“OUR NATIONAL SHAME, PERSONAL TRAGEDIES”

Hosea 4.1-2

(Pictures) 

EXPOSITION:

1.   My text for this morning is Hosea 4.1-2.  Let us stand for the reading of God’s Word:

¹       Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

²       By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. 

2.   “Thirty years ago this month, the U. S. Supreme Court made one of its worst decisions in history. . . You’ve heard it said hundreds of times since, that the Roe v. Wade ruling legalized abortion in America.  That is not true.  What the court actually did was overturn infanticide and homicide laws in all 50 states, exceeding all constitutional authority by attempting to legislate — a power vested only in the Congress. . . You see, Roe v. Wade was never about the law.  It was never about the Constitution.  It was never about privacy.  It was never about the facts of the case.  It was a political decision made by unaccountable legislators guised, fittingly, in black robes.  The black hoods of executioners would have been even more appropriate. . . The 1973 U. S. Supreme Court did not interpret the Constitution.  And it did not represent the people of the United States.  Instead, it overturned laws in 46 states outlawing abortion — legislation approved by the will of the people — and restrictions on it in the remaining four states.  To justify its decision overturning legislation in 50 states, the Supreme Court was forced to come up with a constitutional excuse.  So, it simply invented one — a right of privacy that is nowhere found in the Constitution.  In fact, in delivering the court’s majority opinion, Justice Harry A. Blackmun frankly admits: ‘The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy.’. . . Roe v. Wade is, thus, a sham — a house of cards.  It was an artificial attempt to make abortion a right by citing a ‘right of privacy’ that is itself nowhere to be found in the Constitution.  Roe v. Wade created rights where none existed and abrogated those that were enshrined as unalienable.  Abortion is one of the most controversial issues in America.  It is an issue politicians want to shy away from and avoid at all costs.  It is an issue that is divisive.”^[1]

3.   You might ask how such a thing could happen in our country.  But remember, it was only ten years earlier that the Supreme Court ruled against reading the Bible and prayer in schools.^[2]  Is there any connection between our country sitting still while nine judges overreached their authority and removed God from our nation’s classrooms and the subsequent ruling that opened the floodgates to abortion on demand?  Yes.

4.   I believe our text for today is one of many passages in God’s Word that shows the definite cause and effect relationship that has led to the murder for convenience of more than 42 million unborn children.  Let me read the two verses again: 

¹       Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

²       By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. 

5.   Our text shows that there is a cause and effect relationship that exists between one’s relationship with God and one’s relationship with other human beings.  A person’s vertical attitude spills over into his horizontal attitude.  Two points before brother Isenberger comes to lead us in a song before we mourn as a congregation: 

1A.   First, THE CAUSE OF OUR GREAT TRAGEDY

¹     Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. 

1B.    The prophet sets the stage for God’s complaint

1C.   “Hear the word of the LORD”   Hosea was a prophet of God.  He was God’s mouthpiece.  He was God’s spokesman.  Who speaks after this fashion in our country today?  Who trumpets God’s judgment for sin today?  Billy Graham?  Jerry Falwell?  John MacArthur?  Paul Crouch?  John Hagee?  Robert Schuller?  The great tragedy these days is that there is no one who will stand up and say, “Hear the word of the LORD.”  All we get these days is a pronouncement quickly followed by an apology.

2C.   “ye children of Israel”   Hosea knew who he was talking to.  He was called by God to speak to the Israelites of the northern kingdom.  Who spoke to America about national sins when prayer and Bible reading was banned in the schools?  Who spoke up?  And who cried out when the Supreme Court opened the floodgates for abortion on demand?  What would have happened if the big preachers of that day had taken a lesson from Dr. Martin Luther King and peacefully, but insistently, marched and picketed and conducted sit ins and said, “You will not murder the unborn here”?  But no one spoke.  All were silent.  And the slaughter began.

3C.   “for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land”   Some preachers of that day preached loud and hard . . . against communism.  Others preached loud and hard . . . against racism.  But while some preachers were preaching against enemies who were foreign, and while other preachers were preaching against enemies who were here at home, the great and profound sin of our nation, murdering our unborn children, went largely unnoticed by everyone but God.

2B.    What is God’s complaint with His people?

