What Do We Think About Abortion? (Rom. 1:18–32)

Series: Sanctity of Life SundayText: Romans 1:18–32

By: Shaun Marksbury Date: January 22, 2023

Venue: Living Water Baptist ChurchOccasion: AM Service

Introduction

Even though this is the first year we are doing a Sanctity of Life Sunday together, I don’t think there’s much confusion in this church as to the question before us today. These last couple of years gave us quite a bit of concern, though. Of course, with the Dobbs Supreme Court decision last year, we saw an end to fifty years of federal recognition of abortion due to the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade. That is a moment that calls for praise to God, but it doesn’t end abortion, and it seems that people are more divided than ever over this issue.

Consider just the past few years. We knew that, with the incoming Biden/Harris presidential administration, we would have two of the most pro-abortion individuals to occupy the White House. Kamala Harris, for instance, is on record fighting for the freedom for women to have abortions based on sex selection, the race of the child, and the potential for disability. She also introduced legislation to force medical professionals to perform abortions against their wishes and has advocated policy to allow later-term abortions. She believes any legal restriction to abortion limits women’s healthcare, parroting recent initiatives to re-brand the argument for abortion as “healthcare” and “reproductive rights.” With them in the White House, even if Roe were overturned, it seemed likely that a Democrat-controlled House and Senate could codify it into law without fearing presidential veto.

It was astonishing to see how blue the country voted in 2020 (and we won’t go into that today). Even the State of Georgia just re-elected a radical pro-abortion candidate to the US Senate, the first one to occupy that role. What’s especially interesting about Raphael Warnock is that he happens to be a pastor, and many Christians stated that influenced them. Yet, he’s vocally pro-choice; when asked whether abortion is consistent with Scripture, he stated that he believed in human agency and freedom and would therefore fight for abortion advocacy.

The public argument for abortion is apparently convincing, even to Christians. As such, people are shifting in their ideas. People seem to know on an instinctual level that this is a question of morality, and they wonder which is the more virtuous position. After all, who wants to restrict healthcare for women? If abortion is a human right and reproductive justice, then Christians should be the loudest advocates for abortion.

However, when we approach the issue from a biblical perspective, what we discover is that abortion is neither healthcare, nor a right, nor is it just. If what grows in the mother is human, then it is made in God’s image, and it deserves equal protection under the law. In short, to seek to take its life is murder, then.

There is a moral reasoning shift occurring, though. Remember, at one time, the argument for legalized abortion was to supposedly protect young women from back-alley procedures. Even into the nineties, the mantra was that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare,” for there was always a cultural sense that there is something wrong with abortion. Yet, abortion advocacy no longer uses the word “rare,” arguing now that no one should tell a woman that her reason for having an abortion is wrong, even if she doesn’t give one. That cultural sense seems to be vanishing, and the goalposts have therefore moved.

Why is the cultural sense on this issue changing? This is but one evidence of God slowly giving over our country to depraved thinking, just as this passage describes. We see three times the phrase that God “gave them over,” and each time, the unregenerate go a bit further down the rabbit hole. We’re considering this today because we want to know what we think about abortion and what we should think about it.

What God Creates is Clear (vv. 18–20)

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

Consider Paul’s claim for a moment. There are those who know God created them, and further, they know He has certain ways or expectations concerning behavior. However, they suppress this truth, wanting instead to embrace their unrighteousness.

A professor explained it in this way: Picture several beach balls in a swimming pool. You jump in and try to submerge them and hold them under water. Yet, the task grows more difficult, and you lose one. Now, you must struggle to both keep control of the remaining balls and re-dunk the one you lost. This is what people do with God’s truths when not wanting to deal with them.

Now, consider our thinking on pregnancy: We know we’re created by God, and we know something special happens at conception. That’s why we talk so freely about a miracle occurring. Those sonagram images go on the fridge, and we scrutinize those black-and-white images to try to determine what sex the baby is, present tense. We don’t turn to the young couple and say, “I understand that congratulations will be in order soon,” and no mother invites people over to feel “the cell cluster” kick.

We naturally affirm what Scripture reveals. In Psalm 139, for instance, David reflects on God superintending his creation in his mother’s womb; in v. 13, he says, “For You formed my inward parts; you wove me in my mother’s womb.” No one has a problem putting that verse on a birth announcement. Today, we’re blessed with technology to give us a window into such secret moments, giving us the ability to think God’s thoughts after Him, as one scientist once described.

