It's Not a Choice, It's a Child

I don't believe abortion is permissible by any means. Why should we kill children who have yet to be born when we were once just like them? Who gave us permission to kill a child if it is "unwanted"?

There is a very sweet couple in our church who have always wanted a baby. After many miscarriages they decided to adopt. Now, they have an energertic two-year-old. If his mother hadn't decided to give her baby up to be adopted, he might have been aborted. There are so many families that want these little babies that are killed every day.

Many people say that life begins at birth. But, in a story on Baptist Press News (www.bpnews.net) they share the story of a baby girl born at 23 weeks. Most babies are born between 37 and 40 weeks. The death rate for babies born that early is 70%. Everyone around her has pronounced her an absolute miracle. Baptist Press said, "“Instead, it’s time to see human life as a continuous thread beginning at conception and entitled to protection at all stages,” said Buckley, a fellow of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s Research Institute. “As Dr. Seuss used to say, ‘A person’s a person, no matter how small.’”" I highly agree with Dr. Seuss. A baby, though it may still be in the womb, is a person.

Elisabeth Elliot in her book, On Asking God Why says this about a premature baby at a hospital, "...Who is it that makes the "selections"? Who may determine which tiny person is acceptable and maybe permitted to be born (and if necessary, hovered over, cradled in a sterile temperature controlled incubator to assist his survival), and which is unacceptable and may betreated as a cancer or a gangrenous growth and surgically or chemically removed? What perverted vision of "life enhancement" warrants such a choice?" Indeed, who is to make that choice? If God so blesses you with a baby, do you have a choice of depriving it of life?"

God is the giver of life, and it must grieve him to know that we are ready and, in some cases, willing to destroy it. Isaiah 66:9 says, "Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?" says the LORD; "shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?" says your God."
God clearly says gives us life. Should he? Should he 'shut the womb'? Many women today are doing this artificially using pills and other means that actually abort babies.

Many people are ready to adopt if the parent (or parents) do not believe they are capable, or simply don't want the baby (Which, personally I don't understand. I love babies!). Romans 8:16 says, "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!'" We have been adopted by God, and we can follow his example if he leads us to do so.

That baby isn't a choice. It isn't a little glob of tissue. It is a child that God designed and breathed life into.