What is a life worth?
So many people in existence and history have asked these questions. At the auction blocks for slaves, it could vary between hundreds to thousands of pieces of gold or silver. To someone with a grudge, the risk of jail time is worth killing the person or source of their anger and hatred. In ancient pagan cultures where human sacrifice was practiced the life of a human could guarantee their survival by appeasing or gaining the favor of their false gods who, in turn, would grant the good fortune however it would be manifested to them. To abortion clinics, the cost of a human life averages around Five Hundred and Fifty Dollars in the U.S.
But to the eyes of God, a human’s life is worth giving His own life and being the one to die in their place.
It is easy for me to be calm as I write this Blogcast but recording is the hardest part to do and not let my emotions pour into the microphone as all of it becomes a torrent that isn’t controlled. This is a very touchy subject because of what goes on in the spiritual realms and it is a massive source of power to the demons. Abortion is child sacrifice rebranded as “compassionate care.”
There are many who have said things during the height of passion for one element that the other is forgotten. Many have spoken so boldly about the need to save the babies from the demon’s maw. But have forgotten the poor mother amidst it all.
What can I say or write to express something that hasn’t been already expressed elsewhere more elegantly?
Each woman who has an abortion is choosing to take the life of her own child and their conscience, which knows right from wrong, will recognize this in some way shape, or form. This Paul states in his letter to the church in Rome as he works to bridge the divide between Jews and Gentiles. The Jews believed themselves better than the Gentiles because they had the Law of Moses and other laws of the Old Testament.
“Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.” Romans 2:14-15 (NIV)
Mankind has a part of that knows right and wrong but we also have created clever ways to dull that conscience.
Of all the ways that exist to dull the conscience, the act of rationalization is one of the most effective ones we’ve developed. Unlike the act of not thinking about it through substance abuse or turning aggressive whenever someone brings up the topic to shut them down, rationalization lets us change how we view things. A soldier who’s been in battle can easily say “Nothing personal it was them or us.” Through rationalization, horrible crimes can be justified in a society. Citizens shall celebrate and cheer at the mention of an act based on the narrative framing that surrounds it. But it doesn’t always work. We know that despite all of the tools that can be used to change how we view things some people will have more struggle to over come it than others.
We must recognize that the women who undergo abortions are victims of the lies that have been spun by the Father of Lies and his cohorts of servants. Hell’s forces prey on the women who are looking for a way out. But it gets more insidious than we might first believe. They created a landscape that will allow for unwanted pregnancies to increase in number and then provide what seems like the perfect way out for these women. A method that will also cause far more suffering to the human race.
This spiritual has two sides and each is opposed to the other. One side wants the destruction of mankind and all of creation. But the other wants to redeem and bring healing to the individuals who make up the human race and give them a new world that they can live on.
“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelations 21:1-4 (NIV)
Many women who struggle with the effects of an abortion will deal with their self-perception changing.
Some begin to believe that they’re empowering themselves to choose if they will or won’t have children while others go downwards and lose confidence in who they are. Men also suffer in ways like this but they receive so little attention because most if not all focus on the women who face the decision. I do not know if there has been any formal study on the impact abortion has on men. However, a part of me believes that they are outnumbered by the amount of research done on the effects endured by women.
While it is not the same as an abortion a miscarriage is very similar to an abortion on the biological level. The woman’s body which was supposed to grow a human child until it could survive the environment outside the womb has had that system disrupted. In the above paragraph, I listed the psychological impact abortion has on women and men. But I got that from a Pro-Life source which is more willing to research these avenues since it can provide more support to their claims. The politicization of this subject is an intentional part of the enemy’s strategy. When neither side is willing to trust the other of doing good research that is unbiased presenting only what was discovered everything that is brought up can be discarded. That enables good research to be halted in its spread and for progress towards what is truth which would inevitably come from this to be non-existent.
It is for this reason I’ve done research on the effects of miscarriages. Those studies are by and large done without the backing or suppression of groups that are embroiled in politically manifesting spiritual warfare.
