of abortion. Women need to be warned of these side-effects. Post-abortion syndrome is brought out in countless stories. One woman describes how she and her husband rationalize her abortion: "It certainly does make more sense not to be having a baby right now ­ we say that to each other all the time. But I have this ghost now. A very little ghost that only appears when I'm seeing something beautiful, like the full moon on the ocean last weekend. And the baby waves at me. And I wave at the baby. 'Of course, we have room,' I cry to the ghost. 'Of course, we do.' " The pathos of abortion can go on forever.

The reaction of another woman was not so irenic. "I am angry. I am angry at Gloria Steinem and every woman who ever had an abortion and didn't tell me about this kind of pain. There is a conspiracy among the sisterhood not to tell each other about guilt and self-hatred and terror. Having an abortion is not like having a wart removed or your nails done or your hair cut, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar or worse."

At last we come to the most important strategy for reversing abortion: prayer and worship. Let us never think that prayer and worship are cop-out evasions to a problem. We are dead wrong if we underestimate the priority and importance of worship.

The truth is this, it is worship that transforms the world and moves history! When we neglect worship, everything goes to seed. The butchers of the world take over, and pagan savagery dominates. Our response therefore should be a dedication to, and participation in, the worship and sacraments of the Church. If our first response to the abortion industry is political, or judicial, we are no better than the pro-abortion opposition. For we have put our trust in human action as the ultimate determiner of history.

The Bible teaches the primacy of worship. It is God Almighty who is sovereign, and worship reorients us to God's plan, God's purpose, and God's program. We believe that worship is the starting point for cultural transformation, for it is worship that ultimately brings about the demise of the wicked and the exaltation of the righteous. So let us, this Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, raise our voices to God in prayer and worship. Let us bring the plight of the unborn to the ears of our Heavenly Father. Let us pray for national repentance and revival, a revival to put an end to the culture of death.

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