Our country is about to receive and experience a consequential decision
from the Supreme Court
relating to abortion.
Let’s understand a little historical context.
The CDC received reports of 629,898 abortions in 2019, the last full year of
available data. The agency started tracking the number of legal abortions in the
United States in 1969. Providers voluntarily submit data to states, which means the dataset is incomplete (and it excludes California, Maryland and New Hampshire), so the actual number is far higher.
A model-based approach developed by researchers from the Guttmacher Institute, World Health Organization, and United Nations puts the average annual number of abortions in the U.S. around 886,000.
The current judicial interpretation of the U.S. Constitution regarding abortion
(following the Supreme Court of the United States's 1973 landmark decision in
Roe v. Wade, and subsequent companion decisions), is that abortion is legal but
may be restricted by the states to varying degrees.
However, The Supreme Court is now considering a case which challenges Mississippi's ban on abortion after 15 weeks. If the court rules in favor of Mississippi, it will effectively end the constitutional right to an abortion, and make abortion rights a decision for individual states once again.
In early May, someone leaked the draft opinion of the Supreme Court concerning this matter, and this opinion suggests that the majority of justices are poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. The leaked opinion strongly presents the Roe V. Wade decision as egregiously wrong from the start.
Upon learning of this leaked draft opinion, Senate democrats moved quickly to try and codify Roe v. Wade as the supreme federal law of the land (codifying = collecting, restating, and writing down / clarifying laws). Senate Republicans and one Democrat blocked this bill that would have enshrined abortion rights into federal law.
THINK ABOUT THIS! - 49 Senate democrats (all but one) voted to ban all protections of the unborn until the point of birth! The legal proof supporting this statement (which comes directly from the Women’s Health Protection Act) are as follows:
(8) (There will be no) “prohibition on abortion at any point or points in time prior to fetal viability, including a prohibition or restriction on a particular abortion procedure.”
(9) (There will be no) “prohibition on abortion after fetal viability when, in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health.”
The broad interpretation of “life and health” would have allowed abortions for any cause at any stage of pregnancy.
Supporters of abortion rights took to the streets across America on May 14th, 2022 to make clear their anger at the prospect that the Supreme Court will soon strike down the constitutional right to abortion.
This battle over abortion, is not just a recent historical phenomenon: Did you know that abortion history dates back to over 5000 years ago. The first recorded evidence of a termination of pregnancy is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BC.
According to Chinese folklore; the legendary Emperor Shennong prescribed the use of a certain poison to induce abortions. Chinese records document the number of royal concubines who had abortions in China between the years 500 and 515 BC.
Early Church church leaders stood agains the practice of abortion:
The Didache (sometime between 1st century and second century) is one of the most prominent extra-biblical early church documents. It explicitly forbids abortion: “Do not abort a fetus or kill a child that is born.”
John Chrysostom (347 AD) in the East condemned the practice of abortion
Jerome (342 AD) in the West, condemned the practice.
Basil (330-379 AD) declared that a woman who had induced an abortion should be tried for murder.
Augustine extensively spoke against abortion.
Over the next couple of articles, I want to explore this issue of abortion and the Bible. Many people in the reading audience are opposed to abortion, but many could not give a biblical answer as to why. I want to help you with this. Today, I will give you one small biblical support for your belief that abortion is wrong, and over the next few columns, I will give some more detailed answers.
May God enable our country to make the right decision about this most important matter.
First, although we are not under the legal code of the OT, we see in the book of Exodus that there were legal protections for a woman and the baby still in her womb.
Exodus 21:22
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.
Here, we see, that God expresses care for the pregnant woman and her pre-born baby. This law was designed to address any injury that might occur to the pregnant woman or the pregnant woman’s baby.
Join us next next week for more!
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