Before we go any deeper into the findings I’d like to share an impressive fact about this topic. Roughly 20 percent of women who’ve been pregnant have also suffered a miscarriage. Many women have asked the questions “why did it happen” and “What caused it?” This means there is a lot of data available for us to draw on. I will be using four different sources that will all be linked at the end of this Blogcast.
A research study by Rochester in 2011 found that the depressive effects of a miscarriage can be quite devastating. Specifically, this study revealed that the delivery of a healthy child after a miscarriage won’t stop the anxiety and questioning that came from the initial one.
Later in 2012 the American Psychological Association(or APA) also put out an article detailing the findings in the 2010 book “Reproductive Trauma: Psychotherapy with Infertility and Pregnancy Loss Clients” by Janet Jaffe, PhD, who works in a clinic that specializes in this particular field. She is not the first to notice this element and nor will she be the last.
What the studies of Rochester and the APA’s article brought forth is that the depression’s impact on women can be far longer lasting than we might have at first thought. Something I am grateful for is that the APA addressed two common myths. Grief is less in the early stages of pregnancy than in the later ones and it doesn’t affect men at all.
According to a medical journal by the National Library for Medicine from 2015 many of the previous findings were confirmed in addition to providing me with other data.
This same journal detailed that 68 Percent of these women would struggle with depression and or anxiety for 2 full years after the miscarriage. And that it would affect 64 percent of the women’s decisions about future pregnancies. In addition to these interesting findings, they discovered that during a pregnancy after a previous miscarriage, the mother’s focus will shift away from the previous tragedy to keeping her mind on the current potential for hope. But the father’s mind will linger on the previous miscarriage.
These findings about men make me think there is a need for more research into how fathers bond with their children psychologically and emotionally during a woman’s pregnancy. I hope the knowledge garnered on how the male mind works will provide insight and allow for more people to be open to the idea that the men are also affected in a negative light by their child being aborted.
With all of these findings on miscarriages, you have to ask yourself “Why wouldn’t the body react in a similar fashion to the child being gone especially when the baby would have otherwise been a healthy birth?” Right now we are ignoring the societal and political ideologies that a woman might have in her mind and are asking from merely a biochemical perspective. From this point of view; assuming the body would react in a similar fashion between the two forms of pregnancy termination is an easy deduction to make since they have the same end result.
An intricate system of blood and symbiotic connections has been prematurely ended and the balance is lost. Should we factor in the element of God-given conscience to all of us the likelihood of mental struggle from having an abortion increases as that voice of memory will remain to bring them into repentance and receive forgiveness from God.
The spiritual element of this side I mentioned at the beginning and I want to come back to this now.
Many pagan societies practiced child sacrifice. Scripture tells us that these are detested by God and that demons are behind such wicked teachings. While there are very few who openly proclaim their abortion is a sacrifice to a demon or a pagan god it still has a similar effect. This becomes not a sacrifice to a specific demon such as Baal in the Old Testament example but to the spirit of selfishness which is at work in our current age.
Ephesians 6:12 tells us that we don’t fight against humans but against spiritual forces who are active in this dark age. These demons are described as having principalities and power to impact our world. Many of the Pro-Life ministries that exist work to inform people of fetal development to show that they are humans even if they are small enough to fit in your cupped hands. At around 12 weeks of pregnancy most women have their first doctor’s appointment and are able to see the ultrasound but a fetal heartbeat can be detected earlier than that. On average it is at 7 weeks depending on the type of ultrasound used.
Spiritual warfare begins in the realm of the mind. The serpent in Genesis chapter 3 proposed a question as the way he struck against God’s place in Eve’s mind. He didn’t come at her with red skin, leathery wings, horns on his head, and a blade of black smoke that’s able to still dismember limbs. The weapon of choice was and still is guile. It is far easier for Satan to get what he wants by deception than through physical force. What we’ve seen and heard will impact us. Some are better at tuning out the voices of other opinions and positions than others. But in the end, a bit of it always will rub off in some way and leave a bit of impact.
The stream is faint in the first year but the canyon isn’t seen until two thousand have passed. The canyon formed through the battle of two sides. However, the bridge can be begun by recognizing the needs of both the child and mother.