In Sunday’s sermon on the birth of Benjamin in our Ways in the Manger Series, I will take a few moments to comment on abortion. In preparing, I was reminded of this quote by Scott Klusendorf in his excellent book.

Scott Klusendorf:

In short, you didn’t come from an embryo, you once were an embryo.  At no point in your prenatal development did you undergo a substantial change or change of nature.  You began as a human being and will remain so until death.  Sure, you lacked maturity at that early stage of life (as does an infant), but you were human nonetheless.  ‘Living things do not become entirely different creatures in the process of changing their form,’ writes Greg Koukl.  ‘Rather, they develop according to a certain physical pattern precisely because of the kind of being they already are.’

An estimated 40-50 million babies are aborted each year. An estimated million are aborted in the United States. Babies sometimes survive the abortion and are allowed to die. It was recently reported that 491 babies in Canada survived abortion only to be allowed to die.

HT: Denny Burk

Dr. David Powlison – What is the process of healing after an abortion? from CCEF on Vimeo.

HT: Justin Taylor

Cal Thomas:

On January 22, the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, think of it this way: 50 million branches of family trees cut off; 50 million regrets over what might have been; 50 million babies who could have brought joy out of sadness and a future that might have contributed substantially to the human race, snuffed out at the beginning of their lives.

It is precisely because the 7-2 Supreme Court majority vote in 1973 read something into the Constitution that isn’t there, to wit, that a “right to privacy” means the right to kill an unborn child — even when it is capable of living outside the womb — that Congress must restore the original intent of the Framers, which includes the “endowed by their Creator” clause in the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution cannot be separated from the Declaration, its philosophical and moral foundation.

Read the whole thing here.

Scott Klusendorf:

In short, you didn’t come from an embryo, you once were an embryo.  At no point in your prenatal development did you undergo a substantial change or change of nature.  You began as a human being and will remain so until death.  Sure, you lacked maturity at that early stage of life (as does an infant), but you were human nonetheless.  ‘Living things do not become entirely different creatures in the process of changing their form,’ writes Greg Koukl.  ‘Rather, they develop according to a certain physical pattern precisely because of the kind of being they already are.’

HT: Z

This is a photo of a baby at 10 weeks.  Jennifer Rego writes:

I recently came across the above photographs of a ten week old embryo on flickr, taken by an OB/GYN med student in India named Dr. Suparna Sinha, and I was struck by how beautiful they were. The mother had cancer of the womb, and her uterus, including her unborn baby inside, had to be removed. I can only imagine the pain that she must have felt losing this baby, having already been the mother of six children.

I made one of them my profile picture on Facebook, and the other day, one of my classmates from high school asked me why. I thought about it, and explained that I think that photographs of developing babies are one of the most powerful ways for people to realize the humanity of the unborn child.

The rest here.

HT: Z