Point-of-View

Of all the issues that face the American family today, none of them have produced more heartache or tragedy than abortion. The Bible speaks forthrightly on the proper response to this disregard for human life.

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Richard D. Land
President, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention

The Bible tells us that God made man in His image and He breathed life into man. Human life is unlike any other life. We are not just a part of the animal kingdom. Yet since 1973, the legal status of unborn children has been that they're not children at all, but "products of conception" that can be removed by request of the woman. We have strict federal laws in the Endangered Species Act that protect the snail darter fish and the spotted owl. In California it's a crime to disturb a seagull's nest because the unhatched eggs represent the potential for life. Yet abortion is legal and commonplace in this country.

I still have a jarring and vivid memory of the first time I realized the full humanity of a human fetus. I was a sophomore in high school, and it was the day our biology class projects were due. My assigned seat was on the back row, next to a shelf where the projects were stacked.

One of my classmates, a girl whose father was an obstetrician, had prepared a project on the development of the human fetus. She had on display what I now know was a twelve-week-old human fetus. From my lab table only a few feet away, I could see that it was a perfectly formed little boy curled up in a glass jar filled with formaldehyde. The little baby was so undeniably human that I was deeply disturbed to see him displayed in such a casual, callous, disrespectful way.

When I mentioned it to my teacher, she sent me to talk it over with the principal. His immediate response was, "You're not a Catholic, are you?" (The Roman Catholic church has long been a defender of human life.)

"No, sir," I answered, surprised by his response. "I'm a Baptist, but that's terribly wrong. That's not just a science experiment. That's a human being, and it should be shown proper respect."

A couple of hours later the fetus was removed from the shelf of presentations and placed out of sight in a storeroom until that girl made her presentation.

From that day forward I've never seen how anyone, Christian or not, could deny a fetus was as surely a human being as you and I, based on physical evidence alone.

I don't see how anyone can view a picture or a film of human fetal development and dismiss those tiny children as anything less than fully human. Ever since then, I have felt a deeply personal obligation to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.

God judges us, I believe, in large part as a society, on how we deal with the most helpless and defenseless among us.

As followers of Christ, we have abdicated our prophetic calling to protect human life in favor of "just getting along." Many have interpreted our silence to be support for the culture of death in which we now find ourselves.

If Christians will not stand on this issue, on what issue will we stand? If not now, when? If not here, where? And if not you, who?

Richard D. Land is President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and host of the nationally syndicated radio broadcast, For Faith & Family.

For related coverage, see Sanctity of Human Life Archive