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What We Believe and Why - Vol. II
Written by Dr. Lester Hutson

Copyright - Lester Hutson - 1982
This material is copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced without the express written permission of Dr. Lester Hutson.

 

Chapter Fifty One
Abortion: It Is Murder

INTRODUCTION: Text: Exodus 21:22,23

Too long, Bible-believing people have been silent on the critical issues of our nation. the result has been a moral decadence that now threatens the very survival of our America as a free nation. At a time when Israel had turned her back on God, in many ways similar to America today, God told His preacher Isaiah, "Cry aloud, spare not, life up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins." (Isaiah 58:1) Oh how desperately God's people, especially His preachers, need to do that today. Edmund Burke once wrote, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." The Psalmist David wrote, "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy." (Psalm 107:2) John the Baptist, the apostle Paul, Jeremiah the prophet, and many others were militantly involved in the moral, political issues of their day. God's people of today cannot Biblically justify their silence, lack of participation, and the apathy regarding the moral condition of our country on any level, personal or political, but especially on the national political level.

An issue that cries out against us today is the issue of abortion. In 1973, without any vote from the people, and without action from the President or Congress, the US. Supreme Court ruled that the unborn is not as important as the mother, thus legalizing abortion. In the same year as this Roe v. Wade decision, another case, Doe v. Bolton clarified this case so as to allow abortion up until delivery of the baby. The father was denied any voice in whether or not his child would be murdered. The Danforth decision of 1976 further strengthened that policy. The law of our land today says that states may not intervene to stop abortions during the first 12 weeks at all and is very limited after that.

Today the blood of millions of innocent babies cry out to God against us for allowing it to happen. Our land is defiled. It is hard to think of anyone more innocent than little unborn babies, and Deuteronomy 27:25 says, "Cursed be he that take the reward to slay an innocent person." As we shall proceed to show, abortion is murder, and it is the murder of innocents for hire. Parents actually pay doctors to kill their babies. And the judgment of Almighty God is certain to come upon a nation and its people who legalize and passively condone such gross wickedness. It is far past time for all people who believe the ethics of the Bible to rise up against this practice of our nation with all their might in a united effort that cannot be resisted.

I. YOU WOULD DO WELL TO LOOK AT SOME OF THE RESULTS LEGALIZED MURDER (ABORTION) HAS PRODUCED IN AMERICA.

A. Since abortion was legalized in the USA, we can safely say that more than 35 million babies have been murdered. This is the reported number of abortions by the pro-abortion Centers for Disease Control. This does not take into account that most abortions are performed on a cash only basis and are untraceable if the income is not reported or the doctor chooses not to report the correct number to CDC.

1. In his tract, Abortion: Is It Murder?, E.L. Bynum reported that in New York's first year of legalized abortions, 250,000 women received abortions in that state alone. The Foundation for Life, in Houston, Texas, sets the current number of US. abortions at 1.6 million annually, according to CDC numbers.

2. It is estimated that Adolph Hitler killed 6,000,000 Jews during all of World War II. Last year alone, the US. murdered 1.6 million babies, and we have long ago surpassed Hitler's record. Right at 25% of all babies conceived in America are killed by abortion. America of today cannot point a finger at Hitler's Germany any longer, and apathetic, uninvolved Christians have innocent blood on their hands.

3. The largest number of abortions comes among teenage mothers, many only 14 or 15 years old, some as young as 11. These children are receiving these dangerous abortions without parental consent or notification.

4. Before Roe v. Wade, the number of women admitted to American hospitals for abortion complications was about 3,000 annually. In 1979 alone, 11,000 women were admitted for abortion complications. And this is a low number because the abortion complications are covered up by the abortion industry and their willing accomplices in the medical profession, the press, and the feminists organizations. A perforated uterus, for instance, that was caused by an abortion, is not listed as an abortion complication, but as simply a perforated uterus. "Safe and legal abortions" kill hundreds of women annually.

5. Main freeways of Houston contain billboards advertising abortions. The signs read: PROBLEM PREGNANCY? and list a number to call.

B. Many naive Christians do not even know how these abortions are performed.

1. The suction abortion is the most common method. A suction tube, by a powerful vacuum literally tears apart the body of the developing baby inside the mother's womb. About 75% of all abortions are performed this way. A nurse reassembles the dismembered body to make sure all parts have been accounted for.

2. The D&C, or curette type abortion, is performed until approximately the twelfth week of development. A sharp spoon-like knife is used to cut and scrape the baby from the uterus. Often the surgeon has to use his hands to crush the baby's head. A nurse must again reassemble the parts of the body to make sure the womb is empty.