“there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land”

1C.   Preachers thirty years ago dealt with symptoms, while ignoring the root cause of our problems.  What danger can communism really pose to a people who adhere to truth, who show mercy, and who know God?  What threat to domestic peace and tranquility can racism really pose to a people who adhere to truth, who show mercy, and who know God?

2C.   My friends, we have inherited a country that does not possess truth, that does not show mercy, and has no knowledge of God.  Not possessing the truth, we are become a nation that believes lies.  Not showing mercy, we are become a nation that obtains no mercy, because Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”^[3]  And there is no knowledge of God in the land.  We are become a nation of so-called Christians who deny the trinity, a nation who thinks herself wise yet does not fear God.  How profoundly gullible must a nation be to accept a walk on the beach with Billy Graham as a conversion experience?  Yet that is all it took for our president.  And I say that while wishing him well and praying for him.

3C.   If God had complaint against His covenant people for the reasons Hosea stated, then God has complaint against us.  And how dangerous is our position before God as a nation.  Profoundly blessed by God, we are nevertheless an ungrateful people, at great risk of being cursed by God for our sins, should we ever turn our collective back on His covenant people, the Jews.

4C.   No truth.  No mercy.  No knowledge of God in the land.  No truth.  No mercy.  No knowledge of God in the land.  No truth.  No mercy.  No knowledge of God in the land.  What an unholy trinity we are guilty of as a people. 

2A.   Now, LET US CONSIDER THE CONSEQUENCE OF OUR NATIONAL CAUSE

²     By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. 

Of course, these sins that spring from the bosom of a people who have no truth, who show no mercy, and who are absent knowledge of God in the land, are not limited to the murder of the unborn only.  But, certainly, you will see how this crime against God and against humanity is tucked neatly into the sins that are listed in this verse:

1B.    “By swearing”   “No, honey.  It’s not really a baby at this point.  It’s only the product of conception.  I swear.  You won’t feel a thing.  It won’t feel a thing.  And it’s safer than delivery.  I swear.”

2B.    “and lying”   “Abortions are actually quite safe.  We do abortions all the time without a problem.  That girl in the next room is crying because she’s scared, but there is nothing to worry about.  Would I lie to you, honey?  We’re here to help.”

3B.    “and killing”   Is it really killing a baby to have an abortion?  Yes, it is.  But it’s not only killing the baby.  When an abortion is performed the unborn baby is killed in the place where he should be safest, his mommy’s womb.  Beyond killing him, however, the abortion kills the doctor, and kills the mother, and kills the nurse, and kills the culture, and kills the nation.  Not physically, mind you, though women having abortions do tend to suffer a number of different kinds of deaths related to their abortions.  But I am referring to the emotional deaths these people suffer; the death of their ability to connect to other people, and the death of their consciences that are seared and scorched by such sin.

4B.    “and stealing”   Stealing away a little life.  Stealing away a world of potential.  Stealing opportunity.  Stealing security.  Stealing love and affection.  Stealing laughter and the squeal of delight from a precious little child.

5B.    “and committing adultery”   After all, how many women get abortions who are married?  Some.  But very few.  Most abortions are subsequent to sexual sins committed by unwed mothers.

6B.    “they break out, and blood toucheth blood”   Doesn’t this just about sum it up?  An entire industry has evolved since 1973, an industry that is a cash business.  And it’s an industry of death. 

CONCLUSION:

1.   It’s all so very tragic.  It makes me so very sad.  Too sad to cry.  So sad that it seems, sometimes, hard to breathe.

2.   When I was a younger man this issue made me angry.  I was enraged and furious, and I contemplated great acts of violence and destruction against both people and property involved in this terrible crime.

3.   But I began to realize that there is a greater tragedy than the murder of the unborn.  Not that their deaths are not the greatest of losses, because they are.  It’s just that on top of that tragedy there are piled other tragedies.

4.   There is the tragedy of the foolish young women who thinks she is solving a problem with an abortion, when she is actually guaranteeing for herself a lifetime of guilt.  There is the doctor, who for greed and love of money has blood on his hands.  And all the others who are involved in pretending that what is so wrong is right.

5.   To devalue the life of a child in that way.  To treat a precious little baby yet unborn as if she was a parasite, a tumor to be removed, when she would give so much joy, so much delight, so much fulfillment, if only she was allowed to live.

