The Results

Dr. Kermit Gosnell is on trial for 7 counts of first degree murder.  According to the testimony of former employees, his abortion clinic was responsible for the unlawful deaths of many premature babies.  Abortions performed way past the length of time considered legally permissible, done in atrocious ways, occurred regularly.  His practice is also accused of being unsanitary and downright filthy, using and distributing illegal drugs, employing untrained or unlicensed staff, and even killing at least one patient.

You might have seen the headline on this story and looked away rather than read the details. It would be understandable.  It is uncomfortable, to say the least, to read.

Personally, it just kills me.  Not because the thoughts of some of these so called "procedures" strike me as inhuman.  Not because I mourn for the mostly underpriveleged women who have resorted to an abortion in this dirty clinic.  Not because I grieve for what they went through afterwards.  Not because of the murders of living infants, who were induced to existence by birth and allowed to squirm and breathe and live only to die viciously and reprehensibly and brutally.  

No.  It just kills me because it brings me to this:  These are the results.  The results of us making a decision we were never intended to make, the decision of where life begins.  The results, ALWAYS, of when human beings take authority over things that only God should own. And because abortion is becoming more and more commonplace and accepted, the trend is that our law continues to loosen it's boundaries on it.  Does the legality of abortion mean that all clinics operate like this Dr. Gosnell's?  Probably not.  But it certainly did help.  If abortion were illegal, would this clinic have been in operation for over 30 years?

I guess we could have claimed ignorance about abortion at one point.  When Roe vs Wade paved the way for the legality of it in all 50 states, we didn’t know the things we know now.  But now, we know.

We know that the fetus develops a heart in the fifth week and the heart begins beating around the 6th week. We know that every individual human heartbeat is so unique and specific to that person that researchers in Taiwan are currently developing an algorithm to use it as a security system. People would be using their palms to get into their computers with the passcode of their hearts, because heartbeats are unique enough to secure encrypted data. And DNA? Consider for a moment how complex and unique and specific that is to a person, when does that begin?

¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.^[a]
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
                                                      Psalm 139:14

So what defines life? A heartbeat? DNA? A developing brain? What defines a human being? Where do we “begin,” because the complexity of human beings is astounding!!  And more and more research indicates that HUGE things are happening right from the beginning.

In the initial weeks, we may be a "clump of developing cells," but a human blastocyst is dividing those living cells at an alarming rate to form the most complex species of life on the planet. Blastocysts become embryos, forming neural systems and circulatory systems and “clumps of cells” that will be our eyes, our faces, everything that makes us unique as human beings in those first weeks. So the question is: Do we really think we can say definitively that abortion is not the termination of a human life? 

Personally, I think we are rather brazen to even ask the question of where life begins!!! How do we have authority to determine what life is or where life begins when we are subject to the power of life and death ourselves? Did we decide when we would be made alive and when we would die for ourselves?  How can we assume we have authority over that, or put any sort of definitive answer on things we continue to learn about?

Humanity is such a mess.  There are an estimated 27 million people living as sexual slaves.  World leaders are threatening our national security.  Millions and millions live in poverty and starvation around the world, with very little regard or help from prospering nations. We are selfish and hedonistic.  Depraved and wicked.  Dying daily. Even our physical bodies outwardly waste away like wisps of grass, soon to wither and be gone. Who are we to think we could decide a question as important as what is and what isn't murder? 

These are the results of our decision on that.  God, help this great nation and save us from ourselves.