The Declaration of Independence says: "All men are created equal," and goes on to say they are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Now those rights specifically are "the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Now this may shock you, but did you know that every person in America is protected by these words except two groups: convicted felons, and pre-born children. Now my question is: For what crime does a pre-born child forfeit his or her constitutional rights?

I know that I am immediately treading on volatile ground. Because according to James Patterson and Peter Kim, in their groundbreaking book, The Day America Told the Truth, Americans feel more strongly about abortion than any other issue, whether it be alcohol, the death penalty, pornography, flag-burning, affirmative action, or communism. 75% of Americans see abortion as either right or wrong, with no gray area in between. [1]

Abortion has become a way of life, both around the world and here in America. Worldwide, 55 million unborn children are killed every year. That is 150,685 every day, 6,278 every hour, 105 every minute. Here in America 1,600,000 babies are aborted every year. That's 4,383 every day, 183 every hour, three every minute. [2]

Every month abortion takes more American lives than were lost in the Viet Nam War. Every six months more lives are taken than in all of our previous wars combined, or in all the fatal automobile accidents of the past twenty years. Every two to three years it claims more victims than the Nazi holocaust.

Abortion is now the most frequently performed surgery on adults in America. One out of three babies conceived in the United States is deliberately aborted. Since about 40% of all pregnancies are unplanned, that means that well over two out three unplanned pregnancies are now ended in abortion. [3]

There are basically three requirements you have to meet in America today if you want to kill an unborn child. (1) The baby must still live within the mother; (2) The mother must want it killed; (3) She needs to find a doctor that will do it. That is all, and another life is snuffed out.

Now why are these abortions performed? Well, it may surprise you. In the summer of 1988 the Allen Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion group, conducted a study to find out why women have abortions. Here is what they found:

16% of abortions were because the woman was concerned about how a child would change her life.
21% of abortions were because the woman said she was not ready for the responsibility.
21% of abortions were because the woman said she could not afford the baby.
12% of abortions were because of a relationship problem.
11% of abortions were because the woman felt she was not mature enough to raise a baby.
8% of abortions were because the woman said she had all the children that she wanted.

To summarize the rest, the mother's health accounted for only 3% of abortions; the baby's health accounted for 3% and rape or incest 1%. In other words, 93% of all abortions were for purely social reasons. [4]

We need to tell the truth about abortion, and we also need to be able to defend why we are against it.

"Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter.

If you say, ‘Surely we did not know this,' does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?" (Prov. 24:11-12)

The Apostle Peter also said: "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear..." (1 Pet.3:15)

Let us think about this subject from three vantage points.

I. How The Pro-Choice Argument Fails Logically

There are some people who defend abortion on the grounds of being "pro-choice." But you're going to see that pro-choice is no-choice because the pro-choice position is both irrelevant and ignorant.

For example: Whether or not "pro-choice" is a wise position all depends on the choice. You see, to be allowed to choose is not necessarily good; to be forbidden to choose is not necessarily bad; it all depends on the choice.

We can no longer choose in this country to own another human being. You cannot choose to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre. If you own a business you cannot choose to falsely advertise. Nor can you choose to discriminate on the basis of race. You cannot choose whether or not to pay your taxes. You cannot choose to drive on the left side of the road. So to say you are pro-choice is an irrelevant position because there are certain choices that have already been made for you whether you like it or not. The reason for that is this principle: It is never morally right to choose what is morally wrong.

Furthermore, the pro-choice position is an ignorant position, because the only way to evaluate whether or not a pro-choice position is moral and right, is to determine what is at stake in the choice. When it comes to the right of a person to worship God as he or she chooses, I am pro-choice. When it comes to the right of a person to travel wherever he pleases, I am pro-choice. But when it comes to the killing of an unborn baby, freedom of choice is not even an issue.