6.   I hate abortion.  I hate everything about it, the selfishness of it, the paganism of it, the torture of it, the meanness of it, the heartache associated with it, the deception of it.

7.   I think our Church should be a place where the saints can rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  It should be a place of fellowship, where believers gather to exhort one another and to love one another.

8.   So, I utterly despise the intrusion of this tragedy into our Church life.  But I think it is necessary that we mourn together, that our hearts collectively ache for the little ones, that we remind ourselves of the reality of this sin’s great damage to people, to society, to our country.

9.   An aside.  Historians now realize that Great Britain was, for all intents and purposes, destroyed as a great nation in World War One.  Yes, World War One, when one million British soldiers were killed in the trenches in Europe.  Great Britain has been slowly dying ever since.  What do you think will happen to our country, then, as a result of the deaths of 42 million children, equal to the combined populations of California and Georgia?^[4]  It’s only a matter of time.

10. I will ask you to mourn with me after brother Isenberger comes to lead us in a song.  I will ask you to bare your heart and listen, as I rehearse the reasons for our mourning.  And then, when our time of mourning has concluded, we will thank God for His comfort, for His forgiveness to those of us who know Christ, for His grace to those of us who are believers, and we will go to our homes a bit more somber, but O so much more grateful for God’s sweet blessings, and with so much more love for our children.

10. Stand, as brother Isenberger comes. 

INTRODUCTION:

1.   “They call his name ‘fetus.’  It is a Latin name.  But since I don’t speak very much Latin, I will call him by the English translation of that name, which is ‘Little One.’

At conception, he was only about the size of a grain of salt.  He began with 23 chromosomes from each of his parents.  In that one little cell was the complex genetic blueprint for every detail of Little One’s development—the color of his eyes and hair, his height, his skin tone—it was all there in the first miraculous moment of the beginning of life.

From the time of his conception, Little One has been quite a remarkable young man.  At only three weeks after conception, his heart began to beat and the foundation of his brain, spinal cord, and nervous system were already established.

At one month he had become 10,000 times larger than the original fertilized egg that was his beginning.  When he was only 40 days old his brain waves could be detected and recorded.  At seven weeks he began to move spontaneously.  At eight weeks he was little more than an inch long, yet all his body had formed, and everything was present that will be found in a fully-developed adult.

He is so cute.  He will soon be sucking his thumb.  If an object touches the palm of his hand, he will grip it with his little fingers.  He even has fingerprints.

At twelve weeks, he exercises energetically—turning his head, curling his toes, and opening and closing his mouth.  In another week hair will begin to grow on his head.

Now all Little One has to do is grow in the safety and warmth of his mother’s womb.

What will Little One be?

Maybe he will be a great leader who will help the world find peace and guide more people into freedom.  Maybe he will be a medical research scientist, who will find a cure for cancer.  Maybe he will be a teacher and train others to experience the wonders of life and truth.  With those little fingers he has, maybe he will be a pianist and thrill thousands with his music.

Oh, what potential Little One has!  Maybe he’ll be a ... OH NO ... this is the end of our story.  Little One just became one of the 4,400 fetuses who each day in America have their potential ended by the tools of the abortionist.”^[5] 

2.   There is not a person in this auditorium who doesn’t know what happens to an unborn child who is aborted.  We’ve all seen the pictures.  We’ve all read the descriptions.  We all know that abortion results in the agonizing death of an unborn child who is fully conscious, who feels the pain, who knows the terror of what is happening.

3.   But there is little awareness of the tragedies that accompany this great tragedy.  This morning I want to shed some light on the other tragedies that are associated with this profound tragedy. 

1A.   First, THE TRAGEDY OF THE WOMAN CALLED “JANE ROE”

The name “Jane Roe” has become synonymous with “abortion.”  And though Roe v. Wade has been debated, praised and vilified endlessly in the 30 years since the U. S. Supreme Court’s momentous 1973 abortion decision, Jane Roe, the famous plaintiff, has been all but forgotten.

At the age of 21, Norma McCorvey was pregnant with her third child.  She had given her other two children up for adoption and did not want to say goodbye to her offspring a third time.  She decided to have an illegal abortion, but the Dallas clinic she went to had been recently raided and shut down.  So McCorvey made up a story — she had been raped, she told her doctor and two lawyers.  She signed an affidavit on condition of anonymity, and the lawsuit began.

