CREATION AND ABORTION

Preface

The following two articles once appeared in a pro-life newsletter in Kansas sometime around end of 1991 or early 1992. I wrote the articles while living in Wichita, Kansas. This was an article series that generated a lot of discussion and I gave out copies of the articles as a handout for some years. It was a series of high interest to Christians, so I have wanted for some time to “bring it back to life” for my web site. The article was originally done on a typewriter, not on a computer but it has been scanned and reformatted. The content has been left as it was other than some minor changes for grammar, clarity, etc. There is also an ICR radio program that I appeared on several years after this which was about creation and abortion. My convictions about abortion have not changed since the early 1990’s. At the time I wrote these articles I was one of the officers in a nonprofit organization in Wichita, Kansas called the Bible-Science Association. In the summer of 1991 I organized a creation conference called the Bible Science Family Conference. The week of this conference I believe happened to be the same week that the Pro-Life organization called Operation Rescue, led by nationally well-known Pro-Life activist Randall Terry, came to town. This began a long season lasting several months in which Christians in Wichita became united around the problem of abortion in the city. I have never seen such a movement uniting so many Christians around a common goal since. There were many rallies and peaceful demonstrations. I took part in a few of these. There were also a significant number of Christians who were of the conviction that the immorality of abortion and of the Kansas laws surrounding it called for illegal passive resistance to attempt to prevent abortions. The illegal activity involved blocking people from accessing a particular clinic where abortions were performed. I never took part in any illegal demonstration activity, but did take part in activities like praying and singing near the clinic with others.

The activites of Operation Rescue and the various other Christian ministries heated up for months until the Pro-Life demonstrations frequently made the national news.  Christians in Wichita called 1991 the Summer of Mercy.  There were so many Christians arrested in these demonstrations that I would say many Christians in the city would have known someone who was arrested.  In my own church, one of the pastors was arrested.  Those months of effort to fight abortion did not change the law but brought the issue to people’s attention on a new level and led to several ministries in Wichita starting up and working together to help women in unwanted pregnancies.The efforts of these ministries continue to this day as far as I know.Of course, the Pro-Life efforts in Wichita were vilified by Pro-Abortion supporters and many anti-Christian organizations.But to me it was unforgetable because of how Christians united together and demonstrated their convictions. It was after Operation Rescue was over and most of the Pro-Life rallies and demonstrations were over that I wrote these two articles. It was also after the United States went to war in Iraq to stop Saddam Husein’s invasion of Kuwait.  I make reference to this at the end of the first article. The Pro-Life newsletter these articles were published in took some criticism for publishing them. Some people of various religious backgrounds did not like to see something from a creationist in a Pro-Life newsletter. However, I think it was very commendable and appropriate for a Pro-Life organization to publish articles of this nature.

I’m including these articles here because they show how a Christian world view has implications in important issues about the value of human life.  They also show that a creationist view of science strongly supports the Pro-Life position.  The second article also answers the common idea that claims the development of the human embryo follows stages like evolution.  This argument has sometimes been used by medical doctors to argue for abortion (known as embryological recapitulation).  But this is a very misleading argument that does not stand up to any scrutiny.   

Wayne Spencer
October 2005

CREATION AND THE ABORTION BATTLE

 By Wayne Spencer

 Vice-Chairman of the Mid-Kansas Chapter of the Bible-Science Association and high school science teacher at Sunrise Christian Academy

 
Is it surprising that abortion is very closely related to creation verses evolution? Christians active in the Pro-Life movement must understand this relationship. The battle over abortion is only one surfacing of a deeply rooted spiritual battle occurring in our world. The battle against abortion must be waged on many different levels. There must be demonstrations and pregnancy crisis intervention to provide alternatives to abortion. Third, there must be education about the atrocities of abortion. Fourth, it is also very important to continue efforts to persuade civil authorities that laws limiting abortions are needed. Pro-Life work must continue because it is right, even if we see little progress in changing our society. Local, state, and federal laws should reflect the unique high value the Creator placed on human life.

