Tuesday, January 22, 2013 marked the 40th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which ensured nationwide access to abortions, and the lesser-known Doe v. Bolton decision, which opened the door for the creation of “abortion clinics” across the country. Since that day, nearly 55,000,000 human beings have had their lives forcefully taken by the very ones whom God gave to be their protectors. Let me try to put that number into perspective. It is the equivalent of every life in the states of Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Delaware, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine being taken at once. According to most estimates, it is more than 40 times the number of U.S. servicemen who have been killed in every war in our history combined. It is equivalent to roughly one-sixth of the entire population of the United States.
It is with great sadness that I meditate today on the words of the Psalmist:
“Oh LORD, You have searched me and known me…
For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they were all written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, Oh God!
How great is the sum of them!” (Psalm 139:1a, 13-17)
May God have mercy on us as a nation and as his church for our failure to preserve, protect, and speak for these little ones whom He knows well.