50 Million+: Abortion is About God

28 Comments50 Million+

The deepest evil of abortion is that it defies God’s supremacy over life in the womb. That is the fundamental principal of the new class I will be teaching by John Piper—Abortion is About God: Redefining a Moral Issue. Please consider attending this class if you live in the L.A. area. It starts Tuesday night, February 5, from 7-8:30 at Hope Chapel, Hermosa Beach. Call me at 310.374,4673 x.121 for more info.

At the end of the eight week class, a student will be able to:

  • magnify the worth of the life-giving God in a more meaningful and personal way by treasuring him in their heart above all else. We recognize that this, the ultimate objective of the course, is impossible apart from the grace of God in the working of the Holy Spirit,who exalts the risen Lord, Jesus Christ.
  • understand the Scriptures—especially the passages pertaining to the issue of abortion—more fully as a result of studying them diligently throughout the course.
  • comprehend and thoughtfully interact with five of John Piper’s sermons on the topic of abortion.
  • set forth a basic defense for the pro-life position, emphasizing how abortion relates to the glory of God.
  • discuss with others the biblical vision of God’s sovereignty over all of life and make appropriate application.

Comments (28)

  2. Mark Hunter

    Reply

    If abortion is about God, then you *must* admit that you have no right to impose your anti-abortion beliefs on others as you can’t prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he exist.

    • Richard Chavarria

      Reply

      Bro, aren’t you imposing your beliefs on Christians. You use the word right in your response. Right implies there is a wrong. Where do you get your understanding of what right or wrong is. Right is doing what God has commanded. Thou shall not kill. We ought not kill, because we are made in God’s image. For the sake of argument, even if I could present you with evidence, you would not believe.

      • Nohm

        Richard, you’re (accidentally, I’m hoping) equivocating on the word “right”; Mark was not using the “right and wrong” definition, but the “rights and privileges” definition, as in “Bill of Rights”, for example.

        Also, while I understand you probably don’t agree with this, but non-believers are able to find systems of morality that don’t involve a God, and therefore we wouldn’t agree that “right is doing what God has commanded” because, obviously, we don’t believe that a God has commanded anything.

        As for where we get our understanding of right and wrong, please look up “secular morality” and “secular ethics” on google, if you’re interested.

      • Mark Hunter

        Sorry but I am not pulling punches today on this Richard.

        “Right is doing what God has commanded.”

        Is it right because it is in and of itself right or is it right because your God says it’s right? Bah. It’s a moot point.

        “We ought not kill, because we are made in God’s image. ”

        According to your bible, your God kills. Not just kills, but kills a lot. In the bible, deaths directly attributed to acts of God or commands of God are in the millions if not billions. Deaths from the devil are exactly *ten* and all found in the book of Job. So, if your God kills….. Well, what’s good for geese & ganders, and kings not being above the law and all that.

        “For the sake of argument, even if I could present you with evidence, you would not believe.”

        You can predict my future actions and beliefs? Doesn’t that qualify as fortune telling (aka witch craft, sorcery, black magic. etc) and your God demand that such practitioners be put to death. Not to that your claim is very arrogant. Isn’t that a sin too?

        So, in short is your reply : “Stop oppressing us of our right to oppress others!” ? Pretty weak, and hypocritical.

  3. theB1ackSwan

    Reply

    So, wait a second. Your biggest issue with abortion is not that, in your words, it kills a human being, but rather it interferes with God’s authority?

    Please, do correct me if I’m wrong.

    • Richard Chavarria

      Reply

      Bro, the biggest wrong with abortion is that it is killing an innocent baby in the womb. As people who are made in God’s image we ought not to kill. God has given us a conscious to know the difference from right and wrong. God is the ultimate authority and he will judge, even, the secret things that no one knows about.

      • rufustfirefly

        How many pregnant women do you think died in the flood? How many of those slaughtered Canaanite women do you think were pregnant?

      • Mark Hunter

        This will be just as blunt too.

        Please explain to me this:

        If an acorn is not a tree. (a simple premise I think we can all agree upon) and a fertilized egg is not a chicken (I think we can agree on that too), how is a fetus a baby?

      • rufustfirefly

        No, Steve, we take life. Some of us use the idea of “God” to justify it.

  4. Really?

    Reply

    Richard,

    I’m not your “bro”. But me and my bros get our rights from the bill if rights. In there it says that you have no right to impose your beliefs upon me or my bros.

    Until the day the Supreme Court says the bible trumps the bill of rights you have no legal case to say abortion is wrong because it goes against God’s will.

    Thanks,
    Not your bro

  5. Steve Sanchez

    Reply

    To Mark and his acorn analogy: It’s doubtful you will read this, but there is a difference between acorns and humans.

    At eighteen days after conception the heart is forming and the eyes start to develop. By twenty-one days the heart is pumping blood throughout the body. By twenty-eight days the unborn has budding arms and legs. By thirty days she has a brain and has multiplied in size ten thousand times.

