Friday, April 10, 2009

Where Lies The Difference? Is There One?

What is one of the ancient practices of the world that makes us cringe and fall back in horror? Child-sacrifice: that ancient tradition that many countries in B.C. as well as A.D. practiced. Why is it so horrific? Perhaps it’s the idea of an innocent child, who has no say in whether he/she can live or die, who cannot even fight for his/her life. They are cruelly killed – sacrificed to heathen gods; they go through innumerable pains and sufferings – things that we cannot even imagine. These children, ranging from the ages of new-born to – well, even to adult age were sacrificed to “please the gods.” The horrific ways in which these new-born children were killed is too gruesome for me to describe, but it was bloody and morbid. I cannot even imagine how they went through it. But this is my point:



Many sacrificed infants and babies to the gods…. We think that is horrific. Really, who would want to kill a baby? But it is happening everywhere all the time – all the time! This dreadful thing is, yes, abortion. Many babies are aborted because the mothers “do not want them” or because they “can’t afford them” or because it is a humiliation – a result of a circumstance they shouldn’t have gotten into anyways. But what is the ultimate point of why babies are aborted? To satisfy and please the agenda of the mother. This is no different, if you really think about it, than those people way back then sacrificing babies to please the gods. In a way, the mother is pleasing a god – Self. Martin Luther once said, “I have a great pope within me: Self.” When we do things to please ourselves, even when it is wrong, we are satisfying and pleasing our own selfish desires. This is wrong – really, truly wrong.


Abortion is no different than child-sacrifice. Why would it be? Because life does not begin until the baby leaves the womb? What grows that is not alive? How can a baby grow for nine months and not be alive? A brick, which is not alive, does not grow, but if you leave out in the wind and rain, it will become beaten down – this is a result of the weather – the brick itself does not grow or shrink by itself. If life begins at conception, then abortion is murder. If abortion is murder, then why does our country allow it to go on? Why does not the government do something to stop this wicked crime? These little infants, just like the ones sacrificed, do not have the strength, or even the sense to fight for their life. They have no say in the matter. The matter of life or death is decided for them by other human beings. This is injustice, this is cruelty and murder! If life does not begin at conception, then what about those little ones who sometimes survive abortion, and are left to die on the hospital floor? When the baby screams and cries, kicks its legs and arms, then they ought to know that it is alive. They cannot kill it – they have no right. But since we do know that life begins at conception, then they have absolutely no right to interfere with that baby’s life – unless it is to save it. (Note: I am not saying that all babies that survive abortion are left to die, but I am referring to the ones that do.)


I wonder, what are the doctors consciences like? Do they even have one? Does the sound of little children’s feet haunt them – and the mother alike? Whenever they hear a baby’s cry, are they filled with regret, with remorse? Or not? Do they just go on as if nothing happened? I wonder…



How wrong, how utterly wrong it all is! Is there a worse evil than this? O! the cries of the innocent must ring and shake the earth! What a sordid, filthy, and twisted culture we have! How can we mend this great evil? Or have we gone so far that it cannot be mended?


Who will speak up for the little ones?
Helpless and half-abandoned.
They've got the right to choose life
They don't want to lose,
I've got to speak up, won't you?

Equal rights, equal time, for the unborn children.
Their precious lives are on the line,
How can we be rid of them?
Passing laws, passing out
Bills and new amendments.
Pay the cost and turn about,
And face the young defendants.

Many come and many go,
Conceived but not delivered.
The toll is astronomical,
How can we be indifferent.

Little hands, little feet,
Tears for Him who made you.
Should all on earth forsake you now,
But He'll never forsake you.

Forming hearts, forming minds,
Quenched before awakened,
For so many deliberate crimes
The earth will soon be shaken.

[Lyrics to a song, “Little Ones By Phil Keaggy.] I’ve never heard this song, but the lyrics are wonderful.


O, please pray!



5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, Ruby, this is Maureen Carey from down the street.

I am very much against abortion also. I am for life. It was once said that the safest place for a baby to be is in the womb, protected from the dangers of outside society, safely inside the mother. Now, this is not true! The baby is no longer protected even there. Even in the womb the baby is vulnerable to attack from the outside world.

