"Turning the Clock Back on Abortion" - Posted on January 1, 2015 by D. James Kennedy Ministries, Commentary by Dr. D. James Kennedy; http://www.truthimpact.me/index.php/2015/01/turning-clock-back-abortion/?utm_source=DJKM-List&utm_campaign=77588cebd1-01_17_15_IMPACT_e_Newsletter_January_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_67fb03e2fb-77588cebd1-294381373#.VLxp2tLF9A0
Did you know that the legalization of abortion sparked a return in America to ancient pagan practice? Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in 1973 not only overthrew existing abortion laws, it also rejected a 2,000 year-old Christian ideal that held human life sacred. In its place the Court substituted the pagan philosophy that prevailed in ancient Greece and Rome.
Talk about turning back the clock!
Roe’s author, the late Harry Blackmun, overlooked in his ruling Christianity’s impressive record of bringing respect for life to the ancient world. He did, however, note ancient pagan attitudes. “We are also told…,” he wrote, “that abortion was practiced in Greek times as well as in the Roman Era, and that ‘it was resorted to without scruple.’” Moreover, Blackmun wrote that “Greek and Roman law afforded little protection to the unborn” and “ancient religion did not bar abortion.”
Blackmun didn’t tell the half of it. In fact, life was cheap in the ancient world. Abortion and abandonment were commonplace. Infirm or unwanted babies were taken into the forest, or to the mountainside, and left to starve, be consumed by wild animals, or be taken by others for their own perverted ends.
It was the Church that brought awareness of the evil of abortion, infanticide, and abandonment. Foundling homes, orphanages, and nursery homes were started to house children. Christians injected the ancient world with the idea that human life is sacred. Jesus’ Church ultimately brought an end to infanticide. His influence changed views of the value of human life, and infanticide was outlawed. It lost favor with a Christian population and was seen as an outrageous crime. Consequently, the Roman Empire helped to enshrine in law the Christian principles of the sacredness of human life.
Justinian, the sixth century Christian ruler of the Byzantine empire, banned abortion in his famous Justinian Code, which declared that “Those who expose children, possibly hoping they would die, and those who use the potions of the abortionist, are subject to the full penalty of the law—both civil and ecclesiastical—for murder.”
Roe is a severe attack on the idea that life is sacred—a Christian concept that laid the foundation for Western civilization. Blackmun, not surprisingly, did not cite Justinian in his brief survey of “ancient attitudes.” It was pagan sources to which he looked in his decision that substituted the pagan “quality of life” ethic for the once paramount Christian idea that life is sacred.
Malcolm Muggeridge, the British journalist and satirist who made a profession of Christian faith late in life, had this to say about the two competing ethics: “The sanctity of life is, of course, a religious or transcendental concept, and has no meaning otherwise; if there is no God, life cannot have sanctity. By the same token, the quality of life ethic is an earthly or worldly concept, and can only be expressed legalistically and in materialistic terms; the soul does not come into it.”
In going from the sanctity of life to the quality of life, we have gone from theism to atheism, from spiritual to material, from Christian to pagan. And we have done it without most Americans even knowing it has happened.
The bitter fruit of this return to the ethic of ancient Rome has been the death of more than 56 million children and untold millions of post-abortive women plagued by the physical, emotional, and psychological consequences of abortion.
As in Rome, it is Christians who are working to restore respect for life by speaking out, pressing for legislation, and personal involvement. It is my prayer that Roe v. Wade will soon be overturned—that the sanctity of human life will triumph once more.
bold and italics emphasis mine]
Adapted from Dr. Kennedy’s message, “American Holocaust” and his book, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? co-authored with Jerry Newcombe.
