In the first chapter of Luke, Mary who had just conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit, went to visit Elizabeth in Judah. As Mary entered her house and greeted Elizabeth, Elizabeth’s baby leapt inside her womb and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth’s baby would end up being one of Jesus’ disciples. There was a connection between Jesus and John inside of the womb. This passage shows us that there is an awareness in the womb even if we can’t remember it after we are born.
All throughout scripture God reflects on the sanctity of human life. Genesis 4:10 tells us that when one life is taken by another, their blood cries out from the ground to the Lord. God is deeply moved when one of the lives that He individually designed and carefully created are ended too soon. Genesis goes on to talk about God creating life as a perfect design to his covenant with Abraham by allowing Sarah to get pregnant in Chapter 21 and then again in chapter 25 when Rebekah became pregnant with Isaac. Each life is God’s will and has a unique and planned part in His kingdom!
In Job 10, Job goes on to cry out to God to have mercy on him because Job knew he was created in God’s image, he knew that God’s hand shaped him, formed him, and wove him together with tendons and bones. God intimately created each and every one of us. There is no other human on earth like you. You are unique, loved, and specifically designed by the creator of the universe to fulfill a very specific purpose in His kingdom!
God goes on in Exodus 4:11, talking to Moses who was seriously doubting his speaking skills as God set a mission before him to help the people of Israel under Pharoah’s rule. God firmly told Moses that there was nothing to fear because God created the mouth that he spoke from! God chooses whether people will be mute or deaf, or seeing or blind, because He knows the path He has set before each one of us, and He intends to use every bit of it for His glory. Moses took his staff, spoke eloquently to the Pharaoh and eventually fulfilled the mission God had placed before him.
‘Acknowledge the Lord is God. He made us, and we are His – His people, the sheep of His pasture.’ -Psalm 100:3
‘For it was you who created my inward parts, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well. My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began.’ -Psalm 139:13-16
The last scripture I will leave you begins in John 9. Jesus was walking along the street as he passed a man who had been blind since birth. The disciplines asked Jesus whose sin caused this man’s blindness, his own or his parents? Jesus explained that no one sinned to cause this man’s blindness and replied to them saying, “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him.” Then Jesus spit on the ground, stirred the dirt into mud, and rubbed it on the man’s eyes. He told the man to wash his eyes nearby water and miraculously, his sight was restored!
Many in our society believe that it is ok to abort a baby who is not going to live long after birth, or that will suffer with debilitating medical issues or a hopeless diagnosis. This is seen as a valid excuse to reduce the pain and suffering of the baby and the parents; eliminate the sufferer to eliminate the suffering. Oftentimes, this is the only circumstance in which many Obstetricians will perform an abortion. God clearly tells us that each one of us is here to display His glory. The blind man that Jesus and the disciplines walked by ended up being written about in scripture and for thousands of years have been recognized as one of Jesus’ many miracles! God used the blind man to witness His power to the disciples, which as we know was necessary in their sanctification as the disciple-makers to the world for many generations to come.
Every baby is carefully knit together, fearfully and wonderfully made, bones and tendons woven together, a display for God’s glory! It is devastating when a baby is given a physically or mentally debilitating or fatal diagnosis. It is a pain that never leaves their parents. But with great suffering comes great meaning! Earthly affliction is temporary in light of eternity and it is incredibly meaningful. Every moment of pain we feel in obedience to God produces a peculiar glory we will receive in heaven. You can’t see it now, but our misery is working for eternal glory. Even if a baby is only meant to live an hour after birth, that hour and the legacy left behind after could change dozens if not hundreds of lives.
“Even a child that is struggling with disabilities is fearfully and wonderfully made and a person made in the image of God with the ability to display His mighty works in and through their lives. Every one of them. They are worthy of dignity and honor and should not be discarded through abortive means or any other way. God is the maker; he is the giver of life." -Pastor Zach Maddox
It is absolutely reasonable to want to alleviate the suffering of a baby and their parents, but it is never justified to eliminate the sufferer to achieve that goal. Compassion literally means ‘to suffer with’, so how can abortion be justified by having compassion? We should always fight to save life and to make life better, but never to end life. Each one of us was carefully crafted by God. No matter how young or old, each life is sacred and should be treated with dignity and honor.
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