Those of you who follow my writings know that at the core I am committed to the pursuit of truth. This is borne of my commitment to Christ and how he has wired me while gifting me with discernment. If I am forced to choose between the prospect of living with false hope or discovering devastating lies, it’s not even a competition. Such an attitude is essential to rightly discern fact from fiction and can often prevent long-term pain by leaning into short-term pain.

I put this principle to the test when I determined that I needed to know whether or not my largely unexamined Christian faith was objectively true. This required me delving into the most difficult challenges put forth by unbelievers, sceptics, and self-identified atheists – not to mention, believers whose tenuous faith had caused a crisis of faith.

Consequently, I learned the meaning of the term apologetics and read from the premier experts in the field. I listened to debates and researched the questions that arose as I read through the scriptures. I also have developed a natural tendency of anticipating and answering unexpressed challenges to my own conclusions. The consequence has been an unshakable faith that has given me assurances of God’s existence beyond what I could have ever thought possible this side of heaven.

The reason I mention this is that I have determined to adopt a new focus for my writings – at least for the foreseeable future. I want to eliminate the pretense of the manipulation in what is being proffered as conventional wisdom. Regardless of what time we are in or the meagre size of my faithful audience, I want to chop away at the detritus that is hobbling our ability to go on the offensive and move the ball of God’s truth down the field. It is no surprise that when you never attempt to wrest control of the ball from your opponents, you will inevitably keep losing ground. Hoping for interceptions is not a recipe for success.

As God’s representatives on earth, our duty is to be his emissaries. That’s tough to do when absurdities and heresies are trumpeted as incontestable, logical, and even moral. It is not that Christianity cannot thrive when facing malicious propaganda, outright slander, and persecution, but our absence from the fight will nullify our witness. Satan is the father of lies and has not even altered his methodology since he first whispered, “Did God really say”? We are victors tasked with spreading the gospel and its time we girded ourselves Ephesians style to enter the fray.

A quote that nicely summarizes why I have chosen this path comes from the Russian dissident who did the most to expose the Soviet Gulags – having been a victim.

“We know they’re lying to us. They know they’re lying to us. They know we know they’re lying to us. We know they know we know they are lying to us.”

I will be dealing with various social and moral issues that have been mired by the fog of deception. If people want to continue to pretend that those trying to turn reality on its head are honest brokers with hearts of gold that just want to unite us, this will not be a safe space for you. They are fooling those who don’t know any better because they don’t have access to the source of truth. We need to get busy being salt and light.

Here is issue number one.

A huge survey of biologists was carried out and respondents were asked to offer when they believed that a life begins. We ought to trust their expertise, especially in light of the fact that a Supreme Court justice deferred to biologists (as it was evidently beyond her paygrade) to answer: “What is a woman”?

The findings from the study weighed heavily in favour of the conclusion that life begins at fertilization. The article makes a point of stating that the majority of respondents held liberal views and were on the spectrum on their support for abortion. The overall result showed that 95% agreed with the determination that life begins at fertilization. Now I want to do a deep dive into what further factors can be gleaned from this study to show how our thinking can be clouded as regarding truth based on assumptions that we carry into our thinking process.

Let’s start with what should be an obvious question: What does politics have to do with when life begins? When people watch nature shows, do their politics determine their view on the procreation and gestation of wildlife? I personally laugh to myself when I hear conjectures about the motivations behind many instinctual behaviours stated as fact when we can only ever project or extrapolate based on observations. They may be right, but at this point we are no longer dealing with the hard sciences, but educated conjecture. Determining the earliest point at which a new life comes into being falls under hard sciences. How can politics be germane in determining biological reality?

We know the reason. Doubtless everyone reading this, regardless of your stance on the issue, have already inferred that this is relevant as a critique on abortion. This should not be an automatic or self-evident deduction since such a pendulum swing moves us from the sphere of science to the category of morality, claims to basic rights and freedoms, and the domain of emotion.

Returning to the initial question of what politics has to do with when life begins, we know that the answer will be shaped by one’s political and, for lack of a better word, religious worldview. We can all quickly do the mental math that takes us from the reality of the biological origins of life and anticipate this morphing into ideological disputes regarding “abortion rights”.

