Killers Killing Killers

Murder is always a despicable act. Actually, it is an assault upon God himself. Moses wrote: “Whoso sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man” (Genesis 9:6). The spiritual basis here given, which condemns murder, is that it destroys one who is in the image of God. As men drift farther from this fundamental truth, violence inevitably will accelerate.

On October 23, a sniper fired a bullet into the home of Dr. Barnett Slepian, a fifty-two-year-old Buffalo, New York obstetrician/gynecologist. Since Slepian was an abortionist, it is suspected that his assassin was some misguided fanatic of the pro-life movement. Supposedly, the founder of a pro-life organization in Virginia has characterized the doctor’s killer as “a hero.” All of this is so senseless; and utterly ungodly.

First, the vigilante mentality, which takes the law into its own hands in order to promote morality, is dead wrong. Civil authority is the instrument employed in the providential scheme of things to punish immoral assaults upon human life (cf. Romans 13:1ff). When man becomes a law unto himself, nothing but societal chaos can result.

It is argued, however: “The law is lax. Unborn babies are being destroyed by the practice of legalized abortion.” Granted. But two wrongs do not make a right. No person has the right to become an outlaw to fight bad law. It just doesn’t work that way.

There were atrocious acts in the first century, including the bloody practice of infanticide. Yet Christians were never authorized by the inspired writers of Scripture to take the law into their own hands in order to deal with the rogues perpetrating such crimes. Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men (2 Corinthians 5:11); we don’t exterminate them!

On the other hand, those compatriots, who grieve so for the slain doctor (and the loss of any human life should sadden us), shed not a tear for the multiplied thousands of innocent babies who daily are ripped from their mothers’ bodies in the most merciless fashion possible. This is hypocrisy of the worst kind. This sort of mayhem has bred an atmosphere of violence which generates a radical reaction in unstable zealots.

It is impossible to understand the twisted logic of those who defend the practice of abortion. Common sense forces rational people to the unassailable conclusion that an abortion involves the destruction of an innocent human being. The tiny person within the mother’s womb is:

1. human—not vegetable nor animal;
2. living—neither nonexistent nor dead;
3. innocent—having done nothing worthy of execution.

If human life is sacred, it ought to be valued—in the rich and poor, male and female, young and old, pre-born or post-born. If human life is not sacred, what is the rationale for laws forbidding its destruction in anyone? By whose authority do these laws exist?

When men determine that divine revelation (the Bible) will not be their guide, they will follow only the misguided inclinations of human ignorance. Then, only moral chaos can result, with killers killing killers!

Consider a recent case in Florida. In March of 1994, a nineteen-year-old woman, six-months pregnant, sought an abortion at a St. Petersburg clinic. When she was refused because she had no money, she turned a .22-caliber pistol to her abdomen and fired a shot. An emergency C-section subsequently was performed, and a two-pound, two-ounce baby girl was delivered. The child had suffered a bullet wound to the wrist. Two weeks later the baby died of organ failure, obviously as a result of the forced, premature delivery.

The case recently reached Florida’s highest court. When the ruling came down, it defied all common sense. The Florida Supreme Court said that an expectant mother cannot be charged with the death of her unborn child, even if the death results from self-inflicted injuries during the third trimester of pregnancy. The appellate judges took note of the fact that other court opinions have held that a third-party can be held criminally liable for this sort of death—but not the mother! In other words, if the woman’s boyfriend had fired the pistol, he could have been prosecuted; but since the mother actually pulled the trigger, she is declared exempt from charges. In either case, there would have been a dead baby!

Does this make any sense at all? It does not. It is but another example of the amoral fog into which this nation has drifted. Abortion destroys a human life. It stops a beating heart. It takes away what only God can create.

How can a republic that sanctions the slaughter of its babies long survive? If righteousness exalts a nation (Proverbs 14:34), what must be said of a people who murder their young? Every Christian should protest this evil. America’s conscience must be awakened!

We thus must say to those who weep for a slain abortionist: “Weep also for yourselves. For what you have done to your own conscience, to our nation, and against your Creator!”