We Shouldn’t be Surprised – We Should Be Broken

It's been over a year since I posted this blog.   It's a graphic and disturbing now as it was when it was first reported.  I repost it because we need to remember.  We need to repent.  We need to be ministers of truth and grace.

Even a society that can’t wait for the next graphic horror film seems to be repulsed by the news this week from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

“In his squalid West Philadelphia abortion clinic, Kermit Gosnell had a surefire way of dealing with the unwelcome complication of a live birth: He'd allegedly plunge scissors into the squirming newborn's neck, killing it by severing the spinal cord.

Sometimes, the elderly physician didn't do this right away. Often, he allegedly gave the chore to his unlicensed office staff. One premature infant wiggled around on a counter for 20 minutes before an untrained worker slit his neck - after first playing with him.

Those allegations were among countless bombshells in a 261-page grand-jury report that District Attorney Seth Williams released yesterday.

Gosnell killed "hundreds" of babies and at least two women during abortions from 1979 to last year at his Women's Medical Society at 38th Street and Lancaster Avenue, according to the grand jury. Further, he and his unlicensed, unskilled staff overdosed patients with drugs, perforated their wombs and bowels, and spread venereal disease by using unsterilized equipment, the report said.” (http://www.philly.com)

The Inquirer reported that a Grand Jury charged Gosnell with infanticide in the deaths of seven viable infants and with murder in 2009 of a Nepalese refugee who died of too much anesthesia at Gosnell's clinic. Other charges against Gosnell include conspiracy, solicitation to commit murder, abuse of a corpse, and corrupt organizations, corruption of minors, drug offenses, hindering prosecution and violations of abortion law.

The District Attorney Seth Williams called is a “House of Horrors” that was so filthy that grand jurors, visiting the clinic months later, wore hazardous-materials suits.

In his blog that addresses this issue Dr. Al Mohler writes,

These cases illustrate the pattern of moral confusion found among the public. News of the “house of horrors” in Pennsylvania brings prompt moral outrage, and understandably so. But is the abortion clinic on the corner, established for the purpose of killing unborn children, any less a house of horrors?

Millions around the world seem outraged……, but having accepted the basic logic of abortion, they are hard-pressed to define when any abortion demanded by a woman might be unjustified and thus illegal.

The Christian revulsion over abortion and the destruction of human life is based in the knowledge that God is the Author of all life and of every life, without exception. Abortion is the business of death, and it is the great wound that runs through the nation’s conscience. These shocking accounts may sear their way into the nation’s collective conscience, but unless the basic logic of abortion rights is overturned, such accounts will erupt again and again.   Once we buy into the logic of abortion, there is no end to the trail of tears.

Amen, Dr. Mohler!  We should not be surprised when this kind of atrocity is ultimately uncovered.  Indeed I’m surprised we don’t hear of it more often.  As Dr. Mohler says, “is the abortion clinic on the corner any less a house of horrors”?  

We should not be surprised, but we should be broken.  We should be broken over the sin that covers our self-centered, “it’s all about me and my choice” nation.  Our nation is stained by this travesty.  So same stain covers the church that remains apathetically silent.

We have a responsibility to warn.  This responsibility to “warn the wicked to turn from his way” is one that God takes very seriously (Ezekiel 33:8) 

We have a responsibility to point to and light the way so those in darkness can by God’s grace see where they should go.  Paul’s words to the church in Philippi and for us as well.  “…that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.” (Philippians 2:15-16)

Shine church, and hold fast to the word of life.  Our nation is dying without it.