An investigation was launched by the Westminster Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley. It has subsequently discovered that 20%, ie. one abortion clinic in five, have been failing to follow the law in providing abortions.
Some clinics were allowing women to kill their unborn child on the basis of its gender. Certificates were being pre-signed by doctors giving consent to terminations without the women ever being seen. Under the 1967 Abortion Act, this should be approved by two doctors.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC), the body instructed to carry out these checks on around 250 abortion clinics have now taken the side of the abortion clinics and are complaining that they have been asked to carry out these inspections. They claim that it disrupts their other work and costs money.
Abortion investigation: Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to report clinics and doctors to police
Andrew Lansley: abortion clinics will be inspected
The Scriptures make the following observations about the unborn:
The same word is used for both. It is said of Rebekah’s twins that the children struggled within her: And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD, Genesis 25:22.
This is the word for children already born. Note the use of the same original word but a different English translation 'youths' in Proverbs 7:7: And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding.
It is likewise so in the New Testament. The same word is used for a child whether born or unborn. At the very beginning if its existence it is looked upon in exactly the same terms as immediately prior to its birth. In both places it described as a son: And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren, Luke 1:36. Compare these words with v57: Now Elisabeth’s full time came that she should be delivered; and she brought forth a son.
Likewise the word ‘babe’ in Luke 1:41,44 referring to an unborn child is also used of newborn children, cf. Luke 2:12, 2 Timothy 3:15, 1 Peter 2:2.
God uses equivalent terms to speak of children from conception, before they are born and after they are born.
Personality and life is present in the unborn from conception. David’s description of himself before and after he was born shows that there is a personal identity present in the fully grown man is present in the unborn child from their earliest days: Ps 139:1-16. David speaks of God having a blueprint for his development.
The Lord said He knew the prophet Jeremiah before he was born, 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, Jeremiah 1:5.
Being a person in every sense of the word, then the unborn child has the same right to have its life protected as any other individual would.
This applies whether the child has some serious disability or is the offspring of a forbidden relationship. The first is no better than what Hilter did with his eugenics programme in Germany and was rightly condemned. Whatever the terrible wrongs of the second the child is certainly not to be killed for the wrongs of a father. Two wrongs do not make a right!
The crime of murder is punishable by the perpetrator forfeiting his own life. The idea of capital punishment originated with the Bible. There is however a distinction to be made between murder and manslaughter. Manslaughter is where a person accidentally kills a fellow human being but never intended so to do. The manslayer was not to lose their own life in these circumstances, v13. The institution of capital punishment is carried over into the New Testament. There were others crimes in Israel punishable in this way. They have ceased but the capital punishment for murder still holds true. Murder is the willful deliberate taking of another’s life.
God states that the same punishment is to be passed upon the person who causes the unborn to die, 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, Exodus 21:22,23.
Whoever harms the unborn their life is to be taken. In God’s eyes the killing of the unborn is as sinful as the killing of an adult. In God’s eyes to kill the unborn is to murder them. In God’s eyes the unborn child is as real and of the same value as an adult.
Murder defiles a land, Numbers 35:30-34. Nothing will lift that defilement until and unless the murderer is punishment. No bargain is to be struck to let the murderer escape: Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death, v31.
How great is the strain on so called civilised society with the murder of so many unborn children? Their blood cries out unto God for recompense.
For example, if a mother needed medical treatment or surgery to preserve her own life but that treatment would harm and kill her unborn child then she is entitled to go ahead with that treatment.
Historic Protestantism has always held to the belief that in those cases where it is impossible to save the life of both mother and child then it is the mother’s life which should have the first right to be protected.
The rationale. An unborn child does not have an innate right to kill its parent. If nothing is done in these circumstances then both mother and child will die. The sixth commandment not only forbids us to take life, it also requires us to preserve life. The answer to Shorter Catechism question 68 states: The sixth commandment requireth all lawful endeavours to preserve our own life and the life of others.
To stand back and let both mother and child die is to break the sixth commandment and kill by omission.
To be without natural affection is a mark of the days of departure from the Truth of God, Rom 1:31.
2 comments:
I saw a comment recently that if a single living cell was found on another planet then scientists would be claiming that we had found life elsewhere in the universe, so why is a single cell in the womb of a pregant woman not also considered life.
Andrew
A very telling comment!!
Brian McClung
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