Describing how she was viewed by the pro-abortion community, McCorvey said, “Plain and simple, I was used.  I was a nobody to them.  They only needed a pregnant woman to use for their case, and that is it.  They cared, not about me, but only about legalizing abortion.  Even after the case, I was never respected — probably because I was not an Ivy-League-educated, liberal feminist like they were.”

“My experience with pro-abortion leaders is that they are snobs.  They claim that they care about women and their rights but, in my experience, they care for nothing, not even themselves in a way,” . . . .

McCorvey, the name Norma took as a result of her short-lived, teen-age marriage, grew up poor and felt unloved by her mother.  She has a ninth-grade education, was a drug and alcohol abuser, and has taken jobs as a carnival worker and house cleaner.  As the Roe v. Wade trial progressed up the judicial ladder, the plaintiff never saw the inside of a courtroom as Roe.  She says she was told she didn’t need to be there.  It was only after the Supreme Court made its decision in 1973 that she began to follow the ramifications of the case.  By that time, McCorvey’s third child was 2 years old. 

McCorvey never had, nor has she ever had, an abortion.

McCorvey used strong words to characterize her treatment by the media.

“I would say the media’s criticism is more harsh now that I am ‘on the other side.’  My experience with ‘big’ secular media outlets is that they don’t report — they share their opinion. They are obviously pro-abortion and in many ways aren’t dedicated to the truth,” she said.^[6] 

2A.   Second, THE TRAGEDIES OF THE WOMEN WHO HAVE ABORTIONS

“The dozens of research studies pointing to an abortion-breast cancer link, although controversial, have at least been reported in the mainstream press.  Not so when it comes to multiple studies showing widespread physical and psychological trauma to women who have had abortions.

During 2002 alone, with almost no interest from the press, five new studies linking abortion to significant health risks have been published in major journals of medicine or psychology.  Findings include:

• Among women delivering their first pregnancy, those with a prior history of abortion are five times more likely to use illicit drugs and two times more likely to use alcohol during the first pregnancy they carry to term.  This substance use, in turn, places their newborn children at higher risk of congenital defects, low birth weight and death. (American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology)

• Compared to women who carry their first unintended pregnancies to term, women who abort their first pregnancy have significantly higher rates of clinical depression as measured an average of eight years after their first pregnancies. (British Medical Journal)

• Compared to delivering women, women who have abortions have an elevated risk of death from all causes, which persists for at least eight years.  Projected on the national population, this effect may contribute to 2,000 to 5,000 additional deaths among women each year.  One factor in the elevated mortality rates was a 154 per cent higher risk of death from suicide. (Southern Medical Journal)

• Compared to delivering women, women who have abortions subsequently require more psychiatric care. (American Journal of Orthopsychiatry)

• The children of women who have abortions have less supportive home environments and more behavioral problems than the children of women without a history of abortion.  This finding supports the view that abortion may negatively affect bonding with subsequent children, disturb mothering skills, and otherwise impact a woman’s psychological stability (Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry) 

The five studies were undertaken by researchers brought together by one organization, the Elliot Institute (AfterAbortion.org), a non-profit think-tank specializing in research and education on the after-effects of abortion.

“We now are able to look at women years after they have experienced an abortion event and see how it has affected them,” said Elliot Institute director Dr. David Reardon, for two decades considered one of the foremost researchers on the effects of abortion on women.  “We are finding more and more evidence that abortion is not the safe and emotionally benign procedure it is often assumed to be.  Indeed, all the evidence shows that abortion exposes women to significant physical and psychological risks.”

Using state medical records for more than 173,000 low-income women in California, researchers compared rates of depression, mental health treatment, and death among aborting and delivering women for an average of eight years after abortion or delivery.  Compared to women who carried their babies to term, women who aborted had a 62 percent higher death rate in the eight years following their pregnancy, and a 154 percent higher risk of death from suicide.

Women who were married at the time of their abortions were 138 percent more likely to experience clinical depression than married women who gave birth, and aborting women overall were 63 percent more likely to seek mental health treatment in the first 90 days after abortion compared to women who delivered.

The Elliot Institute findings confirmed other studies linking abortion to a host of problems such as debilitating grief and guilt, depression, mental illness, sexual dysfunction, abusive relationships, substance abuse and other forms of self-destructive behavior, says Reardon.