What can save a baby from being aborted? There has to be a change in people's hearts, a change in people's way of thinking, of looking at human life. People have to reclaim the knowledge that they have known since before abortion became legal.

Will we continue to prey on the weak and the frail, the helpless and the vulnerable? Will we see certain members of society as less valuable because they are not strong like we are? Will we decide who gets to live and who dies because of those who can't speak for themselves? Will we see those who can't fight back as those who don't deserve to live because they
aren't strong enough to defend themselves?

Isn't that along the lines of what Hitler did? Hitler chose to get rid of all those who were "unworthy" in one way or another. The frail, the children, the women. the mentally and physically disabled all were targeted for destruction by him. He had concentration camps built to eradicate the world of all those who were "unfit" in his eyes. Hitler didn't see these people as humans and in his eyes, they didn't count as people and therefore, they didn't deserve the same rights that the rest of the human population enjoyed. Because when you put a human face on your enemies, you start seeing them as human, you have compassion for them and you have feelings for them. Their humanness comes through. If you can keep looking at people through cold, heartless and callous eyes, then we can justify any inhumane thing we do to them because we aren't looking at them with the eyes of compassion. Their lives do not matter at all to us.

Aren't we doing the same thing to babies not yet born? They are helpless, weak individuals who can't fight back or defend themselves at all. They have no voice at all, no say in whether they live or die at all. That decision is made by those in power, those who are the lawmakers, those who have the power, those who others follow and listen to.

Unborn children have no voice. They can't express their feelings. They are the weakest of the weak. Their very life depends upon whether or not the mother decides she wants to have a child.

We must be their voice. We must speak for them and for all those who can't speak for themselves, or else, who will speak for them? Who will be on their side and tell their side of the story?

We must not let human life be so disposable. We must fight against injustice, against wrong. We must have our say.

President Obama is very much pro-choice. He has the power to make abortion illegal, but since he's pro-choice, he will veto every bill that is pro-life.

I am torn between two sides of the abortion issue. On the one hand, I want to seek justice for the women who have had an abortion to go to jail for their crimes and on the other hand, being supportive of them and offering them counseling to help them heal from the trauma of abortion.

Abortion also hurts the mother as well as the baby. For the rest of her life, she will be haunted by what she has done. It will forever be on her conscience. She will always feel guilt, sorrow and a deep sense of remorse and regret.

Here's how I believe we can help. We can write letters to those in Congress. We can voice our outrage. We can put pressure on those in Congress to pass anti-abortion laws. We can write to those in authority telling them our views and sharing Christ with them.

Maybe some of these people have never known Christ. Maybe they don't know about Christ's command to love one another and respect all human life as being from God and therefore highly sacred.

We can bring Christ's love to them and teach them to respect human life. We can be a voice for the voiceless, a light for those in darkness, we can carve out a new way, and blaze a new trail.

Did you know that some parents who discover that their child will be born with Down Syndrome choose to abort their baby for that very reason? They don't want to deal with the pressures and the stress of caring for a child with developmental disabilities, so they choose to end its life before it even began. This is eugenics which is purely evil.

Human life is not considered worth protecting by all and whose to say who will be the next victim?

-Maureen Carey

Anonymous said...

Hey, this is Maureen from down the street again.

I was adopted at 10 months old. My biological mother couldn't take care of me, so she made sure that I went to people who could take care of me and give me the life that she couldn't.

My mother was only 19 when she had me and for private reasons, she could have very easily had me aborted, but she chose to give me life and I'm very thankful to her for that.

Life is a gift as I have discovered and no one but God has the right to take it away.

Thanks for sharing your post with me. It has inspired me to get involved once again with pro-life issues.

My family is on the National Pro-Life Alliance mailing list and your post is inspiring me to get more involved with pro-life issues and doing my part to make this a better world for everyone to live in.

How will you take a stand and speak out against abortion? What can you do to help?


In Christ,

Maureen J. Carey

EmmaElaine said...

