Stand Fast
Dan Kunz
Have you ever seen a child throw a tantrum – a real, fall-down-on-the-floor, scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs, hold-your-breath-until-you-turn-purple, tantrum? It’s not a pretty sight! Fortunately, I’ve never witnessed one carried out by one of my own children, but I’ve seen one executed by the son of a relative. How to deal with a tantrum thrown by a two-year-old is difficult enough. Imagine God dealing with the tantrums thrown by supposedly rational, reasonable, adults! Childhood tantrums are usually the result of being denied something -- maybe an extra piece of dessert, maybe the opportunity to go to the pool, maybe staying up another thirty minutes. Adult tantrums may be the result of laws we don’t like, inability to do as we please regardless of others, or having something which we view as “unfair”.
This week’s reaction to a leaked Supreme Court opinion piece certainly brought about this type of reaction. Regardless of the source of the opinion piece and the leak thereof, to listen to some people in our country, if the Supreme Court overturns Roe versus Wade, it will be the end of the world as we know it. I received a fund-raising text message a few days ago from a group which claimed, “The Supreme Court’s assault on Roe v Wade is an existential threat to our lives and our futures.” Really? Our existence is being threatened? Our lives are threatened? Our futures are threatened? “Protestors” are harassing Supreme Court justices in their own homes. Pro-life offices are being fire-bombed. Church services are being disrupted. Sounds like a huge tantrum to me…
As Christians, we need to uphold the sanctity of life. We know life begins at conception from a Scriptural standpoint – Psalm 139:13 “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Jeremiah 1:4-5 The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Luke 1:44 “As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” We also know the embryo formed from the union of a sperm and egg cell is a human being, a baby. It’s not a “potential human being”. It’s not going to grow into a puppy, or a kitty, or anything else but a person. Show a four-year-old an eight-week-old embryo and the child will probably say, “Baby”. For the past two years we’ve been told to “follow the science”. If we actually follow the science in this case, the truth is undeniable.
Would it make any sense to, as Ebenezer Scrooge said in A Christmas Carol, “decrease the surplus population”, based on someone’s address? Let’s eliminate people living in the state of Georgia. Let’s eliminate people living on the east side of the street. Let’s eliminate people living in cities larger than 200,000. That’s exactly what abortion does. Eliminate people living in their mother’s womb. Once they’re born (their address changes), then we can’t eliminate them. Unfortunately, that may not even be the case anymore.
It appears that, like most tantrums, things will get worse before they get better. We need to stand fast in our support of the unborn. As Americans, we have a lot of issues confronting us today, but, in reality, none of those matter if we can’t protect the most vulnerable among us. We are shocked by the sacrifice of infants in the Old Testament. We should be just as shocked by the sacrifice of the unborn in 21st century America!