The new studies were unique, he notes, in that they relied on women’s medical records rather than surveys of post-abortive women, as many past studies have done.

“These are the first large record-based studies of post-abortive women to be conducted in the United States, which makes the findings all the more significant,” he said.  “Other studies, although they have contributed toward a greater understanding of abortion’s impact, have been hampered by small sample sizes and the high rate of women who refuse to participate in abortion follow-up studies.”

The new findings emphasize the need for more research on the effects of abortion, said Reardon, who would like to see the federal government get involved.

“When C. Everett Koop was surgeon general under Ronald Reagan, he wrote a letter to the president asking the government to allocate funds for a comprehensive study on the effects of abortion,” he said. “That was in 1984, and the study still has not been carried out.  After 30 years of legal abortion there is plenty of data as to how this is affecting women.  American women deserve to know the truth.”

Most women are not aware of these risks, Reardon notes, because they are not being told about them, either by the health care establishment or by the news media. “There are many in the medical and psychiatric communities who choose to ignore the mounting evidence that this procedure puts women in danger,” he says. “It’s time for the healthcare community to stop playing politics and to show real concern for women by informing them of the risks and helping them find viable alternatives to dangerous and often unwanted abortions.”

Between 25 and 32 million American women have had one or more abortions, Reardon estimates, based on 43 million total abortions since 1973, and factoring for repeat abortions.  At least ten percent of these women have had physical complications after abortion, he says, with several times that rate suffering from serious psychological reactions.  Current research indicates that negative feelings about abortion increase with time, while satisfaction with abortion decisions decline over time.^[7] 

“Many Arizonans were stunned when the state’s most prominent abortion doctor was arrested for sexual abuse on Oct. 24, 2001.  But the shock only grew as news reports prompted more than 100 women to come forward with similar claims.

Dr. Brian Finkel, who has said he performed 20 percent of the state’s abortions annually, now faces charges of 67 sex crimes against 35 patients over a period of 17 years.

Finkel’s and other infrequent high-profile cases of physician-rapists that make the evening news raise questions, particularly for defenders of abortion who like to see providers as benevolent and courageous preservers of a woman’s right to choose:  Is Finkel a rare exception?  How common is sexual abuse and assault by abortion doctors, and how does that profile compare with other doctors?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the government agency that keeps statistics on an extensive array of health-related issues, has no data on sexual assault of patients, pertaining either to the general medical community or to abortion clinics, according to health communications specialist Laura Leathers.  A spokesman for the U. S. Justice Department Bureau of Justice Statistics said it also had no data on the subject.

The issue was virtually unknown even among pro-life advocates, until activist Mark Crutcher’s groundbreaking, carefully documented probe into the culture of abortion clinics, summarized in the 1996 book, “Lime 5: Exploited by Choice.”

Crutcher used public records and first-hand accounts to uncover abortion’s devastating and often gruesome toll, focusing not on unborn children but on women and abortion providers.  When he began research for the book, however, he never envisioned a chapter on rape and sexual assault.

“Although we had often heard rumors that this sort of thing happened, we had no reason to believe it was widespread enough to deserve more than a passing mention,” he wrote in the book.  “However, as more and more data came into our office, we began to see that rape and sexual assault in abortion clinics is not uncommon at all.”

Crutcher believes the lack of statistics by the government or by any other organization is not an oversight, charging that the powerful abortion industry uses “raw political power to cover its tracks.”

In his chapter on the subject, Crutcher reveals documented accounts of 34 sexually abusive abortion doctors, about one-third of the cases that his organization, Life Dynamics of Denton, Texas, has on file.

But Crutcher believes he is in possession of just a tiny fraction of instances, noting that studies indicate only about 15 percent of rapes are reported.  Moreover, in the case of abortion-related rape, women have even more reason to remain silent. To speak up, they would have to reveal that they are sexually active, they became pregnant and they had an abortion, Crutcher notes.

A Senate committee on rape in America, led by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said 84 percent of women raped by a stranger don’t report it because of the stigma attached to the crime.

“For women having an abortion, multiply the sigma [sic] factor by 10,” Crutcher told     Whistleblower.

