Church in America

Abortion & Judas

E-mail this page to a friend

Rev. R. J. Rooney
Senior Pastor, Verona (MS) UMC
January 25, 2001

It has been almost a year now. Last February 18 my wife was given labor inducing drugs so that she could give birth to our son. Three days earlier my son had inexplicably died. It had begun as a regular mid-pregnancy visit to the ob-gyn. We already have three children (all girls) and so these visits had become pretty routine. So much so that I did not go with my wife. She invited our two older daughters to go with her so they could hear the baby's heartbeat which had been so regular and strong on the last visit. It was not to be found on this visit. Just a day or two before my wife had felt him move and kick. Three days later with tears in our eyes we held our son in our hands. Perfectly formed. All fingers and toes accounted for. Our first son. Beautiful but lifeless.

I used to oppose abortion on strictly theological and intellectual grounds. I still do. However, now I oppose it as well based on what I have seen and touched. There was and still is no explanation for why my son died. The pathology report revealed no abnormalities and no reasons. The same cannot be said for some forty million babies who have been legally aborted in this country since 1973. The vast majority of people who support abortion insisting that the issue revolves around some mythical choice have not seen what I have. Both proponents and opponents of abortion know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if only one mid-term abortion were to be aired during prime time on national television the debate would be over. The thought that a child significantly older than my son (who at the time of his demise was only four and a half months post conception) being brought down the birth canal, turned around, and delivered with the exception of his or her head, and having those little squirming legs grasped while their head is punctured and the brain sucked out is so monstrous that I get ill. I wonder if Patricia Ireland has ever personally witnessed what she so adamantly demands is her American right. And why hasn't a mid or late term abortion been aired on television by now? After all we have all channel surfed only to be confronted by an operation in progress on the Learning or Discovery channels. If abortions are such minor procedures why is the American public being denied the right to see one in progress like the open heart surgeries or live births we can watch on educational channels?

Because the entire issue and industry is founded upon misrepresentations, half-truths, and bald faced lies. Norma McCorvey (the original Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade) has come forward in recent years (she became a Christian a few years ago) to confess that her allegations of having been gang-raped and in need of an abortion were lies. In testimony submitted to a Senate Subcommittee Norma said, "The affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court didn't happen the way I said it did, pure and simple. I lied. Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffey needed an extreme case to make their client look pitiable. Rape seemed to be the ticket. What made rape even worse? A gang rape! It all started out as a little lie, but my little lie grew and became more horrible with each telling." The truth is that Norma got pregnant by her boyfriend.

Then there were the befuddling contradictions and misrepresentations by Justice Blackmun in the Supreme Court decision. Said Blackmun in the decision, "We therefore conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision..." What right to privacy was the Justice talking about? It is certainly not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. If abortion is a privacy issue then so is drug use, sodomy, pedophilia, bigamy, prostitution, etc. Talk about contradictions and inconsistencies! Perhaps the most stunning and intellectually dishonest statement in the entire Roe v. Wade decision is, "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins." With a stroke of his pen Justice Blackmun thought to diffuse the question of morality. And that is how and why abortionists are so prevalent and so comfortable. When life and personhood are dismissed, morality becomes a non-issue. The language is then changed to obfuscate the truth. The unborn child becomes a "fetus." I find it interesting that abortion advocates revert to the dead Latin language to cloud reality. Fetus is Latin for "baby." Why use a word from a dead language to convey a term that is clearly understandable in the layman's vernacular unless it is to deceive? Nazis in concentration camps refused to refer to dead Jews as corpses because a corpse is a dead person. Instead they called them "figuren" and "schmattes" which means puppets and rags. Change the language to obscure the truth.

And now the real horror has become known. Baby parts are in demand by many research scientists. Abortion has truly become an industry. Norma McCorvey told the Subcommittee, "I've had a doctor ask me to lie about the age of a fetus so he could charge more money for an abortion." It is all about money. The lies, the blackouts, and the cover-ups continue.

I am angry with the self-imposed ignorance that the society in which I live has chosen. But I am far more hurt and grieved with the Church that has seemingly accepted abortion as a fact of life and muted its voice on behalf of the millions of innocent babies that only she can speak for and defend. What is worse is that many sectors of the Church are freely embracing abortion. My own denomination (here we go again) seems to be taking the latter course. The official United Methodist stance on abortion is reluctant approval. On the one hand our Discipline states our "belief in the sanctity of unborn human life..." But then it turns right around talking about "unacceptable pregnanc[ies]" and conveniently leaves off any kind of definition about what an unacceptable pregnancy is. What a price we are willing to pay just to appear as informed and progressive to a society that wants nothing to do with godliness. We are seemingly willing to compromise anything and everything in order to be accepted. In my mind it is no different than child sacrifice. It is worse actually. At least the Hebrews in the Old Testament who made their children "pass through the fire" acknowledged that they were sacrificing their children to other gods.

If there is one segment of society in general and mankind in particular that could be classified as helpless and innocent it is unborn children. In the Bible the Greek word used for "baby" is brephos. Brephos is used to describe the unborn (Luke 1:41), newborn (Luke 2:12), and youngster (2 Timothy 3:15). In other words there is no Biblical distinction. The price for ignoring the destruction of the innocent shall be heavy indeed. If we are willing to tolerate or accept abortion despite the fact that it's legalization and continued legitimization was and continues to be built entirely on lies, half-truths, and misrepresentations and if we are willing to ignore the scriptural mandate to plead for the innocent then we better be prepared for the consequences. The last words of Judas Iscariot were, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood."