New York’s new abortion law and child sacrifice

Moloch was the false god of the Canaanites who required child sacrifice. He’s got a new altar in New York, he’s got worshipers and he’s doing business as Autonomy and Choice.

On January 22, 2019 the state of New York enacted a law allowing for abortion up to a baby’s due date. How are we to respond to this new reality? We grieve and mourn and pray and share the Gospel. There are things done upon the earth which so grieve the heart of God that His people do what they can to reflect the depth of it. I now more fully understand the scenes of God’s people tearing their clothes and donning sackcloth and ashes when the darkness of sin became particularly acute.

Chosen because it was the anniversary of Roe v. Wade – the Governor of the state of New York in a formal ceremony that can only be described as celebratory – signed the Reproductive Health Act into law.  The law allows for abortion at any time throughout pregnancy.  And if a child is born alive, after a botched abortion, the born-live child is no longer protected.  It is clear Moloch has worshippers today and to this false god the children of America are being offered up on the altars of autonomy and choice.

In videos of the event, Governor Cuomo celebrates the presence of the attorney who argued Roe v. Wade at the Supreme Court in 1973. He then confirmed plans to secure the right to abortion by amending the Constitution of the State of New York making clear their intent to lead not only this generation of children to slaughter but to bind the conscience of all future governing bodies in undoing this evil. The Governor of one of the nation’s most populous states also sent a clear signal that he intends to support advocates of abortion in reproducing New York’s taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand system to other states in the union.

Following the bill’s passage, Governor Cuomo applauded “The Reproductive Health Act is a historic victory for New Yorkers and for our progressive values,  In the face of a federal government intent on rolling back Roe v. Wade and women’s reproductive rights, I promised that we would enact this critical legislation within the first 30 days of the new session – and we got it done. I am directing that New York’s landmarks be lit in pink to celebrate this achievement and shine a bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow.” According to the Governor’s office, the landmarks included One World Trade Center’s 408-foot spire, the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, the Kosciuszko Bridge and the Alfred E. Smith Building in Albany.

Consider the words in that order carefully. New York’s landmarks, by order of the Governor, were lit in pink to “celebrate” this “achievement” which he characterized as shining a “bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow.”  What has been born in New York is intended to be conceived, gestate and birthed elsewhere.

Am I overstating the facts? Does the new law really say abortions can be performed at any time, up to the very due date? The fact-checking website Snopes.com confirms the new law does three things:

First, it strips abortion from the state’s criminal code and places it entirely within the realm of public health law.

Second, it expands who can perform the procedure from beyond just physicians to any licensed, certified or authorized health care practitioner for whom abortion is within their scope of practice.

Finally, it legalizes abortion after 24 weeks in cases where it would protect a woman’s health or where a fetus is not viable. State law previously only allowed abortions after 24 weeks if the woman’s life was in jeopardy.

So, just to be clear, abortions in New York no longer have to be performed by a medical doctor but can be performed by anyone for whom abortion is within the scope of their business and those abortions are legal past the former 24 week barrier “in cases where it would protect a woman’s health.” What exactly does that mean and who exactly makes that determination?

If you look for a legal definition of health you’re going to find it categorized as a noun with a range of meanings including conditions of fitness related to the physical body, the mind, relationships, emotions, social wholeness, financial stability, and things as difficult to measure as vigor, vitality, stamina and freedom from ailment, disease or pain.  Is it possible for a pregnant woman, late in the pregnancy, to see the soon-to-arrive baby as a threat to any of these? Certainly.

Health is a term as expansive as an abortion provider’s willingness to define it. A woman may, under this new law, decide at any time prior the live birth of her child, to have the child’s life terminated if she determines it is in HER best interest to do so. If she comes to view the child as a threat to her health – physical, mental, emotional, social, relational, financial, or otherwise – then she can request and receive a taxpayer funded abortion in the state of New York – today, from someone for whom abortion is a business.

Do you remember Moloch/Molech, the Canaanite god who required child sacrifice? Do you recall God’s commands related to this practice?

• Leviticus 18:21 You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.
• Leviticus 20:2-5 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech.

There are further references in 2 Kings 23;10 and Jeremiah 32:35 to God’s forbidding of the practice of child sacrifice to appease the gods of the day. And who exactly are the gods being appeased through the taxpayer funded, on-demand, abortion at any time for any reason in New York? Those would be the idolatrous gods of Autonomy and Choice.

I recall John Stonestreet of the Colson Center commenting that in the current culture, “all must be sacrificed for the demon-gods autonomy and choice.” New York has now become the valley of Hinnom, or Gehenna – the place where some of the kings of Judah sacrificed their children. And God says through the prophet Jeremiah it is therefore, cursed.  You can read Jeremiah 7:30-34 and Jeremiah 19:1-15 for more on God’s view of all this. 

How then are we to respond and what are we to do?  

We grieve. We tell the truth. We walk by faith. We come alongside crisis pregnancy centers and make sure that pregnant woman know they have real options including adoption and/or substantive support from communities of believers who will become for them a family within the household of God.  If we don’t make the option of life substantial and real – including how they can thrive and not merely survive – then more children will be sacrificed on the altar of Choice. 

I like the testimony of the pro-life Christian businessman who, when asked what he’d do if he had a few minutes alone with Governor Cuomo and other New York lawmakers who were celebrating the enactment of the Reproductive Health Law. He said he’s share the gospel.  Amen.