    By thirty-five days, her mouth, ears, and nose are taking shape. At forty days the preborn child’s brain waves can be recorded and her heartbeat, which began three weeks earlier, can already be detected by an ultrasonic stethoscope. By forty-two days her skeleton is formed and her brain is controlling the movement of muscles and organs.

    Famous intrauterine photographer Lennart Nilsson is best known for his photo essays in Life magazine and his book A Child Is Born. In his “Drama of Life Before Birth,” he says this of the unborn at forty-five days after conception (before many women know they’re pregnant): “Though the embryo now weighs only 1/30 of an ounce, it has all the internal organs of the adult in various stages of development. It already has a little mouth with lips, an early tongue and buds for 20 milk teeth. Its sex and reproductive organs have begun to sprout.”

    By eight weeks hands and feet are almost perfectly formed. By nine weeks a child will bend fingers around an object placed in the palm. Fingernails are forming and the child is sucking his thumb. The nine-week baby has “already perfected a somersault, backflip and scissor kick.”9

    The unborn responds to stimulus and may already be capable of feeling pain.10 Yet abortions on children at this stage are called “early abortions.”

    By ten weeks the child squints, swallows, and frowns. By eleven weeks he urinates, makes a wide variety of facial expressions, and even smiles.11 By twelve weeks the child is kicking, turning his feet, curling and fanning his toes, making a fist, moving thumbs, bending wrists, and opening his mouth.12

    All this happens in the first trimester, the first three months of life. In the remaining six months in the womb nothing new develops or begins functioning. The fully intact child only grows and matures—unless her life is lost by miscarriage or taken through abortion.

    Source: http://www.ccel.us/prolife.toc.html

    • Mark Hunter

      Reply

      Yet it is not yet a baby. It is still, by definition a fetus. I define a baby a “normal” human child that is no longer dependent on a constant direct physical connection between it and it’s mother who anyone, with minimal skill, can care for.

      So a baby can be an infant to a year or more that doesn’t require incubation or advanced medical life support to remain alive.

      But while it may be technically human, it is not yet a person till long after birth. The brain simply is not developed enough to have an actual personality. It has no rights other than the ones *we* grant it. A fetus is akin to a parasite. Any person or animal has absolute right to terminate a parasite if it so chooses. It lives at the pleasure of the mother. If the mother doesn’t want to be pregnant she has the absolute right to terminate pregnancy. I am sorry if you don’t like that because you think your God has a problem with it. But till you can come with 100% undeniable proof that your God exists (and I have never met a single believer who can even come remotely close without resorting to sophistry) you don’t get to impose your religious views on others who don’t share them. PERIOD. No negotiation. End of discussion.

      On a side note:

      There is much more happening than you mention or even know in that developmental period. Virtually every stage of human evolution is undergone in hyper speed in that 9 months. And this makes the creationist position even more untenable than it already is.

      For instance:

      In utero, we mammals develop three separate kidneys in succession, absorbing the first two before we end up with what will eventually become our adult kidneys. The first two kidneys reprise embryonic kidneys of ancestral forms in the proper evolutionary order.

      The Pronephric kidney begins to form at about three weeks in human development. It consists of an organ that in primitive, jawless vertebrates like the ancient and modern hagfish filters wastes from the body cavity and excretes them. The Pronephric kidney **does not function in mammal fetuses** and it begins to disappear shortly after the next kidney forms.

      The Mesonephric kidney, instead of filtering waste from the body cavity, filters waste from the blood and excretes them through a pair tubes called mesonephric ducts. This kidney eventually will develop into the adult kidney of modern fish and amphibians. This kidney functions within the human embryo for a few weeks, but also disappears during the final kidney development.

      The Metanephric kidney begins development within humans about five weeks into gestation, and consists of an organ like the mesonephric kidney that filters waste from the blood, but excretes them through a pair of new tubes, ureters. In the embryo, the wastes are excreted directly into the amniotic fluid. The Metanephric kidney is the final kidney and exists in modern reptiles, birds, and mammals.

      A fine animation (sadly only in french) of the kidney development can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIdQjHHXF4I

      And that’s just the kidneys.

      Now, this makes **absolutely perfect sense** when you look at embryonic development with an understanding of evolution.

      I would *love* to hear a reasonable coherent explanation from a creationist viewpoint as to why we develop three sets of kidneys while in utero. It makes NO sense at all from an “intelligent” design point of view. None what so ever.

      • Mark Hunter

        Irrelevant.

        It doesn’t mean baby in english. Never has. Never will.

      • Steve Sanchez

        Fetus: Also, especially British, foetus.
        What is a foetus?
        foetus: an unborn or unhatched vertebrate in the later stages of development showing the main recognizable features of the mature human

        From Dictionary.com

      • Mark Hunter

        DIctionary.com is not an authority on scientific terms by any means…

        In fact their definition is incorrect in that it says a fetus is “human”. Fetus is applicable to any and ALL vertebrates.

