Letter: Thou shalt not kill

• Email
• Print
• Comments (2)

Apropos the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the issue of abortion is addressed in my latest book, Reading and Heeding the Ten Commandments:

“The language of the Bible is unambiguous regarding the generation of life as taking place at conception. Further, when a woman is pregnant, the Scriptures often refer to her as ‘with child,’ often from the Hebrew word harah meaning ‘to conceive.’ To speak of the unborn as a child is to acknowledge its humanity, and to learn of the unborn’s capacity for emotional response is to acknowledge its personhood. Witness the as-yet unborn John the Baptist, leaping in his mother Elizabeth’s womb at the sound of Mary’s voice in salutation (Luke 1:41).

“. . . A more specific and more accurate word, which if it were used in the discussion concerning the taking of the unborn’s life, and which would do more to clarify the issue, is the word aborticide, which shifts the emphasis from the fact of abortion to the act of aborticide, the ‘act of destroying a fetus in the womb’ (Webster). If we were consistent in the use of terms, we would recognize that the suffix -cide, meaning killer or killing, is just as applicable for aborticide as it is for infanticide (child murder), fratricide (murder of one’s brother), homicide (killing of a human being), genocide (systematic killing of a group or race) and suicide (the taking of one’s own life), all of which are violations of the Biblical teaching on the sanctity of life.”

The Supreme Court of the United States, and those who stand in its shadows, will one day stand in judgment before the Supreme Court of Heaven – and there will be no reprieve!

Rev. BRYCE TERHUNE CLEVELAND

Henniker