Phoenix police said one of the chief obstacles to their investigation of Finkel was that     we began to see that 90 percent of the women who have now come forward since news of his arrest never filed a police report, according to the Arizona Republic.

“The secrecy of abortion clinics is what protects them,” Crutcher said. “If a woman in abortion clinics goes to a family practitioner, the chances are 90 percent that if something happens she’ll say something.  In an abortion clinic, there’s about a 98 percent chance she won’t, so it’s not uncommon at all.”

He likens the situation to a man robbed by a prostitute, who knows he can’t say anything about it for fear of his wife finding out.

But, as in Finkel’s case, Crutcher said he found it very common that when a doctor “gets outed,” hundreds of women come forward.

“It’s not like a temporary lapse of judgment,” he said.  “We’re talking about guys who do it hundreds and hundreds and times.”

Crutcher offers examples of this kind in his book.  (Names of abortionists and clinics were not used, he said, so that the book would not appear to be a vendetta against individuals.  He included footnotes with references to public records, however, so researchers could independently verify the reports): 

• More than 160 women accused abortionist “John Roe 497” of sexual assault.  Allegations by patients included rape, sexual abuse of minors, attempted sexual stimulation and sexually abusive language. California Deputy Attorney General Randy Christison described the doctor as a predator in a white coat who used his position for his own perverse gratification.

• More than 100 female patients came forward with complaints against “John Roe 38” after he was investigated by the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners and the police.  The abortion doctor was accused of trying to sexually stimulate patients, using explicit sexual language and photographing genitals during examinations.

• A Los Angeles abortionist, accused of misconduct by more than 100 of his clients, allegedly raped several of them on the examination table.  The doctor, who eventually had his license revoked, aborted the child of one of his rape victims after normal hours without using standard equipment and personnel. 

The descriptions in Crutcher’s book are graphic and disturbing, yet some of the worst examples were left out, he said, because he didn’t want to be accused of peddling pornography.

Crutcher’s group Life Dynamics encourages patients who suffer from malpractice by abortion providers to file lawsuits through its network of hundreds of lawyers nationwide.  He said that when he first started examining the issue of sexual assault in clinics he went back over 200 malpractice cases to find out how many women also experienced some kind of sexual abuse.

About one-fourth of the women said the abortion doctor also had done something sexually inappropriate.

According to Crutcher, the typical response from the women was, “Yeah, it happened, but I don’t want to talk about it.”

“There is no business establishment in the U. S. that a women is more likely to get raped in than an abortion clinic,” he maintained.  “It’s not as likely in the worst biker bar.”

The title of Crutcher’s book is taken from the “code name” issued to a Tennessee abortion clinic patient by the staff.  When the woman later sued the clinic for botching her abortion, she asked the court for anonymity, but the clinic demanded that she use her real name.  She could have an abortion under “Lime 5,” but she couldn’t sue under that name.

Crutcher notes that taking away the woman’s name in the clinic allowed the staff to distance themselves from her.  The patient testified, among other things, that the abortion doctor with his shirt unbuttoned repeatedly used profanity and, while apparently fondling the nurse, told the patient, “Nothing is better in life than sex and money.”

Some other examples from “Lime 5”: 

• Several patients of “Roe 80” claim that he injected them with medication that made them groggy, and then engaged in sexual intercourse against their will.  One of these women testified that she was rendered physically unable to move but kept crying, “What are you doing?”

• “Roe 99” had his Indiana medical license revoked after allegations of having sex with numerous patients, including three he was known to have impregnated and aborted or attempted to abort without their consent.

• Roe 123 used injections of anesthesia to allow him to perform sexual acts on patients.  One woman who brought charges said that when she woke up to find the doctor engaged in a sexual act with her, he gave her a shot and she went back to sleep.  When she awoke a second time, the doctor was exposing himself to her.  She tried to push him away, but was injected a second time.  When she awoke a third time, she found her sweater had been removed and her bra partially pulled down.  The doctor continued to fondle her and put his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream.  He left his business card inside her bra and said she could call him anytime.^[8]

 

3A.   Finally, THE TRAGEDIES OF THE DOCTORS WHO PERFORM ABORTIONS 

Abortion clinics, and particularly Planned Parenthood, the world’s largest abortion provider, insist publicly that they offer all alternatives — keeping the baby, adoption, abortion — with out coercion or preference.

