Lux Lucet

Pro-choice supporters protest in front of the Alabama State House in Montgomery on May 14, 2019.
REUTERS/Chris Aluka Berry

“What angers me about the GOP’s attempts to turn the United States into a far-right Christian theocracy is how dishonest they are about it. At least be forthright about your desire to subvert and dismantle our democracy into a creepy theological order led by a mad king.”

    – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, (D) New York, Twitter, 5/17/19

It seems as if America is on course for an abortion show down. A sort of Roe v. Wade version of pistols at noon.

In January of this year, the first shot in the latest iteration of the ongoing abortion war fired by the New York State Legislature when it passed the Reproductive Health Act (RHA). If ever a bill was fast tracked, this one certainly was. According to Wikipedia, the bill was introduced into the New York State Legislature on January 9, 2019, passed by both houses on January 22, and signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo that same evening.

The RHA, widely considered the nation’s most liberal abortion law, changed New York’s abortion laws in the following ways:

• Removed abortion from the state’s criminal code
  
• Allows medical professionals who are not doctors to perform abortions
  
• To the states statue allowing abortion in the third trimester if the mother’s health is threatened, the bill adds language permitting abortion in the third trimester if the fetus in not viable
  

In Virginia, a bill was introduced earlier this year that would have greatly liberalized abortion in that state. When asked in a radio interview about the whether the bill would allow a fetus surviving abortion to be killed, Governor Ralph Northam created a major controversy with his answer that lent support to allowing such an infant to die.

In sharp contrast to New York and Governor Northam, just this week the Alabama State Legislature passed, and the governor signed, what is viewed as the nation’s most restrictive abortion law. The Alabama law makes it a felony offense for doctors to perform or attempt to perform an abortion, allows no exceptions for rape of incest, but does permit abortions in the event the mother’s life is at risk.

But while Alabama’s law is the most restrictive state-level abortion statute, other states have recently enacted legislation that will have the effect of significantly reducing abortions. In 2019 five states – Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio – have passed heartbeat bills, legislation designed to prohibit abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Utah and Arkansas voted to limit abortions to the middle of the second trimester. Together with Alabama, this makes eight states in 2019 that have taken legislative action to restrict abortion.

Very clearly, when it comes to abortion America is a deeply divided nation.

With a majority conservative Supreme Court, it may well be, as several legal commentators have suggested, that state-level Republican legislators and governors have passed and signed into law these bills with an eye to challenging Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion in all fifty states.

If these laws are challenged in court, as they surely will be, it is entirely possible that the challenges could begin working their way through the federal court system just as the 2020 presidential election is coming to a head. If that happens, abortion could become the lightening rod of the 2020 presidential election.

Below are a few of my observations on brewing conflict.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls Alabama’s law a “brutal form of oppression.” Although we cannot endorse her views, unlike Republicans, we can at least give her credit for at least being consistent.

Angry Democrats

It should come as no surprise that the Democrats would come out swinging against the Alabama statue. New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez raged on Twitter that the GOP was attempting to turn the country into a “far-right theocracy…led by a mad king.” This is, of course, absurd. I personally know not one single pro-lifer who is calling for a theocracy. But it does seems as if Miss Ocasio-Cortez is looking to turn American into her vision of a far-left Marxist/Globalist, technocratic tyranny.

California Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris likened the Alabama law to something out the “The Handmaid’s Tale,” while Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), another Democratic presidential hopeful, called it a “war on women.”

Bernie Sanders wasted no time weighing in on the recent state-level abortion restrictions. Sounding like a bit of a conspiracy theorist, Sanders said such legislation is a “well-funded attack coordinated by right win (sic) extremists to deny women the right to control their own bodies.”

Famously liberal Mother Jones has weighed in, reporting that a previously unreleased poll showed that only 31 percent of Alabamans agreed with banning abortion in cases of rape and incest. Apparently, Mother Jones would have its readers believe that the Alabama politicians are engaged in a sort of anti-abortion jihad that takes no account of the will of the voters they represent.

In another Mother Jones article, Ari Berman argues that Gerrymandering and Voter Suppression were the reasons behind the state’s “attacks on reproductive freedom.” Not only do Alabama politicians go against the wishes of their own voters, they rig the system to make sure they can get away with it. At least if Mother Jones is to be believed.

Australian writer Caitlin Johnstone, a popular figure among independent journalists, called the Alabama law “draconian” and “an assault on female reproductive sovereignty.” She is of the opinion that, unless women have the unlimited ability to kill their children in utero, the human race will be consigned to “deporting humans off the planet to live in Amazon Space Tubes.”

Double minded Pat Robertson. He spends a lifetime as a leader of the religious right opposing abortion. But when Alabama actually passes an anti-abortion law with teeth in it, he whines that it goes too far.

Wobbly Republicans

With all the perfectly synced outrage from the Democrats, you’d think that surely the Republicans would be ready to seize the day and champion the cause of the unborn. But you’d be wrong.

Former Republican presidential candidate and long-time religious right fixture Pat Robertson commenting on the Alabama legislation called it “extreme” and said that “Alabama has gone too far.” For Robertson, it appears that the lack of provision for abortions in cases of rape and incest and the bill’s maximum 99 year prison sentence for doctors performing abortions were what triggered his concern.

Utah Senator Mitt Romney echoed Robertson’s concerns. Perhaps Romney’s lack of courage is one reason he lost to a very beatable Barak Obama in 2012.