Have you ever considered the fact that the right to choose always ignores the victim's right to choose? If you could choose to own a slave you would deny the slave's right to choose to be free. If you choose to rape a woman, you deny the woman's right to choose not to be violated. Blacks didn't choose slavery, Jews didn't choose gas ovens and babies don't choose abortion.

When we oppose the right to choose rape or child abuse, we aren't opposing a "right" we are opposing a "wrong." When we oppose a woman's right to choose to murder her unborn child, we are not opposing a "right" we're opposing a "wrong." To be pro-choice about someone else's right to kill is to be anti-choice about some else's right to live. [5]

But let me tell you the real fallacy about the pro-choice position. To be pro-choice about abortion is to be pro-abortion. Take two people; one believes the person should be allowed to rape a woman; another believes it is wrong to rape a woman but believes a man should have the right to choose to rape a woman if he wants to. Now what effectively is the difference between those two positions? The answer is: None. Pro-choice people vote the same as pro-abortion people. Both oppose legal protection for unborn children. Both are willing for children to die by abortion for whatever reason.

A hundred years ago, if you were anti-slavery, you believed not only that it was wrong for you to own slaves, but it was wrong for everyone to own slaves. If you did not believe that it was wrong for everyone to own slaves (that is, if you were "pro-choice" on slavery) then you were not anti-slavery you were pro-slavery.

Likewise, if you are anti-abortion you not only believe that it is wrong for you to kill unborn children, it is wrong for anybody to kill unborn children. If you do not believe that abortion is wrong for everyone, then you really cannot believe abortion is wrong for anyone. There is no such thing as a moderately enslaved black or a half-dead baby; you're either enslaved or free, dead or alive. Therefore you are either pro-abortion or anti-abortion. That is why pro-choice is no-choice. The argument fails logically.

II. How The Pro-abortion Argument Falls Morally

Now whether you want to admit it or not, it is irrefutable if you are pro-choice in effect you are pro-abortion. So let's see how the pro-abortion argument falls morally. Put simply, abortion destroys human life. I know that begs the question of when a human life begins, but make no mistake about it. Medical experts are agreeing now, almost in unanimity, that life begins at conception.

In 1981 a United States Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee invited medical experts to testify on the question of when life begins. Dr. Jerome LeJeune, Professor of Genetics at the University of Dascarte in Paris, who discovered the chromosome pattern of down syndrome, testified, "After fertilization has taken place, a new human being has come into being…this is no longer a matter of taste or opinion, and it is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence...each individual has a very neat beginning at conception." [6]

Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth of the Harvard University Medical School, said, "It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive...it is scientifically correct to say that an individual life begins at conception. [7]

Believe it or not, the question of whether abortion is the termination of a human life is not complex, it is simple. In fact, someone has described it as a question requiring no more than a knowledge of high school biology. Here's what we know. The male sperm and the female egg each contains 23 chromosomes. Upon fertilization a single cell results containing 46 chromosomes which is what all humans have, including, of course, the mother and the father.

The difference is the new organisms, 46 chromosomes, are in a different combination from those of either parent. That is, the new organism is a unique being. It is not just an organ of the mother's body, or of the father's body, but it is a different individual. This cell produces specifically human proteins and enzymes from its beginning.

Furthermore, that cell will multiply and develop in accordance with its individual chromosomes, and when it enters the world it will be recognizably a human baby. From single-cell fertilized egg to baby, to teenager, to adult, to old age, to death is a single process of one individual, not a series of different individuals replacing each other. That's why it is impossible to draw a line anywhere after the moment of fertilization say that before this point it is not human; but after this point it is. From its very beginning it has all the attributes of a human being found in the 46 chromosomes with which it began.

Think about it not just scientifically, but again logically. If a baby is not human before it is born, then you have to ask what is it? It is not a mineral. It is not a vegetable. It is not an animal. The only choice left to say is it is human. Because humans are not humans because they change their location and move from inside the womb to outside the womb. The only difference between babies that are born and those that are unborn is their size and location, not their nature.