Why is that? Because we understand instinctively that this is a human being growing. If, God forbid, something were to happen to the expectant mother such as a drunk driver crashing into her, killing her, we charge the driver with two counts of vehicular homicide, not one. The family would grieve two losses. We all understand this.

However, something changes in our language if the pregnancy is unwanted. People start talking about the zygote and then fetus. The language becomes clinical, detached, because we’re thinking differently about the life inside. We talk about tissue requiring surgical removal. We dare not talk about the “baby” because that would be letting a ball breach the surface, one that may make us face the fact that the child’s true Creator may not be pleased with our contemplations.

Yet, the same biological terms we borrow point to one, undeniable conclusion: the unborn is observably and testably human. The DNA, the blood type, and the developing brain waves all tell us what we already know: this is a new human being coming into the world. As Scripture says, “God made it evident to them,” but people still debate whether a living, human body always has the rights other humans do.

How is this even a question? To answer that, we need to turn to the late theologian Francis Schaeffer; he identified a fact/value split in thinking that was apparent even in his day. Everyone can agree on observable nature, what he called lower-story living, while values are ethereal, not concreate — upper-story possibilities. People with this kind of thinking would have us only speak of absolute scientific realities, not moral absolutes. If you’re not quite following that, he was describing how it would be possible for people to observe a human growing within a womb while simultaneously denying it an upper-story idea: personhood.

This is personhood theory, and Nancy Pearcy points this out in her book, Love Thy Body. She noted that today, a human being can biologically exist to which culture denies moral or legal standing. Science might affirm a fetus is biologically human, but we might still deny it the rights of a person. This isn’t new thinking; in American slavery, antebellum law wouldn’t necessarily grant those of African descent legal standing because a slave is just a body, not a person. In abortion advocacy, the same kind of thinking denies personhood (with rights and legal standing) to unborn children; they’re bodies, not people.

This is thinking that wouldn’t cross the mind of a farmer or a rancher a couple generations ago, someone working in nature. However, concepts popularized today require us to ignore nature. We used to look and see the teleological purpose around us, understanding that eyes are for seeing; ears for hearing, man and woman are for each other, and life begets life.

Structure indicates design, which itself implies purpose from God. Scripture says God formed man from the ground “and man became a soul” (Gen. 2:7). There’s no divide between one’s soul and body: “My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You” (Psa. 63:1). In fact, David reports, “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long” (Psa. 32:3). The soul and body together determine personhood, something that happens at conception, which is why God there are laws in the OT against the intentional murder of a pre-born infant.

Only by repenting of foolish notions and getting back to Scripture will we restore our reason. Yet, as our Romans passage continues, “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures” (vv. 21–23). Those who produce clever arguments to get around what is so clear about the sanctity of our nature will find themselves becoming more foolish over time.

They do this because of idolatry. If God calls us to worship Him in all we do, then Christians supporting abortion-on-demand are placing something else before the worship of God. That’s why abortion advocates want to see the world in terms of secular and sacred, with morality and religion remaining a separate issue. They want politicians who can say, “I’m Christian, and I may be personally opposed to abortion, but I won’t let that influence me in the least.” That’s schizophrenic thinking, just the kind that looks at evil and calls it good.

In fact, the world only believes in the fact/value split when it benefits them. We’ve already noted that people see abortion as women’s rights and reproductive justice. In other words, they do believe morality is part of the discussion, but they have to play word games to avoid thinking that they are intentionally taking a life, changing the discussion on justice. So, God continues turning them over:

The giving over (vv. 24–25)

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

It seems strange that, for all the talk of healthcare, no conversation seems to discuss the sexual ethic. If men and women awaited marriage, then the procreation would occur within a home. Yet, every study I’ve seen states the main reason women terminate their pregnancies is because they don’t want a baby. Indeed, many abortion advocates argue abortion gives women the same freedom in their sexuality as men enjoy. So, let’s drop all pretenses: it’s grisly birth control designed to further detach the sexual from the ethic.

Indeed, and it is macabre. In 1984, a former abortionist and co-founder of NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) wanted to answer a question definitively — can a fetus feel pain? He used all the technology he had to record, from start to finish, the abortion of a twelve-week old. The gory depiction in the twenty-nine minute film showed the baby apparently fleeing the instruments tearing it apart, capturing it opening its mouth in what appeared to be a silent scream.

It seems difficult to imagine anyone would support abortion after seeing The Silent Scream, but congress brought in medical experts who disputed the film. Mainly, some declared that they didn’t believe the brain was developed enough to experience pain at that age, while others said it could. At the very least, while the child might not know what pain was, it may have operated on some instinctual level to being torn limb from limb by the forceps.

