Abortion Definitions

"Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment" (John 7:24).

The Roe v. Wade decision that changed America's abortion practices overnight is approaching its 40th anniversary date. The ruling came down on January 22, 1973; in the forty years following, about 60,000,000 baby's lives have been terminated in the womb, which is about 1/5th of our current population. Numerous books and articles, with a great deal of crucial information in them, have been published over the years. On January 12, 1992, the following article was printed in the Columbia City Crusader.

The following quotations appeared in "Dear Abby's January 4th column last Saturday. A pro-abortion reader sent in the following comments.

The continuing abortion controversy is not about killing babies, but about preventing them. People opposed to the procedure have been twisting semantics to promote their side of the issue. The dictionaries will prove my point, because this is where the meaning of words in the English language is explained for everyone to read and understand.

Webster's describes a baby as a "newborn," period! Consequently, the abortion procedure should be more realistically referred to as preventing a baby. The people who project these horrible baby-killing images during a woman's early months of pregnancy are trying to characterize women as murderers.

These same people claim that they are fighting for the "rights of the unborn." Webster's also states there is no fetus until after the third month of pregnancy….

Women who elect to have an abortion only want to take charge of their own lives. What woman in this world wants to kill babies, particularly her own? Not one, unless you, too, fall prey to this semantic malarkey.

Abby says, "I couldn't agree more." Anyone who knows what the Bible says could readily disagree—and vigorously at that! Because the article is so full of misinformation, we decided to write "Dear Abby" a letter. Not that we think it will do any good, but merely for the fact that Christians need to speak up and be vocal on these matters.

Following is a copy of the letter that was sent to the newspaper.

January 7, 1992

Dear Abby:

After nearly twenty years of abortion controversy, it is amazing indeed to find an argument as weak as the one that appeared in your column on January 4th. Mr. William W. Bliss grabbed a dictionary, looked up a definition, and thought that solved the abortion controversy. Are we to believe that in twenty years of raging controversy nobody ever checked Webster?

Not only does this argument ignore medical and legal precedents (including their definitions, but he ignores the greatest book of definitions ever compiled for mankind—the Bible. Yes, I know that pro-abortion advocates like you and Mr. Bliss disdain the mention of the Book because the majority of you are anti-Christian.

But in the interest of fairness to your readers, why don't you tell them that the Greek word brephos (translated "babe") appears eight times in the New Testament? Further, permit me to mention four of the uses, all of which appear in the book of Luke. In Luke 2:12 and 2:16 Jesus is referred to as a "babe." He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. But let's back up a chapter. In Luke 1:41 and 1:44, Elizabeth, who was carrying John the Baptist in her womb, was visited by Mary. In both verses we read that as Mary greeted Elizabeth, the "babe" leaped in her womb. Same Greek word. Same translation. Same author.

Webster wasn't around then. Luke used the exact same Greek word to describe the unborn child as he did the child who had already come into the world. To Luke, it made no difference whether the child was in or out of the womb—it was still a "babe." Now who is the one who has been "twisting semantics"? By the way, Luke was a physician (Colossians 4:14).

If Luke is correct (and his testimony has been around much longer than Webster's or Mr. Bliss's), then abortion is murder. Many women who have had them now realize it. One can only imagine the depth of sorrow that many women have experienced who have been pressured into having abortions.

Talk about "sematic malarkey," abortion doesn't prevent babies—it kills them. Birth control prevents them. Whether or not you believe that what is aborted is merely tissue or a human being is irrelevant from this perspective; something is in existence, or you would not have to destroy it. With proper birth control, nothing is destroyed; pregnancy is avoided. That's real prevention. Abortion is destruction—and if you are wrong in your view, you have murdered a human being—your own child—or you may have encouraged someone else to do so.

Thus concluded not only the letter but the article as well. No response was ever received from either the newspaper or "Dear Abby." The letter to the editor could only deal with one subject—how the Bible defines life. In 40 years, I personally have never seen a response to the argument made above.

