As we move into the last week before the Referendum to repeal the 8th amendment to our Constitution, clearing the way for the introduction of a law on abortion, various things are becoming obvious.
Healthcare has become selective. It is to be denied to the unborn child at the mother’s choice. It is enshrined in the slogan “My body my choice”. The unborn baby has no choice!
The unplanned pregnancy has become the crisis pregnancy but no-one asks who created the crisis. Babies are not created without “choice”!
To create legislation to cater for the result of what the Bible terms ‘sexual immorality’ may seem to be a good thing i.e. it helps to clean up the mess – until you realise it sets a new norm for society. The bar is lowered to accommodate what Scripture censures.
For the believer who has the Holy Spirit within him or her the pollution is clear. The practical advice is “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians Chapter 6 verse 18). This despair need not be permanent. There is a way back through the provision of God’s mercy in providing a Saviour suited to our prodigal needs (St Luke chapter 15 verse 21).
But we live in a hedonist age where instant gratification trumps responsibility. It was for a good reason that the Taoiseach was concerned to pitch the date of the Referendum in university term time to garner the student vote which would favour his introduction of abortion. The current preference for secular humanism was also present in “Sodom…which indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 7).

So what about ‘Healthcare in 2018’? Previously there was Physical health and Mental health. Now, following the UK, we have done away with the distinction which facilitates doctors prescribing abortion. In the UK where they have had many years’ experience of operating the system 98% of abortions come under this conglomerate health reason. In other words, ‘abortion on demand’ and the doctors, in most cases contrary to their Hippocratic Oath, do the killing of the infant in the womb.
No animal behaves in this manner! Sometimes a male swan will kill a cygnet in some bewilderment as to who is in the nest. But nothing comes near man’s premeditated killing of an innocent human life. The tragedy is that those who have had an abortion tend to go on to have others. It then becomes a last ditch form of contraception.
We have no reason to believe that God will answer our prayers for the retention of the 8th amendment. As a country we have turned our back on Him and certainly do not deserve to be heard. But in repentance and faith in Jesus we ask that whatever happens the outcome might be to His glory.