Obviously, abortionists would not want to consider the possibility that infants feel pain. And, as a result, many seem to descend into moral darkness. For instance, Dr. Leah N. Torres in 2018, in a Tweet she later deleted, wrote, “You know fetuses can’t scream, right?” She continued, “I transect the cord [first] so there’s really no opportunity, if they’re even far enough along to have a larynx.”

You might remember that abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell faced an intense investigation following what appeared to be illegal drug prescriptions, but uncovered unsanitary conditions in his clinic, the deaths of patients, containers of aborted fetuses displayed as trophies, and more in what became known as a house of horrors. The trial convicted him of the involuntary manslaughter of a pregnant woman and three counts of first-degree murder of babies he murdered after they survived abortion.  He showed no remorse in court and reported he performed an important service in the community.

He wasn’t the only one proud to keep the remains of his victims. You might remember that, in 2019, after an Indiana abortionist by the name of Dr. Ulrich Klopfer died, his family made a grizzly discovery. They initially found the remains of 2,246 aborted children stored in his home, some of which was more than two decades old. He also owned several vehicles, and investigators found the remains of almost two hundred more that he drove through town.

Not every abortionist is as given over as this, of course. But there is a symmetry between those who want consequence-free sex and those who are willing to make a buck off of death. Indeed, and when a group went undercover to expose the lawlessness and corruption at Planned Parenthood, Kamala Harris instead used her office to prosecute the whistleblower, David Daleiden. The darkness hates the light.

This giving over can be seen in other ways that we don’t have time to discuss in vv. 26–31. I hate to gloss over that, but you can see clearly that many other kinds of sin are present in a people — in a country — that God gives over to depravity. For instance, based on the text here, we see today not only the allowance for homosexuality and lesbianism but also the celebration thereof, further evidence that God has turned people over to the depravity of their minds. Another item of note stands out, “inventors of evil,” such as indoctrinating children into believing they may be some other gender than their biological sex, and having Planned Parenthood talking to others about sexual positions.

This continues. Several activists have sought to remove the stigma of abortion, as we’ve already noted. They recently had “shout your abortion” trending on social media, where women (and weak-willed men) applaud those who post the number of abortions like tally marks. Recently, I saw an advertisement for a new movie where two teen girls go on a fun road trip to the abortion mill. We’re given over as a culture today.

Note now v. 32. People who engage in such activities “know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.” We have already seen this with the abortion movement, as well as many other kinds of celebrated sin in our culture. The applauding continues as states as our own proudly declare themselves abortion sanctuaries, where women can come and murder their unborn babies without fear of prosecution.

Concluding Thoughts

We’ve been talking in broad terms, so there’s a lot we haven’t covered today. Still, I want us to consider a point as a church — there are going to be those who think a stance against abortion is anti-choice, regressive, and backward. Yet, we must understand the issue as the Creator of all life would have us think about it. I saw a pastor on Facebook put it this way: “When someone says that you are on the wrong side of history, remember that all of history is His story and that Christ’s Kingdom never ends.” We must not be afraid to advocate and vote for the abolition of abortion while providing prayer and services to those tempted by it.

Those contemplating abortions should know that there are other options. Pregnancy centers can pay for and even provide shelter for those in need. If the expectant mother, after receiving counseling, believes she is not capable of raising her child, adoption agencies can take on that responsibility and ensure a loving family receives the child. Or, they can help mother and baby find a safe place to live together. The point is that there are options other than murder.

It may also be that the problem isn’t as bad as initially thought. For instance, if you’re young, it’s true that Christian parents will be disappointed in your sin, but they won’t cast you out or demand you murder your child! If you have a hectic life, it can find focus when a new life enters it — Scripture calls children a blessing for a reason. Yes, churches will call women and the men to repentance for sexual sin, but they will also counsel and assist both (or, at least, the one) in navigating new waters.

There also may be those listening to this who have already had abortions. It may be that it was only once, or it may have been multiple times. Yet, now, you’re starting to think of this as it is — the murder of those created in the image of God. You may feel anxiety as you consider the fact that the just Judge of all hears each of those silent screams calling out for justice, and He promises murderers will have their part in the Lake of Fire. It’s a serious sin, but know this: Christ took all sin upon Himself on the cross of those who call out to Him. He paid the price for even repentant abortionists, so find the payment and forgiveness for this sin in Him who forgives all who call upon His name!