This video excerpt of a sermon Matt Chandler, lead pastor of Village Church in the in Flower Mound, TX (Dallas-Ft. Worth area), preached back on January 12, 2014 on the sanctity of life has been making the rounds recently on social media. It is apropos in light of the horrific Planned Parenthood videos that have been released.
It shines a light on what is truly at stake as we discuss defunding Planned Parenthood, etc. Itâs about innocent human life that is being snuffed out, murdered, in the name of convenience.
Hereâs the video, and it is worth the 6 1/2 minutes or so to watch:
Here is the transcript of this excerpt of Chandlerâs sermon:
When Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973, there was no 3D sonogram. There was no ability to watch our babies smile at us before they were born.
By eight weeks⊠Thatâs not even the first trimester. Your wife is probably still throwing up. At eight weeks, babies will suck their thumbs. We see they respond to sound. There is evidence building that theyâre dreaming. Hereâs a crazy one. Are you ready for this one? They recoil from pain. What really the ability to do sonograms has shown us is when doctors need to draw blood or take a sample and they stick a needle up there to do that, the baby at eight weeks will pull its heel up, will pull back in away from the needle.
Why? Because at eight weeks, all major organs are functioning, which means you have a nervous system thatâs developed, and you have a brain that receives signals that that hurts! We see the heart is pumping. The liver is making blood cells. The kidneys are clearing fluids, and thereâs a fingerprint. By 21 weeks, a baby, with just a little bit of help, can live outside the womb. Twenty-one weeks! Listen to me. Nearly all of the 1 million abortions committed in the Western world last year were performed after this period of time.
Hereâs what happens. I know argumentation, and hereâs what happens. In our head, itâs, âWhat about this? What about this horrific situation? What about this?â Listen to me. Statistically speaking, the majority of abortions are not taking place because of the womanâs life being in danger or because there was some horrific rape. It is purely around convenience. âI donât want to do it. Iâm not ready for this. I didnât ask for this.â Murder for the sake of convenience.
What ends up happening is youâre forced, because you canât argue with this⊠You canât argue these things are true. What ends up happening is you show your cards. Your cards show this isnât a rational argument at all anymore. This is now purely driven by the exaltation of self. Let me show you this, just show you how mad things have gone, how insane things have gone. Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote an article on January 23, 2013. Hereâs what she said. She is wildly pro-choice. Let me just read you the title of her article.
The title of her article is âSo What If Abortion Ends Life?â Hereâs what she says. âYet I know that throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me. I believe thatâs what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesnât make me one iota less solidly pro-choice.â Letâs just start thinking about the crazy that just happened there. She basically said, âI have no doubt that what I am carrying is a human life, and yet I have not wavered one iota, one little mark, away from this belief that it is the womanâs right to choose whether or not to terminate the life of this baby.â
Do you want to hear her rationale? I mean, her rationale almost made me weep in my office. âHereâs the complicated reality in which we live.â Listen to this. âAll life is not equal. Thatâs a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. Sheâs the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.â Period.
Thatâs insane! Who chooses whose life has the most value? Who gets that power? That sounds like Nazi Germany excrement to me. That sounds like the Three-Fifths Compromise, when African Americans, when it was decided how the United States would vote, compromised three-fifths of a man. Who decides this? To whom do we give this power? âWell, itâs the womanâs body.â The baby might be inthe womanâs body, but the baby is not the womanâs body.
It has its own DNA. It has its own genetic code. It has its own blood type. It has its own functioning brain, its own functioning kidneys, its own functioning lungs, its own dreams. Itâs not the womanâs body. Itâs in the womanâs body. Thatâs not the same. The argument is a woman should get to choose what she does with her body. Bull. Go prostitute yourself. See if you get arrested. You donât! I donât have the right to do whatever I want with my body. No one does!
Thatâs this kind of weird, ethereal argumentation thatâs so detached from rational thought that it shows our consciences have been seared. You canât do whatever you want. Iâll tell you what. Drive 95 mph naked on the way home today. Just do it! Letâs see if you can do whatever you want. See what kind of rights you have. The argument is, âNo, no, no, no. You donât get to tell me what I get to do with my body.â Of course they do! Our elected democratic republic gets to tell us all sorts of things we can and canât do. Right now what theyâre telling us we can do is murder babies.