Today’s Washington Post has a story reporting that President Trump is working to distance himself from the aggressive legislation passed by Alabama and other states by emphasizing that he believes in limiting abortion but allows for exceptions in cases of rape and incest. The story notes that Trump is concerned that pro-life activism will lead to a fracturing of Republican unity.

The story also quotes House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) saying that the Alabama statute “goes further than I believe.” According to the Washington Post, few Capitol Hill Republicans are willing to come out in open support of the Alabama law.

One can have some sympathy with legislators who would rather not have to deal with another explosive social issue on top of all the other issues already roiling the American body politic, but in the view of this author, these Republicans, by putting practical politics above principle, once again have demonstrated why, not only do they lose battle after battle in the culture wars, but why they deserve to lose. For at the very time when they are poised to win a victory, they shrink back in fear.

Once again it’s the conservative Republicans snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Put another way, the Republicans are, as usual, living down to their well-deserved reputation of political choke-artists. Pathetic.

The Democrats are evil, but at least they know how to fight.

What Saith the Scriptures

While the term “abortion” does not expressly appear in the Scriptures, there are a number of passages that can be brought forward to show that, in the eyes of God, abortion is murder.

One of the clearest passages in the Bible that establishes the principle that abortion is murder is found in Luke 1:44. Here we find Elizabeth exclaiming that, upon hearing Mary’s voice, “the babe leaped in my womb for joy.” Clearly the unborn John the Baptist was alive and had consciousness in the third trimester. Yet had Elizabeth lived in New York rather than Judea, she could legally have had him aborted.

Further, the Greek word translated as “babe” is brephos, a term which is used interchangeably to mean unborn child or newborn baby. Elizabeth didn’t consider her unborn son to be “a bunch of replicating cells” as one writer recently put it. Rather, she called him her baby.

In Psalm 139, David praises God, saying that he was “fearfully and wonderfully made,” adding that God had covered him in his mother’s womb and that God’s eyes were upon him even before he was born.

The Mosaic Law also acknowledges the unborn child as a person in Exodus 21:22-24. In this passage, the Bibles speaks of punishment if two men are fighting and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely. If harm follows – harm here is either to the woman or to the prematurely born child – the men were legally responsible and could be punished up to, and including, the death penalty.

John Robbins on Abortion

In his 1980 essay “The Chickens’ Homecoming,” John Robbins noted that,

Roe v. Wade remains to this date the most destructive decision any judicial body has ever made. Since that decision, more than eight million abortions have been committed – that is an average of 2,700 each and every day since 1973. Today there are three abortions for each live birth in Washington, D.C.

The importance of a proper Christian response to the abortion issue cannot be underscored. One’s position on abortion is in essence a statement on one’s’ position on the general sanctity of human life…a proper Christian response to this issue will determine how God judges a nation (see 2 Chronicles 7:14). …as of this date, the church has failed to respond effectively to this issue. The United States is presently under the judgment of God; and if the church does not act on and resist the wholesale slaughter of the innocent, then there will be little hope for a true Christian future.

In the passage quoted above, Robbins cites 2 Chronicles 7:14 which reads, “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” But the Israelites did not humble themselves, did not pray or seek God’s face and did not turn from their wicked ways. Therefore, God did not hear them and, instead of healing their land, destroyed it.

Commenting on the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, the Chronicler noted, “And the LORD God of their father sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy” (2 Chronicles 36:15-16).

Closing Thoughts

If America were under God’s judgment in 1980, how much more is this the case in 2019? Not only have we added many more millions to the tally of those murdered in our abortion clinics, but the same court that brought us Roe v. Wade has legalized Sodomy in its approval of same-sex marriage. Our pop culture has become more vile by the year, our public and private debts have exploded beyond anything seen in history, open hatred against America’s founding fathers, against their faith and political ideas and against their descendents is not only tolerated, but actually encouraged from the loftiest places in society. Our borders are being overrun by hordes of welfare migrants, and no one seems to know how to stop them or what to do with them. Homosexuals are considered sacrosanct, but it’s open season on men and anyone who believes in marriage as defined by the Bible.

Can such a society long stand? I think not.

But where do we turn for solutions? It can be easy to blame others for our problems, but we Christians need to take a good long look in the mirror and ask ourselves whether we bear some responsibility for the mess our nation has become. Is it possible that we’ve tried to fight the Lord’s battles in our own strength while neglecting to call upon his name? Have we put our trust in the political process rather than in the preaching of the Gospel of Justification by Belief Alone? Have we laid aside the whole armor of God and sought to win the culture war by yoking with unbelievers?

The answer to all those questions is, I believe, yes.

What then is the solution? In a nutshell, as Paul enjoined the Corinthians, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you men, be strong.” We must put on the whole armor or God, using as our sole offensive weapon “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

So does this mean abandoning the field to the Marxists and the feminists, to the greens and to the globalists?

No. Not at all.

It simply means that we as Christians, if we are to have any hope of preserving what’s left of our republic and perhaps of restoring it, must re-learn, or perhaps more accurately, learn for the first time, to fight the Lord’s battles in the Lord’s way.

One way we can do this is to use the Word of God to rebuke and to encourage civil magistrates in their offices. When public officials pass laws contrary to the Word of God we need to rebuke them for their sins from the very Word of God. When, as is the case with the legislators and governors who have taken a stand for the most vulnerable among us, they do what is right in the sight of God, we should encourage them and pray for them and stand with them.

The practical men of the right fail in their endeavors, because they have never learned to trust in the Lord to fight their battles. We Christians must teach them.

Brothers, stand fast in the faith. Quit you like men. Be strong.