3. The salt poisoning method is used once the baby reaches sixteen weeks of development. A needle containing a concentrated salt solution is injected through the mother's abdomen. After an hour or so of swallowing and breathing the solution, and thrashing around violently, the baby usually dies of poisoning. His outer layer of skin is severely burned. The doctor then induces labor, and the mother gives birth, usually to a dead child. Sometimes, however, the baby is not dead and is left to die on a table or in a bucket, alone.

4. The hysterectomy abortion is similar to a cesarean section. These babies are almost all born alive, moving their arms and legs, and often crying and struggling for air. After the cord is cut, the baby is left to die. The lungs are not usually adequately developed, and after a few hours of crying, moving and thrashing about, the baby finally dies. On occasion, nurses have gone to the rescue of babies aborted in this manner and saved their lives. Willful negligence of babies in this manner is known as "infanticide."

5. Currently being tested for approval in the US., and already in use in Europe, is the RU-486 pill. This is a pill taken which kills the baby and causes the woman to go into labor and deliver the dead baby.

6. Perhaps the most horrible abortion method, recently the subject of debate in Congress when many attempted to have it outlawed, is the partial birth abortion. The baby is allowed to be delivered normally until only partially delivered, at which time a pair of scissors is inserted in the back of the baby's neck, his brains are scrambled, and the remainder of the baby is delivered after the baby has died. The ban was passed by both houses of Congress, but the pro-abortion president has not yet signed it at this writing.

C. The sickening, godless shame of this is that our government has legalized and is financing many of these murders with my tax dollars and yours.

1. The people we've sent to represent us in government, either by our vote or failure to vote, which is an automatic vote for the wrong candidate, have passed laws and appropriated tax moneys to make these murders possible. Either by our own voting or by becoming candidates ourselves, we could prevent it, yet most of us do not care enough to become informed, let alone do something about it.

2. Thanks be unto God, the US. Supreme Court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortions except in cases which endanger the life of the mother or in promptly reported cases of rape or incest (less than 3% of all abortions are currently performed for these reasons!). The Hyde Amendment has continued to weather the storm of pro-abortion rhetoric, but it is a periodic fight to keep it in force.

3. Feminist groups, homosexuals, liberals, and many other groups are doing everything within their power to get this struck down. And they will succeed if you and I do not stand up and send and support men in government who will militantly oppose such godlessness as legalized abortion, especially government financing of these murders.

II. WHEN THIS ISSUE IS CONSIDERED, THE QUESTION ARISES, "WHEN DOES LIFE BEGIN?"

A. The abortion crowd would have us believe that an unborn child is something less than human.

1. To try and cushion the shock of murdering innocent babies, they have changed the language. The unborn child is not referred to as a baby, but is called a "fetus." (Ironically, this is Latin for "little one.") It is strange that the woman who wants to keep her child will refer to it as her "baby," not her "fetus." In the medical laboratories where the remains of some abortions, those not thrown in the garbage, are sent for analysis and experimentation, the various parts are labeled "P.O.C.'s" which stands for "Products of Conception." This terminology is designed to help the medical personnel cope with the daily trauma of examining tiny human hands, feet, and other body parts. It is a shocking example of how human life is being devalued by the policy of abortion on demand.

2. Mrs. Jill Knight, a member of the English Parliament, said that in Sweden, where abortion has been legal for years, doctors sometimes drown babies in a bucket if they survive the abortion procedure. "They also do experiments on aborted babies. Put them in simulated wombs, and feed them through the cord, poking now and again to see if they are still alive. Why not? I was told no one wants these babies."

3. The evidence is mounting showing that even the people who try to justify abortions are suffering from its dirty scourge. In a recent article, Gerald Beasley, Jr., M.D., from Duncan, OK, pointed out the findings of Philip G. Neg, M.D., Vancouver, Canada. this doctor is head of the department of Psychiatry at Royal Jubilee Hospital and a Psychiatry Professor at the University of Columbia. Instead of abortions making every child a wanted child, and thus eliminating child abuse, evidence indicates abortion to be an important cause of child abuse. Throughout the US. and Canada, the incidence of abuse, battered and murdered children coincides with increased elective abortions. He says a mother who has an abortion often loses her ability to restrain her anger toward others depending on her care. To her, child value has declined. The surviving child senses this decline and becomes insecure and demands more attention, often getting a response of physical violence from the mother. Many mothers permanently harbor strong guilt feelings after the abortion, which is an important cause of child abuse and infanticide. Those who have abortions become depressed during later pregnancies, increasing the likelihood of child abuse.

