by Rev. Aaron Clark
In 2022, 77% of Vermont voters approved the so-called Reproductive Liberty Amendment, also known as Article 22. California, Michigan, and Ohio also passed constitutional amendments, joining Vermont in allowing state citizens to enjoy the right to murder their own sons and daughters. Others are likely to follow.
But the question is, can a state really confer a right on its citizens that so clearly contradicts the Law of Nature?
The Law of Nature is what we call those laws which transcend human societies. They are the principles that govern this world, whether you like it or not. While I have no qualms arguing this from the rock-solid foundation of the Bible (and freely confess that God is the Creator and Designer of all things), you do not need a Bible to see this. Plenty acknowledge and appeal to this higher Law, even if they do not recognize the God of the Bible or His eternal Son Jesus.
In fact, there was a time when every human philosophy sought to conform themselves to reality, and not conform reality to their will. However, we are in strange times. C.S. Lewis powerfully showed this contrast when he wrote this in his short three essays compiled as “The Abolition of Man”:
For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men; the solution is a technique.
Today, “the wishes of men” are absolute “bodily autonomy” – that is, the absolute authority to do whatever they want with their bodies, even to murder the children located within their bodies (though granted that is an extraordinary stretch of “bodily autonomy”). And in our case, the technique is legislation.
To agree with Lewis, the fundamental problem is that so-called Progressives do not care about what reality says. For them, “What’s real?” is not a question that bothers them in the slightest. The real question is “How do we get what we want?” And in this battle, their answer has been “legislation.”
For those of us who still care about reality, however, this so-called “right” doesn’t carry much water. The Law of Reproduction may be revoked in our constitution, but it is a Law written on every person’s body, carved in flesh uniquely and complementarily in both male and female bodies. To put this another way, each sex is designed for multiplication, and they are designed to work at this together.
More to the point, the woman’s body is designed to be a vessel for cultivating the seeds of human life. She only is endowed with specialized organs to carry out her life-producing task, in utero, in child birth, and in child-rearing. It is a fact that, without woman carrying out her vital function, there would be no human life on earth. That is what the Law of Nature tells us, particularly about a woman’s body.
But this man-made amendment transforms her body into a gas chamber. It turns the womb into a graveyard. Worse than that, it turns the path of life into death row. In the name of “reproductive autonomy,” it militates against reproduction. In the name of “reproductive liberty,” it makes slaves of our sons and daughters – chattel beasts that we conjure or kill at will.
It is no law. No thinking person should think it truly law. Nor should they respect or obey it. Rather, every Vermonter should fight against it on every beach, on every landing ground, on every fair field and snow-laden street, on every hill, until abortion is abolished, and until it is known that every human truly is created equal, regardless their stage of growth.
The author is Pastor Of Discipleship, Evangelism & Missions at Crossroads Christian Church.