Destiny Phillips Coats

In America today, we are all familiar with the term abortion. We hear about it on the news, in school, on television, at church, and in the public square. We hear the terms pro-life, pro-choice, and Roe v. Wade often as well, especially during last year’s election. Currently in my sociocultural class, we are discussing modern issues that should concern the modern Church (body of Christian believers). These issues include marriage equality, new forms of gender roles, right to privacy, infringement upon free speech, the ACA or “Obamacare,” college discrimination laws, and abortion. Although we are going over abortion’s effect on the country currently in class, I did some outside of class digging to uncover the history of abortion for myself to put my knowledge to the test. During this quest of discovery, I realized I knew very little about the subject.

Per Meriam Webster’s Dictionary, a “simple” definition of abortion is a medical procedure used to end a pregnancy and cause the death of the fetus. With that definition in mind, let us start at the beginning, the very beginning. Abortions have been practiced since ancient times. The first recorded abortion dates to 1550 bc in Egypt. The Ebers Papyrus, also known as Papyrus Ebers, is an Egyptian medical papyrus (a material prepared in ancient Egypt from the pithy stem of a water plant, used in sheets throughout the ancient Mediterranean world for writing or painting on, also for making rope, sandals, and boats) of herbal knowledge dating to c. 1550 BC. Abortions at its early points in history were performed through strange physical practices that were not very effective — jumping up and down, the drinking of strange herbal elixirs or potions, and the killing of the baby post-delivery. Overtime the science of abortion has evolved immensely. Since abortion is an old practice like homosexuality, murder, bestiality, etc., why is it within the last 41 years becoming legal in the United States of America?

Most of America 50 years ago would easily say the United States was founded on Christian/Godly principles found in Scripture. Why is this? The Founders were living in a Christian world. One of the big reasons America was founded was for religious freedom. Was this because the Founders wanted to practice witchcraft and such? No, the Puritans and Protestants wanted to live in a new land, free of religious persecution from England. Puritans and Protestants are Christians. They are not a part of the Church of Scientology, the Church of Satan, or Hinduism. They are indeed denominations of Christianity. If most of the world was Christian at this time in world history, that would then also mean many things would be considered horribly immoral. Abortion was included among these things. Psalm 127:3 (ESV) “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.” Now if most of the world believes children are a heritage or “gift” from God, how many do you think will rally behind those who desire to murder them in the womb? Not very many would. Furthermore, 1 Samuel 2:6a declares “The LORD kills and bring to life.” The Bible is full of Scriptures concerning all aspects of life in the womb and how it is divinely ordained by God. Abortion was doomed to be a forbidden practice in everyone’s eyes. With that said, how did we get to where we are today?

Because of sin — specifically Modernism — we now live in a Secular Western world. Secularism as a worldview is atheistic in nature believes mankind will only progress to something better, and relative/personal truth is what individuals are to be governed by. As American society has moved farther and farther away from Biblical standards of morality, it has become clearer and clearer the intentions of our government to make everything under the sun legal. However, our legal system is way more deceptive than just making something a law on no grounds. They instead have falsely laid abortion’s foundation in our new “living” Constitution. The premise upon which abortion lies in the Constitution is the “right to privacy.” This “right to privacy” was discovered by the Supreme Court in the 1920s in the 4^th Amendment of the Bill of Rights. The 4^th Amendment reads

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Reading this personally I see nowhere a direct claim to a “right to privacy” outside of the inability of government to come into your property and unlawfully search it. The argument used for the “right to privacy” is privacy itself is the underlying meaning of all the Amendments. Protection of beliefs, the home, property, personal information, etc. listed in the Bill of Rights are now considered private matters protected by the Constitution. Because of this perception of the Amendments, the Supreme Court named privacy as a “right.” Rights are defined as legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement. Entitlement is defined as the belief one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. The word entitlement is very key in understanding why people now believe privacy is a “right.” Entitlement implies one is deserving of it (the entitlement itself). If a right is an entitlement, and privacy is a right, then everyone is required to have their own personal “right to privacy.” This “right to privacy” is fine when it falls in alignment with what the Bill of Rights has clearly laid out in its text, but in the 1920s the Supreme Court applied it to things not enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The first application of this new right was to a marriage and now has been applied to the practice of abortion.

The two cases leading up to the final decision made by the Supreme Court in 1973, legalizing abortion was Doe v. Bolton and Roe v. Wade. Doe v. Bolton was a case in which a married Georgia woman, Doe, claimed the reasoning behind her denial for an abortion under the current Georgia state laws in 1971 were “unconstitutional.” Doe claimed Georgia state law regarding abortions was in direct opposition specifically with the 14^th Amendment. The 14^th Amendment was adopted in 1868 as a response to the emancipation of African Americans and their rights to all rights and freedoms Whites had from the Constitution. Now one can logically infer taking an Amendment aimed at protecting African Americans from injustice and applying it to a case concerning abortion is a stretch. In this case, the courts ruled in favor of Doe because of what would take place in Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade was a case brought to the Supreme Court concerning a single pregnant woman, Roe, who desired to be granted an abortion outside of the current abortion laws for Texas. Her defense claimed abortion fell under the “right to privacy” that had been discovered and applied to other rulings in recent years made by the Supreme Court. In a majority vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court changed the course of America by making abortion of any kind legal.

At this point in history, abortion was a procedure taken up until the end of the first trimester or first 12 weeks of pregnancy. As of today, abortion is legal up until birth. Matter of fact, partial birth abortions were banned in 2003. To better understand abortion in and of itself, we need to uncover the different types of abortion that must be taken dependent upon the different stages of pregnancy. During the first trimester one can have a surgical abortion: manual vacuum aspiration (MVA), or medical abortion: the abortion pill (mifeprex). After the first trimester, surgical abortions are the only option. Abortions have evolved a lot since ancient times, but no matter how it is done it is all murder one in the same.