We know that the answer to the question of when life begins matters, because the answer to this question can threaten or solidify the foundation of one’s stance on abortion. If conception marks the creation of a new human being, then this necessitates the abortion proponent defending the taking of an innocent human life. This leads us to again pose the question, why?

The title of my article comes from a legal decision from the Supreme Court to extend abortion rights. I have only heard the word penumbra used this once in context (however, I have used it ironically on many occasions). The court ruling determined that the right to abortion could be found in the penumbra of an individual’s constitutional right to privacy. A penumbra is defined as the shaded region around a sunspot or where something exists to a lesser extent (i.e. on the fringe).

There is a slight problem here, however, since “privacy” is not spelled out as a right in the U.S. constitution. It is inferred based on other human rights emanating from God. Liberty, for instance, does suggest an inherent right to privacy.

I want you to take a moment to contemplate of the rich irony of a legal right to privacy as assumed in order to justify legalizing murder of an innocent life in light of what happened to privacy as well as human rights over the past 3 years. But I digress.

In the court ruling, the decision to deem abortion a privacy right for the woman without regard for the child in her womb is because they were intentionally circumspect; careful not to take a view on the determination of when life begins. They claimed at the time that the beginning of life was unknowable, so the majority of justices apparently exploited the fog they created to err on the side of assuming the unborn was merely an undifferentiated mass of tissue. One might say, the unborn, in their estimation, existed in the penumbra of human life.

We anticipate that biologists that identify as pro-abortion are more likely to place the origin of life later on the gestational timeline than one who is pro-life. For that matter, this ideological divide will similarly likely influence whether or not one believes in God. Further yet, the more devout believer and committed atheist are more likely to be on the polar ends of the continuum in determining when life begins. I can say with virtual certainty, without asking the participants directly, that the 5% of dissenters on the question of when life begins are unbelievers (or CINOs – Christians in name only) who support the right to abort.

This too should strike people as curious if we had not been groomed to see reality through the lens of ideological convictions; but it is important that we understand why. It may seem self-evident, but not if we look at the claims of those residing in the competing camps of faith in or rejection of God.

For starters, atheists argue rightly that abortion really isn’t directly mentioned in scripture. At the same time, many atheists will select passages that they insist indict God as directly endorsing abortion. To follow this rabbit trail is outside of the scope of this blog, so let’s instead simply look at the implications that can be gleaned from such an assertion.

When atheists cite the Bible as an endorsement for abortion, why are they the ones who defend it while berating Christians who don’t. They don’t take their marching orders from the Bible while Christians do, so this points to the likelihood that, not only are they (let’s be generous and call it) “misreading” what the Bible says, but they know that they are. Given the highly contrary tendencies and appetites among atheists to adopt ethical stances in direct contravention of scriptural teaching; their efforts are clearly not to enlighten the believer about their source material, but to try to malign all things Christian.

This still doesn’t answer why atheists are more likely fudge biology to make allowances for their favourable attitude toward abortion. They are given to couching the argument in terms of human rights and compassion; both of which have no basis in a naturalistic worldview context. If we are the product of instincts and forces of nature shaped through evolution, they should not even feel compelled to make an argument based on morality, human rights, and a duty to care for others. They aren’t doing it to persuade Christians since their advocacy on all social issues are guided by the same claims of moral responsibilities to protect others – especially those that they insist are the most vulnerable.

Organizations like Planned Parenthood are careful to obfuscate by leading women to believe that the preborn is not a person, but is merely a clump of cells. There is every reason to imagine that most of these counsellors know that this is a lie. It certainly ought to be true for the doctors who must carry out the process of dismembering this tiny life, crush his or her skull, and reconstitute the disparate body parts to ensure they haven’t left an recalcitrant pieces inside.

That said, some of the most dynamic accounts of former abortion providers and clinic workers who ran from their positions did so when they became aware of what abortion actually did. Bernard Nathanson was among the most pre-eminent and unapologetic abortionists until he saw a crude ultrasound of a baby desperately moving away from the instruments seeking their destruction. The book and movie “Unplanned” tells the compelling story of Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood Director who had her eyes open when asked to assist with an ultrasound-guided abortion. Dr. Anthony Levatino (who played the abortionist in the film) similarly made waves by graphically describing what happens during an abortion. Another man who aided with an abortion shared his heart-wrenching and disturbing account in the recent powerful animated video, “The Procedure”.

