Last week marked the passing of 41 years since Roe v. Wade when the Supreme Court of the United States legalized the murder of children in womb. We usually reserve the term anniversary for events worth remembering and celebrating. Wednesday was an anniversary that requires remembering and mourning almost 55 million deaths.

Solomon wrote:

If you faint in the day of adversity,
your strength is small.
Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,
and will he not repay man according to his work?
(Proverbs 24:10–12, ESV)

His urging, commanding, and warning applies to more than abortion but not less. We bear national guilt and we will not be able to tell God, “We didn’t know what was happening.”

If God continues to give us over to our lusts we will not be satisfied killing kids to honor “choice.” We will kill kids and call it compassion. This is already happening in Belgium. The Upper House approved a “bill [that] allows minors to ask for euthanasia on the grounds that their illness is terminal, that they are in great pain and that there is no treatment to alleviate their distress.” In his article, Shouldn’t They Know Better, John Knight wrote, “There are no age restrictions. Allegedly, the child has to be considered competent to make a decision about killing himself or herself, in addition to the doctors and child’s parents agreeing to it.”

How could a people–government officials, medical professionals, families themselves–get to the point of calling this kind of killing “compassionate”? A culture gets there by killing for convenience. The step before that is disregard or mistreatment of the vulnerable and weak, like our own kids. May God grant grace to turn the hearts of fathers to their children. May He grant sweeping repentance in our own country before it gets worse.