Satan's attempt to annihilate the image of God

PHILADELPHIA—The prosecutor in abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s murder trial, Ed Cameron, made a startling statement Tuesday in the course of attempting to refute defense attorney Jack McMahon’s motion to acquit Gosnell of corpse abuse charges. Cameron, who has been at pains during the trial to paint the blackest line between the murders Gosnell has been charged with and legal abortions, shared a personal account of the death of an unborn child in his family. His brother’s wife had a baby who died in utero, and he pointed out, "They had a funeral." The purpose of counsel’s disclosure was made clear to the jury: "Once a fetus leaves a mother, it is due the respect you would give a person."

The veil that blinds the unbeliever from seeing the implications of his own convictions is at times more noticeable than others. There is something very wrong with a society that hails the abortion of a baby and then turns around and gives the baby a name and a funeral.

Of all the things that can be said against abortion, I believe the most important is that it is Satan’s attempt to destroy the image of God. If he had his druthers, the devil would destroy God Himself. But since that is not an option, the next most satisfying accomplishment would be to annihilate the image-bearers of God—human beings. That would be sweet revenge.

The Guttmacher Institute reports in "Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress" that a billion abortions have been performed on this planet. If that is not the passive-aggressive strategy of the Evil One to annihilate the image of God on earth, then there is no battle of principalities and powers, and Ephesians 6 is wrong about the spiritual dimensions of our lives. The blood of Abel cried out to God from the ground—one can only imagine the din of a billion-strong cry.

The courtroom trying Gosnell’s murder bristles with hair-splitting legalities distinguishing lawful abortions from unlawful ones. They all miss the point. God told the prophet Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you." Biology 101 informs us that human life begins when a sperm meets an egg. From that moment on what we have is stages—gestation, birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age—of a seamless life.

Suddenly seized with the wonder of how important man is to his Creator, that he should have a starring role in creation, the Psalmist exclaimed:

"What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet. …"

On one of the last days of the trial, a woman great with child was escorted into the courtroom as a character witness for the co-defendant Eileen O’Neill. She was handled with more care than the others and offered a cup of water. But no one seemed struck by the irony, nor the living visual aid that was manifest before our eyes: The woman was 22 weeks pregnant, two weeks shy of the cut-off age for abortion in Pennsylvania.

It is a fearful thing to attempt the wholesale eradication of the face of God on earth.