On May 2, 2019 Alabama State House Representative gave a controversial floor speech opposing Alabama’s abortion bill. He said “So you kill them now or you kill them later. You bring them in the world unwanted, unloved, you send them to the electric chair. So, you kill them now or you kill them later.” The following is a reply. https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/05/02/alabama-democrat-on-abortions-you-kill-them-now-or-you-kill-them-later-lc-bk-orig.cnn
And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born. Ezekiel 16:4–5 (ESV)
During a debate on the abortion bill, Alabama State Rep. John Rogers (D) said “Some kids are unwanted, so you kill them now or you kill them later. You bring them in the world unwanted, unloved, you send them to the electric chair. So, you kill them now or you kill them later.”
These crass comments received just condemnation from individuals across the political spectrum. However, I believe many missed the depth of his depraved thinking and how it reflects a common worldview concerning humanity and God.
Rogers is vulgarly echoing a common argument used by those favoring abortion. Unwanted children born into poverty with neglectful mothers will mostly live a life of poverty, depravity, crime and wind up in prison or even death row. Presumably, abortion would spare the unwanted this horrible fate and relieve the burden on the community.
I hold that such an argument dehumanizes the unborn child by making him/her a victim of fate without responsibility for their own decisions. It assumes the unwanted child cannot, despite poverty and rejection, overcome their circumstances and be a good productive citizen. So bad is their fate that they are better off dead.
The passage from Ezekiel teaches otherwise. God is addressing Jerusalem, a city founded by the Amorites and Hittites whose heinous practices, including child sacrifice, drew God’s wrath. Their punishment deserved nothing short of total destruction. God raised Israel to conquer the land through Holy War and put all the inhabitants, their possessions and animals to the ban.
The child, Jerusalem, had hopeless prospects and was
rejected. In the rhetorical metaphor,
the child city was not afforded the usual customs of acceptance offered to
legitimate and wanted children of the time.
When the child was prepared and placed in swaddling cloths, he was then
handed to the father who would acknowledge and accept the child as his own to
be raised in a loving family. This child,
Jerusalem, was left to die. That was its fate.
But this is not the end of the story. In the next passage God finds the child city
abandoned, filthy, bloody and dying.
God, through grace, restored life to Jerusalem, washed the child,
anointed it with oil and “made you mine.” More so, God dressed the child in
fine linen and adorned her with gold and so forth. David would make her the capital, Solomon
built the first temple and the city became a queen.
Through human failing and sin, the people of Israel would later reject God and
the city was destroyed centuries later.
But the point here is that God is merciful, gracious, loving and
kind. He is the one who guides our steps
and His providence directs the lives of individuals and nations. Beauty comes from ashes.
John Rodgers, and those who make the socioeconomic argument favoring abortion, ignore the possibility that many of these unwanted children are responsible moral agents who, by the grace and favor of God, can be raised and made beautiful. I know many such people. To make them slaves of “fate,” determined by social and economic circumstances, dehumanizes them. And when a person is dehumanized, their death becomes a cold utilitarian decision. The moral imperative afforded other children does not apply to them.
The Nazis called them “Untermenschen” (undermen, subhuman), and ““Lebensunwertes Leben” (life unworthy of life.” They, along with the disabled and mentally ill (unnütze Esser – worthless eaters) were murdered. Yet the Nazis murdered far less of them than the number of abortions performed in the USA since RvW. We are up to about 60 million children murdered in the womb. I have seen estimates that number the deaths under Hitler, Stalin and Mao at 63.5 million.
This is the result of those, like Rep Rogers, who use Social Darwinism as the basis of their opinions and actions. How dark and evil can man become?
But remember how the Biblical narrative continues. In Luke 2:7 we read that Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger.” Jesus, under the scandal of illegitimacy, was afforded the traditional loving care and in swaddling cloths was accepted by Joseph as his son. His fate determined by his circumstances was to be raised in poverty, shame and shunned. His prospects were not good (see Isaiah 52-53 – the 4th “servant song”) and in today’s way of thinking he would most likely become poor, a criminal or drug addict and possibly wind up in prison or death row. Yet it is this Jesus, who took upon himself our sins and was punished unto death for us, is our savior. He led a sinless life and we who believe are clothed by his righteousness.
Let us praise our Lord, the God of life full of mercy and grace, whose love is boundless and who raises the lowly. Let us pray to Him for forgiveness and plead for the unborn, lest their blood cry out from the ground. Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have sinned worse than the Amorites and Hittites.
Biblical Perspective 