Now even in the face of all of this other arguments will crop up, such as: What about the woman's right to privacy? Well, the truth is, you can hardly find a legal expert in the country that says there is a constitutional right to privacy. That is why for 200 years that right was nowhere to be found in the United States Constitution. The reason why it was not found is because it is not there. Now I am not denying that we all have a certain right to privacy, but the right to privacy is not greater than the right of another person to live. Does a man have the right to beat his wife if he does it in the privacy of his home? Does a man have the right to abuse his children if he does it in the privacy of his home? Of course the answer is no, because killing or beating done in private is no more acceptable than killing or beating that is done in public. So the right to privacy falls morally.

Now someone else brings up the health of the mother. I want to make it very plain that the health of the mother must always come first. There are times when a pregnancy can cost the life of a mother, and the child needs to be removed in order to save the mother's life. If one life must be lost the life that can be saved must be saved.

I was at the airport the other day and I was standing on an escalator right in front of Dr. C. Everett Coop, formerly the United States Surgeon General. He stated publicly that in his thirty-eight years as a pediatric surgeon he was never aware of a single situation in which a pre-born child's life had to be taken in order to save the life of the mother. [8] Even in all cases it only accounts for 3% of abortions.

But abortion does more than just destroy human life, it degrades human life. You can see this in the argument of aborting handicapped or deformed children. Let me make a simple observation. Handicaps or deformities do not change the value of a human life. A bruised apple is still an apple. A blind dog is still a dog. A senile woman is still a woman, and a handicapped child is still a child. A person's nature and worth are not changed or devalued by whether or not they are handicapped or have some type of physical deformity.

Think about the downward slope of this argument. If you can argue that an unborn child should be killed because it will be handicapped, then you can make the argument we ought to kill all people who are handicapped today. The fact is, it is no more right to kill a handicapped child than it is to kill an un-handicapped child.

But that raises also the sensitive question of rape and incest. Even if you believe that rape and incest are legitimate reasons for abortion that would amount to only 1% of all abortions. Let me ask you a question. In a rape, the guilty party is the rapist; the unborn child is the innocent party. Why should an innocent person be punished for the crime of someone else? To put it another way: Why should person "A" be killed because person "B" raped person "A's" mother? If your father committed a crime, should you go to jail for it? If you found out today that your biological father had raped your mother, would you no longer have a right to live?

Two wrongs never make a right. To abort a baby conceived as a result of rape will not undo the rape, nor does it change the fact that it is still a human life. Quite frankly, I could go on with other arguments, but no matter what argument you bring up, you will find the pro-abortion argument falls morally.

III. How The Pro-Life Argument Frees Spiritually

To be pro-life frees you, first of all, from grief. Did you know that women who have had abortions experience miscarriages at a 35% higher rate than women who have never had abortions? Did you know they experience a tenfold increase in the number of second trimester miscarriages and future pregnancies? Did you know that a chance that a baby will die either in labor or in pregnancy is two to four times greater if the mother has previously aborted a child?

In a series of 70,000 abortions, one woman in every 20 had early complications; one in every 200 had major complications. [9]

There is a death rate of 30 per 100,000 women who have abortions. The National Institute of Health says that infection due to abortion occurs for 1 in 4. Perforation of the uterus runs about 1 in a 100. Tubal pregnancies increase 400% among women who have had abortions.