One's concept of the value of human life will depend on whether we believe evolution or creation. Are we just highly evolved primates or has God specially created us with unique worth? Some people may never see the logical connection, but anyone accepting evolution will probably also accept abortion. If we came from animals, then we are only better animals and can use animals as the standard for how we live. Since some animals abort their young why shouldn't we? Animals may kill their offspring for the sake of their own needs, so why shouldn't we? What is the real difference between baby seals (which human beings fight to save) and baby humans? It is a federal crime in the United States to break the egg of a bald eagle, but unborn human babies have no protection under law! This is contradictory, implying that in our society, human life is not always worth saving.

It is not a coincidence that the problems evolution, sexual permissiveness, and abortion are all promoted in public schools. They have a way of feeding each other. It is all part of the Devil’s plan to make our whole society accept a man-centered belief system. The science curriculum, values clarification, and the work of the NEA and Planned Parenthood all tend to push young people in that same general direction.

Indeed, even the origin of Planned Parenthood is related to evolution. Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger, who was an avid evolutionist racist involved with the eugenics movement around 1920. The eugenics movement deliberately applied evolutionist ideas on natural selection to human affairs. The result was a very dangerous racism and nationalism that led to Nazism. But eugenics took a different form in the United States, where Sanger sought to "weed out" African-Americans through careful promotion of birth control and abortion. In May 1919 Sanger wrote, "More children from the fit, less from the unfit-that is the chief issue of birth control." This mention of the "fit" and "unfit" is a direct reference to evolution, which was the basis for her thinking.

Earlier in this century the Prohibition Amendment was passed due to the influence of Christians in America. However, in time the amendment was overthrown because the thinking of most people had not significantly changed. This teaches us a lesson relevant to the Pro-Life movement. The thinking of people must change or legal and political victories will not last. Therefore, we must wage an intellectual battle, as well as a compassionate one of helping women. The thinking of those for abortion differs from those of us against it on a very fundamental level. People's basic concepts of God, origins, and truth are involved. This means we must understand why we believe what we believe about human life, so that we can be equipped to persuade others.

Genesis teaches that every human baby is made in the image of God. This means every human life is much more important to God than the life of any other creature. Only Man is capable of speech, reasoning, and of enjoying an intimate relationship with his Creator. Jesus Christ taught this high view of human life when he said, "Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows," (Luke 12:7).

All people are responsible to the same Maker, whether they believe that they are or not. Our Maker has created moral laws which are universal and which are healthy to live by. The word of God says in Romans 1:19-20 that all people can learn the basics of what God is like, just from observing nature. Only the Creator-God has the authority to say when human life (God's likeness) should end. Also, many principles of right and wrong are obvious from basic facts of how we are made. Thus, the immorality of abortion should be self -evident to all. Human beings were not designed for sex outside of marriage and a woman's womb was not designed to withstand the cold cruel instruments of an abortionist.

Several common arguments often used by pro-abortionists can be answered well from a creation point of view. First, when a Christian points out that abortion is wrong someone may respond, "But that's only your opinion." This is not true. What is it that gives us the right to stand up and tell others abortion is wrong? Our personal opinion is irrelevant. What matters is that there is one Creator-God who made all things, including all people and He has spoken to us in the Bible. He has the right to tell us how to live because He is our Maker. He has revealed to us truth that is true for all. Therefore, when we stand up and say abortion is wrong we are merely pointing out what our Maker says.

People also may say, "But that's the Christian's God, not my god. Such excuses are empty because the only god who is God is the Creator (see Jeremiah 10:11-16). All people are accountable to their Creator. The Creator's Word, the Bible, says not only that life begins at conception, but so does personhood. The Bible never refers to humans as non-persons. In fact, the Bible even seems to refer to personhood before conception (Jeremiah 1:5). So, Christians have a firm basis for telling people that abortion is wrong. Furthermore the beliefs of Christians about life are also verified by science. Those who actively promote abortion willfully ignore these self-evident truths. If abortion was right it would not be so destructive and potentially life threatening to the mother.

