Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

Not a Blob

With each new discovery, modern science continues to astound us with the sublime complexity and beauty of human life. And so the modern-day claim that a newly-conceived unborn baby is merely a ‘ball of cells’ or a ‘patch of foetal tissue’ or a ‘small blob’ is not good science! This attempt to devalue and dehumanise unborn babies by those who advocate for abortion does not recognise that a human life comes into being at conception.

The Rev Dr John Stott writes in Issues Facing Christians Today:

“The fertilised ovum is a physical structure with the richest and most strangely mysterious repertoire known to man, for it can develop into the embodiment of a new human being in the image of God, loved by God, replete with potentialities of not merely earthly but eternal significance.”

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Several millennia ago, a man named Job said to God,

“Your hands shaped me and made me … you moulded me like clay … knit me together with bones and sinews … you gave me life … watched over my spirit.”
~ Job 10:8-12

David in one of his psalms expressed similar thoughts to God saying,

“You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made … my frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.”
~ Psalm 139:13-15

Job and David marvelled at how God was involved in the way they took shape in their mothers’ wombs. They were created as physical and spiritual beings. The same is true of every unborn baby today. Each is in the process of being fearfully and wonderfully made by a loving God!

Each in the Image and Likeness of God

The Bible states that “God created man in His own image” (Genesis 1:27a). Sadly, because sin entered the human race through Adam and Eve, the image of God in mankind was marred and tarnished.

Today, the lives of many unborn babies are deliberately ended by abortion. This is mostly for reasons of convenience, but sometimes it is because of real or suspected abnormalities picked up in ultrasound screening. Yet so many are blind to the reality that even unborn babies with abnormalities are equally as precious to God as other babies and need to be protected.

In 2007 David Bereit was moved to found 40 Days for Life because “every unborn baby is made in the image and likeness of God”. Now a worldwide mobilisation of Christians to pray to end abortion, campaigns have taken place in 638 cities, including eight cities in Australia.

 

Known in Eternity

God said to the prophet Jeremiah “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart …” (Jeremiah 1:5). As with Jeremiah, God who dwells in eternity knows each person long before he or she is born or even conceived.

John the Baptist, for example, was conceived after the angel told his father Zechariah that his barren wife Elizabeth would bear him a son who would become his “joy and delight” (Luke 1:11-14, 23-24). That God knows every unborn baby is a staggering thought. He has eternal plans for each one.

With Child

In the Bible, we read of a number of pregnant women who are said to be “with child”. For example, Jesus’ mother “Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18). Because Mary wasn’t married at the time, she came under much social pressure. But she knew the child within her was from God.

Many young women today find themselves ‘with child’ in difficult circumstances and are under pressure to have an abortion. They too can find strength in God to preserve the lives of their babies, knowing that they are precious in God’s sight.

Interaction of Unborn Babies

During Rebekah’s pregnancy with twins, “the babies jostled each other within her” (Genesis 25:21). She had become pregnant with Jacob and Esau in God’s answer to the prayer of her husband Isaac. Why all this pre-natal wrestling and jostling? God said that it was because the twins would become two nations.

A much happier example of two unborn babies interacting is the example of the newly-conceived Jesus and his cousin John (the Baptist), who was in his sixth month. At that time John’s mother Elizabeth said to Mary, “As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” (Luke 1:44)

Once again, we see that unborn babies are real persons with real emotions. But very sadly, the abortion industry convinces many people to think otherwise.

What is the Answer?

Many believe that abortion is the defining moral issue of our day. The estimated 42 million unborn babies aborted each year is by far the leading cause of death in the world. Many refer to this deliberate killing of millions unborn babies as ‘The Silent Holocaust’.

In Australia alone, the estimated 100,000 babies aborted each year is roughly the combined total of all Australian soldiers who died in both World Wars and every other armed conflict in our nation’s history Since the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, an estimated 4 million Australian babies have been aborted. This has wiped out a full third of the upcoming generations.

In God’s eyes, the shedding of innocent human blood is sin. The problem of abortion cannot be solved by legislation. It can only really be solved when people confess their sin and turn to God for the answer that is found in Jesus.

Pray for the Unborn Babies

Mother Teresa asserts:

“The child is God’s gift to the family and each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things; to love and be loved.”

At the same time, she insisted,

“The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion, because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing in between.”

Such a massive shedding of innocent blood by the culture of death warrants a response. We may not have all the answers, but we can pray!

Father God,
In the Name of Jesus, who entered the human race as a helpless baby,
we ask that You rebuke and restrain Satan,
who is heinously targeting unborn babies throughout the world today for abortion.
Satan has targeted the world’s most vulnerable human beings for murder —
defenceless, voiceless, innocent unborn babies.
We mourn for the atrocious and deliberate killing
of approximately 4 million unborn Australian babies.
By the power of Your Holy Spirit,
help us to declare to Australian society that all human life
is made in the image of God and has intrinsic and equal value
from conception to life’s natural end.
In the Name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

[Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash]