Our Bodies - Our Rights?
by Kenneth Ham The abortion issue is receiving a lot of public attention lately, particularly due to anti-abortion protests across the nation. The pro-abortionists are not standing back, but are also actively organized and involved in making their voices heard, insisting that abortion should remain legal in the United States.
In a recent news report, the pro-abortionists were said to be chanting over and over again, "Our Bodies—Our Rights." They have been insisting that everyone should be "pro-choice" in regard to this issue. These statements are symptomatic of a much deeper and more deadly sin that is sweeping and consequently destroying the Western culture. Let us analyze both slogans.
-
1. "Our bodies-our rights!" What does this statement really mean? The people chanting this are actually expressing their belief that since they own their bodies, they have a right to do with them whatever they decide. This is obviously an anti–God statement
! The fact that there is a God who is the Creator means that He owns our bodies—we do not own them. Not only that, but the Bible tells us He purchased us at price—the death of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The point is that God alone has total right over our bodies. He owns us, for he created us.
--
If one does not accept the fact of God as Creator, then the only other option is that we evolved by chance and random processes. If we are the result of chance evolution, then no one else owns our bodies—we would be just animals in the fight for survival. Thus those who make the statement "bodies—our rights" are actually chanting nothing else but the following: "We are products of chance. There is no God. We own our bodies and can do with them as we please. We are no different from animals, and these fetuses which can be conceived in our wombs are just animals. Since we can kill animals to get rid of them, so why not kill that which is in our bodies if we so desire? No one sets rules over us. There is no such thing as sin!"
2. "Pro–choice" means that every woman should be free to decide whether or not to have an abortion. But what does this choice really entail?
A. It is a choice not to believe there is a God who is the Creator. In II Peter 3:5, we read, "For this they willingly are ignorant...." We are told in Peter that in the last days people will choose not to believe that there is a God who is the Creator and that He has judged with the Flood and will judge again by fire. Romans 1:20 makes it plain to us that the evidence that there is a God who is the Creator is so obvious that if they do not believe they are without excuse. Thus these "pro-choice" people choose to believe there is no Creator who owns them.
B. "Pro-choice" also means that these people choose to make their own rules and choose not to abide by the absolutes of God's Word. The Scripture makes it plain "that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). We have all sinned because we all inherited the sin of Adam, who is the father of the human race. The problem Adam had is the same problem we all have today—rebellion against God's authority. Adam decided to disobey God's rules and set his own. If one reads God's Word in Psalm 139, Psalm 51, Jeremiah 1, Job 3, etc., it is obvious that human life begins at conception--thus abortion is killing. However, "pro-choice" advocates choose to ignore this. They have decided that they have a right to set their own rules.
C. God's Word makes it very explicit that there is no such thing as neutrality. We are told that we either walk in light or that we walk in darkness; we either gather or we scatter; we are either for Christ or we are against Him. Because "pro-choice" advocates do not accept the authority of God's Word, then there are no other options; they choose darkness rather than light. They choose to scatter rather than to gather. They choose to be against Christ rather than to be for Him! In Joshua 24:15, Joshua asked the people to "choose you this day whom ye will serve . . . "
Those who are demanding freedom to abort babies whenever they want [u]have chosen not to serve God, but to serve Satan who has convinced millions throughout the world of the
greatest lie of all--the lie that there is no God who is the Creator, but that all things have happened by chance over millions of years.[/u]D. As certainly as we know that the foregoing is true, we know, too, that most of those claiming these "rights" have themselves been blinded by Satan's lie. It must and will continue to be the Institute for Creation Research's mission to hold forth the forgiveness available through Christ to a lost and dying world. Oh how we pray that those who have been in agreement with the killings of 25 million human beings in this nation by means of abortion might listen to Joshua's challenge: "Choose you this day whom ye will serve. . ." and repent of their sin of rebellion and answer as Joshua did: "but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
It is not that evolution is the cause of legalized abortion--the root cause is the fact that people have rejected the foundation of God as Creator in their lives and this nation. However, what has led to this widespread rejection of the authority of the Creator God is the teaching of naturalistic evolution. The culture is dying. The symptoms are clear. The disease of evolution and man’s sinful rebellion needs to be combated now!
DID YOU KNOW . . .
that the Bible identifies the unborn child as fully human? "Why died I not from the womb
? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest, with kings and counselors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master." Job 3:11-19.
In this important passage of Scripture we see suffering Job wishing he had not been born. He envies those already in the grave, free from the pain and hurt of this life (17-19).
But note that he compares (14, 15) the state of deceased kings and counselors and princes (i.e., those who had grown to adulthood) with the state of those who died while still in the womb (v. 16). The dead does not cease to exist, Job tells us, but rest from human activity. By using the personal pronoun "I", Job shows that the unborn have personal identity as well. That Job's evaluation is correct is borne out by the testimony of God Himself (Job 42:7, 8).
The point is this: The eternal nature of man, and each individual's unique personhood—adults and children-is likewise present in the unborn fetus.There is neither scientific nor Biblical justification for the position that the unborn are not human.
--
(Condensed from an article by Dr. Gary Gordon. Write ICR for a free copy.)
