Blood Cries Out from the Ground

Since 1973 when the Supreme Court decided that restricting abortions violated the Constitutional right of Americans to privacy (under the Due Process clause of the fourteenth amendment) an estimated 50 million abortions have been carried out in the United States. To place the number of abortions in perspective, they outnumber the populations of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Denver, Portland, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Omaha, Kansas City, Atlanta, Nashville, Washington DC, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Memphis, and Austin combined. Even when these populations are summed the total number of abortions is still greater by an unknown amount because not all abortions are reported and recorded.

Moreover, an estimated 97% of these 50 million abortions were reportedly obtained for the purposes of birth control, ie without the circumstances of rape, incest, or birth complications that are often repudiated as reasons for the allowance of abortion. Note also that 97% may be upward biased as there are likely significant amounts of women that obtain an abortion that do not admit to their rape. To continue the pregnancy that was built upon such a heinous act many would consider virtuous. Those particular circumstances are ones that I do not choose to expound on in this blog post. But, I would like to talk about the abortions obtained from those using abortion as birth control using the story of Cain and Abel.

The story of Cain and Abel takes place in Genesis Chapter 4. Cain is a farmer and Abel is shepherd. Both Cain and Abel produced to the Lord an offering from their occupation. Cain presented the Lord with some of his crops while Abel presented God with “the best of the firstborn lambs from his flock”. God rejected the offer Cain made but accepted the offer Abel made. Cain became jealous and later murdered Abel. When the Lord asked Cain about Abel he acted as though he was ignorant to his whereabouts. But, God told Cain that he could hear Abel’s blood cry from the ground.

The reason I convey this story is to make the point that we often commit egregious acts of violence or wrong for petty reasons, because something inconveniences our lives. Often these violent acts such as abortion are justified by an explanation that the mother would have been unable to give the child the very best care. While I cannot measure the sincerity of such a claim it appears to be a partial explanation that misses the greater scope and importance of life. Life is precious. This is not a concept easily understood. How can you convince someone that their child’s life is sacred when they do not recognize their own life as being sacred? Jesus died for every person on this earth. John 3:16 did not read, “God so loved the people in the American Suburbs that he gave his only begotten son . . .”. Instead the scripture reads, “God so love the world”.

Convenience though is king. In economics we say that “profits direct business” and many times these businesses are in the business of making our lives easier and more convenient. This is not inherently a bad thing. Increased convenience also gives us the opportunity to invest our time in other endeavors that have the possibility of increasing productivity or the quality of our relationships and community with other people as well as God (Though our free time may not often be used in this way). Instead I believe that all of this convenience has had the unintended consequence of creating a culture that does not want to -or- does not understand the concept of being inconvenienced. In that way our love of convenience may create a mindset that abhors anything that blocks our path to selfish maximization of our own happiness and goals. What is more, we do not even realize how petty these goals really are!