Abortion: The Greatest Deception of All

The recent 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade–the Supreme Court decision that ignited the abortion holocaust in America–gives occasion to consider the power of deception in our world.

We live in a time when deceit openly parades itself as truth.

Our leaders tell us that federal deficits don’t matter, that marriage can be re-defined, that women should serve in combat, and that taking away guns will make us safer (to name just a few of the deceptions of the month).

What’s interesting about this list (which could include many other progressive examples), is that if you believe one of the deceptions, you probably believe most of them.

And you likely also believe the grandest deception of all: that it’s okay to kill an innocent baby in the womb.

First of all, let’s be clear on the source of deception on earth. Contrary to atheist’s claims, most people understand that there is a spiritual being called the Devil, Lucifer or Satan and legions of fallen angels (demons) that influence human behavior. These beings are as real as we are, though they are unseen (Ephesians 6:12).

We don’t know a lot about Satan, but here are a few salient facts that relate to our topic.

1. We first meet Lucifer in the form of a serpent in Genesis 3:1-5 where his first recorded act was to deceive Adam and Eve into disobeying God–leading to the spiritual fall of the human race.

2. He is called a deceiver: “And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Revelation 12:19).

3. To deceive is to tell a lie–to not present the truth about a person or subject. Jesus said about the Devil:  “[He] does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

4. Jesus also linked another horrific sin with Satan and his ways. Speaking to those who had given in to satanic deception, he declared, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44).

We learn from these references that there is an incredibly powerful and sinister fallen angel (and his minions) that are at work in the unseen world on earth, lying to people about the truth and deceiving them regarding morality.

(If you need a refresher course on the battle we are facing in the invisible world against Satan and his forces, then I recommend pulling off your bookshelf Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness or Piercing the Darkness and reading them through again (I do this once every few years). Better yet, purchase Dean Sherman’s Spiritual Warfare for Every Christian to learn what to do about it.)

And oh–another thing about Satan that was mentioned above:

He is a murderer.

Which brings us to the deception of abortion.

For a moment, let’s clear our eyes and think about the deceit of abortion that is pervading the earth today. Millions of Americans and maybe billions of people worldwide are deceived about this subject. They have bought into a wretched lie that contains:

Deceitful Language

I don’t know who invented the word “abortion” (though I know who inspired it). We use the word abortion as a clinical term for killing precious, beautiful, innocent babies. But the word “abort” is not a personal word. In normal usage, we abort things not people–such as rocket launches. It’s a way of stopping or ending some “thing”, not someone.

When we “end someone” that’s normally called killing or murder.

To rationalize this in our own minds, somebody also invented the word “fetus” which sounds more like a “thing” than a person. That makes it easy to get rid of.

Deceitful History

Killing innocent babies in the womb is not new. It goes back thousands of years, and was viewed by most cultures as morally wrong. You probably didn’t learn that in school.

Even in ancient polytheistic Greece, the Hippocratic Oath (400 BC) was used to encourage doctors of the healing arts to take a stand against abortion. Here is the original form:

“I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath. . . I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary (medical device or medication) to produce abortion.”

For thousands of years, this was the norm. Abortion was not good medicine nor moral. It was murder–plain and simple.

Deceitful Autonomy

One of the most prevalent modern lies regarding abortion is that women have a “right” to control their own bodies. Every fair-minded person agrees with this general statement. Each of us has been given a body that we should steward and nurture through good lifestyle choices.

So far, so good.

But wait a minute. A baby in the womb is not my own body. It’s somebody else’s body that has a God-given right to life, health, and protection. Yes, that body is dependent on his or her mother for nine months, but after birth, it’s also dependent on people for many years. There’s really no difference.

Plus, complete human autonomy is an illusion. We are called to love one another and submit our lives to the One who created and loved us first. Actually, “in Him we live, move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Deceitful Logic

Nothing makes logical sense about killing an innocent baby in the womb. The truth is actually pretty simple. Ask a ten year old. They may not understand sex or how procreation works, but they know that mommies and daddies produce babies.

