THANK YOU FOR NOT KILLING ME
BY DICK INNES
When Janet was an unmarried teenager, she discovered, to her horror, that she was pregnant. Should she tell her parents? Should she tell the father? Should she marry him? Should she have the child, keep it, put it up for adoption, or take the easiest route and have an abortion?
Janet told the father. He deserted her and left her to struggle alone. She felt abandoned and terribly hurt. After weeks of agonizing over what to do, she made her decision.
Twenty years later, Janet and her daughter, Lisa, both of whom had been searching for each other for several years, found each other. Both were overjoyed. Lisa has now been totally accepted into Janet’s present family.
Thank you for not killing me,’ were Lisa’s heartfelt words to her mother.
In Australia it is estimated that 80,000 to 100,000 babies are aborted every year; that is, one out of every four conceived. In America it is one out of every three, making 1.6 million per year. This means that a mother’s womb, once the safest place on earth for a developing child, is now the most dangerous.
Lisa’s life began at conception when the sperm from her father united with the ovum, or egg, from her mother. Instantly she became a living cell- smaller than a grain of salt. In that microscopic cell were forty-six chromosomes–twenty-three from each parent–each of which contained the genetic blueprint for every aspect of her life-including her sex, the color of her skin, hair and eyes, her height, bone structure, natural abilities, etc.
On day one, Lisa’s single cell divided into two, the two into four, and so on. Within eighteen days her heart had already formed. By day twenty, foundations of her brain, spinal cord and nervous system were established. Day twenty-eight, her backbone and muscles were forming. Her arms, legs and ears started to show. Day thirty, she had grown to six to seven millimeters long-ten thousand times larger than she was on day one. Day thirty-five, her forming fingers could be noticed. Day forty, her brainwaves could be recorded. Day forty two, spontaneous movements began.
By week eight the medical world called Lisa a fetus-Latin for ‘young one’ or ‘offspring’. Lisa was three centimeters long, was well-proportioned, and had everything essential to become the woman she is today. By week nine, she could bend her fingers, and at week ten her body was sensitive to touch. At week eleven she started stretching and kicking, and at week thirteen her sex was apparent and her vocal cords were formed.
That microscopic cell contained the genetic blueprint for every aspect of her life.
By the end of the fourth month, Lisa was twenty to twenty-three centimeters long. She could hear her mother’s voice and external noises, and could move easily. At month five, she was almost thirty centimeters long. Her mother could feel her jump in response to sound, especially if it was loud. At month six, her sweat glands functioned and her eyelashes appeared. Had she been born at this age, if given proper care, she could have survived. Some babies have.
Lisa’s sense of vision, taste and touch functioned at month seven, and she could recognize her mother’s voice. At month eight she felt cramped in the womb. At month nine she weighed 34 kilograms and was ready for birth.
What if Janet had decided to have an abortion? She could have had Lisa’s life legally terminated ark of the following ways: By powerful suction, by having her broken into pieces and extracted with forceps, by salt poisoning injected into her embryo sac, by an injection forcing premature birth, by injecting digoxin directly into Lisa’s tiny heart and killing her instantly, or by cesarean section and allowing her to die by neglect, or by strangling her before removing her from the womb.
Abortions can be very cruel. They sometimes fail and the baby survives, some of whom are born with severe complications. Others are left to die, or have their lives ended.
Because of the methods used, the mother is always exposed to short- and/or long-termed physical and psychological risks. Incomplete abortions can cause blood clotting, bleeding, hemorrhage and infections. Menstrual disturbances, miscarriages, tubal pregnancies, and sterility are also added risks. Long-term psychological effects can include guilt, anxiety, depression, sense of loss, anger, nightmares, and damage to the self-image.
What to consider if you are contemplating abortion:
First. Understand how your baby is being formed.~. Realize that he or she is a living person who can feel, emotionally as well as physically, long before birth. The Bible records how John the Baptist leaped for joy’ in his mother’s womb when Elizabeth was six months pregnant, and it has been observed, in counseling, how people knew, before birth, if they were wanted rejected.
Second. Know what is happening to your unborn child while he or she is being aborted.
Third. Be aware of the physical and psychological risks to yourself. In counseling, I have seen more than one woman grieve over the loss of her aborted child, and suffer from guilt years hater.
Fourth. Know what your options are, including keeping the child, or putting it up for adoption. Seek qualified counsel so that you fully understand all that is involved in both abortion and child birth.
Fifth. Realize that we are all responsible for our actions. As Jesus, the Master Teacher put it, ‘We reap what we sow’-even if it is eventually.
‘But,’ you say, ‘what if a pregnancy is caused by rape or incest?’ I do not presume to speak for God, and can only suggest that in such cases, with wise pastoral or qualified counsel and sincere prayer, the woman needs to determine what is the right thing for her to do.
Sixth. Remember the father of the child is equally responsible for this life whether he accepts this fact or not. Do everything possible to keep him responsibly involved.
Finally, and most importantly of all, know what Cod’s Word says about unborn children. In the Psalms David wrote, ‘For you formed my inward parts, you knit me together in my mother’s womb.’ God said to Jeremiah, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. And about John the Baptist, the angel of the Lord said, ‘He will be filled with God’s Spirit, while in his mother’s womb.
While God’s Word doesn’t specifically address the problem of abortion, the above Scriptures show that God regards a fetus to be a living person while still in the womb. And in Old Testament times, God judged a forced miscarriage where the baby was killed the same as he did any person being killed.
As in all of life’s decisions, the important thing is to act in harmony with the will of God. There is no greater way, for he wants what is best for you and for the child in your womb whom, like yourself, he already knows, loves, and cares about.
Psalm 139:13. Jeremiah 15. Luke 1:15. Exodus 21 22,23.
THE ABOVE MATERIAL WAS PUBLISHED BY ACTS INTERNATIONAL, 1991. THIS MATERIAL IS COPYRIGHTED AND MAY BE USED FOR STUDY & RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY.
