More Than Baby Parts

Is Planned Parenthood good or bad? That debate has been raging in America for decades. Recently another scandal has erupted with video showing that Planned Parenthood has been selling body parts from aborted fetuses.
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How outraged a person becomes over this scandal often depends on whether they regard the fetus as a human baby or as a clump of cells.
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If the fetus is not human, why is there a market for their body parts? If they are simply a cluster of tissue then a cluster of animal tissue would be just as valuable. If they are really human, then they are valuable for human research.
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Do the mothers who have the abortion know what is happening to the remains of their babies? Many who defend abortion suggest that the baby is part of the woman’s body so it is her choice. If that were true, then it would be wrong to sell these babies without her consent. Women’s rights advocates should be very concerned by this.
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Many expectant mothers have been excited to see the first ultrasound pictures of their baby. These pictures make it very clear that this is not just a clump of tissue. It has been suggested that a mother see an ultrasound before making the choice for an abortion. Others have suggested that such a step would place undue guilt on the mother. Would it have been wrong to personalize the Jewish prisoners and thus placed guilt on those conducting medical research in the Nazi concentration camps?
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The answers to these questions will likely generate anger from those on both sides of the debate. If these babies are really human, then that is understandable. Still the debate is not as simple as whether or not the baby is human- it is also a debate about when the baby becomes a human.
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It is not up to me to decide when the baby is human. Instead we should look at what God’s word says on the subject. Isaiah 44:24 says, “Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, "I, the LORD, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself, And spreading out the earth all alone” (NASB). No doubt God formed us in the womb, but beyond that, He knew us personally even before that. Read what He told Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5 NASB)
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A baby in the womb is clearly a human. The whole Planned Parenthood and abortion debate should thus center around this one question: “When is it okay to kill an innocent human?” Some would answer, “when the mother’s life is at stake, or when many others can be saved by sacrificing this one life for research.” Those are often difficult debates if your goal is to preserve as many lives as possible, but if someone answers that it is okay to kill an innocent person simply because they are an inconvenience, then we should all be appalled.