America's Molech Worship, part 3: Equipped to Defend
Ryan Cox • September 24, 2021
America's Molech Worship, part 3: Equipped to Defend
Abortion Statistics as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),¹ Guttmacher Institute,² and Operation Rescue Abortion Clinics Survey:³
- Abortions in 1970: 193,491 (52 per 1,000 live births, 530 per day).
- Abortions in 1973 (year of Roe v Wade): 615,831 (196 per 1,000 live births, 1,687 per day).
- Abortions in 1990 (peak year): 1,429,247 (345 per 1,000 live births, 3,916 per day).
- Abortions in 2018 (most recent data): 619,591 (189 per 1,000 live births, 1,698 per day).
- Women between the ages of 20 to 29 accounted for 57.7% of abortions in 2018, ages 30 to 39 accounted for 29.8%, and ages 15 to 19 accounted for 8.7%.
- 92.2% of abortions take place between 1 to 13 weeks of pregnancy, 6.9% take place between weeks 14 to 20, and 0.9% take place between weeks 21 to 40.
- 18% of all US pregnancies end in abortion, as of 2018.
- By age 45, one third of women in America will have had at least one abortion.
- Between 1990 and 2008, abortions declined by 2% each year.
- From 2008 to 2018, abortions declined 24.9%.
- The CDC numbers are somewhat misleading as they do not have abortion data for California, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Wyoming.
- State that performed the least number of abortions in 2018: South Dakota with 382.
- State that performed the most abortions in 2017: California with 132,680.
- Of the 1,587 abortion facilities in the U.S. in 2017, 419 were in California.
- The U.S. has gone from 2,176 surgical abortion facilities in 1991 to 255 in 2020: an 88% drop.
- Another 46 abortion facilities closed in 2020.
- Medication abortion clinics have risen from 131 in 2009 to 248 in 2020.
- Many surgical clinics have closed and reopened as medication clinics to avoid regulations and licensing requirements.
- As of 2020, 69 locations operate telemedicine abortion programs.
- 87% of U.S. counties in 2017 did not have an abortion provider.
- 60% of California’s counties in 2017 did have an abortion provider.
- Average wait time for an abortion is 8.4 days.
- Average abortion costs range from $621 for a surgical abortion to $598 for a medication abortion.
- 85.2% of women who obtain an abortion are not married.
- 59.3% of women who obtain an abortion have one or more children.
- 40.1% of women who obtain an abortion have already had one or more abortions.
- Less than 1% of all abortions are because of rape or incest.
But here is one more statistic for you to ponder: would it surprise you to know that 36% of women who obtain an abortion attend church services at least once a month? According to Care Net and LifeWay Research’s 2015 national survey, 36% of women (over 1 in 3) who have obtained an abortion were attending church services once a month or more when they received their abortion. 20% of them (1 in 5) were attending church services weekly!⁴
In a survey conducted in 2015 by the American Culture & Faith Institute, 22 social and political issues were identified as important to conservative and moderate Christians, about which they would desire their preacher to preach or provide more information. Of the 22 issues, 94% of respondents ranked abortion as “very” or “extremely” important for the congregation to receive Biblical teaching. That landed the topic of abortion at #1 of the 22 issues.⁵
That’s what the people in churches want, but only 59% of “theologically conservative” preachers said they preached on abortion. In fact, when asked to prioritize their sense of importance for 20 current issues, 79% deemed religious freedom as “critical”, 67% deemed the national debt as “critical”, and 62% deemed abortion as “critical”. Same-sex marriage came in at only 56% of “theologically conservative” preachers deeming it as a “critical” issue.⁶
In fact, only 50% of church members could recall their preacher teaching on abortion, and only 46% of members could recall their preacher teaching on same-sex marriage (82% want their preacher to preach about sexual issues).⁷
This is another example of the evolutionizing of churches and growing rejection of the historicity, accuracy, and authority of Scripture.
THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST NEEDS TO BE INFORMED AND ACTIVE
To assist with this in regard to abortion, the materials by John Michener⁸ and the Oklahomans United for Life are highly recommended.⁹ Here is a brief synopsis of their witnessing techniques:
Adjusting the Moral Compass
If someone is arguing that a woman should be able to have an abortion because she is too poor:
- Agree that some women are poor and it would be hard for them to raise a child.
- Pretend there is a toddler beside you and ask, “If say a two-year-old’s mother was too poor to raise him, would it be okay for her to kill him?”
- If they say “no”, kindly keep asking “why not” until they respond with a principle that it is wrong to kill an innocent human being.
- Kindly respond to their moral answer, “Ah, then the issue isn’t poverty, but whether or not we can kill innocent human beings. If the unborn are human beings, then shouldn’t we protect them just like we protect two-year-olds?”
Defending Our Humanity
When someone is arguing that an unborn baby is not a living human being, one can use the “Ten-Second Pro-Life Apologist”:
- Is it living?
- It is eating (metabolizing food), growing (cellular reproduction), and responding (reacts to stimuli and environment).
- Is it human?
- It has human parents and human DNA.
- Is it an individual?
- All of its parts (the entire genome) is developing (not constructed one part at a time).
- Conclusion, “Then if the unborn are growing, eating, and responding, they must be alive. If they have human parents and DNA, they must be human. So don’t you think that living humans, or human beings like you and me, are valuable and should be protected?”
Defending Human Rights & Value
Question: “Do you believe that everyone should have the same basic rights, such as life and freedom? Should we be treated equally under the law? Yet there are so many differences between us: men and women, big and small, etc. We are all so different from one another yet there is something that is the same or equal about all of us that demands we should be treated equally. What is the same about all of us?”
Answer: “We are all unique, individual human beings.”
If someone gives any explanation about born human beings having rights and unborn humans not having rights, ask if that explanation for equal rights applies to adults, infants, the handicap, to animals, etc., and then ask why a human being living inside a womb or outside a womb makes a difference as to whether he or she has equal rights and protection of the law.
Defending Bodily Rights
Bodily rights arguments usually involve the slogan “my body, my choice” and include the arguments of a “sovereign zone” and a “right to refuse”.
Sovereign Zone
argument: a woman has an absolute right to do whatever she wants with her body.
- Clarify by asking: “Do you mean the unborn is a literal part of the woman’s body, like an arm or kidney?”
- Challenge the Sovereign Zone: “If you believe pregnant women have a right to do anything with their bodies, do you think it should be legal for them to use hard drugs that will cause severe birth defects?”
- If they answer “no” ask: “If it is wrong for women to take drugs that will lead to deformations of a baby when it is their body and they have a right to do what they want, then why is it not wrong for women to take drugs that will lead to the death of a baby?”¹⁰
Right to Refuse argument: a woman is no more obligated to donate the use of her body to sustain a fetus than she is obligated to donate one of her kidneys to help a stranger.
- Clarify by asking: “Are you saying the decision to donate a kidney and choosing to continue a pregnancy are equivalent? Can you see any differences between the two?”
- Differences between the two:
- temporary (pregnancy) vs indefinite (kidney gone forever)
- stranger (didn’t choose his condition) vs parent (usually made decisions that led to pregnancy)
- unnaturally “hooked up” to patient vs natural connection to child
- unhooking from patient vs dismembering child
- ending treatment vs killing
- not responsible vs responsible, etc.
- Focusing on Responsibility: “Why is it wrong for parents to ignore their child’s well-being (DCFS will take the child) but not wrong for a mother to end her child’s life (abortion)? If men can be held liable for child support, even if they no longer want the responsibility, should women be held to the same standard? If men are expected to support a child for 18 years after birth, shouldn’t women be expected to support that same child for 9 months before birth?”¹¹
The members of our churches need to be armed with the Truth of God’s Word and the means of defending it. They also need to know that the Church is a place of love and help, including those who find themselves pregnant and have contemplated abortion. Every congregation should be ready to love and help that individual who is going through enormous amounts of pressure, stress, and fear. Would Jesus not offer His arms of love and support, making it all the more possible to welcome that precious mother and child into His Church?
