A news item caught my attention today about a law being worked on in South Dakota that will ban nearly all abortions.
South Dakota House OKs Bill to Ban Nearly All Abortions
Saturday, February 25, 2006PIERRE, S.D. - The Legislature on Friday approved a ban on nearly all abortions in South Dakota, setting up a direct legal assault on Roe v. Wade.
Republican Gov. Mike Rounds said he was inclined to sign the bill, which would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless it was necessary to save the woman's life. The measure would make no exception in cases of rape or incest.
Many opponents and supporters of abortion rights believe the U.S. Supreme Court is more likely to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion now that Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito are on the bench.
Full Article:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185991,00.html
Usually, when I see disagreement about the subject of abortion, it ends up centering on a disagreement as to exactly when life begins. Some say that human life does not begin untill the baby is born. Others insist that the baby is a human life from the moment of conception and others will settle on various other points in development between conception and birth.
My own opinion is that it's not a matter of life beginning at all, but of life continuing. Both parents provide living material, the egg and the sperm. Think about it. If either the sperm or the egg is dead, then conception cannot take place.
These two bits of life come together and form a single human cell with 46 chromosomes. This is two bits of human life, each originating from a living human, that combine to form a third living human. Since there is no point in which either of these things can be dead and still result in pregnancy, then it is not a matter of life beginning. Rather, the life of the mother and the life of the father continue on in the life of the child.
The conception of this cell or the birth of the resulting baby or any point in between is not the point where life begins. Life began with God, when He breathed life into Adam and when He took a rib out of Adam and created Eve. Since then, we humans have simply been passing that life on to succeeding generations.
What abortion does is to interrupt that process. No matter when it's done, early or late term, it still involves the death of what formed when sperm and egg combined. Because it is a deliberate, concious act and involves the death of a human, it can only be described as murder. An act that God has clearly prohibited:
Exodus 20:13, "Thou shalt not kill."
Deuteronomy 5:17, "Thou shalt not kill."
The fact that in both of these verses the word kill is translated from the Hebrew ratsach {pronounced raw-tsakh'}[strongs number 7523] which means to murder, slay, kill. This word speaks of premeditated murder, assasination. The fact that the victim in this crime is a child is especially heinous. That the child is unborn and especially defenseless is beyond horrible. The fact that this obcenity has actually been legal since a Supreme Court decision in 1973 makes us a nation without excuse.
It's high time this decision was successfully challenged. It's high time that the over Four Thousand Unborn Babies that are killed each day in this country were given not just a temporary stay of execution, but a guarantee that they can at least have the chance to live their lives. It's high time that wholesale murder was stopped.
It's time we stopped executing the innocent.