“The women were never given any type of alternatives to abortions,” says Debra Henry, who worked as an assistant and counselor for six months at an OB/GYN office in Levonia, Mich. “They were never told about adoption agencies, that there were people out there willing to help them, to give them homes to live in, to provide them with care, and even financial support.”

Everett relates what happens after the initial counseling of her clinic’s clients: After the basic questions, the girls were told briefly about what was to happen to them after the procedure. All they were told about the procedure itself was that they would experience slight cramping, similar to menstrual cramps.  They were not told about the development of the baby, or about the pain that the baby would be experiencing, or about the physical or emotional effects the abortion would have on them.

“The two questions they always ask are: No. 1, ‘Does it hurt?’  And the answer would always be, ‘Oh, no.  Your uterus is a muscle.  It’s a cramp to open it, a cramp to close it — just a slight cramping sensation.’  And the girl thinks, ‘That’s no problem.  I can stand that.  I’ve been through it before.’  Then the client asks question No. 2: ‘Is it a baby?’

“No,’ would come the answer, ‘it’s a product of conception,’ or ‘it’s a blood clot,’ or ‘it’s a piece of tissue.’  They don’t even call it a fetus, because that almost humanizes it too much, but it’s never a baby.”

There are two standard reactions in the recovery room, says Everett:

“The first is: ‘I’ve killed my baby.’  It amazed me that this was the first time the patients called it a baby, and the first time they called it murder.  But the second reaction is: ‘I am hungry.  You kept me in here for four hours and you told me I’d only be here for two.  Let me out of here.’  That woman is doing what I did when I had my abortion.  She’s running from her abortion, not dealing with it.” 

Why doctors do abortions

Many doctors who perform abortions cite the same contributory factors to their getting started — the media, women’s-rights groups and their medical training itself.  In addition, doing abortions makes for a very lucrative practice.

Joseph Randall, M.D., of Atlanta, Ga., frankly admits that he was attracted to the large income potential that abortion offered.  Over the 10 years that he did abortions, Randall estimates that he performed 32,000 of them.

“The media were very active early on,” recalls Randall.  “They were probably one of the major influences on us, telling us that abortion was not only legal, but that it was to serve women.  It was to give women a choice, more or less give them a freedom to grow and to take their rightful place in society where they had been kind of pushed down prior to that.  We also believed the lie that there were tens of thousands of women being maimed and killed from illegal abortions prior to legalization of abortion law.”

In 1972, the year prior to Roe v. Wade, 28 deaths were reported from illegal abortions in the U. S.

“As part of our medical training,” added Randall, “abortions became a necessary procedure, according to the chief of my department.  This was in 1971, before the law had changed in the country, but it had changed in New York a few years before.  We needed to serve women, we needed to know all the procedures that we had to do for women, and we had to know how to do them well.  Otherwise, we weren’t considered effectively trained.  Our chief said that if we didn’t do the abortions, we might as well get out of obstetrics and gynecology because we just wouldn’t be complete physicians.”

“Why do doctors do abortions?” asks Anthony Levantino, M.D., an OB/GYN who provided abortions for his patients in his Albany, N.Y., office for eight years.  “Why did I do abortions?  If you are pro-choice, or, as a lot of people like to say, ‘morally neutral’ on the subject, and you happen to be a gynecologist, then it’s up to you to take the instruments in hand and actively perform abortions.  It’s part of your training. I’ve heard it many times from other obstetricians: Well, I’m not really pro-abortion, I’m pro-woman.’

“The women’s groups in this country have done a very good job of selling that bill of goods to the population, that some how destroying a life is being pro-women.  I can tell you a lot of obstetricians believe it.  I used to.

“Along the way,” says Levantino, “you find out that you can make a lot of money doing abortions.  I worked 9 to 5.  I was never bothered at night.  I never had to go out on weekends.  And I made more money than my obstetrician brethren.  And I didn’t have to face the liability.  That’s a big factor, a huge perk.  I almost never, ever had to worry about her lawyer bothering me.

“In my practice, we were averaging between $250 and $500 per abortion — and it was cash.  It’s the one time as a doctor you can say, ‘Either pay me up front or I’m not going to take care of you.’  Abortion is totally elective.  Either you have the money or you don’t.  And they get it.”