B. Scientifically there is no justification for the idea that life begins at birth and not conception.

1. One of the pious arguments of the abortionist is that the "fetus" (little baby) is a part of the mother's body until birth, and that the mother has a right to do what she pleases with her body. Thus, if she decides to remove her "fetus" then it is her civil right to do so.

2. The provable, scientific fact is that in the nucleus of a human cell, there are 46 chromosomes. There is only one exception to this rule, and it is the reproductive cell, which contains only 23 chromosomes. At the point of conception, a cell from the father, containing 23 chromosomes, unites with a cell from the mother containing 23 chromosomes. These two together make a new cell containing 46 chromosomes. This new cell is no longer a part of the father or the mother, but is the first cell of a new human being. Successive cell division results in the development of a new individual. Each new stage in the development of the new individual comes from successive cell divisions, not from receiving so much as one new cell from the mother or the father. The new individual is fed and protected through the mother's body, but it is totally incorrect to contend that the new individual, in either its embryonic, fetal or new born stage is a growth of the mother's body, as is a wart, cyst or tumor. It is not, and should even one cell of the new individual get loosed in the mother's life system, it would immediately be attacked and killed by her body in rejection of a foreign cell.

The fact is that the new child is his own individual after conception and is not a part of the mother's body. After conception it is just as distinct and separate from the mother's body as it will be nine months later when the birth takes place, or when the child is forty years old, and the mother in her grave. It is true that the baby could not survive apart from the mother's body, but it is equally true that he could not survive apart from the mother's care after he is born. The mother, or some substitute, must care for the baby after birth, too. The baby grows after birth by successive cell divisions in exactly the same manner that it grew before birth in the mother's womb.

The only cell that the mother ever contributes to the new individual is the first one, and it contains only one-half the normal chromosomes. The father furnishes the other cell with the remaining half of the chromosomes. Once these two cells meet and combine, conception has occurred and the new person is formed. After this, no more cells are contributed by father or mother, and the baby is no more a part of the mother's body than he is of the father's body. He is merely being fed and nourished by the mother's body. (See E.L. Bynum's tract, Abortion: Is It Murder?)

3. If the mother can arrange an abortion on demand, the father should be able to do the same thing. The child is just as much a part of his body as it is of the mother's. He furnishes just as many cells as she does. The truth is that neither should be able to demand abortion. No person, doctor, or parent has the right to murder a little innocent baby six months before it is born or six months after it is born.

C. According to the Bible, life begins at conception.

1. Speaking of a mother after conception and long before birth, Ecclesiastes 11:5 says, "As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child." As far as God is concerned, it is a child in the womb, not just a blob of inhuman flesh called a fetus. And, in God's way of thinking, he doesn't become a child at birth. He is already a child while he is growing inside the mother.

2. With Jeremiah the prophet, God shows that one is living, individual human person before he is born from his mother's womb. God told Jeremiah, "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) One thing is sure, the Word of god gives no comfort to the abortion crowd.

3. The fact that a person is a person before birth is well illustrated in the conception and the birth of Christ. Listen to Matthew 1:18, 20. "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost....But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." This was long before the birth of Christ, and while He was still in Mary's womb, He was called a "child," and was not regarded as something less than a human child. Why call what is in the mother's womb after conception a "fetus" when God called it a child? We believe God became man at the moment of conception, not at birth. And conception is the moment any person becomes a person.

4. Consider the birth of John the Baptist. When Elizabeth was in her sixth month of pregnancy with John the Baptist, Mary visited her. Luke 1!4 records, "When Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb." E.L. Bynum has pointed out that God does not say the fetus leaped in her womb, but rather that the "babe" leaped in her womb. In this reference, the Greek word for babe is brephos. The same Greek word is used to describe Christ in the manger in Luke 2:12, 16 and is translated "babe" in I Peter 2:2, "child" in II Timothy 3:15, "infant" in Luke 18:15, and "young child" in Acts 7:19. These scriptures prove that God uses the same word to describe a child whether it is unborn, new born, or considerably older.

5. Isaiah established his existence as a human soul during the time he was in his mother by saying, "The Lord formed me from the womb, to be his servant." (Isaiah 49:5)

6. Job shows that God gives a spirit and then puts flesh and bones on it, rather than put a whole body of flesh and bones together and then put a spirit therein. That being true, a person is a person while the flesh and bones grow, and does not become a person only when they are grown to the point of birth. That being Biblically true, an unborn child is in fact a child, not some sub-human mass of meat until born. Job 10:11 reads, "Thou has clothed me with skin and flesh, and hath formed me with bones and sinews."

