[Darris McNeely] Abortion is once again in the news. In January 2019, the New York State Legislature enacted a new abortion law called the Reproductive Health Act, which basically allows for abortion all the way up to a full term baby or a mother with certain stipulations, but it opens up a whole new arena and area of debate and the ongoing issue of abortion rights in the United States and for that matter, other parts of the world. But what has triggered this is the fear that the United States Supreme Court could, because of changes of chief justices there, reverse the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which legalized abortion in America. What is important to understand is that the state of New York was three years ahead of the United States Supreme Court in acting legislature back in 1970 that legalized abortion and removed it from the penal area in that state. 

And so now, in 2019, ahead of other states, but out of a reaction to a fear that the law might be changed or the ruling of the Supreme Court would be changed, the New York State Legislature has taken this action. And of course, it creates additional opportunities for abortion beyond 24 weeks and some of the terms that are there already in the existing laws and approach to this particular topic.

You know, many who favor abortion through the years have argued that abortions should be...there's three terms that are used. They should be safe, legal, and rare. Unfortunately, this has not always happened. In United States every day there are over 3,700 abortions that are performed. That goes over 1.3 million abortions every year in the United States alone. And this just goes on, and on, and on. And so it has become the seminal issue in so many of the cultural battles that we are dealing with, and as we look at this issue, and the emotions that run hard and high on it run us a foul, really, of some basic teachings that we have to always come back to from the Word of God as to when life begins and what is taking of life, what that is in terms of a sin against the law of God. 

The Bible does not mention abortion per se, but it does obviously talk about not taking life and the sanctity of life. In Jeremiah 1:5, the prophet does make a reference that we can go to to help us understand. He does say as he speaks to God that he says, "Before I formed you in the womb," God says to Jeremiah, "I knew you. Before you were born I sanctified you. I ordained you a prophet to the nations."

In this one example alone God's speaking to the prophet Jeremiah tells him that He knew him in the womb. Jeremiah was a life. He was a viable life in his mother's womb, God knew him. That scripture alone and others tell us that life is a very sacred matter, that taking that life is something...if it's done for convenience, because the child is just not wanted for no other reason, then we are reaching into the prerogative of God and with regard to life, and we are violating His teaching about taking life, about murder.

It's an ongoing issue. It's not going to go away, it's going to continue to further divide us. We need to know what God's Word says, we need to protect life, we need to look at life as what God tells us, something that is very, very sacred.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.