This week I have wanted to write a post about a topic important to me. All week I have searched in vain for a way to express my thoughts on this subject, to say in a new way- an impacting way- what so many before me have said again and again, but to no avail.
Then today I read an
article on one of my great hero's, William Wilberforce, and his tireless pursuit of the abolition of the slave trade in England. And suddenly inspiration struck. That elusive and random bolt of lightening energized it's mark.
I went and popped in one of my favorite period films "Amazing Grace" which tells Wilberforce's story and became more convinced by the minute that this was a mirror image to the issue I wanted to address.
How could that be you say? Slavery is abolished, both in Britain and in America! Well in one form yes, but in another form, no.
The slavery I talk about is the slavery of abortion.
This week marked the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court opinion on the Roe v. Wade case. This opinion ushered in a new era of morality. A dark, death focused, and twisted morality. A morality that made permissive the death of unborn children. Since that decision
55 million children have been murdered. The shear number of lives, of souls, is
staggering and when I consider it I
cannot comprehend them. It is wholly overwhelming.
Over this last year the Lord has been speaking to my heart on the sufferings of His smallest creations and each new instance of this culture of death that I encounter breaks my heart a little bit more. I cannot fathom how one could kill their own child, could choose to make convenient their own lives at the literal expense of their defenceless child. This past year my life has been filled with great joy at again having a child in my life. My niece is the very definition of joy and from her earliest days has herself filled our lives with laughter. The thought that someone mere weeks before birth could end a life like hers brings a sinking illness to the pit of my stomach with such depth that again I cannot begin to comprehend it.
While is seems that it is 'harsh' to call abortion slavery I can think of no other name to mark it by. The devastation that it brings on two lives, that of both child and mother, the extinguishing of life, and the and guilt that a mother experiences over her lifetime is a modern bondage of epic proportions.
I one of his famous addresses Wilberforce says:
"When we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion, and of God? Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us; we can no longer plead ignorance, we can not evade it; it is now an object placed before us, we can not pass it; we may spurn it, we may kick it out of our way, but we can not turn aside so as to avoid seeing it; for it is brought now so directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, and to their own consciences, the rectitude of the grounds and principles of their decision."
This week marked 40 years of a new kind on slavery. The mentality that a child is a burden, a child is not a child, a child is disposable has permeated our culture. That doesn't make it right.
Margret Sanger's work truly has left a lasting legacy. But even before technology that allowed us to see a 3D image of the child within it's mother's womb we knew in our own souls and consciences that it was a new human life growing in that mother.
However, with that technology, not one of us have an excuse.
There are some things one wishes to be able to abolish and wipe utterly from the face of the earth.
All to often one's ability to exert such force fails them.
However, there are some that are able to accomplish where others fail- some one who has eternal focus and is able to open the eyes of those around him. I hope that some day, and some day soon, that the cause of life in this modern age finds its William Wilberforce. I hope that there is a man or woman out there has the unrelenting fortitude to do what Wilberforce did. I would really love to be alive to see the overturning of the courts opinion, to see the overturning of a terrible slavery.
One of Wilberforce's mentors and councilors was John Newton writer of the famed hymn "Amazing Grace" which expresses Newton's feelings on being forgiven and liberated from his past as the captain of a slave ship.
Perhaps one day, when we see the abolition of abortion the eternal chorus of voices will join together and, across the ages, once again sing out in relief and celebration Newton's words- and how sweet,
how sweet that sound will be!
"Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav'd a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see."