Cash payment is common in the abortion industry, says Everett.

“I’ve seen doctors walk out after three hours’ work and split $4,500 dollars between them on a Saturday morning — more if you go longer into the day,” she said.  “Of the four clinics I’ve worked in, none of them ever showed that they collected the doctors’ money; they collect it separately, and do not show it on any of the records in those clinics.  That way, the doctors are independent contractors and the clinic doesn’t have to be concerned with their malpractice insurance, and doesn’t have to report their income to the IRS.”

“Every single transaction that we did,” adds Whitten, “was cash money.  We wouldn’t take a check, or even a credit card.  If you didn’t have the money, forget it.  It wasn’t unusual at all for me to take $10,000 to $15,000 a day to the bank — in cash.”

Beverly McMillan, M.D., founded the first abortion clinic in Mississippi and did a large volume of business.  She makes the provocative observation that not only do many abortion clinics require payment in cash, but also do not report that income to the government.

“A lot of these folks do not declare all their income,” she says flatly.  “When you’re dealing in cash, unless you’re honest you can just not have a record for that patient, not make an entry on your ledger.  I know some people who were paid under the counter.  They would get half of their salary in cash, and they never had to pay taxes on that.  Why the IRS doesn’t go after these guys, I don’t understand.”

Whitten agrees: “I believe the IRS would find it to be well worth their effort to get involved in that.”  

CONCLUSION:

1.   Our text, Hosea 4.1-2, reads:

¹     Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

²     By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. 

2.   No truth.  No mercy.  No knowledge of God in the land.  Swearing.  Lying.  Killing.  Stealing.  Committing adultery.  Blood touching blood.

3.   Whether it be the lying of Jane Roe and her lawyers to the willingly gullible Supreme Court justices, or the lying to the naive and willingly gullible mothers who are arranging the deaths of their children, or doctors who willingly swallow lies so they can fulfill their dream of becoming a doctor and so they can make a great deal of money, it’s the lies that form the basis of merciless acts of cruelty by those who have no knowledge of God.

4.   And what is done by those whose hands are clean to stop the killing that is done by others?  Who will rise up and oppose it?  Who will stop it?  Who will courageously speak out against it?  Few are truly innocent with respect to this crime.

5.   Young people, there is a passage in God’s Word that reads, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.  If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”  That’s First John 2.15-16.

6.   Would you like for me to give you one solid, comprehensible, hand’s on, reason why you should not love this world?  Because this world has killed your best friend.  This world has aborted that one who would have been your best choice to marry and spend your life with.

7.   You never met him.  You never got to know her.  Want to know why?  Because the world conspired to snuff out the life of your best pal, of your best choice to marry, before he or she was ever born. 

8.   To be sure, God will hold the mom responsible, and the doctor, and the nurses, for the abortion.  But in one sense they were caught up in a giant conspiracy of wickedness and sin against God to destroy that portion of His creation most precious, most vulnerable, most innocent, most untouched by sin. 

9.   “The world.”  That’s the label assigned by John to this evil and conniving mixture of selfishness and lies that is willing to grind up anyone who stands in the way of their grab for money, or pleasure, or convenience.

10. And to the extent that you participate in and are a part of the world you are guilty with the world.  So, along with the apostle John, I urge you to turn away from the world’s values, to turn away from the world’s practices, to turn away from the world’s goals and objectives, and I plead with you to turn to Christ.

11. Why should you?  Because the Lord Jesus Christ offers to that sinner who will come to Him forgiveness and cleansing from all unrighteousness.  Oh, yes.  The mom who aborted her child can find forgiveness in Christ.  The doctor who performed the abortion, and the nurses who assisted him, can find forgiveness in Christ. 

12. And, thankfully, the child whose life was brutally and prematurely ended, is born aloft on angel’s wings to the Savior Who sits on high.

13. As we dismiss this period of mourning for the children, and mourning for those poor fools who have been swept up in the torrent of lies and deceit, I call upon you who are Christians to thank God for Jesus Christ. 

14. As well, let us pray that the saving and forgiving grace of God will touch the lives of those who have been brutalized by this inhumanity we call abortion, so that the woman who has had an abortion, as well as the people in white smocks who performed abortions, will see their great sins and will then come to Jesus for the forgiveness that only He provides.

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