Fifty-Seven Million: The Blood Cries Out
In Genesis 4:10-11, after Cain slew his brother Abel, Almighty God asked Cain where Abel was. Cain was evasive, and then God let him have it:
“And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand.”
Next Thursday, January 22, will mark the forty-second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. Since then, more than fifty-seven million abortions have taken place in this country alone.
Fifty-seven million.
Out of the ground of this land cries the blood of fifty-seven million that never drew breath. Fifty-seven million lives ended before birth, by medical execution. Fifty-seven million citizens that will never be.
Just to put that number in some sort of perspective, no presidential candidate received that many votes until 2004.
Fifty-seven million.
Roe v. Wade gave doctors the “right” to abort a child throughout the nine months of pregnancy, depending on the circumstances. In the first three months, because of the right of privacy the Court found that the decision belonged to the physician. In the second trimester, the state has a reasonable right to regulate the decision to protect the mother’s health. Finally, in the third trimester, the state has an interest in potential life and therefore is entitled to pass laws regulating or prohibiting abortion unless they would endanger the mother’s life or health. Most people think the right of Roe belongs to the woman. In fact, it does not. It is controlled by the physician’s medical judgment.
And in fifty-seven million instances since 1973, a physician has used that “judgment” to kill a child.
But it is not only the blood of the innocent that cries out over the issue of abortion. It is also the women who have had abortions, who suffer from guilt and depression, who have higher incidences of suicidal ideation and suicide, who find themselves moody and unhappy every year on the anniversary of their “procedure.” And it is the men who join support groups after a girlfriend or wife aborts their children. Sometimes they are told before, sometimes they are not told for years.
It is parents who will never become grandparents because their only daughter exercised her “choice” and was unable to have more children. It is doctors who have left the practice of abortion sickened, exhausted, morally compromised.
It is the late Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL, which has since changed its name, but not its initials, nor its mission), who admitted in his autobiography that the scary numbers cited of women supposedly killed by illegal abortion prior to Roe were completely made up. Nathanson’s journey took him out of the abortion business and into Catholicism. He is lionized today in the pro-life movement for having made Silent Scream in 1984, the first landmark film of the pro-life movement, because it filmed an ultrasound taking place during an abortion. He followed this three years later with Eclipse of Reason, which, with much better technology, showed a late-term abortion.
It is former clinic owner Carol Everett, who now speaks to expose the mendacity and greed that motivates abortionists and clinic owners. She tells audiences how astonishingly profitable the death industry is and how cold and calculating the people who run it are.
It is Norma McCorvey, known in Court papers as “Jane Roe,” who, after a long and miserable journey of bitterness and confusion, was befriended by pro-life activist Flip Benham. McCorvey left the abortion clinic she was working in, became a born-again Christian, and is now a pro-life activist. She says the case was based on a lie. She was not raped. The entire case was designed to present the court with something they could use to overturn laws disliked by liberal elites and feminists.
It is the late Sandra Cano, known in court papers as “Mary Doe,” in the companion case, Doe v. Bolton. She, too, renounced abortion. So, now, the principals of the cases that brought about all this blood have changed their minds and wish it had never happened.
But that doesn’t change the law.
And the blood continues to flow.
All of these who know whereof they speak join their voices with the blood of fifty-seven million that cries out for a nation to repent, and a people to have mercy on those whose only crime is to be inconvenient.
Every year since 1973, there has been a March for Life in Washington, DC, and this year is no exception. Next Thursday, if the past is any guide, the media will pretend that hundreds of thousands of people haven’t braved the cold to march peacefully to proclaim that unborn lives matter. The marchers won’t disrupt coffee shops, or demand the deaths of the police, or threaten anyone with riots and arson. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson won’t be there.
But you should, if you can. Find out more at marchforlife.org.
Go and march, if you can. And if you can’t, pray.
The blood of fifty-seven million cries out to a deaf nation: “What hast thou done?”
Image: flickr.com
