TIME TO BE A VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS
Our nation is counting down the days – until the 31st
October. Will our Parliament finally deliver on the expressed will of its
people, or will it trigger yet another mechanism by which to invoke another
delay to, if not revoke the result of, the referendum?
Of greater concern to us in Northern Ireland than any
Brexit deadline is the fact that we can see the whites of the eyes of another
cut-off point and can hear the clock ticking on a much more sinister
countdown. One that threatens to put out eyes before they can open; to
close the ears of that child whose sensory faculties are rapidly developing
inside the womb of its mother; to mechanically – and monstrously – revoke that
child’s right ever to live, or learn to speak, or cheer, or vote.
Exhilaration
While for some – the kind of people who recently
celebrated with air punches and cheers in New South Wales, Australia, after
they overturned an 119-year-old law against abortion and replaced it with a
most radically permissive regime; and those who in May 2018 when the barriers
to abortion fell in the Republic of Ireland threatened “The North is next!” –
21st October 2019 cannot come quickly enough; yet for many in Northern Ireland
this is a date to be dreaded.
Extremity
It is horrendous to think that our province has been
railroaded to such a degree that from being the safest place in the British
Isles for an unborn baby she will accommodate one of the most extreme abortion
regimes in the world, with little to no protections for anyone, including our
health workers, but especially the most defenceless, the unborn child.
As one Australian MP recently depicted it, this is “the
slavery debate of our time” and laws imposed upon Northern Ireland without
local consultation gives the green light to our own version of the notoriously
wicked Holocaust.
Euphemisms
Naturally this is disputed by those in our society who
perversely portray abortion as a “progressive” measure. It does
not seem to register with them that the murder of the most defenceless of our society
should never be couched in terms of advancement.
The euphemisms employed to deliberately mask and minimise
the crude, cruel dismemberment of a living child in its mothers’ womb are not
only threadbare but terrifying. In a calculated effort to diminish the
horror, terms are pulled into play such as, “a woman’s right to choose,”
the deceptive, “a compassionate response to crisis pregnancy,” or the
ridiculous description, “healthcare.” Since when did we take pleasure in
healthcare that is locked into only one outcome – death? Abortion is
neither health care nor a woman’s right: it is murder; the unjustifiable,
unconscionable, sinful slaughter of the innocent. It is a completely
bewildering sight to witness some political parties vigorously campaign to
outlaw smacking a child, yet at the same time support the violent killing of a
child in the womb.
Education
When we permit God’s Word to be our educator, we discover
that the weight of Biblical evidence indicates that the Lord considers the
unborn child to be a person – therefore that child’s life should be protected
as other people’s lives are protected. The Scriptures plainly teach:
• As a basic commandment (number 6), “Thou shalt not
kill.”
• In many passages in the Bible the child in the womb is described
as a person: “The children struggled within her” (Rebekah, Genesis
25:22); Elizabeth “conceived a son in her old age” (Luke 1:36&57); “the
babe leaped in her womb” (Luke 1:41).
• God’s judgment always falls on those
who slay the unborn (2 Kings 8:11-12; 15:16; Amos 1:13).
• God requires the same punishment for
killing a child in the womb as He does for killing a man (Exodus 21:22-23).
Earnestness
With these facts in mind and the deadline quickly
approaching, I appeal to Julian Smith MP, the Secretary of State for Northern
Ireland, to recognise the mobilisation of local public sentiment on this issue,
to remember the previous votes of the Stormont Assembly not to relax our
abortion law, to redress the ambush on our democracy launched and facilitated
by the unwarranted interventions of Stella Creasy and John Bercow respectively,
and recall the Stormont Assembly before 21 October so that our own elected
representatives can take the necessary action both to prevent this law coming
into effect and so stop this Death March before it is allowed to begin.
Only by this means will we raise a necessary voice for the voiceless and
reverse one of the most wicked impositions of our times: “Open thy mouth
for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction”
(Proverbs 31:8).
Rev. Ian Brown
Minister, Martyrs Memorial Free Presbyterian Church,
on behalf of the General Presbytery of the Free
Presbyterian Church of Ulster.
