The Sanctity of Life is more than just abortion

 

“Science is a gift from God. He gave it to us so we can know  more about Him.”  Dr. Joe Francis 

  A little earlier this month medical science entered a new world. David Bennett, 57, became the first person to receive a heart transplant from a genetically-modified pig. So far he is doing well after the experimental seven-hour procedure in Baltimore. The transplant was considered the last hope of saving Bennett's life, though it is not yet clear what his long-term chances of survival are. “It was either die or do this transplant,” Bennett explained a day before the surgery. 

  Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center were granted a special dispensation by the U.S. medical regulator to carry out the procedure, on the basis that Mr. Bennett - who has terminal heart disease - would otherwise have died. He’d been deemed ineligible for a human transplant, a decision often taken by doctors when the patient is in very poor health. The pig used in the transplant had been genetically modified to knock out several genes that would have led to the heart being rejected. For the medical team who carried out the transplant, it marks the culmination of years of research and could hopefully change lives around the world.

  Animal-to-human organ transplants were first attempted in the 1980s. In a famous case, Stephanie Fae Beauclair (known as Baby Fae) was born with a fatal heart condition and received a baboon heart transplant. She died within a month of the procedure due to her immune system’s rejection of the foreign heart and similar transplant attempts were abandoned. Medical researchers hope the use of pig organs will prove to be more successful. For this transplant, four genes were “knocked out” of the pig organ to make it more compatible for use in a human. Six human genes responsible for immune acceptance of the pig heart were also inserted into the pig genome.

  More than 100,000 Americans are currently waiting for an organ transplant, and 17 die each day waiting for a transplant. But is it biblically ethical? Is it ethical to transplant animal organs into humans?

  Most Christians have never had to consider the ethics of xenotransplantation, the transplantation of an organ or tissue from one species to another. With technological advances in biomedicine, that may soon change. While we need to continually be cautious about abusing our roles as stewards of Creation (Gen. 1:28), specifically the animal kingdom and avoid crossing obvious interspecies barriers, we should also give thanks to God for the lives that may be saved by such transplants.

  This is also not a huge leap. For some time pig heart valves have been used effectively in humans. Literally, thousands of Americans are walking around with functioning heart valves that came from pigs. When it comes to pigs, there has been less rejection than from other species and the size of a pig's heart is similar in size to a human one. 

  But science asks the wrong question. Science asks, “Could we?” when the more important ethical question is: “Should we?” What was once science fiction is becoming accepted “science.”

  Coma was a 1978 American mystery thriller film based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Robin Cook. Healthy patients are deemed brain dead and then their bodies stored so that their organs can be harvested. 

  Human Rights advocates have been alarmed for years by reports of organ harvesting in China targeting minorities - Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims, and Christians who have been imprisoned by the Communist government. While our government has sanctions against North Korea, the evils of China are ignored. There is one primary reason – it’s not profitable to American business or our government to hold China accountable.

  Yet, one does not have to travel across the world to uncover atrocities. Abortion is a lucrative business. Those who defend it the most ardently often have a financial interest in keeping it legal and common. Nearly a million children lose their lives annually in the U.S. because abortion is a billion-dollar business.

  Let’s consider the ethics of David Bennett’s case. Why him? Weren’t there more worthy candidates for this experimental surgery? In 1988 he stabbed a bar patron seven times in a brutal attack and was convicted of it. After the attack, the victim, Edward Shumaker, became an invalid. The attack ultimately resulted in a stroke and his premature death.

  Then, do we really believe that a culture that has little problem terminating life in the womb will have a moral dilemma terminating life at the end? Active euthanasia is becoming more common in Europe and not just for terminal illness. In 2015 doctors in Belgium granted an otherwise healthy 24-year-old woman suffering from depression the right to die, even though she does not have a terminal or life-threatening illness.

  Will we get to a place where euthanasia is chosen because it is less expensive to terminate the elderly, terminally or mentally ill than it is to care for them? Are we that far behind Nazi Germany or North Korea?

  Is it an accident that the same states with the most liberal abortion laws, put Covid patients in nursing homes, knowing full well that the elderly and infirm were the most vulnerable to the virus?

  Elitism is rampant in our country where the superrich and ones who make the laws fail do not live under those same laws. Is it farfetched to believe that we’re on the brink of cloning to harvest organs for some elitists?

  Today we are celebrating Sanctity of Life Sunday (some churches celebrated last Sunday). If Christians do not have a firm grip on the sacredness of life and the importance of the Imago Dei, what kind of world might we soon have? Isn’t the role of Christians as salt and light in our culture to resist pragmatism and question the scientific community with “Should we?” Trusting “science” unequivocally has the potential of opening a Pandora’s Box, that once open, will never be closed. 

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

Katniss! Seriously!?!

“My mom was really religious with me when I was young…I wouldn’t have been able to get birth control if it weren’t for Planned P. I wouldn’t have been able to get condoms and birth control and all these things I needed as a normal teenager who was growing up in a Jesus house.”  Jennifer Lawrence

 The headline of the recent article was: “Jennifer Lawrence defends charity against anti-abortion campaigners” with this caption underneath the headline, “Actor tells Glamour magazine she accessed birth control as a teenager via Planned Parenthood, and describes clinic shooting as ‘an attack on women’.” For a few days, it made all the news cycles which dealt with celebrity or entertainment news. Overnight Jennifer Lawrence became the new poster child for the pro-choice movement, a Joan of Arc riding in to rescue the world from those evil pro-life oppressors.

