I'VE GOT TO SPEAK UP!

When the Declaration of Independence was written nearly two-hundred thirty years ago, the founders of this nation pledged their sacred honor to the notion that God gives every human being three basic rights. These include the right to pursue happiness, the right to enjoy freedom, and the right to live. Their assertion was not that the government provides these rights, but rather that they come as gifts from Almighty God. It follows then, that the government’s job is simply to speak up for and protect the rights given by God to its citizens.

For decades now – and especially since the landmark Roe v. Wade decision handed down 33 years ago today, legalizing abortion on demand – our nation has argued over the most basic of these three God-ordained rights: the right to life. The basic meaning of Roe v. Wade is that a child resting in its mother’s womb does not have the same rights as a child resting in its mother’s arms. The place of that child’s residence is seen as the determining factor regarding that child’s God-given rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Today there are politicians on both sides of this issue. Some of them say they will stand up for the value of every human life from conception until death. Others declare they will always support a “woman’s right to choose.”

As you ponder such differences, let me remind you of a crucial factor to consider. It’s a child we’re talking about here, not a “choice”!

By the time a woman is certain she is pregnant, her unborn child possesses every trait that medical science employs to define persons as “living.” By the twenty-first day after conception, the child’s heart is pumping blood through a closed circulatory system, and that blood is usually a different type from that of the mother. By forty days, the child’s nervous system reacts to outside stimulus, and his brain activity is measurable on an encephalogram. By nine weeks, the child is breathing amniotic fluid steadily, and will continue to do so until birth. The child does not drown by breathing the fluid, because she obtains oxygen from her mother through the umbilical cord.

The earliest that most abortions occur is around 11 or 12 weeks after conception. This means that virtually every abortion extinguishes a child who, by medical definition, exhibits every sign of life: pulse, brainwaves, and respiration. It is clear that “terminating a pregnancy” also terminates a life.

Therefore, before God, Who, according to Scripture, earnestly yearns to participate in the development of every unborn child; and before the church, charged by God with upholding His truths; and before our leaders, elected to uphold the rights of the citizens; I ask this question: how can a civilized nation deny to a child in the womb the rights it preserves for those outside the womb?!

Who will speak up for these little ones?

I’ve got to speak up. Won’t you?