For women who have had abortions, first trimester miscarriages increase 85%, labor problems increase 47%, and delivery problems increase 83%. Premature birth, which is the number one cause of infant mortality and mental retardation, increases 300% after a woman has had one abortion. [1-]

But the pro-life argument not only frees you from grief, it frees you from guilt. You see, what is never recorded and never reported is the mental anguish that comes to the women who have had abortions. Dr. Ann Speckhard, a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, studied the long range mental effects on women who had had abortions. She found that ten years after an abortion 81% still had an unhealthy pre-occupation with the aborted child; 73% still had flashbacks of the abortion experience; 69% remembered feeling insane about what they had done; 54% still had nightmares; and 35% reported a visitation from the aborted child. Most profound of all, 96% regarded their abortion as an act of murder. [11]

Furthermore, abortion violates God's direct commandments. It violates the 6^th commandment which says, "You shall not murder." It violates the Golden Rule which says, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I am reminded of something Abraham Lincoln said about people who argued for slavery. He said, "Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."

I wonder how these abortionists would like to be aborted? I wonder how they would like for someone to come into their house and take a knife and cut them up into small bits and pieces? I wonder how many of them would like for someone to put them into a cell and pour some kind of corrosive acid over them and force it into their nostrils until they burn to death? I wonder how many of them would like to be sucked out of their home by some giant vacuum cleaner and then chewed up in some giant machine?

The Bible is very plain that all human life is precious to God, and all human life begins at the point of conception. Just listen to these verses:

"For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb." (Luke 1:15)

"For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy." (Luke 1:44) (The word that is used there for babe—unborn child—is the same word that is used to describe Jesus in Luke 2:16 after Jesus was born.

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; and I ordained you a prophet to the nations." (Jere.1:5)

Now I want to say something before I close. If you've had an abortion it is not the unpardonable sin. If you will confess any sin to God, even the sin of abortion, God will forgive you and God can still free you from the shackles of guilt that may enslave you. Let me close with two stories.

On October 23, 1996, the NBC Show Today, was forced into making a point for the pro-life position, even though the now retired host, Bryant Gumble, is an outspoken opponent of this position. He was interviewing Albert and Angela Valencia, along with their four-year-old daughter, Pricilla. National attention had come to this family because little Pricilla had saved her mother's life by calling 911 when her mother fell to the floor and became unconscious while bleeding internally.

Gumble was asking this little girl a few questions. He interviewed the 911 operator, then spoke with the father. But the interview took a very interesting twist when Mrs. Valencia said, "I do want to add when I was lying in the hospital, I could only remember thinking back because I had Pricilla pretty young when I was only 15." He said, "Why is that so interesting?" She said, "Because counselors told me, ‘Have an abortion, you're too young.'" Bryant Gumble responded by saying, "Instead she turns around and saves your life." To which Mrs. Valencia replied, "Yes, and I think that's important. I think young girls today, even if you're pregnant you had better think twice, it could save your life." [12]

In wonder how many additional lives have been lost because we have aborted the babies who would have lived to save them? I wonder if we've aborted the doctor who would have found the cure for cancer? I wonder if we have aborted the research specialist that could have found a cure for heart disease? I wonder how many Billy Grahams we could have aborted that could have brought millions, if not billions of people, to faith in Jesus Christ?

Let me close with a final story. It is a true story about a young girl who learned she was pregnant. She was engaged but her fiancé was not the father of the baby. Her family was poor so to feed another baby was out of the question.

Furthermore, her family was a reputable family and she did not want to drag the family name in the mud. She did not want her fiancé to know about the pregnancy or else he would have put her away and would have never married her. Now it would seem that the perfect solution to this young girl's problem would have been an abortion.

But she didn't have an abortion. She went ahead and had the baby. It was a beautiful little boy. You'll never believe what shame that little baby. She named him Jesus. Never forget this: God is pro-life and we had better be too.

1 James Patterson & Peter Kim, The Day America Told the Truth, p. 32.

2 Charles R. Swindoll, Sanctity of Life, p. 13.

3 Randy Alcorn, Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments, p. 29.

4 Cited by William D. Watkins, The New Absolutes, p. 156.

5 Alcorn, p. 83.

6 Alcorn. p. 41.

7 Ibid.

8 Alcorn.p.167.

9 David T. Moore, Five Lives of the Fincher, p. 219.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 In other Words, Winter, 1997.