A nation under God should beware its fate

By John Pearring

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062522.cfm
Lamentations 2:2, 10-14, 18-19 
Luke 2:41-51 

There is a pleading in Lamentations that speaks to us. Scripture’s moaning and groaning remind us of our 50-year appeal. To use Lamentation’s words, the “false and specious visions” of the corrupt morals and worship of false gods sound familiar to the rationale our nation took by forcing through the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.

It’s worth studying that 1973 development. The court’s reversal of Roe is based upon solid constitutional ground.

That’s a blunt charge the prophets called upon the kings and selfish leadership of the Israelites. With promises of a better life without the burden of their religion, the Hebrew people were overcome with greed, lust, power, and abuse of those who could not protect themselves.

Lament results from regret. The author or editor of the mournful poems that make up Lamentations noted all the warnings the Hebrews had received. Their plight could have been avoided.

The voice of Lamentations eerily reminds me of our own petitions to our nation’s leaders, representatives, and courts. We called out to reverse this right to execute children through no fault of the child. The violence of abortion upon a healthy fetus shocks the mind and heart. That is, once a person is unable to avoid the truth. Worse, it frightens us that our nation was so heartily complicit in rationalizing the unwarranted execution of so many children.

The process we took to allow abortion matches the allowance claims in Lamentations. 

“They did not lay bare your guilt,
to avert your fate;
They beheld for you in vision
false and misleading portents.”

The gist of Lamentations said the Hebrews were poisoned and brainwashed. Their national decay resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. and the ultimate enslavement and dissolution of the nation. 

How is Lamentations prophetic of our nation’s approval of abortion in 1973? Am I exaggerating our history?

Consider the failures of lies that Lamentation said covered up the guilt of the Hebrew people. This is what happened to us. “Covering” does not remove accountability. It simply refuses to admit that responsibility exists. Instead, the rationale of lies has no bounds — a fetus is non-human, the removal of a fetus is painless, and the pregnant woman is not a mother. Add to these the horror of harvesting the fetus for research. All contribute to an industry of violence and misplaced compassion.  

This nation influenced a hundred more countries with that decision of 1973 and all of its subsequent legal barnacles. We don’t yet realize our global leverage. 

The blame of the Israeli nation rested upon their corruption of morals. They no longer tuned into God and his commandments. Israel changed into a cluster of religious options. They compromised the beacon of light they were meant to shine upon holiness, their God-assigned care for the poor and wretched, and their covenant trust in God’s mercy. In only a handful of generations, Israel became like any secular nation where wealth and power ruled the day. Their bad example influenced other countries that the Israelites were supposed to make holy.

Roe v. Wade similarly upturned our nation and sullied our global influence. Disguised as compassion for burdened and endangered women, a worthy sounding mission, the hierarchy of care and nurturing fell apart. Worried women were given legal wording to assuage their dilemma without regard for the truly innocent person inside them. The killing of a sinless, dependent child was legalized because abortion was declared a necessity. 

Rather than see birth as optimistic, hopeful, a treasure to nurture no matter how it took place, birth became a decision. Pregnancy, a difficulty indeed and a struggle to accept due to careers and reputations, lost its sacred place as God's blessed answer to both violence and love. The nation removed its essential compassions for family, mother, and child, leaving only concern for the mother. And it's a limited, contractural compassion, not a holy one. The child must die if the mother is endangered. If no one cares for the mother, the child must be removed. If the mother is too young, too old, too poor, too ill, too stressed, or too oppressed, the child should be forfeited.

All people are bothered by pregnancy and children. That's by design. We're supposed to be encumbered and called upon. We should consider the impact of pregnancy as uplifting because it is dangerous, obtrusive and requires support from both family and society. Difficulty and struggle are acceptable. Most especially when a new child is the reward.

Mothers, fathers, and families are often thrust into a shared co-creation. The shift to abortion meant birth could be recognized as an unnecessary burden. Nobody has to be “thrust” into this venture. Extending “necessary” abortion into the arena of Downs Syndrome children further shifted difficulties into an egregious burden. Ultimately, birth is removed from the community and handed off to the woman. She becomes a lonely island. Purposely abandoned to herself. We cannot “force” any pregnancy to full term because the woman (mother) is alone. It’s just too hard, and we’re too busy. 

In vain they ask their mothers,
“Where is the grain?”
As they faint away like the wounded
in the streets of the city,
And breathe their last
in their mothers’ arms.

Jerusalem was destroyed by averting guilt. The nation turned into a wasteland where mother and child could not survive. God warned the Israelites that the rejection of God and the precepts of God’s commandments would end in their destruction. It took hundreds of years to ruin Israel’s foundation. The nation was demolished, and its inhabitants turned into a trail of enslaved people. Notice that it's the child who dies due to the nation's sins.

The United States subjected us to a similar lament through its support and advocacy for using abortion as a contraceptive. The nation left the unborn child to die. Uninhibited sex, inability to control our lust, and freedom redefined as a life without responsibility sealed the abortion deal for decades. 

Our nation has been under a cloud of death for some time. Advocates of abortion have argued that war, capital punishment, and racism are the bane of our nation. Not abortion. Abortion is health care. Pregnant, poor women should be allowed to live single, unburdened lives. Meanwhile, the middle class and wealthy can rightfully use abortion as a late-term contraceptive. 

No, we must admit to all our sins and attend to them. The sins are awful. Abortion is sin.

The most innocent children, the not yet born child, has became a criminal. This is sin. He or she, identified as an “it,” victimizes the mother. The mother, too lovely of a title, then must be renamed. She cannot yet be a mother. Not until the fetus is born. In some places, not until the born baby is 28 days old. Infanticide has entered the medical establishment as healthcare.

This all began as a ruse — allowance to kill children who are the result of incest and rape. Then, children whose birth would endanger the mother were quickly added to the mix. In perfect Lamentations style, our nation complied. The die was cast with devious means and cagey timing in the Supreme Court. We mumbled away that abortion would be rare and only a last resort.

Roe v. Wade is no more, but 1/2 of the states in our nation remain convinced and convicted to keep abortion as a priority over any undesired fetus. The covering up is no longer framed in a federal right to kill innocent children. There are 50 different governing bodies and citizens who must attend to this sin, or be party to it.

On the holy day of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, following the feast day of John the Baptist (the fetal child who leapt in Elizabeth's womb over the presence of Jesus within Mary) five supreme court justices ripped the 1973 decision from the court records. The reversal of a mandate of unconstitutional abortive rights answered our pleas.

But only for a few hours. The reversal of one legal atrocity does not solve this problem. The problem is now placed in the hands of individual state governments. We Coloradans live in one of the sanctuaries to keep abortion freely available. Our lamentations will continue. Likely even more so as the pro-abortion advocates will attempt to cement their blood pact. Pregnant mothers will be kept on tender-hooks as skeptical eyes wonder if she has the stamina to give birth.

These are harsh words, but Lamentation tells us of the importance of nations founded under the name of God. Citizens formed with the promise of  religious freedom due to a divine authority that envisions life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, must still defend the innocent, the poor, and the oppressed.

We should not overtly deny God his due. Not without penalty.