        Nor does it imply in any way that it is a baby and specifically says it is unborn.

        My point still stands.

      • S.S.

        Mr. Hunter;

        Greetings to you. You said:

        “I define a baby a “normal” human child that is no longer dependent on a constant direct physical connection between it and it’s mother who anyone, with minimal skill, can care for. ”

        Would you say it’s still a parasite at this point? Even without the ‘minimal skill’ provided to it, it will die.

        And this:

        “So a baby can be an infant to a year or more that doesn’t require incubation or advanced medical life support to remain alive.”

        So would you be okay with abortion up to say…two years of age?

      • S.S.

        Mr. Hunter;

        Thanks for the response. In the next paragraph you said:

        “But while it may be technically human, it is not yet a person till long after birth. The brain simply is not developed enough to have an actual personality.”

        At what age does the shift come from ‘technically human’ to ‘person’, and would you be okay with abortion before that point?

      • Mark Hunter

        That would vary depending on a child’s development.

        If the child will never really have a meaningful life and will live in constant discomfort, then yes.There are “children” out there who can’t interact with the world in any meaningful way, will never contribute to society, if unwanted by their family will *never* be adopted by anyone. Yes. I have no problems with ending their lives if the parents consent. We do that for animals aren’t we worth the same act of love of putting someone out of their misery?

        And since this thread is 10 days old this is the last I am going to post on this thread.

      • S.S.

        Mr. Hunter; my closing remarks, then. I’m surprised by your sudden emotional appeal, but we’ll run with it….

        “ never really have a meaningful life”….”constant discomfort”….”can’t interact with the world in any meaningful way”….”never contribute to society”…..”unwanted by their family”…..”never be adopted by anyone”….

        There it is…a six point litmus test. I see no reason why we can’t apply at least some of those to apparently healthy infants, Mr. Hunter. We can give new parents a checklist based on your points. “If four of the six qualifications are met, your newborn is eligible for a fourth trimester abortion.” Who are we to say otherwise… “if the parents’ consent”?

        Even more frightening…what if all six points are met (according to a certified health care professional with impressive credentials…or a whole panel of professionals, mind you) and the parents DON’T consent?

        I urge you to reconsider your opinions on this topic, Mr. Hunter. Respectfully yours: S.S.

  6. Richard Chavarria

    Reply

    Bro, your death will come because you have sinned against the God you know exists. But, for argument sake, lets say there is no God. Then what Hitler did was perfectly OK.

    I think had Hitler had his way, there would never be any people of color that could have babies. (Well he may have needed some to be his slaves.) Since he passed a law allowing for the killing of humans how much more would he allow for the killing of babies of color in the womb.

    The killing of babies in the womb is a moral issue. Now, if you want to make your own morality then Hitler, was right in doing what he did by killing 6 million Jews.

    The killing of babies in the womb is horrible to any one who cares for the unborn. This makes sense to the Christian as well.

    What I don’t understand and no evolutionist has ever explained to me how they get morality from nature. Since moral absolutes are not seen in nature.

    Why then would any moral objection to abortion be of concern to evolutionists. Especially, if it does not affect his survival. Since, he has already been born.

    • Nohm

      Reply

      Hi Richard,

      “But, for argument sake, lets say there is no God. Then what Hitler did was perfectly OK.”

      Your conclusion does not appear to follow from its premise. Please explain how “what Hitler did was ok” follows from the premise “there is no God”.

      You appear to think that without God, anything goes. This is not the case. From an evolutionary point of view, we are social animals. From a secular point of view, objective morality exists. Therefore, it is not the case that “anything goes” without a God existing.

      For the sake of discussion, let’s say we have a society who decides that murder is okay. How long do you think that society would exist? A day? Maybe two? Therefore, natural selection would select out that particular system of morality.

      “What I don’t understand and no evolutionist has ever explained to me how they get morality from nature.”

      I find it hard to believe that “no evolutionist” has ever explained it to you. I think that they have, but you haven’t understood it, or it went against your own theological beliefs. If you have an actual interest in learning about this, please google “secular morality” and “secular ethics”. The information is there if you’re actually interested in more than just a rhetorical sense.

      “Since moral absolutes are not seen in nature.”

      Correct, but objective morality is seen in nature. I don’t think, when the rubber hits the road, that you would really act in a way matching a believer in “absolute morality”, nor do I think that being a theist implies that absolute morality actually exists.

      “Why then would any moral objection to abortion be of concern to evolutionists.”

      Because you don’t understand what the theory of evolution actually claims. Check out a biology textbook, and learn about what you are fighting against.

      “Especially, if it does not affect his survival.”

      Evolution occurs to populations, not individuals.

      “Since, he has already been born.”

      I think you’re arguing against a strawman here, but I’m not completely clear what you mean by this last comment.

      As for my own views on abortion, I tend to find the discussion irrelevant because it’s not going to be illegal again ever, in my opinion. If Christians want to do something about abortions, they should probably not have so many abortions themselves, and that’s why it will remain legal.

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