We’ve now approached this from various angles and still don’t have a satisfactory answer to the question of what makes the determination of when life begins to be a political issue incorporating matters of ethics, rights, faith, autonomy, and similar considerations.

In fact, they tell us it is a human right and that withholding such a basic privilege is to deny women their bodily autonomy. This is a moral argument that is founded on Christian principles such as the inherent value of human life that elevates our rights and freedoms over the rest of creation (or in their terms, other less evolved living creatures).

Okay, so now we have unbelievers using the Bible to justify abortion and advocating for what are in essence objective God-given rights and freedoms to validate their cause. Ironically, professing Christians who adopt “progressive” views on social issues that counter scripture do just the opposite by claiming human evolution has allowed them to contemporize the outdated “taboos” God intended for a less enlightened era. It is indeed a curious reality. The common thread is that both these groups ultimately deny God’s authority while taking different paths to reach the same end.

When feminists and their allies were being called out as hypocrites for supporting abortion as a “right to choose” while also counted among the greatest proponents of Covid mandates, this was an unfair characterization. Abortion, like the policies of masking, social distancing, lockdowns, forced inoculations, etc. all elevate the personal preferences of the individual over the rights and freedoms of others. The hypocrisy was not in their priorities, but in the specious and vapid nature of their arguments used to justify their caprices. They never did believe in rights and choice. They were guided by the best way to mitigate the consequences of following their libido.

What we see from abortion proponents are a litany of arguments that assume the innate value of human life. This ought to beg the question of why people who insist that life emerged from nothing and “evolved” through happenstance are arguing based on the presumption of inveterate moral principles. Why are atheists arguing from a Christian perspective rather than the more favourable underpinnings of moral relativism inherent to naturalistic Darwinism?

Those who deny God’s existence claim that their stance is the result of elevating science which necessarily clashes with any possibility of a designer or any supernatural force. Insisting that they are science purists is what allows them to remain stolid about those who inject a “sky daddy” into their worldview. Their harshest criticisms tend to be that we are invoking a god of the gaps to give us comfort and this leads to juvenile (as well as often dangerous and intolerant) moral duties that God’s minions then impose on the world.

We will cover this in detail in the future, but consider for a moment any social issue you can think of and tell me whether the prevailing secular worldview has taken a side. In each case, not only have they adopted a position, but they will impose their views through mandates, institutional enforcement, mandatory struggle sessions, and often penalties for dissent. This suggests that not only do they hold to immutable moral convictions (that incidentally can evolve over time), but they deem themselves as the moral arbiters of righteousness. Again, we are faced with an inconsistency in that this confident dogmatism does not comport with a foundation that has its origins in slime multiplied by chance.

If life came from sludge, then all ethical entanglements are off the table. If you want to snuff out your child’s life at any stage regardless of which side of the uterus they may reside, then you are literally free to do your worst. Junior could become a threat at any stage, so it’s a survival of the fittest cage match. Any detractors are simply imposing their antiquated and subjective moral duties onto you. Isn’t that precisely the kind of unenlightened superstition that has made religious influences a blight on the west?

Yes, I know precisely how morally detestable all of this sounds. That is because I believe that the awareness of how precious human life is and the moral sense that we acquire – when God knit us together in the womb – tells us so. The question is, where do those who reject anything to do with God fall over themselves to preen and present themselves as the arbiters of virtue by invoking (selectively, mind you), the same principles outlined in scripture. They are even willing to commit and justify egregious acts against their enemies, not because there is no objective morality, but because they believe they are doing necessary harm to meet a higher ethical standard. Most love to be seen as moral and therefore, it is still a relative radical fringe that proudly and publicly sport their “HAVE YOU KILLED YOUR BABY TODAY? I DID” t-shirts.

