Since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, 61 million children have been aborted. That is almost the entire population of France or more than twice the population of Texas.
This statistic alone is cause for deep grief and great sorrow. It is no exaggeration to say that murder on a scale this large is one of the most catastrophic and wicked tragedies in all of human history.
And yet, there is cause for hope.
In his “National Sanctity of Human Life Day” proclamation Jan. 22, President Donald Trump cited several gains in the pro-life effort. Between 2007 and 2016, the number of abortions in the United States has decreased 24%. Teen pregnancies are declining overall, as well. Pro-life legislation has also seen wins, with President Trump having signed into law under the Congressional Review Act measures that allow states to exclude abortion-performing organizations from Title X projects.
According to the proclamation, the Trump administration is also, “building an international coalition to dispel the concept of abortion as a fundamental human right.” The coalition currently includes 24 nations.
Wins are occurring on a more local scale as well. Prestonwood Baptist Church’s pregnancy center reported to the church congregation positive results on Sanctity of Life Sunday, Jan. 19. Anecdotally, the center’s director, Leanne Jamieson, described that as prayer support from the church has increased during the past year, gains in lives saved have also increased. Jamieson sees a direct correlation, she told the church.
The Prestonwood Pregnancy Center offers an app for download on iOS and Android devices that sends out real-time prayer requests when abortion-minded people arrive at the center. By accepting push notifications from the app, anyone, anywhere can receive alerts to pray for specific situations and therefore become a critical and tangible volunteer in the pro-life effort. In the course of writing this paragraph, a notification came to my phone asking for prayer for four abortion-minded women arriving at the pregnancy center. Technology has many faults, but the opportunity it affords to make an eternal difference in instances just like this is certainly wonderful and welcome.
Newly released statistics from the Prestonwood Pregnancy Center further demonstrate the positive movement occurring throughout the pro-life movement. In speaking to Prestonwood Jan. 19, Jamieson noted 366 salvations, 351 minds changed and 77 referrals for adoption in 2019. Over the life of the pregnancy center, 73,000 babies have been saved from abortion.
Appointments of life-respecting judges to courts across the United States, including the hard-fought appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, also inspire hope. Even Jane Roe from “Roe v. Wade,” now publicly known as Norma McCorvey, advocates for the day courts overturn the landmark case that sentenced to death 61 million Americans and counting.
President Donald Trump, who is now widely described as the most pro-life president in modern, if not all, American history, has played a colossal role in furthering protection for the unborn. Many of the gains in the court system have come from his own direction. On Friday, Jan. 24, President Trump became the first U.S. President to personally attend and speak at the March for Life—an event that in 2020 drew tens of thousands of Americans. Earlier in the same week, the President declared Jan. 22, 2020 “National Sanctity of Life Day,” issuing a proclamation of his commitment on behalf of America to never tire protecting life “from conception to natural death.”
It would be disingenuous to argue that President Trump has not become one of Evangelical Christians’ most prayed for advocates for the protection of life. Though some “Never Trumpers” seem ungrateful for his support of a cause so central to the Christian faith – the protection of life made in the image of God—many Christians view his growing record of pro-life support as one of the leading reasons to support his presidency and reelection. When I think back to how German Nazis were able to carry out catastrophic genocide against the Jewish people in the mid 1900s, I wonder how the watching world allowed it to happen. If we were living in Hitler’s time, would we not do anything possible to rescue the Jews from the gas chambers and incinerators?
Here we have a similar situation on a much larger scale. Will future generations look back, scratch their heads, and wonder how we let it happen?
Some attack Christians for their support of an imperfect and morally flawed president, but my question is, are not we all? There was only ever one perfect person, and religious hypocrites trumped up enough false charges to crucify Him on a cross. If we can support a President who is willing to do for tens of millions of unborn babies what we wish we could go back in time to do for millions of Jews in rescuing them from cruel and undeserved death, shouldn’t we? Is there no moral imperative here?
While there are many reasons to rejoice at the gains made in the pro-life effort in the last decade and many reasons to hope that we just might see abortion outlawed and made unthinkable in our generation, there is also ample cause for concern. One need only tune in to one of many similar Democratic presidential candidate debates to see the wanton disregard each possible challenger to President Trump carries for unborn life. By the candidates’ own [proud] admission, the entire stage of candidates vying for the Democrat Party nomination views unborn life as extinguishable. Gone are the days when Democrats supported abortion as “safe, legal and rare” and when members of the party argued that unborn children were merely “a clump of cells,” and “unable to feel pain.” The Democratic party of today, including mainstream media cohorts and Hollywood’s virtue-signaling elite, supports abortion of perfectly healthy, tiny humans as a woman’s right for any and every reason, including convenience, gender preference, and ambition.
Golden Globe recipient Michelle Williams said as much in her politically-charged acceptance speech Jan. 5, 2020. Speaking as a currently pregnant mother of a teenage child, Williams defended her choice to kill her unborn baby, saying that she never would have received the award in her hand had she not ended the child’s life. There is no other description for this horror than modern-day idolatry. The child was literally sacrificed for the golden figure in the mother’s hand.
As a pregnant mother myself, the speech turned my stomach and wrecked my heart. It is impossible to understand what propels humans to kill one another – especially a mother her helpless child. Evil is the only answer.
And so, with many gains in the pro-life movement comes a pro-abortion movement trying to keep pace, revealing itself to be more depraved with each passing day. For this reason, we cannot let off the gas. We cannot coast. These gains we see must propel us to accelerate and strengthen our efforts. We must band together to do everything we can to defend the most vulnerable among us—those who literally cannot escape the hand of a doctor charged by a mother with the task of killing her child.
We can pray.
We can give.
We can serve.
We can speak.
These avenues and God’s grace have positioned us where we are today, experiencing the joy of small wins. We must persevere and press in and determine to see abortion not just decreased, but demolished.
In the time it took to write this article, 40 children died by abortion in America. In the time it took for you to read it, a handful more lost their lives.
May our hope push us toward more compassion and involvement than ever before.
Comments