Ruby,
You did such a good job on this post! I've had the same thought as you for a LONG time! :-)
Maureen,
I completely agree with you. One of the thoughts that popped into my mind when you said, "we could blaze a new trail." was that future generations will learn about ours. They will learn about what we're doing now and how we're fighting for justice. And that makes me want to fight harder so that they will be able to look back and see that God had left a remnant of His people to fight for His ways. Wouldn't it be such a testimony if 50 years from now kids were learning about courageous men and women who perseveringly helped to overcome the senseless killing of children because they believed in a God who valued human life close to perfect beings? "You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings" as well as "From the lips of children and _infants_ you have ordained praise" both from Psalm 8. God causes His praise to be sung from BABIES. Those very babies that are being killed could have been singing His praises in a couple years.

Sincerely
~Emma

Ruby Jean Hopkins said...

Hey Maureen!!

I'm interested in knowing how you found my blog!

I agree with you completely... and I can sympathize with your feelings in wanting justice for the little ones by sending mothers/doctors to jail, but then through kindness perhaps try and help the heal from what has happened.... I think that the latter would be the most Christian method to adopt. Showing kindness to those mothers, and really trying to help this wound heal is our job.... Justice for these little ones is what God will do, not us.
I also whole heartedly agree with you when you say that "Life is a gift and no one but God has the right to take it away."

Thank you so much for your comments - I am heartily glad now that I wrote that post. :)

Emma,

Very good points! Thanks - you made me think...again. Truly, if the rocks sing his praises, (Luke 19:40) then those tiny babies must.

~Ruby

Anonymous said...

Emma, this is Maureen C.

Yes, we do set a standard now for how future generations will live. As the quote says, "The flowers of tomorrow are in the seeds of today."

What future are we leaving to our children and our descendants? Is it a future that we can be proud to pass on to them or should we feel embarassed because of the low moral standards. In these tragic times, there is an "anything goes" mentality where tried and true morals are being set aside for liberal thinking, new-fangled ideas and political correctness.

But, some things remain the same through all generations, some values and morals are timeless and non-negotiable even in the face of forward thinking. We of Generation X should listen again to our elders, learning the wisdom of the centuries, the godly wisdom of those who have spent a lifetime searching for the truth.

Have we sacrificed the truth and godly moral values on the altar of self?

What is truth? How can we define it and how do we recognize truth when we see it and how do we apply the truth to our daily lives? Is truth objective or subjective?

The truth is that there is a great tear in the moral fabric of our society. This tear has been slowly appearing over the course of time. Like the constant drip of water will eventually wear away even the strongest of rocks, this tear in our moral fabric has been slowly deteriorating away our values,morals until we no longer turn to the good in life, but rather the convenient, the easy, the pasth of least resistance.

Here's the good news: We can fix any tears, we can right the wrongs, we can turn our society around. It won't be easy, we have a big fight on our hands, but it's not a battle that we can't win. We should know that we have a long road ahead of us, steep, tricky and bumpy.

We need good Christian friends to walk with us on this bumpy road to freedom. They will hold our hands to help us avoid pitfalls and stumbling blocks. They will help us to fight society's battles. They will serve as our shields and our protectors.

This isn't a physical battle, but rather a battle for people's hearts and minds and ways of thinking. People's ways of thinking about human life have to be overturned, there has to be a paradigm shift.

People have to be once again reminded of the sanctity of human life and that every life counts or otherwise we could have another situation on our hands like the one Hitler imposed on our world. If we don't speak up now, we might be fighting for our own lives.

And you were right to say that out of the mouths of children, God has ordained praise. I was just thinking of that lately. Babies talk in a language foreign to us, and no one knows what they're saying, they talk on and on and I'm sure it makes perfect sense to them. Perhaps they are speaking the language of God, singing His praises in a heavenly language that we all used to know, but have forgotten as time moves on. The eternal and enigmatic smile that babies have while talking lead me to believe that there is more to them than meets the eye. And what are the words that they are saying, how wonderful and perfect their smile is! How much they bring us closer to God!

I'm sure that God weeps when babies are aborted. He loves us immensely and wants us to see the truth, but not the world's truth, but God's truth. The world's truth and God's truth are very often two very different things indeed. When every last person on earth sees things from God's perspective, then our hearts can heal, the rip in the fabrics of our hearts can heal.

Maureen Carey