For nine years I had the privilege of working at Sav-a-Life, a crisis pregnancy center in Birmingham. Each month I would volunteer on the third Saturday in the medical clinic to counsel girls coming in for STD testing or a pregnancy test. I would draw blood and help with the ultrasounds and just listen and hold a hand if needed. I shared the gospel and I let these girls know that God loved them. Their stories were often heartbreaking and difficult to hear. I'll never forget the one woman who had had 7 abortions and was now pregnant with her 8th child. But this woman was now different from the drug addict she had once been. She was a new creation in Christ, and she was terrified that she would now miscarry this child because of all the damage done to her uterus during her many abortions. I held her hand as the doctor did the ultrasound, something she had never had in any of her previous pregnancies. Tears streamed down her face as she saw the life within her and thought about the lives she had chosen to end. The doctor did not mince words, but told her that due to all the scarring from her previous abortions, she might not be able to carry this baby to term. He prayed with her and set up an appointment for her in his office for the next month. Her story left such an impression on me as I saw her have that moment when she now knew what life looked like inside of her.
This was 15 years ago with a 2D ultrasound. Today we have 3D and even 4D ultrasound machines that can show us so much more. I wonder sometimes if abortion clinics were forced to use this technology to show mothers the life inside of them, would they be so willing to end it? As we are horrified at the videos that have surfaced in the news recently concerning Planned Parenthood (an oxymoron for sure), it makes us squirm to see the images of torn up pieces of a baby in a petri dish as a technician says, "Another boy!" and then heartlessly points out the different organs and appendages they can salvage for research. And then there is the woman talking about the sale of these organs as she nonchalantly eats her salad and drinks her wine. Or the lady who states callously she wants a Lamborghini as she negotiates price for the aborted babies and states she needs to find a "less crunchy" method of extracting the fetuses so there will be more viable tissue. If there was ever any doubt about what level our country has fallen to, that doubt has now been erased. In the words of William Wilberforce, "You may choose to look away, but you can never again say that you did not know."
When I think about the history of the people of Israel, God's chosen people, I realize little has changed in 2,000 years. One of the gods worshipped by the Canaanites and taken up by some of the people of Israel was the worship of a pagan god named Moloch. People would sacrifice one of their own children on a sacrificial altar of fire to assure a blessing of prosperity for the family making the sacrifice. Taking their cues from the Canaanites, some would even place the skeletal remains of the burned child under the front doorstep. As one writer put it, "In short, a child was murdered for the promised convenience and prosperity the family was to receive from Moloch. This sounds barbaric to those of us living in the 21st century. It seems barbaric until it is realized that since the Roe v. Wade decision, over 50 million babies have been murdered legally in the United States for the convenience or prosperity of their mothers and other family members. Abortion has the same intended outcome of personal and family prosperity as did the sacrifice of a child at the altar of Moloch." (Worshiping Moloch - The human sacrifice of children to assure prosperity, by W. J. Murray.) As Murray later points out, the biggest difference was that the children sacrificed 2,000 years ago were at least buried. Now we just sell the usable body parts and dump the rest of their bodies in the trash. God have mercy on us.
The statistics do not lie. There have been over 6.8 million abortions performed by Planned Parenthood since 1970, and they are the largest abortion provider in the country. What can we do as Christians to stop this?
1. Write or call your senators and congressmen now. Here is a helpful link which gives you a letter you can copy and paste into your email. It took me just 4 minutes to send this to both of my state senators. How to Contact your Legislators
2. If you have a Planned Parenthood in your area, stage a peaceful rally at the PP location. One group in Birmingham did this, and they spent time praying and sharing their desire to see the organization defunded, calling on their legislators to make it happen. It made state news and will draw attention to the people's cause. Hundreds of Alabamians Protest at Planned Parenthood Facility
3. Pray for our nation. This is imperative if we want to see a change. A good place to start is with the prayer offered in Daniel chapter 9. It is a powerful plea by Daniel to God for forgiveness and healing of their nation. Daniel 9 prayer
4. Support our Christian pregnancy centers such as Sav-a-Life and Wiregrass Hope and the National Right to Life. These organizations are crucial to the preservation of human life. As a former volunteer, I saw first hand the impact our counseling had on the lives of the women to which we ministered. Our support of these organizations allows kingdom work to continue in an area that many people socially refuse to address.
As William Wilberforce (the man most responsible for the abolition of the slave trade in Great Britain) also said, "A private faith that does not act in the face of oppression is no faith at all." May we as a nation be found faithful.