In 1991 two great battles took place. one has ended, the other has not. The physical battle took place in the country of Iraq. The spiritual battle, over abortion, took place in Wichita, Kansas. The first used jets, rockets, anti-aircraft guns, and tanks. The second used handcuffs, microphones, the printed page, and prayer. Each individual against abortion must decide the exact approach they will use to enable the unborn to enjoy life. The abortion battle in Wichita was and is a conflict between beliefs. II Corinthians 10:3-5 (NIV) is relevant:

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.

 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the

contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish

arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge

of God."

SCIENCE VERSUS ABORTION

By Wayne Spencer

Part 2 in a series by the Vice-Chairman of the Mid-Kansas Chapter of the Bible-Science Association.

Many statements made by pro-abortionists contradict well established scientific facts. "Creation and the Abortion Battle," in last months Facts of Life newsletter pointed out that waging a fight against abortion is not complete unless we wage an intellectual battle to change beliefs. This must include addressing the controversy over creation versus evolution, since what we believe about origins will determine how much we value human life.

God's word says each human life is specially made in His image and is not a product of chance. We humans are not just one more species among the one million plus different species of living things on this planet. This is taught by the Bible and is born out by science, as well as in the many unique capacities humans have. People promoting abortion must ignore self-evident truths anyone should be able to recognize which show abortion to be wrong. Pro-Abortionists also ignore scientific truths. Scientific creationism can be used to refute the "pro-choice" position.

The "pro-choice" people, as they prefer to be called, frequently say that a woman has the right to do what she chooses with her own body. It is amazing how in this supposedly enlightened age, with so much scientific knowledge, people can so completely ignore well established facts which are common knowledge. The new life inside the uterus is not merely part of the mother's body. It is very well known, and has been thoroughly documented, that the fetus develops its own organs and grows until it finally becomes independent of the mother's body. If "it" is only a part of the mother's body then how is it able to have a different blood type than the mother?

Furthermore, this little one has a unique genetic plan in its chromosomes, showing it to be a separate human life unlike all others. Indeed, this genetic plan, found in each cell, contains all the information necessary to construct a complete adult man or woman.  If this new life were found outside a woman's body even while still one cell, it could be identified as human by genetic tests. This would be a time consuming difficult process, but it could be done using present technology.

Regardless of the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy, the mother has the responsibility and privilege of acting as host for the little one until he is ready to leave the womb. It is the Creator who decides that the woman will host a separate human life. In abortion, the woman decides this life should not be. This is called murder, regardless of whether or not the woman intends it as murder. If the infinite Creator-God decides the little one should live, who are we to say otherwise? Circumstances and the needs of the mother are frankly irrelevant to the single question of should the infant live. Human beings do have the "power of life and death" over animals because in the beginning God gave us that. It is quite different with a human life.

An argument commonly used by pro-abortionists is that the fetus is not human, and therefore terminating its life is not murder. Along with this idea, pro-abortionists will point out facts from embryology about the limited capacities of the developing embryo. They may say "it can't feel anything" or comment that it doesn't have this or that capability, and so it should not be considered human.

These kinds of distinctions are completely irrelevant to the question of whether a fetus is human. It is arbitrary to draw a line at some point of development and say that the fetus should not survive if it has not reached that point. There is no real difference between this and saying that a baby just born should not survive because it happens to have some handicap (this is infanticide). There is one continuous process of development from conception to birth. There is no way that what the developing fetus looks like, or what it can do, or what it can feel can validly be used to argue that the fetus is not human.

Instead, these facts from embryology show that the fetus is human since it develops human capacities. When has a nonhuman ever been born from a woman? If the mother is human and the father is human then the "fetus" must be human, regardless of its capacities or appearance. Even its capacities become evidently human very quickly. By eight weeks after conception the baby is complete with its own unique fingerprints. Scientifically, the only legitimate basis for judging the humanity of the fetus is the genetic one. All humans have human chromosomes and genes. Therefore, scientifically, human life begins at conception, just as the Bible teaches.

