Earlier this week, New York passed the most radical abortion law in the nation, allowing it for (nearly) any reason imaginable up till birth. According to the law, it’s allowed for the “health” of the mother, but according to LifeNews, the definition of health is so broad, abortion is effectively on demand for any reason. Laws that would previously charge illegally performed abortions have also been repealed, as well as protections for babies born alive after botched abortions, effectively legalizing infanticide and butchers like Kermit Gosnell.
The law goes so far as to modify the homicide laws, leading to changes such as the following, as reported by PJ Media: “Homicide means conduct which causes the death of a person [or an unborn child with which a female has been pregnant for more than twenty-four weeks] under circumstances constituting murder, manslaughter in the first degree, manslaughter in the second degree, or criminally negligent homicide[, abortion in the first degree or self-abortion in the first degree].”
In celebration of this law, Governor Cuomo ordered One World Trade Center’s spyr be lit pink after signing it on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.
How do we, as Christians, think about evil on a scale this unimaginable? Abortion, the murder of a child, is legal for all nine months of pregnancy. It is now legal to crush the skull of an infant, moments before it comes out of the birth canal. A quote that is often shared on social media, in reference to Exodus 21:23, John Calvin writes, “For the fœtus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being…If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fœtus in the womb before it has come to light”1. The grievous nature of this sin and the callousness of a heart that promotes this is enough to make the Christian weep.
At the same time, this should also be sobering for us as we look to Scripture. God commanded the Israelites to stone anyone who offered his child to the pagan god Moloch (Leviticus 20:1-5). Moloch was one of the gods of the people who occupied the land that God had promised to Israel, who were subsequently driven out. In order to obtain Moloch’s blessing, the people would give their children up to be burned at his altar.
You would think that Israel would recoil at this practice, but as time passed, they forgot God and began to engage in the same pagan practices. When God decided to drive Judah out of the land for their sins, one of the many sins for which they were judged was child sacrifice. Jeremiah writes, “They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Moloch, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin” (Jeremiah 32:35 ESV).
Ultimately, the modern practice of abortion is no different. Just as the ancient pagan nations would offer their children up so that they would prosper, so we are offering up our children though the practices we are allowing by law. If God drove out the pagan nations for child sacrifice, then Judah centuries later for the same practices, do we think that God will turn a blind eye to this sin and that somehow, we can escape his just judgment?
And, yet, there is something even more sobering than this that is occuring right now. God is already judging us for this sin and the outpouring of his wrath was seen in New York, as Justin Peters noted.
What do we see in Romans 1:18-32? When people obstinately continue in their sin, one way that God judges a people is giving them over to the sin that they love. Given how clearly the Gospel is available and proclaimed in this country, the wickedness of this sin and the just “giving over” is all the more deserved. As theologian Douglas Moo writes, “The wrath of God falls more deservedly than ever before on people now that God’s righteousness in Christ is being publicly proclaimed” 2. People who promote abortion are not doing it without knowledge of the Gospel. They KNOW what they are doing in light of God’s revelation, and they willfully choose their sin instead.
How can we as a nation say “God bless America” when we allow the slaughter of innocents? The only blessing we should ask of God is for him to bless this country with repentance so that we may escape even further judgment, not with merely a functional government and a thriving economy.
Although we cannot end this entire system overnight, we can all make an impact, however small. As Christians, the first thing that must do is pray – pray that God would intervene in our country and that the practice would end. More practically, for those that can, get involved in abortion ministry and/or financially support gospel-centered organizations that work to end abortion like End Abortion Now, which works to equip churches to do their own abortion ministry, helping meet people considering abortion with the message of the Gospel. May God grant this nation the eyes to see, so that they may turn from their sin and to the forgiveness found in Christ.