Right to Kill

            The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is that life is sacred and that no one but God has the right to kill any human being. However, the State of New York recently passed a bill that gives the right to kill to pregnant women. New York does not have the death penalty for hardened criminals, such as murders, but it does allow mothers to kill their unborn children right up to the time of birth.

            Not only does New York allow mothers to kill their unborn babies, the Governor of New York and supporters of the bill celebrated its passage. However, not all people in New York are celebrating. A bookstore in New York closed its door for a day of mourning for all future babies that will die at the hands of their mothers.

            Those who favor the bill claim that there are medical reasons for ending the life of a baby. This claim appears to be an outright lie because Dr. Omar L. Hamada posted this statement: “I want to clear something up so that there is absolutely no doubt. I’m a Board Certified OB/GYN who has delivered over 2,500 babies. There’s not a single fetal or maternal condition that requires third trimester abortion. Not one. Delivery, yes. Abortion, no. There is absolutely no medical reason to kill a near term or term infant. For any reason.”

            Leaders in the faith community seem to be divided about abortion. An article dated October 24, 2018, says that faith leaders will gather in Columbus, Ohio, “next month” to bless an abortion clinic. “Many faith leaders and people of faith hold that accessing and providing abortions are good and godly decisions.”The blessing will be given to “abortion providers and staff, and all those who pass through the center.” I am not sure who they think that they are calling upon to bless people who kill babies. Surely, it is not Heavenly Father who condemns killing!

            Even though New York Governor Andrew Cuomo thinks that he did something good to support and sign this new “historic” abortion bill, he is now under fire from faith leaders. Cuomo claims to be a Catholic, but New York Catholic bishops hit him hard about it. Albany Bishop Rev. Edward B. Scharfenberger wrote an open letter to Cuomo on Saturday.

Your advocacy of extreme abortion legislation is completely contrary to the teachings of our pope and our Church. I shudder to think of the consequences this law will wreak. You have already uttered harsh threats about the welcome you think pro-lifers are not entitled to in our state. Now you are demonstrating that you mean to write your warning into law. Will being pro-life one day be a hate crime in the State of New York?

            The bishop asked a good question. Are those who value life and fight for the lives of preborn babies in danger if they voice their pro-life beliefs? There will be consequences from this law. We do not yet know what they will be, but I am positive they will not be as bad as the eternal consequences of those who kill babies for money, political power, or glory.

            Another faith leader who is also a famous heart doctor spoke about abortion in 2008. In an address titled “Abortion: An Assault on the Defenseless,” then-Elder Russell M. Nelson shares some data about “the loss of life associated with warfare.” He says that “more than 8 million military fatalities occurred” in World War I. “In World War II, more than 22 million servicemen and women died.” The total military deaths in two World Wars are 30 million. There were also millions of civilian that died, and we are right to condemn war.

            Now-President Nelson says that the deaths from the two wars dwarf the casualties that occur annually in another war. This war is known as abortion, and it is a world-wide “war on the defenseless and the voiceless.” Even though civilized societies have “generally placed safeguards on human life,” laws are still being passed to legalize the killing of unborn babies.

            Quoting scriptures President Nelson reminds us that in ancient days God gave a list of commandments now known as the Ten Commandments. Number six in this list is “Thou shalt not kill.”  In these latter days God renewed this commandment and added, “Nor do anything like unto it.” Then he says, “Man-made rules have now legalized that which has been forbidden by God from the dawn of time! Human reasoning has twisted and transformed absolute truth into sound-bite slogans that promote a practice that is consummately wrong.” Heavenly Father has condemned killing, and abortion is “like unto” murder.

            President Nelson speaks of several of the “concerns” that lead women to consider abortion and explains “Relatively few abortions are performed for the special circumstances to which I have referred. Most abortions are performed on demand to deal with unwanted pregnancies. These abortions are simply a form of birth control.”

Elective abortion has been legalized in many countries on the premise that a woman is free to choose what she does with her own body. To an extent this is true for each of us, male or female. We are free to think. We are free to plan. And we are free to do. But once an action has been taken, we are never free from its consequences….

[He compares a pregnancy to an astronaut who has left earth in a spacecraft.] So it is with people who choose to embark on a journey that leads to parenthood. They have freedom of choice – to begin or not to begin that course. When conception does occur, that choice has already been made….

... She cannot “unchoose.”

When the controversies about abortion are debated, “individual right of choice” is invoked as though it were the one supreme virtue. That could only be true if but one person were involved. The rights of any one individual do not allow the rights of another individual to be abused. In or out of marriage, abortion is not solely an individual matter. Terminating the life of a developing baby involves two individuals with separate bodies, brains, and hearts. A woman’s choice for her own body does not include the right to deprive her baby of life – and a lifetime of choices that her child would make.

            There we have the words of a prophet of God. A woman has the right to choose what she will do with her body, but she does not have the right to kill her unborn baby. I do not wish to condemn the young girls and women who make the heartbreaking decision to have abortions. I do, however, want to be clear that I believe that anyone who promotes abortion for any purpose will be judged harshly by God. Abortion is murder of an innocent life! I absolutely do not agree with abortion for any reason.