Another year, another sad anniversary
- Feb 20, 2009 -
On January 21 an anniversary was observed, but not a typical anniversary with which we associate joy and optimism. Quite the contrary. This sad anniversary marked the 36th year since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its devastating decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion on demand in this country throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy.
The vote among the justices wasn’t even close at 7-2, with only Byron White and future Chief Justice William Rehnquist voting against legalizing abortion.
“I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court’s judgment,” wrote White in his dissenting opinion. “The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes.”
Even the anonymous Jane Roe, for whom the Roe v. Wade case was styled, has renounced her role in the whole sordid affair so profoundly that she has allowed herself to be identified. Norma McCorvey, who has become a Christian, wants nothing more to do with this legal and moral travesty.
“It was my pseudonym, Jane Roe, which had been used to create the ‘right’ to abortion out of legal thin air. But Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffey (her Roe v. Wade attorneys) never told me that what I was signing would allow women to come up to me 15, 20 years later and say, ‘Thank you for allowing me to have my five or six abortions. Without you, it wouldn’t have been possible.’”
More than 50 million babies have gone to their deaths in the past 36 years. Abortion is just plain wrong (Psalm 106:37-43; Psalm 127:4-5). God cannot be pleased and, like the ancient Israelites, we will undoubtedly pay a heavy price for our rebellion. Thus it has been, and thus it shall be until Jesus returns.
Why do we think we’re any different?
This article is reprinted from the February 5, 2009, issue of The Baptist Record, the newspaper of the Mississippi Baptist Convention.
Further Learning
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