7. Paul spoke along the lines of when life begins by saying, "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace." (Galatians 1:15) Paul was a "me" before he was separated from his mother's womb, just as much as he was after.

8. Listen to King David speak on this issue of when life begins. "For thou has possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." It was David in the womb, not some inhuman glob of tissue. And he was a unique, separate, living individual, not a wart, tumor or other abnormal growth or extension of his mother's body. God recognized his existence in the womb, and that is sufficient recognition to satisfy all who desire to know the truth.

D. The truth is that the basic arguments of the abortionist fall under the evidence of science, but more especially so under the light of divine truth.

1. The child is not a part of the mother's body as they contend. The child in the womb is another human being, and it is just as much murder to take his life in the womb as it would be at any point after birth. Let the mother have power over her own body, but don't let her have the power to murder the separate body within her.

2. They talk about the civil rights of mothers. What about the civil rights of the living, innocent human being within her? Isn't the first civil right the right to life? Someone has written a little poem of questions that stings the abortion position to the core. In verse form it asks,

Bro. Charles Ashcraft has added,

III. THE MURDER WE HAVE COMMITTED AND ARE COMMITTING IN THIS COUNTRY IN THE NAME OF LEGALIZED ABORTIONS IS A STENCH IN THE NOSTRILS OF GOD.

A. From God's viewpoint it is rotten to the core.

1. The sixth commandment of the decalogue is, "Thou shalt not kill." (Exodus 20:13) Lest anyone miss the point of that commandment, Jesus interpreted it in Matthew 19:18 by saying, "Thou shalt do no murder." Do it in the name of abortion, or revenge, it is still murder, and its is still wrong - rotten - sin before God. He said don't do it, and no mother, father, president, federal judge, or Supreme Court has any authority to say it is legal, moral, or permissible.

2. As early as Genesis 9:5-6, god imposed the death penalty upon murderers, "And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." That principle is often repeated in the scriptures. (See chapter 52 on the death penalty.) The unborn baby has life and blood, and it is his own blood. To abort that baby is to shed its blood. The killer is worthy, in God's opinion, of the death penalty. As E. L. Bynum points out, "God makes no distinction between the murdering of people of different ages."

3. Listen to God speak about expectant mothers in Exodus 20:22-23, "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." If a fatal injury is inflicted upon a mother or child, God says the offender shall die. That ought to make every mother seeking an abortion think twice.

4. And where do you suppose this places on God's list the medical people who take the lives of innocent babies? Most of them no only do it, they do it for hire - money! You talk about murder for hire, this is the most "red handed" type. God says, "Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person." (Deuteronomy 27:25) Mister, when America legalized murder by abortions, sin indeed became exceedingly sinful in this nation. (Romans 7:13)

B. It has brought our nation to the most God-dishonoring era of its existence.

1. War, with all its killings, must be stopped at all costs, but it is perfectly legal and all right to kill over a million babies a year, some of them with government tax dollars. Doesn't it strike you odd that while our country was in a civil uproar over Vietnam in the 1960's and 1970's, it was on the verge of legalizing the murders of more human lives than the entire Vietnam war ever took?

2. Many pseudo religious people in this nation have make it their business to stop the execution of hard-core criminals, yet many of the same people have supported the killing of innocents through abortions. The inconsistency of that stands out like a sore thumb.

3. Many nature worshippers make it their business to protect animals and their unborn, but see no contradiction when they support murdering innocent human unborn.

4. Government spends billions to care for everyone, whether they need it or not, yet the unborn continue to be slaughtered.

5. Folks, there is something fundamentally wrong with a society that permits the killing of innocent, unborn children, and God will not long tolerate it.

C. There is also something fundamentally wrong with a citizenry, especially Christians, who will tolerate it.

1. God's people need to rise up against it. They are the salt of the earth, and it is their job to zealously oppose such wanton corruption as this. (Matthew 5:13) They need to rise up and go to the polls, and kick politicians out of office who support such sin as this. They need to elect Godly men, and to, in some cases, run for office themselves.

2. Above all, God's preachers need to speak up, warn the people, expose the sin, and tell them what God says is right. Too long they've been silent, like Lot, in the gates of government. Again, we quote from the Word of God to His preachers through Isaiah the prophet, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins." (Isaiah 58:1) Preachers, above all, are God's watchmen on the walls. If they see the enemy coming that can destroy the land and its people and remain silent, God will require the blood of the people at their hands. Read Ezekiel 33:1-9. I wonder how much blood of innocent babes is on the hands of preachers today? I believe that innocent blood cries out against us. It is past time that our silence cease, and we turn from this wickedness in our land.

"It Does Make a Difference What You Believe"