In other words, life begins at “conception”–the moment a man’s DNA joins a woman’s DNA to create a new human life. This concept is not “above our pay grade” as once stated by our current president. It’s a simple, basic, logical fact.

The whole discussion of “viability” is also nonsense. My own children are now eighteen-to-thirty-one years of age and during their childhood years, they certainly couldn’t live on their own. I sometimes wonder if they’re viable now.

I also wonder if I’m “viable” at this point in my life. I need my wife, children, parents, doctors, friends, professionals and many other people in my life. Viability is a silly, non-logical argument for taking human life.

Then there is the greater illogic of the word “choice.” This seems to be the favorite deception of our time because the word “choice” sounds so lofty, noble, and freedom-laden.

However, truth to brain: The rightness of a choice is  determined by what choice you make. Some choices are good: to love, care, be patient, forgive etc. And some choices are bad or out-right evil.

The most evil choice on a human plane? To kill another innocent person.

So next time someone says to you that they’re “pro-choice,” simply ask them a question: What is the choice you’re making? Then after they give you their verbal smoke-screen about terminating a pregnancy or whatever, solemnly remind them that aborting the fetus is really murdering their own offspring for selfish reasons.

Hopefully the truth will lead them to change their mind.

Deceitful “Rights”

Many abortion advocates couch their position in the language of the civil rights movement. They say they are freeing up women the same way Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.

But the only true rights that human beings possess are God-given and God-defined. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson declared that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable (can’t be taken away) rights that begin with “life.”

The “right to life” is both basic Bible and basic American. To be pro-choice (killing babies) is actually to be on the wrong side of the civil rights struggle. It was the morally-wrong slave owners that were pro-choice. They didn’t want to force other people or states to own slaves, they just wanted to be free to do so themselves.

And upon what did they wrongly base their choice? They believed that Negro slaves were not fully human–hence the rationale that the choice was okay.

Pro-choice abortionists are the slave owners of the 21st century. They don’t necessarily want to force others to believe like them (except for tax-payers to pay for all abortions through Obamacare). But they believe their choice is justified because the fetus in the womb is not fully human.

Sound familiar? Satan’s lies don’t change much in history. He just sprinkles the same old deceit on new areas of interest.

Why? Because he was a liar from the beginning and wants to destroy (murder) human beings.

Abortion fits his agenda perfectly. Through human accomplices, he has successfully murdered over 55 million Americans since 1973 and possibly one billion human beings worldwide over the past fifty years.

That’s why abortion is the greatest deception of all.

And that deception is passed on by the secular press. Last week in Washington, D.C. over 600,000 people marched against abortion in the annual March for Life.  That same week, the “Million Mom March” was supposed to draw a million folks to agitate for gun control.

But only 6,000 showed up.

The Associated Press (a secular-biased news organization) reported that “thousands” came to each event. In other words, they lied to the nation to create the impression that two equally significant protests took place in the nation’s capital.

The truth was the March for Life out-numbered the Gun Control March one hundred to one!

Be encouraged those of you who believe the truth and weep over the great abortion deception. Truth will win out in the end.

My friend, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, described his closing prayer at the 2013 March for Life this way:

“For four decades, families have traveled over miles of wintry highways in the hope that their trips to Washington, D.C. will someday end–and with it, one of the darkest periods of American history. Until then, they continue their pilgrimage to protest a ruling now responsible for the slaughter of millions of unborn lives. Undeterred by ice or snow, this generation of abortion survivors has resolved to never let the nation forget the blood spilled in the name of “choice.” Today, despite freezing temperatures and whipping winds, people came by the hundreds of thousands to fill the National Mall with a word the media won’t even say–life.”

“As I closed the rally in prayer, I thanked God for the hope these young people represent–not just to our movement, but to America. In the Old Testament, through God’s servant Moses, He put before a new generation, the covenant that was over 1,000 years old. It was this new generation’s time for choosing. God said, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days.” May we not just be a nation that chooses life, but chooses abundant life in Jesus Christ.”