We obviously do not condone sex or pregnancy out of wedlock (Hebrews 13:4), but we most certainly do not withhold the love of Christ from anyone either (Romans 12:9-16, Colossians 3:12-14, I John 4:7-11). How then would any of us be saved if the love of Jesus and His sacrifice for our sins had not been shown to us?
May we all be about the ministry of saving lives, both physical and spiritual.
End notes:
1. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/ss/ss6907a1.htm
2. https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/state-facts-about-abortion-california
3. http://www.operationrescue.org/about-abortion/abortions-in-america/
4. http://lifewayresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Care-Net-Final-Presentation-Report-Revised.pdf
5. https://wallbuilders.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/02/WhatChristiansWantPastorstoPreachAbout.pdf
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Search for John Michener at: www.catapes.com
9. https://www.oklahomansunitedforlife.org/
10. For more information on the Sovereign Zone argument, look up Timothy Brahm and “Autumn in the Sovereign Zone”, http://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/autumn-in-the-sovereign-zone-why-its-my-body-i-can-do-what-i-want-wont-do/
11. For more information on the Right to Refuse argument, look up Steve Wagner and “De Facto Guardian and Abortion”, http://doc.jfaweb.org/Training/DeFactoGuardian-v03.pdf
As many of you may know, I appreciate space. Not space around me, although the older I get the more I appreciate that as well. The things in the heavens fascinate me and have for a large chunk of my life. I love working with our telescopes, allowing people to see for themselves objects that the Lord made on the 4th day of history. When I was younger I followed our Space Shuttle program, and over the years I have had the opportunity to see a couple of those shuttles around the country. Now it is great to see all the renewed interest in exploring the heavenly creation. I know most of it is for evolutionary reasons, yet over and over again something is discovered that points to the trustworthiness of God’s Word. After all, we are to study His creation as Genesis 1:28 states. On a recent trip to El Paso, it occurred to me that Blue Origin’s launch facility is in west Texas somewhere. After some quick searching I realized we were within an hour and half of it, and there was a rescheduled launch window during the time of our meeting. So, with some persuading of my colleagues, we arose early one morning to make the launch. We made it with just minutes to spare. It was spectacular! The whole launch to just beyond the Karman Line (space boundary, 62 miles/100km) and return of the rocket and capsule is about ten minutes total. While Blue Origin is best known for its New Shepherd rocket that carries paying customers to space and back with the biggest windows ever in a capsule, this NS-29 launch was purely experimental with a payload of instruments to measure simulated lunar gravity. Even though it was not a Saturn V, Space Shuttle, Starship or Falcon launch, it was great to hear and feel a launch for the first time, from blast off to the sonic boom return. It has piqued my desire to see a bigger launch now. As I began to reflect on what I experienced, the Lord reminded me of His design. Earth, our home planet, is so well designed for life. There is literally nowhere in all the universe like it. Yet He gave us the ability to discover creation beyond it. The only reason we can launch rockets and do space exploration is because He set it up in an orderly way. Physics works because He established it to work in a predictable fashion. As much as we may never understand everything in the universe from our position here, it works on an ordered reality that is reinforced by God’s Word. This is what drove Sir Isaac Newton in his understanding of physics. He wrote, “The motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone but were by an intelligent Agent.” Evolutionists may come up with theories about the origin of things in the heavens, but over and over again they are being shown through experimentation and observation to be wrong. The Lord set the order of everything in the beginning and sustains it by His Word (Hebrews 1:3). So as you look to the heavens tonight, gaze into the depths of space and observe the different facets the Lord placed up there for our eyes (Genesis 1:17). Peer through a telescope at the lesser light of the moon with marvel and anticipation of further human study in the coming years. Check out the amazing observations being made by the James Webb telescope from deep in space. All of these place a perspective of how awesome our Creator is and how much we depend on Him. Our design becomes more and more obvious with every discovery, yet in our universe we appear so minuscule and fragile. Thanks be to God that His infinite focus has, is and always will be here on us! Blessings.
Moses & History (part 2)