"Sanctity of Human Life Sunday"

This week was our annual Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, timed around the observation of the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortions in America back in 1973.  This past summer, Illinois passed legislation that removed almost all of the strictures on performing abortions in this state--meaning that any woman of any age can now have an abortion at any time in their pregnancy, without having to inform her spouse (if married) or parents (if a minor).  What we would universally consider to be the most heinous murder of an innocent imaginable two minutes after a woman would naturally give birth, we Illinoisans now consider a simple and innocuous medical procedure two minutes before a woman would naturally give birth.  Celebrities now laud their abortions when receiving major awards.  Candidates now accuse anyone who would stand against such legislation “fascists” for ever trying to restrict people’s choices to do whatever they want with their unborn babies, since as of this past June, “a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights under the law of this State.”

That should be a relatively easy thing for us to wrap our heads around--that perhaps the unborn who can’t protect themselves should be precisely the sort of people that the rest of us should be protecting (and our guest speaker, Madison Laugherty, of the Empower Life Center here in Peoria did a great job this Sunday morning of sharing about the ELC’s compassionate ministries of helping the unborn, their mothers, and their fathers).  But it might get a little more complicated for us when we remind one another that the reason that we should consider the lives of babies to be sacred is that we should consider all human lives to be sacred.  Every human being was created by God, and in the image of God--no matter how young or how old they are, no matter what color their skin is, no matter what religion they choose, no matter what gender they self-identify as, no matter whether they are good people or evil people in our eyes.

I’m not saying that everyone has the inherent right to be equally right in the eyes of everyone else in this world--the logic professor in me balks at that idea, since it’s logically impossible.  But everyone has the inherent right to become God’s children, to receive redemption in Christ’s blood, and to be embraced by those who should want and pray for them to become sisters and brothers.  We can’t love those whom we hate, and we can’t embrace those whom we disdain, and we can’t share the grace of God with those whom we avoid.

Some of us choose actions which naturally separate ourselves from others, or which logically make us dangerous for others to be around, or which legally deny us various freedoms--there are natural consequences to our actions.  But none of those actions should ever be seen as preventing God from loving us or others, and none of those actions should ever be a pretext for sons and daughters of a gracious God to refuse to show His grace to those around us.

If human life truly is sacred, then we need to remember that every day, in every interaction that we have with every other human being.

That should be a conscious act of worship to God for us every day of our lives...