Medical abortions are abortions in which a form of medication, a pill, can be taken to terminate a pregnancy. Surgical abortions are a surgical procedure must take place to physically remove the baby from the womb. Surgical abortions range from vacuum procedures in which the pregnancy is chemically terminated and the contents of the child are sucked out of the womb, all the way to partial birth abortions in which the child is killed after she has partially departed from the womb during labor, and her first breath has not yet been taken. Partial birth abortions were determined illegal in 2003; however, Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was intent on legalizing it again.

We now know what abortion is, when it started, when it became legalized, and its different forms. But what are the two positions on this issue? Anyone who goes outside her door has heard the words pro-life and pro-choice. What do they mean? Without looking at specific statements made by both groups, we can decipher from the verbiage used “pro-life” means for or supporting life and “pro-choice” means for or supporting choice. Pro-life argues the unborn child is alive and abortion is a form of murder. Pro-choice argues a woman has the right to choose to terminate her pregnancy because she is in complete control of what goes on in her body. These are two very different arguments. One argues for life and the other for choice. Logically we can see why the two groups are at such odds and will never truly come to a decision on the matter. The two groups are arguing different things. They will always butt heads. To better understand how we as believers should feel about the subject, we need first to look at what God has said concerning this issue.

As Christians living in a very secular world, we are constantly hitting road blocks concerning ideas that make us nervous when in the public arena. Often Christians are faced with an opportunity to speak out on subjects of much controversy but do not out of fear or lack of understanding of what God has revealed in His Word concerning it. At the beginning of Scripture, we read God bringing forth life. He created all life known to man in six days. In 1 Samuel, we see Hannah go before God barren, pleading with Him for a child to whom she would dedicate back to Him. God answered her prayer with Samuel and she in return honored her promise to the Lord by giving him to Eli to live under the teachings of the priest. Because of David’s sin with Bathsheba, God took away the life of their son. Because of Pharaoh’s wickedness, the Angel of the Lord took away the first-born son of all the Egyptians who did not cover their doors with the blood of the lamb.  Mary was impregnated by the work of the Holy Spirit and gave birth as a virgin to King Jesus. Throughout the entirety of Scripture, we see God is the giver of life and He is the one who takes it away. To affirm the doctrine implied by pro-life, life begins at conception. God granted Hannah the ability to have a child. God made Mary pregnant with baby Jesus. God declares children are His gifts to us.

Most Christians agree on this topic but many are shaken on the subject of rape. “What if someone is raped and becomes pregnant? Some people cannot bear to carry a product of a traumatic experience.” A lot of reasoning is given in support of abortion after rape by nonbelievers and believers alike; however, believers have no excuse to come to this terrible conclusion. Why? God declares in Deuteronomy 24:16, “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death for the sins of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.” Rape falls under the category of “sin of their father.” When believers support the “rape argument,” they are going in direct opposition to God being the giver of life and a child is not to be punished for the sins of their father.

Pro-choice I believe is another struggle for believers to negate. The whole premise of a pro-choice believer is the body belongs to the woman and she alone has the right to control all things that occur. “And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand” (Mark 3:25). When a believer who dresses inappropriately, uses foul language, practices fornication, constantly breaks God’s laws, etc. is observed by nonbelievers and then claims pro-choice is in direct opposition to the faith, on what grounds are they not to be judged by those who affirm pro-choice? By claiming the faith and then walking completely outside its principles and teachings when it is convenient for them, their witness/words are meaningless. They are a house divided. If we want women to understand our bodies are not our own, we as believers must walk out our day-to-day lives honoring our bodies as God would want us to. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own.” This Scripture is not only applicable to abortion in negation of pro-choice but is to be applied in all domains of life on Earth. Our body should reflect God in how we dress, how we talk, carry ourselves, and even what/how we eat. We as believers must walk this principle out in every aspect of our lives so our words against pro-choice are stronger.

Talks about abortion are not few and far between in our society today. It is a divisive subject in which people are often afraid to speak out. Educators even encourage students not to write concerning this subject, because it is so commonly written about. However, I encourage everyone to do some digging about abortion. For this topic, unfortunately there are only two sides — for or against. There is no in between. Our society has lost its moral compass that was once the Church. Of course, there are many reasons why that has occurred. The most basic answer without pinpointing specific times throughout history is sin. Things are going to get worse before they can get better, but it is not our job as believers to retreat into our churches and stand by. We are called to consider the full counsel of the Word and apply those principles to our everyday lives. We are to be the moral compass of society. Therefore, it is so important the church be united on divisive subjects like abortion. For those who think they know about abortion and how they think they are supposed to feel, go on a journey of discovery to uncover the truths of what God says about it. Furthermore, discover what God has said in His Word concerning all divisive topics that burden believers today.

Bibliography

“Abortion: Legal Until Birth — Why Pro-Life?” Why ProLife. World Press, 16 Feb. 2016. Web. 01 Nov. 2016. By an Amendment to Her Complaint, Roe Purported to Sue. “Roe v. Wade.” LII / Legal Information Institute. Cornell University Law School, n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

“Abortion in the Ancient and Premodern World.” About.com. Education. About Education, 28 July 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

“Abortion Procedures During First, Second and Third Trimester.” American Pregnancy Association. American Pregnancy Association, 02 Sept. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

“FindLaw’s United States Supreme Court Case and Opinions.” Findlaw. Find Law, 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

Linder, Douglas O. “The Right of Privacy: Is It Protected by the Constitution?” Exploring Constitutional Conflicts, n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.