  If most thinking individuals, whatever their position on abortion, would take a few moments to analyze what Jennifer Lawrence said and what those using her celebrity status are purporting, they’d be appalled. To use the analogy of her popular film, Hunger Games, her worldview is much more President Snow and the Capitol than it is Katniss Everdeen.  

  First, the Colorado shooting was not an attack on women. It was murder, an attack on human life. Just a cursory reading of the personality and background of the shooter, Robert Louis Dear Jr., from his ex-wife and others who knew him, makes it very apparent that he’s mentally ill. To label what he did an “attack on women,” is like suggesting the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris were an art critic dispute which turned violent. It’s the same wearisome hypocritical propaganda continually paraded out by those who scream bloody murder over the phrase “radical Islam,” yet are the first to claim any violence directed at or near a Planned Parenthood facility is without a doubt, another radical right wing crazy Christian.

  Second, it justifies violating parental rights. In a day when parents can’t send a couple of Tylenol capsules to school with a child struggling with headaches, to somehow rationalize a government financed agency giving body altering medicines to a minor, is inexcusable. A minor can’t have their ears pierced or get a tattoo without parental consent. Somehow, though, it’s “okay” for someone to undermine the parents and provide birth control pills. What planet are they from?

  Over the course of my ministry, I’ve seen too many young people who were neglected or abused by a parent/s. In a few cases, for the protection of the child, I felt that there should be a TPR (termination of parental rights). Most don’t realize how difficult it is to obtain a TPR?

  Several years ago I was assisting a young Mom who was being beaten by her ex-boyfriend. Unfortunately, she and her abuser had a young daughter together. Though this Mom had to be hospitalized after being savagely beaten, though he was a serial abuser and drug addict, and went to prison, yet terminating his parental rights was virtually impossible. But because Jennifer Lawrence’s mother was “too strict,” Planned Parenthood was allowed to terminate her parental rights in regards to birth control pills for her daughter. And somehow that makes sense!?!

  Third, apply this rational to any other area of teen behavior and the media elite would scream for your head…and rightfully so. The faulty reasoning for violating a parent’s rights when it comes to birth control pills is: “Teens are going to have sex anyway. Let’s make sure it’s safe sex.” Yet, if you apply the same faulty logic to other areas of “normal” teen behavior, you’re risking some serious jail time.

  For example, are teens going to drink? Some parents have reasoned, “They’re going to drink anyway, so we’ll have the party at our home and provide the alcohol to make certain no one is injured or killed in drunk driving accident.” If it’s ever discovered, law enforcement will charge the parents. Are teens going to smoke? Should we have a state funded agency provide cigarettes? Are teens going to experiment with drugs? What about porn? Wouldn’t it be better, if those sexual images were provided by a “responsible” adult rather than a bunch of adolescent friends? Yet, it’s a criminal offense, as it should be, to provide porn or alcohol to minors. Schools have onsite school endorsed programs to discourage alcohol and drug use by minors, yet to discourage sexual relations is usually considered “religious” and thus, prohibited.

  Apply such faulty reasoning to any other area besides our sex organs, and everyone knows how illegal, absurd and dumb it is. If we want adolescents to learn self-control and to say “no” in other aspects of life which can cause them great harm and have long term consequences, then why would we rationalize it’s appropriate to encourage them to behave like dogs in heat when it comes to their sex drive? Aren’t we also cracking open the door for sexual abuse or date rape by failing to teach self-control and abstinence? 

  Fourth, with a Welfare system out of control and major behavioral problems among children from single parent homes, why would we encourage adolescent sexual relations? Study after study reveals children do much better when they live in a married, two parent home. Somehow we fail to connect the dots. The rise of teen crime, drug problems, mental health issues, STDs have coincided with the Conventional Wisdom of the day – “free love.” But sexual love is not free. There are often emotional and spiritual baggage, and lifelong intimacy issues for someone who has multiple sexual partners. Add to that, if a young man fathers a child, he is responsible to pay 17% of his income to support that child until the child turns 18. For a teenager, it can seem like a life sentence.

  Welfare rolls are overflowing with children where the father is neglecting his responsibility and the State must step in. Ask any teacher or school administrator, and they’ll tell you that the children with the most educational and behavioral issues typically come from either single parent homes or ones where the couple is co-habiting instead of from a committed marriage. What about the needs or rights of the child? Doesn’t every child deserve to know Dad and Mom are committed to each other and to them?

  Sanctity of Life is much more than just protecting babies. It’s a worldview which considers not only conception, but a child’s entire life. Christians must be the first to return and be committed to a biblical ethic of morality. We must stop rationalizing, “Everyone is doing it.” We must, as the Bible exhorts us to do, “Count the cost!” There’s a high cost in condoning anything other than a biblical view of sexual intimacy and marriage. Our children and culture are paying a high price for our “rights.” We need to ask: As a Christian, am I part of the problem or part of the solution?   

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