Pro-abortionists may say that since we evolved from lower animals, and they sometimes abort their young, then why shouldn't we? Male lions kill cubs that are not their own when they win a new female from another male lion. This is to their advantage since it causes the female to enter heat. Then the male can sire cubs that are his own. Other animals sometimes abort at least some of their young when they cannot care for them all. But we are not to be like animals. We are more than animals--being made in God's image.

Evolution cannot be used to justify abortion because there really is no firm evidence it occurred. One prominent scientist, Dr. Wolfgang Smith said in 1988, "A growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp ... not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on strictly scientific grounds, and in some instances, regretfully." Evolutionists cannot explain biological mechanisms to make it possible for creatures to make major changes from one form to another. Also, there is no fossil evidence that these major changes actually happened. There are numerous problems with evolution that cannot be elaborated here.

Lastly, there is an old idea that is sometimes used to justify abortion. The concept is that the developing embryo repeats the stages of its evolution--thereby showing that it is not human. This is summarized in an impressive sounding phrase, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. "Ontogeny" is the study of the developing embryo, "recapitulates" means repeats and "phylogeny" refers to evolutionary family descent relationships among animals.

Abortionists eagerly point out that a "human" embryo at certain stages has gill slits, a yolk sac, and a tail just as some other animal embryos have. Again, these things supposedly show that the fetus is not human.

It is true that a human embryo has structures similar to these but these names are misleading considering the facts about the development and function of these structures. These structures are not useless leftovers of our supposed evolution, but have important functions for the embryo. These are temporary structures that meet certain needs until the embryo has developed the necessary organs. This recapitulation idea was disproved about 1909, and is based on fraudulent drawings made by Ernst Haeckel, a German professor, who published his ideas in 1866.  One of the most influential evolutionists today, Dr. Stephen J. Gould of Harvard University, has said that this idea "should be defunct today." He said this in Natural History magazine, April 1980, page 144.

But what about the gill slits and so on? The so-called gill slits are actually neither gills nor slits, but are more like grooves or wrinkles. These structures develop into the tonsils, the middle ear canals, and the parathyroid and thymus glands. The so-called "yolk sac" is nothing like the yolk in the egg of a reptile for instance. Actually, it is a blood-forming sac that produces blood (human blood) until the embryo has developed bone marrow for manufacturing blood. Rather than indicating evolution, these structures indicate God's incredible intricate design.

And then there is the "tail,” as it is called. It is true that a few babies have been born with extra flaps of skin that have been said to be tails, leftover from our evolution. Actually, these flaps of skin bear only the most superficial resemblance to tails, and babies have been born with these flaps of skin on other parts of their bodies as well. There is no bone in these flaps of skin as in real tails. These human "tails" are just unfortunate effects of living in a fallen world, not a result of evolution.

In the developing embryo the tail bone (the coccyx) forms before the rest of the spine. This makes the embryo appear to have a tail. Rather than showing evolution, this is God's logical plan. The coccyx forms before the rest of the spine so that the leg muscles, which attach to it, can also form. Incredible wisdom is shown in the development of a baby in the womb. The human embryo develops in a uniquely human way.

Pro-abortionists use arguments sometimes which sound impressive, but which are actually empty. If a person's conscience and common sense are not enough to convince them of the evil nature of abortion, the facts from science should be. It is amazing that medical doctors, who have considerable scientific training, sometimes do not see this. Wrong beliefs can blind people to the obvious and lead them to very destructive ways. Our society’s controversy over abortion remains a spiritual battle requiring spiritual tactics. As we stand against the killing of the unborn, let us do so intelligently. This will make us more effective in persuading others and drawing our culture back to righteousness. At least, let us not be intimidated by deceptive arguments meant to justify abortion.

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