Apologetics Press :: Bible Bullets

Mommas Can Murder, but Daddies Can't?

by Eric Lyons, M.Min.

Few things enrage a community more than finding out that a pregnant woman has been murdered. Towns struck with such an atrocity often rise up and declare that justice must be served: "Violators should be charged with two counts of murder, not just one." In recent times, men committing such heinous crimes have been charged with double murder. From Missouri to California, from Ohio to Utah, prosecutors have been pushing for maximum penalties by charging men, who allegedly have killed their pregnant wives (or girlfriends), with two counts of murder. In one particular case in California, a man, who police and prosecutors believe kicked and punched his pregnant girlfriend, was charged with assaulting the mother and murdering the baby (whom the mother was carrying in the womb).

It is encouraging to know that our judicial system has seen fit to prosecute those who murder unborn babies, and to make the guilty pay the highest penalties allowed. In these situations, our judicial system has treated the unborn baby as he/she really is--a human being (cf. Jeremiah 1:4-5; Luke 1:39-44). "A person guilty of murdering an unborn child is guilty of murdering a person." This is what we are being told over and over again by those who seek to charge men, who take the lives of a woman and her unborn baby, with double murder.

Wait a minute! How can an unborn child be considered a human being in one situation (when a man takes the life of a woman and her baby), but then, when a pregnant woman wants to take the life of her unborn child, the baby becomes an "appendage" of the mother's body. "The baby is not a human being, just an extra lump of tissue that the mother can discard at will." If the father intentionally kicks a baby while in the mother's womb, killing the child, he likely will be sentenced to prison, or possibly to death (and rightly so--Genesis 9:6). On the other hand, if a mother goes to an abortion clinic and pays a doctor to insert a pliers-like instrument into her uterus literally to pull and shred the baby into pieces, snapping the spinal cord, and crushing the skull, she has done nothing illegal?

How, in the name of common sense, can our courts rule that when a woman takes the life of her own child, "it is a choice," but when someone else takes that life, "it is murder"? Such reasoning makes no sense. Abortion-rights activists, at least, are consistent in this regard (see White, 2003). As Heather Boonstra, senior public policy associate at the Alan Guttmacher Institute, stated: "The law cannot hold both that a pregnant woman is two persons and at the same time allow her to have an abortion" (2001).

Something must change! The laws on the books today in America regarding the rights of an unborn child must be enforced--consistently. The "hands that shed innocent blood," whether mother or father, are abominable to the Lord and His people (Proverbs 6:17). Let us pray to the Almighty regarding this matter, and work to encourage our government officials to uphold the value of human life by one day reversing the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

REFERENCES

"Los Angeles Times Looks at Growing Debate Over Fetal Rights Laws in States" (2001), Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report view online.

White, Nicole (2003), "Proposal on Double Murder Charges Fuels Abortion Battle," The Miami Herald, April 11.

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