40 years of abortion | Adrian Marks

‘The axe is already at the root of the tree, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire’ (Matthew 3.10).

My pen was poised over the paper. Yes or no? I had never signed an abortion form before and the gravity of the action weighed heavily.

If he had lived that little boy would be 24 now; probably a strapping young man. The chances are he would have another 24 good years ahead of him before any dread disease struck. But I signed his life away, persuaded against my better judgement. We knew there was a one in 15 chance of a serious disease at 50. I was an evangelical Christian acting on the advice of a reliable Christian geneticist. Quite soon the boy and his mother had faded as I anguished over the kitchen decor of a house I fancied.

Profound silence

As we face the appalling anniversary of October 27, 40 years of the Abortion Act, we should ask the question. What was it that turned the nation’s most respected profession into the most efficient shedders of human blood in the history of our island? (I calculate that we are pouring down the sinks of our hospitals about a ton of human life blood each year from aborted babies.) A glance through the pages of the Christian Medical Fellowship magazine of 1967 reveals a strange silence on the issue of bloodshed. The voice of the revered Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the one ‘professional’ theologian among the medics, is nowhere to be heard. Other sincere worthies wrestled amateurishly for decades over single verses like Exodus 21.22. Valuable time was lost while they tried to argue from the Revised Standard Version that the life of a miscarriage (and, therefore, they argued, an aborted foetus) was worth less than a baby. In fact there is nothing in the original to support this, as in the Greek of the New Testament the same word is used for a child before and after birth and they have the same immeasurable value. Meanwhile the killing rapidly got a grip.

Driven out

With unbelievable grace, and soon after I signed that form, the Lord sent this writer, a forgiven killer, to be a short-term missionary in Israel. Daily I knew the fellowship of Christ. Filled with the Spirit I marvelled at the rocks that rose to life as the Word of God played upon them. ‘Those were Canaanite houses’, said the guide as we stood above the Dead Sea gazing at faint shadows on the desert floor. ‘Driven out’, she continued, ‘by the children of Israel.’ Why was that, I wondered, and opening my Bible read, ‘It is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out’ (Deuteronomy 9.4)

Such a drastic cleansing by the Lord must have been provoked by some drastic deeds. You don’t need a degree in theological rocket science to find out what. From Genesis to Revelation there is one thing staring us in the face: bloodshed. Yet somehow we Christian doctors missed it.

The conquest of Canaan came with a chilling promise: ‘If you follow other gods, like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed.’ The Canaanite gods Asherah and Baal demanded sexual immorality and the life of children. This feels uncomfortably close to the ‘lifestyle choices’ of the late 20th century and now.

Meanwhile, back in Israel, this young doctor was happily engaged in the care of tiny children, even privileged to deliver a boy on Christmas Day. One weekend, off duty, I stood awestruck beside the recently discovered cornerstone of Zion, laid in place about 50BC. This was Herod’s Temple, the one that Jesus knew. Solomon’s Temple had been swept away by the Babylonians at the Exile. Just as Deuteronomy had predicted, and as recorded in the second book of Kings, open in my hand, ‘They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence’ (2 Kings 17.17-23). And he really did as it says, ‘The people of Israel were taken from their homeland into Assyria, and they are still there.’ Yes, some are still there.

What would Jesus think?

Well, what did gentle Jesus make of all that sort of thing? Wasn’t it a bit over the top? Wouldn’t he make God turn a blind eye to bloodshed and show some grace to poor ignorant sinners?

I turned away from the great east wall of Jerusalem and walked down to Gethsemane and up through the olives till I could sit on the Mount of Olives where Jesus sat, and look back at Jerusalem. Mark’s crisp account in my hand had a disciple saying, ‘What massive stones.’ Jesus replied, ‘Not one stone will be left on another’ (Mark 13.2). There followed a horrible list of prophetic warnings to the people of Jerusalem including, ‘how dreadful it will be for pregnant women’ (Matthew 24.19). And why was all this going to happen? Jesus was clear: ‘And so on you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed’ (Matthew 23.35).

Broken down

Things were beginning to come clear to this not so ignorant doctor. I had known perfectly well the fate of that unborn boy would involve real bloodshed. I knew he was innocent and righteous. Of course, I had justified my action on medical grounds and ‘advised by a senior colleague’.

This year I was back in Jerusalem and, steeling myself, I took the bus across town to Yad Vashem, the Jewish Holocaust Museum. Things were fine until I got to the display about the German church leaders co-operating with the German state. There I broke down and wept. Like David listening to Nathan the prophet I heard a voice saying, ‘You are the man’. And I was not only weeping for me; but (with a few shining exceptions) for 40 years of silence from the British church on our own holocaust of six million.

I am just back from my little girl’s school play and overwhelmed. Most of the parents in front of me are under 50. Many potential parents never lived to share my pleasure and, on the stage, the crowd of happy faces have lost more than a quarter of their number.

Door

‘Look, I place before you an open door’ (Revelation 3.8).

We got back in the bus and re-crossed Jerusalem from Yad Vashem to a garden outside the city wall. It was just before Easter. In the garden is a rock cut tomb where Jesus may have been buried. I watched as the Dutch girl Anna shovelled soil over some tree roots. She had planted the tree as a sign of hope. Her faith had brought her peace; and the sure and certain hope that she and her aborted baby would meet again. More tears.

It is clear that we can’t cut down God’s trees and escape his axe. John the Baptist thundered that the axe is laid against the root of the tree. If Jesus allowed events like the Old Testament Exile and the sack of Jerusalem 35 years after his death — not to mention the shocking fate of places like Capernaum and Chorazin that he personally cursed (if you can, go and see the buildings of Chorazin tossed about by an earthquake) — then who is to know what will be the fate of the British church that has been in freefall decline for 40 years? And the fate of the nation will be partly our fault too.

The blood of the Lamb

But the good news is that this bloodshed has given us an open door for the gospel. The great news of victory, for people like me and Anna and a profession steeped in blood, is that the blood of the Lamb is more powerful than the bloodshed of man.

Think back to last year when powerful forces threatened the country with the assisted suicide law. Christians bent the knee in repentance and prayer, calling on the Lord in their twos and threes, tens and 20s and even thousands at once in Birmingham. And we were spared.

How much more will the Lord spare us if we repent of our cowardice, and pour out God’s love to all involved in abortion, pleading that God will spare church and nation?

‘Wake up, oh sleeper, and call on your God’, said the pagan captain to Jonah (Jonah 1.6). A bruised people, hollowed out by materialism, is longing for Christians to come up with some good news. The door for the gospel to the vast numbers anguished by abortion stands wide open — though perhaps we in the church need forgiveness first.