Medically speaking, we know that what has been created in the mother's womb has a heartbeat in less than three weeks. How can anyone with a straight face argue that it is all right to destroy what has been conceived when a beating heart is stopped by the "procedure"? No one is preventing babies from being conceived; they are preventing them from being born by terminating their lives. By the time a woman discovers that she is pregnant, the child's heart is beating. If it is not murder to stop a beating heart, what is it?

Definitions and Taking Charge

What Webster's was William W. Bliss reading from? It must have been an abridged pocket dictionary. Most of them include the idea of an infant. Few, if any, have "newborn," period. Besides, we use the word baby in our culture in the same ways they did in Jesus' time. People ask a woman, "When is your baby due?" Has anyone ever answered, "I don't know what you're talking about; I don't have a newborn"? His dictionary definition argument is wholly without merit.

What about the declaration that abortion merely allows women to "take charge" of their lives? This is not intended to sound one-sided (and will be elaborated upon), but if many of those who are with child had taken charge, they would not have been pregnant in the first place. A woman does not just wake up carrying a child one day and say, "Well, how did that happen?" (unless she was drugged). Pregnancies due to rape are fewer than 1%. There is no attempt to blame women entirely for the condition because many men make promises that they never intend to keep.

The obligation to remain pure, however, rests primarily upon the woman. Men will often desert them, disappear, and refuse to take responsibility for their actions. Have not young women been warned by their parents and by other examples they have seen? Oh, they want to believe it when a guy says he will always love and respect her no matter what, but it's an old line that is not worth anything. Vows of secrecy and eternal love will evaporate like the morning mist. Young women need to have the resolve of the character in Diana Ross' "Love Child" (1968). It takes a male and a female to engage in the sin of fornication, but only one gender carries a baby for nine months, gives birth, and is responsible for the child if the male has made himself scarce. The way to take charge is by saying no. Abstinence prevents unwanted pregnancies 100% of the time that it is practiced.

What Woman…Wants to Kill?

How about those motivated by greed? Planned Parenthood has made as much money as anyone over the years in profits off of abortion. Consider a "health clinic" that has a few rooms with abortions being performed all day long. The staff is not there to serve humanity but to destroy it. Those clinics that can stay busy are able to profit immensely from being merchants of death. The only problem (for them) is that they will stand before God in judgment having hands stained with innocent blood. The problem for Americans is that we allowed it to happen. Even the Nazis did not kill 60,000,000 of anybody. They were ruthless, heartless, and indifferent, but they did not participate in a holocaust nearly as large as the one that exists in this country.

Of course, Mr. Bliss probably never met "Tiller the Baby Killer," as he was called, who would terminate a pregnancy (for a fee) even the day before the scheduled birth. Someone inappropriately terminated his life. He was a male (instead of a female), but he evidently enjoyed his sadistic work. He was thought to be violating the laws of the state of Kansas, which was proven after his death. But he had no fear of God and no respect for human life. Do we suppose he is the only one who is guilty of violating God's laws in this manner? No. In many other states the same thing undoubtedly occurs, but they are states in which there is no enthusiasm to prosecute.

Some abortion doctors are women. So, Mr. Bliss' question has been answered. A very well-written essay by Linda Francke is, "The Ambivalence of Abortion," which was later published as a book by the same title. The reader learns that the reason for this abortion was not for the mother's health—not for the daunting prospect of raising a child alone (since she had been married for several years)—nor for any circumstance that might elicit sympathy. The reason was that the child would have been inconvenient. In other words, the reasons were purely selfish. She says she did not regret having the abortion, but what she writes belies that position.

Mr. Bliss was wrong on all counts when he wrote that letter more than two decades ago. Unfortunately, those same errors are still being promoted by Planned Parenthood and others. Isn't there an old saying that ignorance is ___? Well, that only holds true until there comes a time of reckoning.