I Am Sighing and Crying
What am I supposed to think and do?
A shameful benchmark came and went yesterday: the 41st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. The Court ruled 7-2 that a right to privacy under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment extended to a woman's decision to have an abortion. Since 1973 about 52,000,000 children have been aborted (translation: murdered). This is more than 3,300 deaths per day. These were viable new lives in the womb. They were simply terminated.
I remember back in my high school days in the 1960s when the drug thalidomide caused unborn children's extremities to become deformed. A woman fearing that her baby might be born without fingers and toes could not terminate the baby's life in the United States. In hushed tones it was uttered that in order to have the pregnancy terminated, you had to "go to Sweden." Abortion was an unthinkable, illegal and immoral act.
That has all changed with the Roe v. Wade ruling. A national mindset and great national controversy of pro-life vs. pro-choice has now raged for over four decades.
People get enraged that the killing of an unborn baby can be legal and increasingly shameless. Abortion clinics are picketed and protested, but to no avail. The attitude of pro-choicers only hardens. Those who believe in the sanctity of life and calling abortion murder try through reason and arguing to persuade those who believe in abortion to change their thinking. But it is to no avail.
I also find myself very angry at those who allow and support the cessation of life. Often the conception of the child took place under less than ideal condition and most often in violation of God's commandments of morality. The need for abortion is then a "pragmatic" compounding of an unwanted pregnancy. The abortion then brings on psychological trauma to the mother and family.
But I can't do anything about it. All I can do is express my outrage, but to go beyond that is futily opposing increasing moral sliding. To those sliding it's not even "immoral" as societal values condone and make it acceptable. This slide is irreversible and only draconian actions will cause an awakening to the evil and reversal of heart.
The Old Testament is a cyclical history of Israel forsaking God. Only through national calamity would the nation be brought to repentance. But it would be short lived as historically another cycle of sin and disregard for God's values would follow, only to be changed by a war or national catastrophe.
Much the same is true with our national sins. People in those sins no longer regard them as sins. There is no anchor to godly values. We just see a further drift and people seeking for solutions outside of God and His way of life. It will take another calamity to bring people to their senses.
I feel sadness at what our moral slide has brought. I am greatly saddened that I cannot reason with a hardened heart. I realize that it will take more than words. Israel had to go through massive national catastrophes. Maybe that's what will have to take place for us to learn our lesson as well.
As a spectator, I can only mourn. I along with others am only one who sighs and cries over the abominations of our society. The words of Ezekiel—who decried national sin—wrote the following:
"The Lord said to him, 'Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it'" (Ezekiel 9:3-4).
God loves mankind, but He is intent to allow free moral agency, which includes the testing of alternative lifestyles and values to prove ultimately that His way is the only way that works.
The United Church of God offers many hundreds of articles and study guides on this subject. Please check out our ucg.org website and do a search under "abortion."
