Thirty-nine years later, abortion is . . .

We have again passed the annual marker for the culture of death. The Supreme Court decisions that wiped out all state laws restricting abortion and legalized the lethal act for effectively any reason at every point of pregnancy reached 39 years of age Sunday. Those Jan. 22, 1973, opinions have had a profound impact upon America and the world – and likely you and me.

What are some things we, as those purchased by Jesus’ blood, should recognize about legalized abortion four decades into its ruthless regime in America?

-- Abortion is a way of life. The Supreme Court said so in 1992. That was not a good judicial reason for protecting the “right to choose” the justices “discovered” in 1973, but their assessment was accurate for much of the American population. Consider this: About one-third of the population has known American life only with abortion as a legal procedure. Three in 10 American women have abortions before age 45. Yes, many women have come to depend on abortion, and we are lesser people for that misplaced, ill-fated faith. Many men have as well, using it as a coercive back-up for their sexual liberties with women. And sadly, we – as pro-life Christians -- often live lives oblivious to the slaughter of the innocents.

-- Abortion is a form of birth control. Dependence on abortion has resulted in it becoming a method of contraception for many women, and many men are all too happy for it to be so. About half of the women who have abortions in the United States are doing so for the second time – or third or fourth or more. We now have serial aborters – and they are hollowed women.

-- Abortion is a business. Planned Parenthood and other clinics have business plans that seek to maximize the performances of abortion and the money that comes with them, former employees have testified. They sell abortion. Men and women have become wealthy by implementing and fostering a system that convinces confused, conflicted and often coerced women to pay them to kill their babies.

-- Abortion is the great divider. No issue appears to have divided America over the last four decades like this one. The fault line runs through families, friends and communities – even churches. It has divided the country politically. We have one major political party that testifies to being pro-life, though it has dissenters in its ranks. The other is basically in captivity to abortion rights, and men with names like Kennedy, Jackson and Gore have changed their stances to find acceptance in their party.

-- Abortion is bigotry. All abortion demonstrates a prejudice against a whole class of people – the unborn. But it also is discriminatory against classes within that class. Black Americans make up only 13 percent of the population, but they have at least 30 percent of the abortions. Abortion clinics aid in this by locating often in minority and poor neighborhoods. An estimated 90 percent of children diagnosed in the womb with Down syndrome or a similar condition are aborted. And the practice of sex-selection abortion has reached our shores, with some ethnic groups in this country making – as some have said – “It’s a girl” the three deadliest words.

-- Abortion is a wedge for other atrocities. Abortion’s legalization ushered in a culture of death that now stretches from the fertility clinic to the nursing home. Human beings are threatened as days-old embryos with lethal experimentation, as newborns with infanticide, as brain-injured adults with starvation and as the ailing elderly with assisted suicide. There is indeed a slippery slope.

-- Abortion is a religion. This may not be a large sect, but for a sizable number of Americans the right to kill unborn children is the idol before which they bow. Not only is their life ordered around the availability, they are committed to it with a fervor.

-- Abortion is a gospel issue. There are babies who need rescuing. There are women who need rescuing. There are men and parents who would coerce women and girls to abort their children who also need rescuing. The ultimate answer is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we have it. Men and women who need salvation from their sins and deliverance from sexual immorality and abortions that may be the result need the gospel. Women and men who need salvation from their sins and cleansing from the abortions they have chosen need the gospel. Christians who have chosen abortion rather than disclose their sin to the church need the gospel; they need the reminder of God’s grace, forgiveness and hope found in the gospel. As the church, we have that hope, and it should compel us to sacrificial prayer, compassion, love, service and boldness for the glory of God, the exaltation of Jesus, and the rescue of human beings.