My astute readers will note that there is a social Darwinist justification for not killing preborn children – namely, the perpetuation of the species. This also comes with a cost to the pro-abortion case since rape and incest are presented as the ethical façade to explain why abortion is necessary based on compassion for the victim. What then is the naturalist counter argument to the man who chose these procreational options to keep their genetic pool advancing into the future? What explains their avid defense of homosexuality and transgenderism which guarantees a precipitous drop in procreation? This only makes sense if their arguments are simply retrofitted to justify their whims.

Now I’m going to engage in some educated speculation based on observation, interaction, and messaging related to the issue of abortion and how it is tied to when life begins. This should help explain how those who reject God and the Christian ethic find their own way to make their case based on objective moral standards.

• Regardless of their worldview, they can’t escape the reality that God has encoded his moral standard within them. It’s impossible to disregard aspects within our nature; we can only try to tamp them down.
• Keeping this in mind, we are also born with a sin nature and a bent toward rebellion. Just as even among Christians, we need to fight the temptation to see our personal temptations as less wicked, the professing unbeliever gets to deny the existence of objective morality altogether. Knowing that sin exists, they rewrite the rules in ways that affords them the feeling that they are more moral than God and can correct his blind spots. This is also common among so-called “progressive Christians”.
• Social acceptability is shaped to give cover and redraw lines of morality based on shared moral compromises. As such, if a man and woman (or other combination of sexes) agrees to fornicate, this is not treated as adulterous or wrong. When people have urges that they don’t want to resist, they can claim this is a victimless crime – especially when laws permit. Thus, if the courts, government, woman, doctor, etc. are comfortable with making allowances to disembowel the child in the womb, then it is okay. It becomes easier to judge others for violating their personal values, especially when they can maintain that they don’t have a god to whom they must give an account.
• It assuages guilt over what is almost always a selfish act. Those who defend or even opt to participate in an abortion can cite the evils of rape and incest as righteous grounds to focus on the woman rather than the child.
• The ideology is the tail that wags the dog. The godless left exploits those who want to indulge their baser instincts. They promise guilt-free sex and freedom from judgment on people’s greatest temptations. The price of admission is to accept the ever-growing list of ideological stances (ultimately enforced through institutions and centralized governments). This creates compromises and concessions that make you not only morally superior, but protects you from mockery and feeling on the outside. Groupthink then leads everyone by the nose and participants take at face value that the positions they must embrace serve a higher good and demands little from them. As a reward, they get to ostensibly be absolved of guilt. The bonus is that this dulls their conscience and makes them less focused on their true condition.

Actors like Planned Parenthood still need to lie and eliminate those who might expose their dark deeds. Those who provide the service may be lying to themselves, lying to their clients, or simply attempting to avoid altogether what an abortion really entails.

The number of biologists who support abortion while being willing to admit that life begins at fertilization suggests several things.

First, their consciences may be more seared so that they no longer attempt to reconcile the connection between the reality of the biology of life and the impact of ending that life. In a similar vein, perhaps what an abortion entails, in their mind, is divorced from the actual taking of the child’s life. It may be that they can’t compromise on their professional duty to acknowledge what they know regardless of the implications.

What we do know is that Christianity requires that we don’t try to adjust reality to suit us while, without God, adopting fantasies becomes essential. What I do know is that it is nigh impossible to make inroads to bring people to the truth by granting their narrative that they hold the moral high ground by spouting self-serving slogans like “choice” to concede that an evil act is rooted in nobility.

Most of those who defend abortion do so out of desperation. They need to believe that life doesn’t begin and fertilization because it helps assuage otherwise insurmountable guilt. Abortionists help by routinely eschewing ultrasound guided abortion – not just to hide reality from the woman, but because operating blind is less time consuming and helps their financial bottom line.

Arguably, the pro-lifer’s most effective visual tool is the ultrasound. The vast majority of women who see the reality of what is hidden – the precious life from the time of conception – cannot lie to themselves and consummate the date with the abortionist.

Christians not only don’t have to, but mustn’t lie to themselves or to others. Don’t entertain the absurdities that deny reality and motives. Lives are at stake and, beyond the life of the child, this damages millions of men and women by letting ourselves waste time refuting nonsense. We have truth, compassion, and God on our side. It’s well past time we live accordingly.