Roe v. Wade & Imago Dei

It has been 37 years since the ruling of the Roe v. Wade case by the U.S. Supreme Court. To date over 51,000,000 babies have "legally" lost their lives as a result of this ruling. That is the equivalent of roughly 17% of the current U.S. population. We can honestly say that a generation has been lost. The city of Jackson, MS decided to create a display to represent what this looks like in pennies - that is a half-million dollars worth of pennies.

However, how does one put a value on a human life? Well, there are

a few ways to do this. First, from a purely naturalistic point of view, we can sum up the cost of the ingredients. Here is a list of what makes up the human body: 65% Oxygen, 18% Carbon, 10% Hydrogen, 3% Nitrogen, 1.5% Calcium, 1% Phosphorous, 0.35% Potassium, 0.25% Sulfur, 0.15% Sodium, 0.15% Chlorine, 0.05% Magnesium, 0.0004% Iron, 0.00004% Iodine; the actual weight of these ingredients will vary by body. Yet, the rough estimates of the cost of these elements would run between $5-$90.

Still, we look at the body and we know that it is not just the materials that make it up, it is made up of complex parts, so what would they cost? It must first be understood that it is illegal to traffic in human body parts. However, the website Accuracy in Media recently ran a story of a human kidney that was being auctioned off on eBay. The bidding hit $5.7 million before eBay put a stop to the auction. I mentioned that it is illegal to traffic in human parts; however, that does not apply to the parts of aborted babies. In that case, a spinal cord can bring in $325 and a brain $999.

As far back as Plato and Aristotle, it has been understood that man has a soul, so even if we added up the "sum of the parts," we would still have an aspect to us that could never be sold on eBay; and, despite what you see in books and movies, the soul cannot be sold. In fact, there is an aspect to the soul that gives it this immeasurable value, which is that it is made in the image of God (Imago Dei). When God created man he said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." (Gen. 1:26) David describes, "For you formed my inward parts;you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made...Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." (Psalm 139: 13, 14a, 16)

It is for this reason that every time we abort one of these precious little ones we killing one made in the image of God and knitted together by him. It is true that we cannot destroy that soul as that is eternal; however, we are taking the life of God's creation, an innocent life. When my wife and I saw the movie Amazing Grace a few years ago, we both walked out weeping and wishing that God would raise up a Wilberforce for our times to help bring an end to this blight on our society. May we pray for an end to this scourge and do what we can to support life.