"CONSISTENCY, THOU ART A JEWEL"
September 1, 1998 Issue
by Don L. King

Recently, we saw a television documentary about women who have gone to prison for murdering their newborn babies. As distasteful as it was, we listened as a very sad tale emerged.

A young lady in her late teens had become pregnant and had somehow kept it a secret from her parents with whom she lived. She delivered the baby girl in the bathroom at home. Her parents paid no heed and apparently were completely unaware of the entire matter. The young lady said the child was stillborn and she simply wrapped it in plastic bags and discarded it in the garbage can in the garage. When asked what she did then, she replied that she went to the family room and watched television with her mother and tried to pretend that everything was all right. Later, she was found out and the child recovered by authorities. An autopsy indicated the child had died after being discarded. She was tried and sentenced to a fifteen years to life term. The program seemed to be sympathetic toward the young lady who is trying to appeal her sentence. Then, a second young teenage girl was profiled who had done almost the same thing and was also serving a prison sentence. She too was seeking an appeal and sympathy. She claimed that she was not a bad person but had merely made some bad decisions. Everything would be fine now, if only she could have her sentence repealed.

You may or may not have seen this particular program. However, this situation is repeated many times each year. As I watched and listened, I wondered about the inconsistency of it all. Here were two young women who had been convicted of murdering their own babies. I could not keep the thought out of my mind: if they had aborted those babies BEFORE birth no one would have said a thing! What would have been the difference? The very same children would have been killed, murdered by a physician. In today's America and many other places, that's all right.

We are told that as late as the seventh month a baby can be murdered. Oops, excuse me, "aborted." The method of partial birth abortion is so ghastly and inhuman I will not describe it except to say the child is partially born before being killed by the doctor. The baby boy or girl might well survive on its own except for the killing procedure. This in the name of medicine! Doctors who have taken an oath to preserve life have begun commonplace and wholesale murder. How inconsistent! How blind! If the child is killed after birth, authorities call it murder. The person who kills the child may go to prison for life. If before birth it is only a harmless medical procedure. Everyone involved is free, society smiles and politicians vow it is a woman's choice to do with her body as she pleases. As far as we are concerned, it seems that they must realize how inconsistent their position is.

Not long ago, a man who in a drunken stupor killed a woman and her unborn baby in a car crash, was charged with TWO counts of murder. The unborn baby was also a victim, said the courts. We couldn't agree more but why is it murder by the drunk but only birth control by the doctor? Consistency, thou art a jewel! Lets remember that either way a child is killed.

In 1997 a pill manufactured in France hit the USA. A woman can take the first pill in the privacy of her home and end the life of her unborn child. Two days later a second pill will cause the dead child to be born. All this in the name of convenience and medicine.

We mention this not because we fear that Christian ladies among us are guilty. God forbid! We bring this to your attention lest any of us might become complacent because of its commonplace occurrence. It is sin. It is a terrible sin and our young people must never waver in their perspective of it. Just because it happens often (millions of children have been aborted in the USA) doesn't make it right Abortion is one of many sins we are commonly faced with as we near the turn of the century.

The Lord made clear his view concerning the value of the unborn. To Jeremiah he said, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5) Does God know us before we are born? Absolutely. In Exodus 23:7 the Bible says, "Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked." What could be more innocent than an unborn child? In Exodus 21:22,23 the Spirit inspired Moses to write: "If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the womans husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life." If men caused a woman to have a premature birth, but the child lived, the men were to be punished as the husband desired and pay a fine which the judges would decide. However, if the child died or the woman died the matter became a capital offense. The death penalty was expected. Life for life. How different it is today.

Human life is cheap and many of the world see no harm in what is happening in the abortion procedure. The same folks, however, get all worked up over the death of an animal. In Miami, Florida a man who killed a puppy (its barking woke him up) got nine years in prison. In another case some laboratory rats were saved at the last minute by some frantic folks who would not tolerate their being tossed into an incinerator after the lab had finished with them. Those who intervened were called the rats "godparents!" Consistency......

We are used to people demonstrating over the use of fur coats. An animal gave its life so that the fur could be harvested. Many are opposed to hunting and killing animals even for food. Yet the same ones say not a word when precious little boys and girls are killed in every conceivable manner by doctors performing abortions.

As people get farther and farther away from God and His holy will, they become more and more inconsistent. Their focus is skewed. Frankly, it appears the world is reaping the harvest of years and years of cultivating evolution and humanism in our educational system. The meaning and value of human life has been lost. God said, "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." (Proverbs 14:34) A casual study of history will show that a sure way to destroy a nation is to do away with their belief in God and promote a lack of respect for human life. America better take heed. May God help us all to hate the awful sin of abortion. Preachers need to cry long and loud so that brethren never lose their horror of it.