"57,762,169 Abortions in America Since Roe vs. Wade in 1973" - Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 1/21/15;http://www.lifenews.com/2015/01/21/57762169-abortions-in-america-since-roe-vs-wade-in-1973/
"...The long term trend is fewer abortions, and the number is down significantly from 1990 when the country saw 1.6 million abortions a year. As one measure of the impact your work has had, if the number of abortions had remained at 1.6 million, more than seven MILLION more babies would have died.
Did you know that the legalization of abortion sparked a return in America to ancient pagan practice? Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in 1973 not only overthrew existing abortion laws, it also rejected a 2,000 year-old Christian ideal that held human life sacred. In its place the Court substituted the pagan philosophy that prevailed in ancient Greece and Rome.
Talk about turning back the clock!
Roe’s author, the late Harry Blackmun, overlooked in his ruling Christianity’s impressive record of bringing respect for life to the ancient world. He did, however, note ancient pagan attitudes. “We are also told…,” he wrote, “that abortion was practiced in Greek times as well as in the Roman Era, and that ‘it was resorted to without scruple.’” Moreover, Blackmun wrote that “Greek and Roman law afforded little protection to the unborn” and “ancient religion did not bar abortion.”
Blackmun didn’t tell the half of it. In fact, life was cheap in the ancient world. Abortion and abandonment were commonplace. Infirm or unwanted babies were taken into the forest, or to the mountainside, and left to starve, be consumed by wild animals, or be taken by others for their own perverted ends.
It was the Church that brought awareness of the evil of abortion, infanticide, and abandonment. Foundling homes, orphanages, and nursery homes were started to house children. Christians injected the ancient world with the idea that human life is sacred. Jesus’ Church ultimately brought an end to infanticide. His influence changed views of the value of human life, and infanticide was outlawed. It lost favor with a Christian population and was seen as an outrageous crime. Consequently, the Roman Empire helped to enshrine in law the Christian principles of the sacredness of human life.
Justinian, the sixth century Christian ruler of the Byzantine empire, banned abortion in his famous Justinian Code, which declared that “Those who expose children, possibly hoping they would die, and those who use the potions of the abortionist, are subject to the full penalty of the law—both civil and ecclesiastical—for murder.”
Roe is a severe attack on the idea that life is sacred—a Christian concept that laid the foundation for Western civilization. Blackmun, not surprisingly, did not cite Justinian in his brief survey of “ancient attitudes.” It was pagan sources to which he looked in his decision that substituted the pagan “quality of life” ethic for the once paramount Christian idea that life is sacred.
Malcolm Muggeridge, the British journalist and satirist who made a profession of Christian faith late in life, had this to say about the two competing ethics: “The sanctity of life is, of course, a religious or transcendental concept, and has no meaning otherwise; if there is no God, life cannot have sanctity. By the same token, the quality of life ethic is an earthly or worldly concept, and can only be expressed legalistically and in materialistic terms; the soul does not come into it.”
In going from the sanctity of life to the quality of life, we have gone from theism to atheism, from spiritual to material, from Christian to pagan. And we have done it without most Americans even knowing it has happened.
The bitter fruit of this return to the ethic of ancient Rome has been the death of more than 56 million children and untold millions of post-abortive women plagued by the physical, emotional, and psychological consequences of abortion.
As in Rome, it is Christians who are working to restore respect for life by speaking out, pressing for legislation, and personal involvement. It is my prayer that Roe v. Wade will soon be overturned—that the sanctity of human life will triumph once more.
bold and italics emphasis mine]
Adapted from Dr. Kennedy’s message, “American Holocaust” and his book, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? co-authored with Jerry Newcombe.
"57,762,169 Abortions in America Since Roe vs. Wade in 1973" - Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 1/21/15;http://www.lifenews.com/2015/01/21/57762169-abortions-in-america-since-roe-vs-wade-in-1973/
"...The long term trend is fewer abortions, and the number is down significantly from 1990 when the country saw 1.6 million abortions a year. As one measure of the impact your work has had, if the number of abortions had remained at 1.6 million, more than seven MILLION more babies would have died.
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