A higher law

Written for the reader who does not believe in God, or is not sure. If that is you, you are welcome here, and I will not pretend to be neutral.

It is murder whether or not you acknowledge God

The unborn child is a living human being. That is not a religious claim; it is what embryology says, and no serious textbook says otherwise. The only question the law has ever asked about abortion is whether that human being counts.

The law against murder is the one law every nation on earth has. The Bible tells us why. After the flood, God spoke to Noah — not to Israel, which did not yet exist, and not to the church — and said: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (Genesis 9:6). It was given to Noah and to every descendant of his. That is you and me, whether we acknowledge Him or not.

And He has written it on the conscience. “They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness” (Romans 2:15). You do not need a Bible to know that the strong must not kill the weak for their convenience. You already know it. That is why the argument for abortion has to work so hard to make the child disappear.

So it is still murder. And it is still your duty — yours, not only the Christian’s — to defend the one who cannot defend himself: “Rescue those who are being taken away to death” (Proverbs 24:11).

There is a higher law

In 1945 the victorious nations put the leaders of the Third Reich on trial at Nuremberg. The defence was obvious and, under German law as it stood, largely sound: much of what had been done was lawful. The tribunal condemned them anyway, on the ground that there is a law above the statutes of any nation, which no parliament can repeal and before which every government stands accused.

Britain has made the killing of its unborn children lawful. Around 299,000 of them a year, one every 105 seconds. A statute cannot make that right any more than a statute could make Nuremberg’s crimes right. There is a higher law, and “he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:31). The Lord “is to judge the living and the dead” (2 Timothy 4:1), and He will bring every work into judgement — every nation’s, and every person’s.

You cannot fight this in your own strength

Here is the part the campaigns leave out. A nation that sheds innocent blood is under the wrath of God, and so is every one of us for our own sin — the things we have done, and the things we have let happen. Trying to stop the killing in our own strength, while we ourselves stand condemned, is like a drowning man offering swimming lessons.

On a falling aircraft you are told to put your own mask on before you help anyone else. Not because the other person matters less, but because you are no use to them unconscious. You need to be forgiven before you can rescue. You need a new heart before you can love your unborn neighbour as yourself, and no law and no campaign can give you one.

Come to Christ

So here is the good news, and it is for you and for the unborn alike. God made you, in His image, for Himself. You have rebelled against Him, as we all have, and the sentence is death and judgement. But God sent His Son. Jesus Christ lived the life you owed and died the death you deserved, bearing God’s wrath in the place of sinners, and He rose bodily from the grave. “God commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30): turn from your sin, and trust in Christ alone, and He promises complete forgiveness and eternal life (Romans 10:9–13).

That is the whole of our case, in the end. Abolition is a fruit, not the root. The same cross that condemns the shedding of innocent blood is the place where the guilty are washed clean — mothers, fathers, doctors, voters, bystanders. Come to Christ. Then come and fight.

The good news, in full →