Gospel Prism

The title says it all. In a recent British government study, they have found abortions are up and teen girls are the ones getting the most abortions. Here are some of the stats:

In total there were 193,737 abortions among women and girls in England and Wales last year - an increase of 3.9 per cent on the total for 2005. The rise between 2005 and 2004 was just 0.4 per cent.

And then these stats:

A recent investigation by Unicef revealed that more British children are having sex by the age of 15 than in most other European countries.

Today’s figures show that the under-16 abortion rate was 3.9 per 1,000 girls (up from 3.7 in 2005) and the under-18 rate was 18.3 per 1,000 women (up from 17.8).

Here are some quick thoughts:

1. I pray with all of my heart that my church would a place that would embrace, nurture, and care for a 13-year old girl who became pregnant. I pray and hope that my church would have such deep compassion on such a girl, that she would feel both the terrible nature of sin but also the great grace that our Lord shows to us.

2. I hope that if that girl was one of my girls, I would still feel the same way.

3. 193,737 abortions: How about instead of saying abortions, it read 193,737 lives. According to the US Census Bureau, that many lives is equivalent to the city of Tacoma, Washington or Irving, Texas or Glendale, California. What if a nuclear bomb went off and killed every person in that city? Would people care. It’s tragic how sterile this number is.

4. 3.9 out of 1000 girls are having sex before 16. Doesn’t sound like much until you think of that total number. The British government’s answer to this is to spend more on contraceptions so that more kids will have sex at even younger ages. When I was in South Africa, on World AIDS day, the WHO gave condoms out to any kid on the street. Kids were blowing them up, playing with them, throwing them around, using them as Frisbees, and having more and more sex than ever before. How the world believes so mistakenly that contraception is the answer. Until the Gospel penetrates hearts, abortion will not decrease because teen sex will only grow. I am afraid that can only lead to this double tragedy.