Rev. Sudha Mehta©

In recent days I heard a lot of news coverage on TV on the immigration issue. There were many who were crying for the babies that have been “torn” from the arms of the mothers, and demanding that the little ones be united with their parents. Vigils, protests, marches against the government were staged in different cities. Many politicians decided to stand against the very law officers commissioned to carry out the laws on the books.

They cried for the rights of aliens that come to the country illegally and were filled with rage that babies were separated from parents who were in jail for crossing the border without legal permission.

Then, the political winds shifted abruptly and the cause of the migrants moved the back burner and the same people who were protesting the separation of mothers and babies, were now protesting and decrying the very thought that the Government may try, at some point, to take away the right of mothers to kill their unborn babies!

I am still trying to grasp this!

Tears shed on the one hand for babies that belong to parents who cross borders illegally, yet no tears shed for babies for whom the womb becomes the prison and execution center. These unborn babies leave the supposed safety of the womb via surgical excision or violent expulsion. Don’t these babies need to remain with their mothers?

I don’t get the human condition! Why is one child more valuable than the other? Should not the world cry out for the most helpless? I do not have a problem with you sympathizing with the child separated from mother, any child, any mother, illegal or not! But if you would cry for one child, then cry for the other as well. If you cry for the one mother that has the child taken from her, then you should cry for the other mother who chooses to discard violently the child in her womb also.

There is no doubt in my mind as to the sanctity of life and where it begins.

God “called” Jeremiah before he was even in the womb of his mother. Jeremiah himself did not know of this until he was a youth as the Book of Jeremiah Chapter 1 tells us, but the Lord, the Creator, had a plan for this child who was yet to be.

Jeremiah. 1:4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

I will give you a scripture I personally have used. This is from the book of Job. If you are unfamiliar with the story, you should read the first two chapters. In short, Job was a godly and righteous man who lost all his wealth, his family and his health suddenly. In Ch.3 he laments his birth.

Job 3: 1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. 2 And Job spoke, and said, 3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

Verse 3 is proof positive that life begins at conception, and that gender is determined at that same moment. Believing the Bible to be without error, and that God does not lie. this verse as inspired by the Holy Spirit, written down for all time declares the truth about life.

Job heart broken, lamenting, curses the day he was born, but he also curses the night in which he was conceived as a man child, a boy.  No woman knows at the time of conception that she has conceived for sure, and she certainly does not know the gender of the child. Yet, here the Bible states that the night itself declared a boy had been conceived.

Unlike Job, the Psalmist rejoices in Psalm 139 in recognition of the Creator who formed him in the womb, past conception.

Psalm 139: 13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

As I see it, the God of the Bible knows, and has a plan for every child before the conception has even taken place. (Jere. 1). The heavens declare the conception and gender of the child (Job 3). God Himself works to form the baby in the womb AND His work is wonderful (Psalm139). Why would anyone want to disrupt this beautiful process.

So, I see all children born or just conceived equally worthy of my prayer. I weep for the millions of unborn that did not even see life. I weep for the cradles that never received the child, booties that were never filled, diapers that never got used, lullabies that never got sung.

I weep for a nation and a world that through it’s callousness, and disregard for life has done away with countless future assets to mankind. I can’t help but wonder how many upstanding citizens, doctor’s, lawyers, professors, teachers, senators, engineers, businessmen, police officers, firemen, any sport players, mothers, fathers, workers in any profession are among the dead without ever having a chance at life.

Photo by Sudha Mehta©

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