On May 28, 2019 the SCOTUS refused to reinstate Indiana’s ban on abortion for sex selection, race selection and disability.
“When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. Exodus 1:16–17
God had told Abraham that his descendants would sojourn for generations before coming into the Promised Land (Gen 15:13). Our Lord, through His Providence, sent Joseph as a slave and raised him up to a position of power. During a great famine, Israel would find a haven in Egypt. It took 430 years for the 70 persons who went down to Egypt to multiply into the millions who could physically occupy The Land.
The Pharaoh at the time of the exodus, who did not know Joseph and all he did to save Egypt centuries earlier, was concerned about the fertility and success of the children of Israel abiding in Egypt. He called the Hebrew midwives and ordered them to kill the male children of Israel as they were born. Why the males and not the females? By murdering the newborn sons, Pharaoh would not only control the Hebrew population but preserve them as perpetual slave labor. The basic socioeconomic family unit would be harmed, and Israel would become much less of a threat from within.
In the Ancient Near East (ANE), as today in many lands, male children are prized over females. It was the male who worked the land, who provided for the family, who had legal rights of property, who defended the nation and who were the heirs. It was the male who had the family name and who preserved the family line.
Daughters were less valued because they would leave the home, join a new family upon marriage and take with them a dowry. If they were never married, or if they were widowed or divorced, the daughter would become the responsibility of her parents and often be destitute. In a place and age where people lived day to day, sons provided wealth and security and daughters could be an expense that a family would struggle with. That is not to say daughters were not loved. There were practical and often profound economic forces at work favoring sons.
Many, if not most, peoples in the ANE practiced to some extent a form of sex selection. Unwanted female children would be left to die of exposure. In the Roman Empire it was common for unwanted children to be left on a hillside or garbage dump either to die or be taken in by someone. It was permitted to murder a deformed child. The pagan temple priests would sometimes raise these children as temple prostitutes. Some would be come slaves.
In the time of Moses, unwanted children in Egypt would be put near the water in the hopes of being found. Moses was placed in a basket and was found by the sister of Pharaoh.
In modern China, during Mao’s “one child” policy, daughters were abandoned or most recently aborted by sex selection. You see, China has no social safety net such as Social Security and Medicare. Sons cared for the elderly parents. Daughters left the family. If you could only have one child, it need be a son.
The Jews stood out from the pagan world by prohibiting the killing or abandonment of unwanted children. Consider the words of Solomon:
Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
Ps 127:3-5
Jesus was born into a very cruel world where life was not valued as it is today. Mary was a virgin betrothed to a good man named Joseph. She was chosen by our Lord to bear a son, conceived by the Holy Spirit, with God as the father. It was obvious to everyone that Mary was with child before her wedding. It was also clear to Joseph that he was not the father. Joseph was unwilling to put Mary to shame and planned on quietly divorcing her. But the Angel of the Lord revealed to Joseph the truth and instructed him to wed and take Jesus as his own son.
Outside these miraculous circumstances, Jesus was an illegitimate and unwanted child. If born in a pagan society, especially if a daughter, such a child may have been left to die. At best the child and mother would live in shame and poverty as she was an adulteress and the child a bastard.
Scripture attests to the practices of evildoers:
They kill the widow and the sojourner,
and murder the fatherless;
Psalm 94:6
Calling to remembrance how Israel was treated in Egypt our Lord commanded His people:
“You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, 24 and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless. (Exodus 22:21–24)
We learn that such is the very character of God, revealed in his Holy ineffable name by His saving acts:
He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. (Deuteronomy 10:18)
When Israel went astray and mistreated widows and the fatherless the Lord accused them and commanded:
learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause.
Isaiah 1:17
This was certainly carried forward in the New Testament as James writes:
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1:27)
Indeed, Christianity would overturn the world by putting into practice God’s love and His ethical commands. Early Church fathers such as Justin Martyr and Tertullian attest to the care of orphans. Christians would try to rescue abandoned infants and if possible, raise them as their own. By the time of Constantine, there were orphanages and monasteries that cared for the fatherless.
It is clear in Scripture and Judeo-Christian history that God and His people value every human life. Abandoning, murdering or mistreating the fatherless was forbidden. In is unthinkable that abortion is acceptable in the eyes of God and it has no place in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Indiana passed a law that prohibited abortion for the purposes of selecting gender, race and lack of deformity. We have laws in this country protecting the lives and rights of minorities, women and the disabled. Such laws are based upon the concepts found in Scripture and have their genesis solely within Judaism and Christianity. When Christ died on the Cross the great veil of the Temple was rent in two. This symbolized and revealed that this great veil of separation between peoples of different races and socioeconomic status was torn down by Christ’s sacrifice. Therefore, Paul could write:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)
By failing to reinstate Indiana’s ban, the SCOTUS is upholding an ancient barbaric pagan practice of murdering unwanted children. We deceive ourselves by arguing that life may not begin until some arbitrary time after fertilization. We deceive ourselves by thinking that an unborn child is not fully human. Their few afforded protections are subservient to some fictitious right of their mother’s privacy and “right” to choose to destroy. In Rome as in the ANE, children were viewed as property that could be disposed of as the head of the household saw fit.
We dehumanize our unborn and in doing so debase all of humanity with that stain of cruel savagery of the past. How little things have changed. Do we really value human life like our Lord does and commands us? Are we enlightened and better people than our ancestors? The answer is no. By creating a fiction about the status of the unborn child we are just creating an excuse for exalting our selfish, sinful, and material wants and desires above and at the expense of other’s lives. We break the tenth commandment of coveting a better life for ourselves. And in doing so we break all the commandments including idolatry and murder.
Paul writes: But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. (Romans 7:8). And we are dead in our trespasses and sin.
The practice of abortion for the purposes of selection of gender, race and lack of deformity is the ultimate form of discrimination and persecution. It is hypocritical to advocate for the rights of women, minorities and the disabled and at the same time advocate for such heinousness.
On May 28, 2019 the SCOTUS made yet another decision that will be remembered infamously. The conservative cowards failed to seek justice for the fatherless and protect them. The “progressives” continued to create a safe space for odious sin before God. Not only will history judge our nation as barbaric, primitive and obscene but God will judge us according to his Holiness and Righteousness.
Let us pray that God has not blinded us and made us deaf as he did stubborn wayward Israel:
And he said, “Go, and say to this people:
“ ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
Isaiah 6:9–10
O’ how long Lord? Do not destroy us. Open our eyes and ears and have mercy upon us. Convict us of our sin and give us the heart of repentance. For we have sinned against you. Be gracious, O’ Lord. Save us from our sin and your wrath.
Biblical Perspective 