I want to express to you a concern as we approach Sanctity of
Human Life Sunday this weekend. The life of the unborn and the many that have been lost
has deeply affected me. The Lord gave me a passion in this area and He used it to bring me
into His church. He has granted me over fifteen years of volunteer ministry to the unborn
and their parents. The Lord has also protected me from the pain of abortion. I do not have
any aborted children and, thus far, the Lord has prevented any miscarriages. My wife and I
delight that she is carrying our fourth child who is yet unborn.My wife and I believe
that the Lord has called me to leave my over twenty years in the computer industry and run
for the U.S. Congress fundamentally to be a representative of the unborn. Yes, to stand
against partial birth abortion. And yes, to stand with those who seek a Constitutional
Amendment to protect the lives of the unborn. But, most importantly, to speak for an
approximately 200 million unborn who are not discussed.
We lament the fact that we are approaching 40 million abortions since Roe v. Wade.
However, we need to be informed that this figure is for surgical abortions only. If
we add the number of human lives that are aborted by chemical or mechanical means,
typically at the earliest days of life, the number explodes to approximately 250 million.
That is about one dead baby for every man, woman, and child alive in the United States
today.
What I want to do in this letter is to explain how these lives are taken. I then ask
that you share this with others on the 25th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, on Sanctity of
Human Life Sunday, and whenever you feel called to defend the lives of the unborn.
I grew up in the `60s and remember the warnings then about Venereal Disease (VD). We
now call the same thing Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD). I do believe that the new name
leaves a clearer message as to what is being discussed.
However, there was another change. In the `60s we talked about
"contraception". Now we talk about "birth control," but this is not a
clarification of the term. It is a change in the meaning. I do not believe that this
change was by accident. Contraception, by definition, is the prevention of conception.
Birth control, by definition, is the regulation of birth, which includes contraception and
abortion. By seeding in peoples minds that birth control means contraception, an
uninformed couple who desires contraception will frequently end up unknowingly aborting
their own children.
The medical community even changed the meaning of conception. Up to the 1960s,
conception was defined as the moment of fertilization, the time the sperm united with the
egg. Now it is considered the time of implantation. Implantation occurs several days after
conception and after many cell divisions. It is around this time that most abortions
occur.
Before I describe which birth control methods are sometimes or always abortifacients,
let me demonstrate that the moment of conception, meaning the moment of fertilization, is
when a new life begins, from both medical and theological evidence.
All that is necessary for a human being to survive is food, water, oxygen, and a
hospitable environment. This is true for the first day after fertilization, the first day
after birth, or the first day of being eighty years old. Deny any of the four long enough
and one will die. All the mother is doing for her unborn child is providing those four
things. The child is developing by itself. Even the placenta is part of the childs
body, not the mothers. In-vitro fertilization has demonstrated that one can take an
egg from woman A and fertilize it with sperm from man B in a dish, then implant the
fertilized egg in woman C. Woman C will then give birth to a child that is in no way her
own, but the child of woman A and man B. This new life started at fertilization
Psalm 51:5 reads "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother
conceived me." Rocks do not sin. Tomatoes do not sin. People, and only people,
sin. When I was born into the world, I was sinful. When I was conceived, when I was just a
single cell, the union of two, I was sinful. Therefore, if during the time that I was
making the short trip to implant myself in the wall of my mothers womb I was killed,
or if my mothers womb was made inhospitable to me and I died, I would have been
aborted. The Lords gift, to be knit by His loving hands in my mothers womb,
would have been denied.
Frequently we hear in church that about one in four women have had an abortion. In
reality, it is probably more likely that only one in four have not had an abortion. We
must inform people. We must have this stop.
I will now describe the abortifacients. These products kill more people in the United
States each year than all other forms of death combined, including surgical
abortion.